Grief is the Price We Pay

by Scyphi

Rating: teen
Tags: Changelings, Spike, Slice of Life, Thorax, Sad, Drama, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Alternate Universe
Length: 617679

Spike thought he could get them to trust and befriend Thorax. But they didn't.

Spike led Thorax into the throne room of the Crystal Castle confident he could convince the others that the changeling could be trusted. That he meant no harm, and instead wanted to be an ally and live peacefully with them. That he could make them see Thorax for what he really was. That they could befriend the changeling and accept him as one of their own.

They didn't.

And consequences followed.

SPOILERS IN COMMENTS!
First featured on 11/12/2016. -- Now with a TV Tropes page. -- Review by Arcanum Phantasy -- Review by PaulAsaran

Published 2016-11-12 03:10:01 UTC
Last updated 2018-05-19 01:11:34 UTC

In This Together

Spike was momentarily disoriented as he began to wake up in the morning. Why was he so cold? Why was he sleeping in a snowy cave instead of his room? Where was his bed? Where was Twilight? Who’s this that was still dozing near—

Oh. Right.

The memory of the previous day’s events came crashing back down to Spike as he was given the horrible reminder that he had been effectively banished and his only friend in the world now was the changeling he had been cast out for standing up for and refusing to abandon him. He glanced over at Thorax, who has his eyes closed, but his tube-like ears were up, alert, and pointed in Spike’s direction suggesting that the changeling was more awake than he appeared. Not for the first time, Spike couldn’t help but wonder if it had been worth it, for the sake of this changeling he had only known for barely longer than a day now. But then he remembered the distrust the ponies he had come to see as almost family had given Thorax, and how quick they had been to not only ban the changeling but also alienate whoever stood with him without ever truly listening or hearing through anything they had to say by hiding it as “aiding and abetting the enemy.” Spike yet again decided that it had to be then, because he knew enough about Thorax to know he wasn’t like other changelings. He didn’t deserve any of this awful treatment. And if he was really going to be the only one who was willing to stand up and defend him from that, let alone believe it, then so be it. Spike was convinced that was the right thing to do.

…Even if it meant becoming an outcast in the process, apparently.

Unfortunately, sighing sadly as he sat up, it was obvious now that doing the right thing sometimes came at a very grave price, and that was hard for him to deal with right now. Not only was the metaphorical injury it dealt still very raw, Spike was finding himself having a hard time truly comprehending the magnitude of his situation. He had gotten himself banished. No matter where he went in Equestria now, he was effectively an unwanted exile. Not permitted anywhere in the country. Especially not home. Worse still, he was finding himself already longing for the home, friends, and family he had so easily and quickly been stripped from. He had possessed so many wonderful things and now he had nothing.

Grumpily, he kicked one foot at the snow, venting some of his frustration on the matter.

Noticing, Thorax opened his pupiless blue eyes and glanced over at the dragon. “Morning,” he said simply, without emotion.

“Morning,” Spike echoed back in the same tone.

They sat and stared into the remains of their magical fire. It still burned, but they had let Thorax’s spell on it wear off and now it had consumed enough of what little kindling they had that the flames had become mere flickers of heat, light, and color in comparison. They made little attempt to do anything to change it though. There didn’t seem to be much point. Fortunately, enough of the morning sunlight outside was finding itself into the cave that it helped to compensate a little. So instead, they both inwardly pondered the situation that faced them in silence.

Eventually though, a perfectly routine matter normally dealt with in the mornings that Spike had been trying to ignore finally reached a point that it had to be acknowledged. Groaning, Spike stood up and wearily surveyed the cave’s interior. “I wish I had access to a proper restroom,” he grumbled aloud.

“Can’t help you with that I’m afraid,” Thorax replied apologetically.

Spike glanced at him. “Do you…need to go too?” he asked more to be polite than anything. This was quickly followed by a semi-related thought. “Do changelings even ever need to go?”

Thorax made a small grin. “Already went,” was all he would say on the matter for now.

So Spike wandered off on his own to deal with his own business. Fortunately there were plenty of places in the cave where he could privately do it. When he came back, he found Thorax prodding at the fire to try and coax more life out of it, but he was having little success. Spike sat down in the snow to watch the changeling work at it.

“Did you keep warm enough?” Thorax inquired without looking away from the sputtering fire.

Spike rubbed his chilled shoulders. “Well…I don’t seem to have any frostbite that I can tell, so I must have.” He looked at the changeling. “How about you?”

“The same. Obviously the cold is still not that comfortable to have to deal with, but changelings are equipped to deal with it well enough.” He stopped and rapped one hoof on his dark-colored chitin. “Acts like an added layer of insulation,” he explained. He eventually gave up on the fire and went and joined Spike, sitting down beside him and staring at the fire as it started to flicker out.

Thorax spoke suddenly and without warning. “Spike, are you sure you’re really willing to do this?”

Spike blinked in surprise at the sudden question and comprehension was slow to follow as he struggled to find a way to respond. “What do you mean?” he finally asked.

“Getting yourself banished for my sake,” Thorax explained sadly, lowering his head, ears drooping as he stared into the flames. He took a deep calming breath and Spike realized the changeling was trying to keep a flood of his own emotions at bay long enough to explain. “I’ve…I’ve been thinking it over all night…” he managed to choke out uncomfortably. “I already don’t have anything so I don’t stand to lose much more from all of this…but you…you stand to lose…everything…keeping with me. And…after all the kindness you’ve shown me, I can’t possibly ask you to do that…not for my sake…so…”

“Thorax…” Spike began, the statement in his head only half-formed still.

Thorax interrupted him though, and looked to be on the verge of tears. As Thorax had up to now managed to shed very few tears during all of this, the sight startled the little dragon. “Please…” the changeling pleaded. “…I appreciate everything you’ve done for me, like you wouldn’t believe, I really do, and you’ve gone so far to do it, even going as far as to try and break…” Thorax trailed off for a split second. “…look…it was pretty clear to me Princess Cadance and Prince Shining Armor really only let you go too because you wouldn’t abandon me. I think they were more afraid you were going to show more loyalty to a changeling than to them that they didn’t want to risk it, but if you were to show to them that weren’t the case, they might change their minds, so…you should leave me and go back while you might still have a chance. I’m…” he squeezed his eyes shut, fighting tears. “…I’m not worth it.” He then averted his gaze, ashamed, and probably afraid of the answer he expected Spike to give.

Spike, shocked by this pronouncement, for a moment couldn’t find the words to speak. His mind was momentarily overwhelmed by a flurry of emotions and thoughts. A small part of him nearly did as told, too. Turned and ran for the cave exit, leaving Thorax behind. But Spike watched the distraught changeling and knew that, through thick or thin, Thorax had nobody else he could count on…except Spike. He didn’t actually want to send the dragon away…and Spike didn’t want to make him either, not for these awful and unfair reasons.

So Spike stayed. Deciding then and there he would not even consider going back on that choice from here on out and reaching out with one set of claws, he carefully took Thorax by the chin and turned the changeling’s head back to look at him. Seeing Thorax’s eyes fully watered and streaming tears didn’t help with Spike, trying to keep a steady composure, but he pressed on. “No,” he told the changeling firmly. “You are worth it. Because changeling or not, you’re just as much as a living thing in this world as I am, and I know you have done nothing wrong. Nothing. Anyone who says otherwise is blind. It isn’t right to turn you away because it’d be more…convenient for me to do so anyway. Where would that leave you? Alone, hungry…how could you even keep getting the love and emotion you need to survive?”

“I’d manage,” Thorax whispered.

Spike however knew the changeling had already been fighting off starvation just yesterday, was only way out here in otherwise hostile terrain because he hadn’t found a reliable source of emotion to feed upon anywhere else, and had become desperate. “You’d starve,” he pointed out seriously, knowing the changeling wasn’t going to find enough food to keep alive out here on his own at this point.

“I’d manage,” Thorax repeated firmly, determined to dissuade Spike.

Spike wasn’t having it. “I’m not leaving you here to probably die, just because some narrow-sighted ponies say you can’t be trusted!” he snapped. “Frankly, they’re idiots to think that! And you know what? I’m okay with that now. I had thought them to be these high and mighty figures who would always do the right thing, but I see now that they’re not…they never were.” To empathize the point, he planted both feet firmly into the snow-covered ground and folded his cold arms together, showing he would not be moved. “And if that’s really what they are? Ponies that can’t see the obvious good in you and are too scared to befriend a stranger? Then I don’t think I want to be around them anyway. Because I’m at least not afraid to do that.” He gazed firmly at the changeling. “You’re right, the others were giving me a choice. I didn’t have to take banishment…but that’s what I chose anyway, because you and I both know it’s the right thing to do.”

“Spike…” Thorax began softly.

“I’m staying, Thorax,” Spike repeated firmly. “We’re in this together now.”

“…why, then?”

“Because you’re my friend. And good friends stick together. No matter what.”

“…even at great cost to themselves?”

“Especially then.”

Thorax stared at Spike for a moment, his hooves fidgeting awkwardly as he worked to figure out how to answer. His tongue flickered out of his mouth at odd intervals, lapping at the air no doubt filled at the moment with the love he needed to survive. Finally giving up on trying to respond with words, the changeling instead lunged forward and wrapped his hooves around Spike in a hug, his turn now to openly weep. The hug was awkward; Thorax clearly didn’t have much experience hugging anything before. But Spike readily returned the hug and shed a few bitter tears himself.

“Thank you,” Thorax whispered, glad to have such a loyal friend.

“You’re welcome,” Spike answered back, similarly grateful himself.

And from that moment on, they both considered the matter settled.

Author's Note

Continuing the trickle-feed of faint details on what exactly happened. Speaking of, in response to comments about readers' uncertainty about the plausibility about it all (to the point that I have legitimately been losing a little sleep over it, so yes, I'm not taking these comments lightly) I've been working at refining how I figure it all went down, why, and for what reasons. Already I feel like things are coming together better in this area that I feel more confident it will appease you readers, but as before, from the perspective of you readers, some of these details aren't going to come to light right away. I will tell you though that chapter 4 will probably have most of the key ones.

In the meantime, I hope everything else about the story continues to intrigue. :twilightsmile:

Minor edits made to chapter as of 11/24/2016

From Scratch

The cavern they had spent the night in was quite sizeable. Spike had first found it by stumbling across a cavity in its roof and falling in, but thanks to its great size, there was another, safer, way in and out the cave hidden a bit further into its depths, a level opening that opened up into the lee of a snow-covered hill. Thorax had wandered out to this opening to stand and survey the frozen lands beyond a few moments before, in hopes of spying anything of interest. When he did not immediately return, Spike wandered to the entrance and found the changeling standing at the opening and gazing out at the Crystal Empire visible out in the distance, shimmering in the early morning sunlight. Knowing the changeling’s thoughts and not wanting to interrupt, Spike stood sheepishly and followed his gaze.

“It’s so close, and yet so far,” Thorax noted aloud after a beat of this gazing, dismay tainting his voice.

“You heard Shining Armor when they escorted you outside the empire’s border though,” Spike reminded, remembering the event clearly in his mind. He suspected the traumatic memory would be forever burned into his mind now. “They’ll be guarding the border to make sure we don’t try and sneak back in.” He sighed, feeling betrayed by the ponies who had decided to abandon him for taking the side of a changeling. “They made it clear they don’t want us there.”

“They don’t want me there,” Thorax corrected.

“And so by extension they don’t want me there either if they don’t want you too.”

Thorax glanced at the dragon for the bitter tone he spoke in, but he chose not to comment on it. “It’s odd, really,” he admitted. “I guess they’re a threat to us both now, but from here, it all seems so innocently calm…”

Spike glanced at the sun, still hanging low on the horizon. “Well, it’s still early enough that they’re all still probably waking up, starting their day, getting breakfast…” he trailed off and rubbed his stomach, empty and aching. He glanced at Thorax. “Speaking of food, you, uh, getting enough?”

Thorax didn’t respond, but he exhaled slowly and closed his eyes. He didn’t want to discuss the matter obviously, but Spike already knew what the changeling had been doing when he thought Spike wouldn’t notice.

“It’s okay, Thorax,” the dragon assured his friend and now only ally. “You can keep…” he hesitated at the awkward term he was about to utter. “…feeding on me.” He wrinkled his snout for a moment, self-conscious on how that sounded, but he pressed on. “I mean, I haven’t even really noticed, so it’s not like it hurts or is harmful any, right?”

“Not unless I overfeed,” Thorax responded flatly.

Spike hesitated for a second. “Would you?”

Thorax looked at Spike. “I wouldn’t,” he promised, dead serious. “I wouldn’t dare. I would rather starve first than do that to you.”

Reassured but intimidated by Thorax’s unexpected intensity, Spike simply nodded. “So, uh, back to my original question…”

“So long as you keep producing positive emotion and freely releasing it so I can feed upon it like you have up to now, then yes,” Thorax explained, returning his gaze on the Crystal Empire on the horizon. “I think I’ll keep fed with you being around.”

Spike grinned, pleased. “Good thing I’m sticking around then, right?” he remarked. He rubbed his own stomach again. “So we just need to worry about keeping me fed, then.”

“What do dragons eat, anyway?”

“Preferably gemstones. But in a pinch I’ll eat just about anything edible. So same as ponies, basically.”

“We’ll have to go someplace where we can get a ready supply of that then.”

They were quiet for a moment.

“So…where do we go now?” Spike said, finally asking the question they had both been trying to avoid.

Thorax made a heavy sigh. “I honestly don’t know,” he admitted. He blinked his eyes a few times and Spike wondered if he was blinking away tears of regret. “The Crystal Empire was really kind of my last hope. But we really can’t stay here anymore, can we?”

Spike shook his head. “We’re not allowed in the city now, and we can’t stay here in the frozen wastes. We’ll freeze eventually…if not worse.”

“So wherever we go, I guess it’ll have to be away from here.”

Spike thought for a moment. “I suppose we could try heading for Yakyakistan.”

Thorax glanced at the dragon, one eyebrow raised. “Yakyakistan?” he repeated, unfamiliar with the name.

“It’s a land further north from here…unaffiliated with Equestria.” But no sooner had Spike made the suggestion had he begun to wrinkle his nose at the thought. “But the yaks that live there are all a bit…judgmental. I’m not really that confident they’d be willing to take in a dragon and a changeling now that I think about it.” He snorted then added, “And Twilight’s not here, so I can also say that I think they’re short-tempered idiots and not really fun to be around.” It then led him to yet another thought. “And yet she was more willing to befriend them than she was with you.”

They fell silent for a moment as they let Spike’s bitter thought sink in fully.

“Let’s not go to Yakyakistan,” Spike suggested after the pause.

“Okay,” Thorax agreed simply.

They pondered the dilemma a bit further in silence.

Spike then realized another concern he had neglected to consider before now. “How are we going to get out of here anyway? Just hoof it?” He glanced at Thorax. “How’d you get way out here on your own in the first place anyway?”

“I flew,” Thorax explained, and fluttered his gossamer wings briefly for emphasis. “But I suppose you don’t really have that option yourself, do you?”

“Could you possibly carry me?” Spike suggested.

“Probably…but the extra weight would mean I’d have to stop and rest more often…it’d drag out the trip, making it longer…probably by a couple of days.”

Spike rubbed his stomach, which had been grumbling with hunger off and on since he woke up. “Probably not too ideal seeing we pretty much don’t have any supplies.”

“And it all depends on whether or not the weather keeps staying decent. I lucked out when coming up here because the weather stayed fairly calm during my whole trip, but it still can get pretty temperamental outside of the Crystal Empire and without warning too. We could unexpectedly get caught in a blizzard.”

“That would be bad,” Spike agreed, not relishing the idea. “So I guess leaving here on foot isn’t going to be too ideal for the same reasons.”

“Does that even leave any other ways to leave at all?”

“Well…I suppose there’s always the train.”

“I’d be happy with the train. Never been on a train before.” Thorax glanced at his dragon friend. “But wouldn’t that cost money that we don’t have?”

“I have an all-season pass, courtesy of Twilight’s connections as royalty.” Spike frowned. “…but I left it in my room in the Crystal Castle, and it might be null and void now, considering I’m…” he trailed off.

“I suppose there’s another problem too,” Thorax reasoned, “and that’s whether or not they’d even let us on a train now.”

Spike nodded. “They probably won’t,” he agreed. “So we’d need disguises at the very least.”

“Oh, well, I’m covered there.” Thorax turned and with a burst of magical cyan flames, transformed into his crystal pony disguise of Crystal Hoof.

Spike grinned at the sight of the familiar face. “Unfortunately they’re going to be looking out for that disguise,” he pointed out. “You’d need a new one.”

“Oh right.” Thorax, as Crystal Hoof, scrunched up his face in thought for a moment. Then with another burst of mystical fire he transformed into another pony.

Spike recognized which one right away. “And I think disguising yourself as Sunburst is probably going to make yourself a bit too conspicuous, seeing he’s publicly known as Princess Flurry Heart’s crystaller and all.”

Thorax regarded the new amber-colored body he had assumed. “True,” he agreed and tried once more, this time taking the shape of a pony Spike quickly recognized as one of Cadance’s pony aides.

“Can’t you just create an all-new disguise from scratch?” Spike suggested. “That way you can create the form of an all-new pony that no one will have seen before and will have no chance of wondering why they might be in one spot rather than another…or the chance of somepony finding out they are in two places at once.”

Thorax reverted back to his natural form and bit his tongue. “It starts getting a bit difficult when you create a disguise from scratch,” he admitted. “Changelings are better at mimicry and not so much…creativity. It often takes more energy to do than for it to be wise or worth the effort.”

“Well, I wouldn’t want you to strain yourself,” Spike admitted, concerned.

“I think I could still whip up something though.” Thorax thought for a moment. “Any suggestions?”

“Well since it takes so much effort, I’d suggest it’d be one you wouldn’t have to change or adjust again anytime soon,” Spike suggested. “And probably nothing too elaborate. In fact, that’d probably work in our favor in keeping unnoticed.” He rubbed his chin for a moment. “Can you shoot for a random generic pony tourist up here to see the Crystal Empire or something?”

Thorax thought for a moment. He then briefly burst into flames once more and transformed into a young earth pony stallion that could be a little younger than Twilight in age. His fur covering his body was a dark grey, similar in color to Thorax’s natural chitin, demonstrating Thorax’s point about creativity not always being a changeling’s strong point, but he contrasted it nicely by giving the stallion a stylized mane the color of pale cyan and with vividly ice-blue eyes to match, not the same as his disguise as Crystal Hoof, but there was a similarity. He bore a simple emerald-cut jewel for a cutie mark, but Spike quickly saw a potential cover story for that by pretending Thorax was a jeweler or jeweler’s apprentice up here to study the empire that was literally built out of the very medium he worked with.

Thorax appeared to have his misgivings about it though, turning in a circle as he looked himself over. “What do you think?” he asked Spike skeptically.

Spike, however, was much more optimistic about it. “I think it looks great. We can definitely work with that.” He then looked down at himself. “I guess that just leaves me, then.”

“Yeah, that’s going to be harder,” Thorax admitted as he reverted once more to his natural changeling form.

“What’s worse is that I actually brought disguises here to the Crystal Empire to use so to try and avoid drawing too much publicity as Spike the Brave and Glorious,” Spike explained, batting away the unwanted thought that he no longer had that title at the same time. “I didn’t want that hindering Twilight and Starlight’s visit.” He sighed. “But all that’s in a bag that’s also in my room in the Crystal Castle, where we can’t get at it now.”

Thorax gazed out at the Crystal Empire’s skyscape again, and Spike could see the gears turning in the changeling’s mind. “What if we could?”

Spike narrowed his eyes, apprehensive at the idea. “What are you suggesting?” he asked slowly.

“Spike, I’m a changeling,” Thorax reminded. “I can disguise myself as just about anything. I’ll sneak back in there, grab your things for you, and then…”

“Thorax, you can’t do that!” Spike interrupted, immediately worried. “They’ll be on guard for you, doubly so now than before! And if they catch you…”

“We snuck in before, you and me, even with the guards on full alert!” Thorax again reminded. “Twice!”

Spike twiddled his claws and bit his lip, unsure. “And we did do it by keeping you disguised as a pony, enough to get you into the castle itself without protest…” he conceded. “But when I tried to sneak you back out again after everything went awry…”

“It’ll be just me this time though, and disguising myself is easy. I’d only have to look after myself.”

“…And if I wait here while you go alone…” Spike shook his head. “It’s still way risky Thorax. That may have worked before, but we really shouldn’t push our luck on this. We don’t know what other security measures they may have taken up after they kicked us out!”

“Third time’s the charm,” Thorax stated with confidence. “Besides, I think I know the perfect disguise for this.” With a flash of cyan fire, he transformed into one of the crystal guards, complete with armor, and looked like he’d blend in without detection perfectly.

Spike fidgeted to himself for a moment, debating. “Well…”

“Please Spike, let me do this for you,” Thorax, still as the guard, pleaded. “You’ve done so much for me already, so let me do something for you now.”

Spike debated for a moment longer, then finally nodded. “Okay,” he said. He then gave Thorax a stern smirk. “But you’d better come back safe. I’m not about to be an outcast all on my own.”

Thorax grinned. “Wouldn’t dream of it, Spike.”

Author's Note

Everybody keeps talking about where Thorax and Spike ought to go for shelter now that they're banished, but I find it interesting that none of you seem to have stopped to consider the complexities they have to face just getting out of the Frozen North. :raritywink:

Minor edits made to chapter as of 11/24/2016

No Friends Here

While Spike waited from a safe spot not far from the border, Thorax made his way back into the Crystal Empire while disguised as a guard. As they knew it would, the changeling in disguise found the border actively guarded with patrols, enough that there really wasn’t any way to slip over it without being seen by one. But Thorax quickly found a way to approach the border in such a way that it would appear natural for an apparent member of the guard to be coming from. He just about panicked when one of them stopped him anyway, though.

“Coming back from patrol?” the unicorn guard that stopped him asked matter-of-factly.

“Yes,” Thorax responded in what he hoped was the correct tone of voice for a guard. “Nothing to report,” he then added.

“Not surprised,” the guard said with a faint grin but then took a step back and charged his horn with a spell. “I’ll just cast that changeling detection spell Sunburst devised on you real quick like we’re supposed to and then I’ll let you go.”

Balani devoveo, Thorax cursed in his mind as he nearly jumped in shock at this pronouncement, unaware the crystal ponies had come up with such a spell, as they had nothing like it before. “Oh, uh…” he began as he sought some way out of this without revealing who and what he was or raising any suspicions against himself.

He wasn’t fast enough though, and the unicorn cast his spell anyway. Thorax immediately felt the spell’s magic tug on his disguise, but to the changeling’s surprise, the spell wasn’t nearly powerful enough to have much chance of breaking it. He also noticed the spell was heavily laced with love energy, and Thorax realized the crystal ponies had been paying closer attention than he realized when they last saw him lose his disguise, overwhelmed by the love surrounding Princess Flurry Heart, and put two with two in making a spell they figured would recreate the effect. What they clearly hadn’t realized was that it wasn’t so much the love energy that broke Thorax’s disguise before, but rather the high amount of it made him lose his concentration by accident, instinct leading him to be more interested in feeding than keeping disguised. The spell didn’t even come close to meeting the same sort of levels of emotive energy and thus was sorely underpowered as a changeling detection spell to the point it just wouldn’t work.

But the guard clearly didn’t know that because after casting the spell and seeing Thorax still disguised and largely unfazed by it, he was satisfied and let Thorax proceed. And to the changeling’s relief, he was able to slip the rest of the way into the city without further protest. The rest of the guards all thought he was one of them and let him on through without comment. By a fluke of luck, Thorax found he was still safe from detection and still in position to slip in easily without being detected. He decided not to question it and instead make use of it.

The part he was most worried about out of the way then, Thorax quickly made his way for the towering Crystal Castle placed in the middle of the city. Aiding in his infiltration, he passed very few ponies along the way, and those that he did were either preoccupied with other things, or seemed too sullen to take much note about him. In fact there seemed to be a sullen air hanging around the whole city. Sniffing the air, Thorax found that the sweet smell of love and other positive emotions that had first drawn him here had even decreased somewhat since the last time he was inside the city. Wanting to keep focused on the task at hoof though, he didn’t permit himself too much time to ponder the matter further.

Soon he was slipping inside the castle, and again, the guards stationed at the entrance let him enter without more than a silent nod of greeting in response. They suspected nothing. Inside, the castle was still at high alert, but had otherwise settled into a sense of uneasy calm, enough that the inhabitants were trying to settle back into the normal routine. There seemed to be guards stationed at nearly every doorway now, but they were such a common sight in the crystalline hallways that none of them found anything odd about there being one extra in their midst. Thorax almost thought he should be embarrassed for them as he proceeded to pull the wool over the crystal ponies yet again, but Thorax found he couldn’t take much joy in what he was doing. He wished he didn’t have to sneak around like this at all.

Either way, he didn’t want to push his luck and hurried onward. The first thing he did was find the nearest guard post and stop there to retrieve a set of saddlebags, with the idea of using it to discreetly carry the things he was here to collect, as well as anything else useful he might find. Then he proceeded for the guest room Spike had been staying in up until his banishment, relying on his memory of its location from when Spike had shown him the room while disguised as Crystal Hoof before being discovered, as well as some refresher directions Spike had given him before he had made for the city. He was dreadfully afraid he was going to get lost and waste precious time trying to find the room, adding to the risk that he might be discovered, but was relieved to find that he was still able to find the room without problem on his first try.

Another fear he had was that he would find the room already cleared out of Spike’s belongings, confiscated on the grounds of them being the belongings of an exile, but he found the room untouched and everything still where Spike had left it. As such, he was able to find Spike’s train pass and the bag of disguises right where the dragon had told him they would be. He stuffed them all into the saddlebags on his back then took the time to search for anything else of Spike’s that they might want or need before going. But as Spike had simply been a guest staying over and not a permanent resident, there was naturally little else to find. However Thorax did find a simple cloak in the closest however that probably had been left by a previous occupant as it was clearly too large to be Spike’s. On a whim Thorax decided to take it too, hoping nopony would miss it.

Deciding he had gotten everything he needed and getting antsy at staying this long inside a city he wasn’t authorized to set hoof in unaccompanied, Thorax then proceeded to leave, deciding to exit by taking a slightly different route so to avoid being seen by the same pony more than once, in case said pony noticed something amiss. Along the way, he passed another room with the door open ajar. He at first gave it only a passing glance and would’ve walked right on past it, but he spied something inside that made him pause. Despite himself, he found himself backing up slightly to get a better look at the two ponies inside.

He recognized both of them. One was Princess Twilight herself, stretched out on a bench sitting roughly in the center of the lounge-like room, with her back turned towards Thorax. Sitting beside her was the pink unicorn Thorax recognized as Twilight’s student and after a moment of racking his brain was able to recall her name as Starlight. The two were talking, but in hushed tones, quietly enough that Thorax couldn’t really hear what they were saying. After only a moment of watching though, the disguised changeling realized Starlight was attempting to comfort an upset Twilight.

Given recent events, it wasn’t hard to guess what the princess of friendship might be upset about.

Thorax found himself with mixed feelings about this. On one side, he found the fact that Twilight was this bothered about Spike's fate heartening and that it was clearly something she took seriously. But on the other, he also knew that, despite that, Twilight had not tried to stop it despite having ample opportunity to do so. After Spike proclaimed his intent to leave with Thorax after Shining Armor and Princess Cadance’s ruling of banishment on the changeling, it was clear then that Twilight was upset about it, enough that Spike tried to coerce her into intervening in some manner. Instead, she averted her gaze, sadly apologized aloud, and did nothing, effectively showing her support sided with Shining and Cadance and their ruling.

Spike made good on his promise regardless, departing with Thorax and thinking at least she would come to her senses and finally intervene, but after the two had traveled some distance on their own with nothing of the such taking place, reality became clear. This apparent betrayal had stunned Spike so much that he was unable to find words to speak until Thorax, knowing they couldn’t stay out in the open cold, took over and led the way to the cavern for shelter until they came up with a better plan. And Thorax knew from the emotions Spike put off that this was what bothered him the most about the betrayal. The dragon didn’t understand why Twilight would choose to go against him like that, and Thorax found that, as a result of this, he could only sympathize with the troubled princess of friendship so much about it. If it truly bothered her that much, then she shouldn’t have let it happen at all.

Shaking his head in dismay at the fact it all had to play out like this, he was about to turn and leave, but froze when Shining Armor himself suddenly stepped up to join Twilight and Starlight, approaching from a direction where Thorax wouldn’t have been able to see him coming. The disguised changeling nearly panicked, afraid he would be seen, but Shining Armor seemed to not notice him at all, and focused his look of concern on Twilight.

“Hey Twilie,” he remarked in a soft voice, but in a normal enough of a tone that his voice carried further than Twilight and Starlight’s quiet whispering, enough that Thorax could hear. “How are you holding up?”

Twilight didn’t respond right away, sitting up to look at the prince. “Not well,” she finally admitted, rubbing at her eyes with one hoof. Thorax couldn’t tell from here; had she been crying? She sounded tired too, and Thorax wondered if she had slept much during the night.

“Understandably, as it’s been a rough couple of days,” Starlight added in a somewhat harsh tone, suggesting that she thought the question hadn’t even needed asking.

Shining nodded. “I’m deeply sorry it had to come to all of this too,” he said sadly, and to his credit, he looked like he meant it. “Know I took no pleasure in letting Spike leave like that…he’s been such a friend to the family and all…if things could have been different in any other way…”

“You're sure extending the banishment onto him too for doing that was necessary though?” Starlight challenged suddenly, and looked like she wasn’t yet convinced of this.

Thorax perked up. If there was doubt about any of this, then perhaps there was hope that this could all be resolved peacefully still. Perhaps the banishment could be rescinded as a mistake, Spike welcomed back in with the ponies, and if they could get that far, maybe Thorax had a chance too.

It was too much to hope for though. “You heard Spike,” Shining pointed out glumly. “I don’t know what that changeling told him to make him so utterly convinced, but he wouldn’t leave the changeling’s side, no matter how much we all tried to reason with him. He insisted that the thing was his friend and he wouldn’t abandon him…no matter what. And he was genuinely convinced too; you know we checked him out for any mind tampering spells, but there weren’t any. His thoughts and intents on the matter were truly his own, and when we interrogated him afterwards we only reaffirmed that.” Shining hung his head. “I hate it, but he made his choice, and the truth of the matter is it wasn’t the one we wanted or could support.”

“You weren’t there when I last spoke with him in private, one on one,” Twilight suddenly spoke up, looking at Starlight. “Right before we…” she trailed off, took a deep breath, then jumped to her point. “He made it clear when I told him the changeling would not be permitted to stay in Equestria, let alone the Crystal Empire, that he would go wherever we sent it if he had to, for reasons beyond me, and he would not be swayed…no matter what I said to him. And you can bet that I tried too!”

“And before that,” Shining Armor added, “he had promised to me—no, vowed—that he would side with that thing no matter what we told him...all of which he repeated as we were banishing the changeling and had declared that if we cast him out...he would go with him.”

Starlight nodded to herself at all of this, but Thorax hadn’t known Spike had been so adamant about siding with the changeling even before the ponies had ruled Thorax was to be banished. When he and Spike had marched right into the throne room where Spike had made what Thorax had thought to be a very compelling argument in the changeling’s defense only to have it quickly rejected, Thorax was separated from Spike and thrown into a cell to be kept secure for the time being while the others pulled Spike aside to discuss, or “interrogate him on” as Shining put it, the matter. The changeling had already figured Spike had been checked over for any mental manipulation magic because when nothing of the such was found to be in effect on Spike, Shining had confronted Thorax, trying to get the changeling to fess up on what he had done to “trick” Spike.

Thorax naturally only repeated that it was no trick; what he and Spike were trying to tell them was the absolute truth. Thorax meant them no harm and wished to befriend ponies like he had done with Spike, and the dragon was only trying to help him accomplish that goal. They had both thought, apparently foolishly, they would hear them out if Spike backed him up. Shining Armor unsurprisingly didn’t believe him though and left again. Thorax had thought at the time that they went to again check Spike over for the spells they assumed Thorax had nefariously cast upon him, but he realized now he didn’t actually know what they did next with Spike.

The point though was that while Thorax was present to hear, Spike had been more focused on arguing with the ponies to not banish Thorax or on trying to sell the idea that a changeling could be good, at least until Spike at the last second, as Thorax was being thrust out of the empire, declared that if the ponies would really banish the changeling, then he would leave with Thorax as an outcast too. He didn’t actually know what Spike had said during the space of time they were separated, so Thorax hadn’t known that Spike had argued at length with them about the matter, let alone that the dragon had been so firm as to promise that he would not abandon the changeling even after being told Thorax would not be permitted to stay inside the empire before that final climactic moment…no matter what the consequences. Thorax assumed Spike had meant it as a bluff; that he didn’t think the ponies would really go so far as allow a good friend and ally like him voluntarily banish himself over the matter, especially considering Spike’s shock when precisely that happened anyway. But he found himself both touched that the dragon’s determination to defend the changeling was that strong even before the ruling, and dismayed that the dragon’s loyalty to a friend had been treated with such disregard by the ones he had once seen as his most trusted friends, advisors, and, Thorax suspected, role models if not family.

“Ultimately you have to see Spike didn’t leave us much other choice,” Shining went on regardless. “When everypony failed to talk him out of it, Cadance and I were left only with the undesirable choice of banishing the changeling, especially after he tried to break the thing out of his prison cell. I already feared he was going to cause trouble when we made that ruling, but I never thought he'd actually decide to side with that thing that he'd voluntarily choose to outcast himself and go with it.” He shifted awkwardly. "I'm sorry Twilight, when he asked to be present to watch when we thrust the changeling out of the borders, I shouldn't have let him come..."

"It's not your fault," Twilight assured him, sniffling. "I agreed to it too. If anything, I should've been the one to see it coming after that stunt he pulled trying to break the changeling out of jail..."

But this, of course, Thorax did know. When he and Spike were separated, they were separated for a good while and weren’t entirely sure what was happening to one or the other in the meantime. The changeling was only reunited with Spike when the dragon, fed up by his lack of success to sway the others and fearing for Thorax’s continued safety, decided to slip away and take it upon himself to “sneak” Thorax out of the castle and to safety while he continued to work to sort the mess out. That was when things really started to go awry, because obviously they were both caught in the attempt by Shining Armor himself, and because of how it made them both look, not helped by the fact that Spike had in the heat of the moment tried to lash back, the worst was assumed. This was when the two were brought forward again to hear the final verdict that Thorax was to be banished, confirming what Thorax had already begun to fear would happen by that point in time...and Spike decided he wasn't going to stand for it and came with him into banishment.

“Surely we could’ve just have kept the two apart though, right?” Starlight argued to Shining’s point while Thorax mulled about the previous day’s events. “Cast out the changeling obviously, but keep Spike here and away from him?”

“That might be what the changeling wanted, though,” Shining argued firmly. “It’s the most logical motivation I can come up with for that changeling doing all of this. I think he hoped to use Spike as some kind of pawn in some greater plan. And seeing that he got Spike so convinced to it to the point he had him wrapped around his hoof…there’s no telling what else he could have convinced Spike to do. The very fact Spike independently tried to free the changeling behind our backs, then choose to follow him into banishment, proves it. If he's that loyal to the changeling to voluntarily choose banishment, he could then be a threat in any number of ways to this empire and all inside of it. It just wasn’t safe, and if Spike was going to side with the enemy, then that left me with no choice but consider him an enemy too and treat him as such…like it or not. Changelings are master manipulators after all, and I dread to think what they could’ve accomplished with someone as close as Spike swayed to their side. We had to take into consideration my safety, your safety, the safety of my wife and foal, and the safety of every pony in this empire, and we would be negligent as rulers of this land if we didn’t. The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the one, after all.” Shining sighed. “Besides, you know that when we laid down the charges before him, we gave him one last chance to choose to separate himself from that changeling or face the consequences. Yet even while knowing that, he chose banishment.”

“To be fair though, I don’t think he actually thought we were going to do it,” Starlight pointed out.

Shining shook his head at this. “Banishment is never a matter I or Cadance would joke about or use lightly,” he said. “If we say we’re going to resort to it for whatever reason…we mean it. And from the way Spike responded whenever the subject came up, I know he understood that much. He knew what we could do if he persisted on this path, and yet he stuck to it.”

Twilight didn’t seem so convinced though. “And what if he isn’t an enemy?” she challenged seriously. “What if he gets hurt? Or that changeling isn’t alone, and a whole gang of them do something to him? What then, Shining? How far are we really going to take this?”

“If you think I’m going to let this empire be infiltrated by a changeling and then not go out and sweep out any others that may be hiding in the area, then you don’t know me very well at all,” Shining explained determinedly. “Right now I’m letting that changeling simply think he’s in the clear for the moment and lower his guard. But then we’ll sweep in and prove without a doubt to that changeling and any others that are out there that we will not tolerate changeling trickery in Equestria. If Spike’s gets in trouble for siding with them, then that will be the time to intervene and rescue him, although I must remind you that he still chose to side with a changeling; we’d would still have to treat him as a potential threat even after all that until we can be absolutely certain no changelings will be able to exploit that.”

Twilight studied him intently for a moment. “Shining Armor, look me in the eye and tell me letting Spike to leave with that thing was the right thing for us to do.”

Shining sighed but gave the purple alicorn a serious look. “I know it feels beyond awful, hurts badly, very far from ideal, and that you wanted no part in it. I can’t blame you because I swear to you I feel the same. And I realize how much this is tearing you apart Twilight, and for good reason. But trust me. We made the right call, and you did too in choosing to back Cadance and me up on the matter. Letting Spike leave, as horrible as it was for us to do, was the right thing to do. I shudder to think what that changeling might have used him for if we hadn’t.” His gaze softened. “None of us like this, especially me, believe me. But sometimes being a prince or princess includes making the hard and undesirable choice you hate the most…for the greater good.” Leaning closer, he almost apologetically provided an example. “How do you think Princess Celestia felt when she had to send Luna away all those years ago?”

Twilight didn’t respond to that right away. From where he stood watching and listening through the ajar door, having felt increasingly more and more dejected by what he heard, Thorax locked his eyes onto Twilight and tried to will her to see the flaws in the logic of all of this. Don’t fall for it, princess, he pleaded in his mind. Recognize there’s another way! If not for my sake, then for Spike’s!

But Twilight instead slowly began to nod her head, closing her eyes as they filled with remorseful tears. “For the greater good,” she repeated in agreement.

Thorax’s eyes then fell on Starlight, hoping that since she’d shown doubt before she might try to protest again, but Starlight also bowed her head in submission and instead put a hoof around Twilight to try and comfort her. “I’m so sorry, Twilight,” she said.

Thorax hung his head, sorry as well as he felt the last vestiges of a peaceful and favorable solution out of this mess flutter away, and he realized it would not be coming back.

It was then Shining Armor finally noticed the disguised changeling eavesdropping on the group. “Hey!” he barked sternly, startling Thorax who feared the unicorn would realize who and what he was, but instead Shining jerked his head to tell him to get a move on. “Shouldn’t there be other things for you to do than to listen in on a private conversation?”

Realizing Shining only thought of him as another one of the crystal guards and hadn’t seen through Thorax’s disguise at all, Thorax quickly fumbled a salute so to look the part. “Yes sir, sorry sir!” he declared, and quickly turned and galloped off, resuming his course for the exit.

Every step of the way though he couldn’t help but sense the feeling of dismay that had collected in his stomach. He had heard first hoof now that the ponies had not only been unable to see the truth both he and Spike had tried to convey to them, they hadn’t even stopped to consider it a possibility, and indeed flat-out refused to. They had immediately rejected the obvious in favor of continuing to view changelings like him as nothing more than an evil foe to vanquish without hesitation or mercy…and used that to justify banishing one of their own simply because he chose Thorax’s side on the matter over their own.

Spike was right. They both had no friends here.

Author's Note

So this chapter...this is the chapter I think most of you have been asking for, as it's the one that finally gives details from perspective of the ponies who had done the banishing, and as such, it's the chapter I kept repeatedly coming back and tweaking. You might think most of the information presented here in the chapter is in response to comments many of you have given but that's surprisingly not the case. Most of this info was already in the chapter prior to my beginning to post the story on the site. What changed was more how the chapter presented that information, and what points got emphasized when.

It's probably still a bit clunky, but I've reached a point that I feel confident enough that it accomplishes what I set out to do, giving more insight towards the nature of the banishment, while still being vague about more specific details, while conveying a sense that there was no joy to be had in the banishment, but the ponies had convinced themselves it was a needed course of action. Again, if the ponies' reasoning behind the banishment still feels weak, that is still deliberate; they're supposed to be so caught up in their...we'll say distrust...for changelings that they miss what should be obvious.

One point in all of this that I want to make sure is absolutely clear though that I fear might not be well understood by you readers, is the fact that the decision to banish Spike and Thorax did not immediately come all at once, and instead came about only after the ponies felt they had exhausted all other sensible (in their mind's eye at least) options first.

Minor edits made to chapter as of 11/24/2016

Traitor

Author's Note

PLEASE NOTE BEFORE READING: In response to continued input from readers (which I appreciate), I have gone back and retroactively made a series of minor edits regarding the nature of the banishment this story centers around for all previous chapters as of 11/24/2016. SO TO INSURE YOU ARE ALL STILL UP TO SPEED, I highly urge you to go back and quickly review those chapters, especially chapter four, before proceeding to read further.

Otherwise, everything is still business as usual. :twilightsmile:

Traitor

Spike was immensely relieved to see Thorax return safe and sound and with the needed items requested. “Oh thank Celestia!” he declared when Thorax galloped up to where the dragon had been hiding, waiting for him. “I was getting worried that you had gotten caught or worse!”

“Nope, nopony even seemed to suspect me luckily,” Thorax said as he began to drop his crystal guard disguise. “But we still need to hurry and get out of here. I overheard plans that they intend to storm the frozen wastes around the Crystal Empire to chase out any changelings they find hiding out here, and I got the strong impression they’d use force to do it.”

Spike groaned at this news. “Oh of course they are, why would I expect them to do anything else at this point?” He opened Thorax’s saddlebags and pulled out the train pass and bag of disguises. “Well, today was going to be the best day to hightail it out of here anyway. Unless this mess has changed that, Twilight and Starlight are scheduled to head back to Ponyville tomorrow. Somehow I think there’d be trouble if we wound up sharing a train with them.”

Thorax hesitated to respond, debating whether or not he wanted to tell Spike the conversation between Twilight, Starlight, and Shining Armor right now as well. He instead chose to bring up another subject. “So how do we want to get on that train anyway?”

“If my train pass is still good, then getting on the train won’t be the hard part,” Spike explained as he opened the bag of disguises and quickly began to don a small trench coat and sunglasses. “The hard part will be getting both of us back over the Crystal Empire border so we can even reach the train.”

Thorax considered the idea for a moment. “I think I have an idea for that,” he said and pulled out the cloak he had also snagged while he was in the palace. “Think if I draped this over my back, you’d be able to hide under it without drawing attention?”

Spike, in the process of pulling out a fedora and a puffy orange wig, studied the cloak for a second. “I guess,” he said, feeling the garment with his claws. “But why, what are you thinking?”

“I noticed when coming back here that some of the guards patrolling the border are wearing cloaks,” Thorax explained, draping the cloak over himself. “You know, for the cold. So I figure they wouldn’t see anything amiss about a guard passing through that’s wearing such a cloak.” He transformed back into the crystal guard once more. “So if we can just hide you under it in such a way that I can smuggle you in without drawing attention, we’re in! The only other thing we would need to protect ourselves from then is the spell they’re using to check out anyone trying to enter the empire.”

Spike perked up in alarm at this. “Spell?”

“Some sort of anti-changeling spell they’ve tried to devise…but obviously because I managed to slip past it just fine without being discovered, it’s rubbish. I don’t know if the spell would be capable of detecting you hiding though, so to play it safe, I’m going to cast a small spell of my own on you that should mask you from detection by it.” He proceeded to cast the spell on his friend with his cyan magic, the spell doing little more outwardly than briefly tickle the dragon. “Then once we’re over the border, we can duck into an alley or something and I can switch to some other pony disguise and we can head for the train station.”

Spike grinned in approval as he donned the wig and then hat on top of it over his head. “Sounds like as good a plan as any!”

It took them a little bit to figure out how exactly Spike was going to hide under the cloak though. At first Spike figured he could just climb onto Thorax’s back while disguised as the crystal guard and then drape the cloak over top of him, hiding him from sight. But the saddlebags Thorax had brought and they agreed they should hang onto wouldn’t fit over both Thorax’s back and Spike, and draping the cloak over the saddlebags looked peculiar enough that they agreed it would only draw unwanted attention, the very last thing they wanted at this point. Furthermore, Thorax feared hiding Spike on his back made his back look too lumpy to be believable.

Spike then noticed that the cloak, when draped over Thorax’s back, was large enough to almost reach down to Thorax’s hooves, and thought maybe he ought to hide under Thorax instead. They quickly noticed a problem when Thorax saw that the cloak didn’t reach down far enough and left Spike’s feet still visible. But Thorax was able to quickly adjust this by tweaking the height of his crystal guard disguise a little, making him short enough that the hem of the cloak was practically dragging the ground. Doing this meant Spike had to bend over a little in order to be able to hide under Thorax, but with the cloak draped over the disguised changeling, they were satisfied that Spike could not be seen this way. After taking a moment to coordinate their walking so Spike could walk in step with Thorax without the two accidentally tripping each other up, the two then nervously made for the empire’s border, hoping for the best.

From where he was hid under Thorax, his friend’s warm belly brushing against his head, Spike naturally couldn’t see much of what lay outside the cloak while it was draped over the disguised changeling beyond a small patch of frost-encrusted snow as they walked over it. Thus it was hard for him to see when they would near the border. Nonetheless, the dragon could still tell as they drew close because he could hear Thorax’s breathing turn from long and relaxed into something more quick and anxious. Shortly thereafter, he also felt the disguised changeling’s muscles slowly tense, ready to act if things went wrong.

But they didn’t. Again approaching the border from an inconspicuous angle for a presumed guard on patrol, the other guards guarding the border made no attempt to stop them, having assumed that Thorax was one of their own. The most reaction Spike heard was one of the guards giving Thorax a curt greeting as they passed and another asking if they were coming off of patrol, which Thorax returned simple answers to both in a gruff voice so to keep up appearances, but that was it. Spike didn’t even notice if the guards cast the spell Thorax spoke of or not, which just told him that even if they had, it clearly hadn’t given them away. So soon they had crossed the border, and Spike watched the small patch of snow he could see under the cloak as they walked gradually transform into the more familiar polished crystal flagstones that were the trademark of streets in the Crystal Empire.

“We’re in,” Thorax whispered aloud, sounding relieved. “Just a second while I find an alley we can duck into.”

It didn’t take long for him to slip between an inconspicuous gap that existed between two buildings. Once there, Spike was allowed to slip out from beneath the cloak, proceeding to don the fedora and wig back on his head, having removed them so to fit under Thorax. The changeling, meanwhile, transformed in the usual magical burst of cyan flames directly from the guard disguise to the disguise of the dark grey stallion they had devised in the cave earlier. He had not removed the cloak at all in doing so, but despite that he genuinely looked like just another one of the ponies in town. If it wasn’t that Spike knew better, he would’ve said that Thorax looked perfectly normal.

“Ready?” Thorax asked as they finished adjusting their disguises.

Spike, head now largely hidden under the hat, wig, and sunglasses, nodded. “Ready.”

“Then let’s go. You lead the way to the train station.”

They slipped back out into the streets by following the alley to where it opened up on the other side of the row of buildings and were able to slip in with the thin traffic currently on the streets without problem. Spike was able to get his first good look around the Crystal Empire for the first time since he was cast out, but naturally found that little had changed. Few ponies were out and about outside of their homes despite the hour, but this could be attributed to the fact that the crystal ponies were still hiding in fear from the changeling they knew was still out there and at large, possibly planning to attack. In reality, the changeling was already among them and was only planning to escape the empire undetected, but Spike shoved this thought down to join the many other bitter thoughts on the subject that had been collecting in his mind.

After a block or so though, Spike eventually noticed that what few ponies that were on the streets seemed quite…glum. He quietly voiced this observation aloud to Thorax.

“I’d noticed that too,” Thorax agreed, gazing at one sullen-looking pony as they trotted past. He turned to look around for a possible explanation. “The whole city seems to be in a gloomy mood, in fact. Even the amount of love the empire’s producing has decreased, though I didn’t really stop to think about why before now.”

Spike was intrigued by the thought that the crystal ponies had become so glum it was cutting into its trademark love supply. “Wonder what’s causing it.”

Thorax suddenly stopped, his gaze turning to look at a nearby stand. “I’ve got a hunch,” he stated.

Spike didn’t like the sound of Thorax’s tone when he said that, but he found himself following the disguised changeling’s gaze at the newspaper stand. Despite already having a pretty good idea what he was going to find, the dragon trotted over and picked up one of the newspapers to look at its front page. The bold and unfriendly headline summed it all up nicely:

SPIKE THE BRAVE AND GLORIOUS BANISHED!
FAMED HERO ACTUALLY TRAITOR?

Spike had wanted to keep reading, but found the accusing headline was all he could focus on, glaring at the offending print as he felt his chest heat up in fury. He hadn’t even realized he was just about to ball up the newspaper in his anger, possibly leading to worse still after that, when Thorax gently placed a hoof on his shoulder.

“Now keep calm,” Thorax advised as he motioned for the dragon to return the newspaper with the stacks of the stand’s wares. He then glanced up at the stand’s proprietor who had been watching them idly. “Sorry about that,” he apologized on Spike’s behalf. “He’s been pretty shaken up by all of this.”

The graying pony nodded in understanding. “I can certainly relate to that,” he admitted glumly, and didn’t seem to think more about it.

“Come on Sp—Spark,” Thorax urged, quickly covering up their identities as he led the little dragon away and back on course. “We were heading for the train station, remember.”

Spike let himself be led away, but it didn’t lessen his rage any as he continued to think about the headline. “Traitor,” he muttered to himself after a moment. “They’re calling me a traitor!”

“Spike…” Thorax warned urgently as he kept alert for any ponies that might overhear. Fortunately there were none quite close enough for the moment.

“I’m not the traitor!” Spike continued on in a growl. He shot a glare at a group of crystal ponies that were chatting across the street. “They are!”

“I know,” Thorax hissed urgently, anxious to get his friend calmed down. “But this isn’t the time or place to be discussing it!”

Spike snorted in frustration, but he nodded and spoke no more on the subject.

Silver Lining

They eventually arrived at the train station, empty for the moment as it would be awhile still before the next train arrived. As Thorax stopped to check the schedule posted on the wall to see how long they would have to wait, Spike grumpily sat himself on a nearby bench, gazing out at the train tracks and the frozen wastes that faded into view beyond.

“Looks like it’ll be about another hour before the next train arrives,” Thorax noted as he moved to join Spike on the bench. He gazed warily to where a member of the crystal guard stood at the edge of the platform, on the lookout for trouble seeing the empire was still on high alert, but thankfully he had yet to even really pay much attention to the two. “Hopefully nothing goes wrong while we wait.”

Spike merely grunted half-heartedly and didn’t make any other response. They sat in silence for a moment, Thorax keeping guard as he kept an eye out for any trouble.

“So…Spark, huh?” Spike suddenly spoke aloud.

Thorax glanced at him, confused. “Huh?”

“Back at the newspaper stand…you called me Spark.”

“Oh.” The changeling shrugged his disguised shoulders. “Well, I couldn’t really call you by your real name right then, now could I?”

“I suppose not.”

They fell silent again for another moment, but Thorax’s gaze was drawn back to his fellow exile when Spike snuffled suddenly and lifted his sunglasses briefly to wipe at his eyes with one arm quickly.

Thorax felt his heart sink a little in sympathy at the sight. “I’m sorry Spike,” he murmured. “This is all tearing you apart, isn’t it?”

“Getting falsely branded as a traitor would do that to you,” Spike responded bitterly.

Thorax gazed at the guard briefly to insure they weren’t going to get overheard. They weren’t. “Look, I get how you feel Spike, I really do,” he said, shifting his hooves awkwardly as he felt there was something more he should do to try and comfort his friend than merely talk, but due to his inexperience at the matter as a changeling, wasn’t sure how. “I’m a traitor to my own race, you know. I was the moment I chose to leave the hive to try and befriend ponies.”

“Yeah, but you don’t have to deal with the constant reminder of that surrounding you all the time.”

“…I guess I don’t.” Thorax hung his head.

Spike sighed. “I’m sorry Thorax, I don’t mean to take it out on you. It’s just…tough.” He made a shuddering breath as he struggled to keep his emotions in check. “I’m still getting used to the idea that all the ponies I had considered the best of friends and allies just yesterday now all think of me as little more than an outcast. The fact that they’re all doing it without much remorse just makes it hurt more.”

Thorax stared at his disguised hooves for a long moment. “Princess Twilight looked like she was showing remorse,” he said aloud suddenly. When Spike blinked and looked at Thorax with questioning surprise, the changeling let out a deep sigh. “While I was in the Crystal Castle getting your things, I…I overheard her, Starlight, and Prince Shining Armor talking,” he confessed.

Spike blinked again. “Talking about what?” he asked, even though he already had a good idea.

“They were…I guess arguing about letting you go with me…whether or not it was really the thing to do.”

Spike hesitated. “And?”

Thorax closed his eyes sadly. “…they still decided they made the right choice about it.” Seeing Spike turn away, he continued. “I’m sorry Spike, I wasn’t sure if I should even tell you, but…”

“No, it’s okay,” Spike interrupted. He took another shuddering inhale as he again worked to keep his bottled-up emotions from bursting forth. “It’s probably better I know all of this upfront, so I know where I really stand on things.”

Thorax was quiet for a moment. “If it helps, Princess Twilight really did seem very distressed about it. She looked like she was taking it hard.”

“Not hard enough to raise a hoof to stop it, though.”

Thorax studied the troubled dragon who still had his back turned to the changeling for a moment, while feeling troubled himself. “You two were close, weren’t you? You and Twilight?”

Spike squeezed his eyes shut to hold back tears. “Like siblings,” he managed to choke out. “That’s what I don’t get, Thorax. Why did she do it? Do I…do I really mean so little to her?” He trailed off, his voice cracking as his emotions overwhelmed his ability to speak further.

Thorax shifted awkwardly again, again waiting to do something to comfort his one and only friend that had sacrificed so much to stand by him. He remembered what Starlight had done to try and comfort Twilight back in the castle, and clumsily attempted to mimic it by wrapping one hoof around Spike’s shoulders. It was enough for Spike, who latched onto the welcomed hoof and leaned against Thorax’s side, taking a moment to silently shed a few tears over the matter.

“We should come up with an alias for you too,” Spike suddenly spoke after a little bit, abruptly changing the subject.

Thorax blinked, looking at the dragon. “Huh?”

“So we can keep from getting caught as exiles. We should come up with aliases to go by so nopony realizes who we really are.” Spike sat up. “We’ve already got that Spark name for me, which I guess will do. Now we should come up with one for you too.”

“Oh,” Thorax hummed, understanding. He tapped his chin as he thought. “Hmm.”

Spike studied the changeling’s disguise for a moment, looking for inspiration for a name much like how he had come up with the Crystal Hoof name. “Um…maybe Grey Fur? No…Cloak Wearer? No, that’s silly…Neon Mane? Nah, that sounds ridiculous…Crystal Flank? Heh, no, better not…Maybe Emerald Cut? That doesn’t sound too bad…”

“Thornton,” Thorax suddenly decided, interrupting. He glanced at Spike. “That’s a pony name, isn’t it?”

“A bit of an obscure one, but yeah, it is.” Spike shrugged. “Sounds as good as any, though.”

“Oh, good.” Thorax made a pleased grin.

“…though I probably should point out that ‘Thornton’ does have a similar sound to ‘Thorax.’”

Thorax chuckled and rolled his disguised blue eyes. “I told you changelings aren’t the best at creativity.”

“Actually, I’m not so sure about that,” Spike remarked, and he gave his changeling friend an encouraging grin. “Maybe it’s more that you’re just not practiced at it…but I’m thinking that you might have more creativity in you than you give yourself credit for.”

“Well…” Thorax didn’t sound convinced. “…I guess we’ll see.”

“Good thing it looks like we’re going to have plenty of opportunities to find out, huh?”

Thorax grinned forlornly. “One way to put a silver lining on it.”

Spike leaned against Thorax’s side again. “We really needed one.”

Thorax sighed, giving the upset dragon a comforting squeeze. “Yeah, we do.”

All Aboard

Their wait for the next train continued on without major event. As the time for the train’s arrival drew closer and closer, the station grew to be more and more filled with waiting ponies planning to board it. As their numbers increased, the more Spike and Thorax feared they might be noticed. But nopony seemed to pay any attention to them, and the guard monitoring the station, presumably on the lookout for precisely them, never seemed to notice them either. It appeared that luck was still favoring them, but they grew increasingly undesiring to not press that luck, and so when the train finally pulled in, they quickly made their way to board it, eager to get out of here at last.

But before they could board, the train conductor supervising the boarding needed to check their pass. Because it was a season pass, good to be used as many times as necessary until it expired at the end of the season, still a good while off, Spike merely needed to show him the pass and upon insuring it was valid still, the conductor would let them aboard. However, given the fact Spike was banished, the dragon was very afraid that his exiling meant his pass would be rendered null if the conductor noticed whose name it was under. Spike really couldn’t know for sure without checking in advance, something he briefly considered doing while they waited for the train to arrive by asking the ticket pony inside the station to check on it. But that meant the ticket pony would have to check the pass in their recordbooks, which meant checking whose name it was under and thus revealing it belonged to an exile, so Spike opted not to.

Instead, insuring Thorax stayed close in case they needed to flee, Spike led the disguised changeling as confidently as he could muster right up to the train conductor and held out his pass for the mustached pony to see, gripping it in such a way that the pass’s expiration date was clearly visible, but Spike’s name printed at the top was hidden by the dragon’s claws. He said nothing to the conductor except to affirm that the apparent pony beside him was with him. Spike thought for sure the conductor would notice he was hiding the printed name and insist he see it too, or several other worse-case scenarios, but thankfully the dragon’s fears were unfounded. The conductor simply glanced at the pass briefly then nodded, allowing Spike and Thorax aboard.

“Enjoy your trip,” he said automatically to the pair as they boarded.

Spike didn’t respond as he hurried aboard, feeling the tension rapidly uncoil out of him like a released spring, feeling relief flooding upon him and fought the urge to giggle as his fears loosened their hold on him. Thorax also relaxed, but for entirely different reasons as he excitedly looked around the train car they boarded in utter excitement, a big grin on his face.

“You seem eager,” Spike noted aloud as he sought a seat for them.

“I’ve never been on a train before,” Thorax reminded cheerfully, peering around at the busy car full of passengers more interested in finding a good seat before they were all taken than being courteous like it was the most exciting thing in the world.

“Well, the novelty wears off pretty fast, so enjoy it while you can,” Spike recommended as he found a seat, and motioned for Thorax to take the window seat while he took the end.

Thorax seemed to take the dragon at his advice and continued on absorbing as many details as he could about the train while Spike kept an eye out for any last minute trouble that could stop them. It would be just their luck to get this far and then have somepony finally catch onto them and halt their escape attempt before it could even really begin. But nothing of the such took the place, and as the last of the patrons started to climb aboard, Spike started to let himself think they might actually get away with this utterly unnoticed.

“Everypony please be seated!” the conductor requested as he stepped aboard, closing the car’s door behind him. “We’ll be leaving momentarily!”

Spike leaned back in his seat a little while Thorax peered out the window, engrossed. “You know, we really are pulling the wool over the crystal guard's eyes yet again.” He couldn’t help but chuckle a little. “Maybe it serves them right, then, for being so oblivious they can’t even catch what’s sitting right under their noses.”

“Hey, we’re moving!” Thorax suddenly and eagerly declared.

And sure enough they were, the train creaking and groaning faintly as it gradually started to move forward. Thorax’s grin doubled in size as he felt the train moving beneath him, a sensation that intrigued him immensely. Spike, however, quite used to riding the train, dismissed it, and joined Thorax in watching the Crystal Empire train station slowly start to slide aside with gradually increasing speed as the train started to pick up momentum.

It was about then that they both spied Shining Armor, leading a whole squadron of crystal guards, step onto the platform.

Spike let out an involuntary yelp and ducked down, pulling Thorax down with him, hiding behind the window edge and praying they weren’t noticed. They didn’t seem to be as Shining Armor’s attention went straight to, not the train, but the station’s director that was overseeing the train’s departure and engaged in an apparently urgent conversation with him. Of the guards that were with him, only one really even looked in Thorax and Spike’s direction, and it was more to watch the train on the whole than to pay attention to who was onboard. Soon, as the train continued to pick up speed, the station slipped out of view entirely, and the train was well on its way. Gradually, the two exiles in hiding slowly raised their heads again, hearts beating urgently.

“Well that was close,” Thorax muttered in a whisper.

“Too close,” Spike agreed, rubbing his claws together nervously. “Something tells me it wasn’t a coincidence that they turned up on the platform when they did.”

“What should we do, then?”

Spike thought for a moment, weighing their options. Finally he shrugged. “Getting out of the Crystal Empire is still the best thing we can do, and they can’t really stop us now, so for now, I think we should just keep going as planned.”

Thorax nodded his head. “You think they’ll chase after us?”

“Only if they know for certain we were aboard this particular train.” But Spike inwardly knew he had no way of proving if they did or not.

Thorax still nodded in agreement. “So we take the train and get out of the frozen north,” he summed up. “Then what do we do?”

“I’m still working that part out. I’ll get back to you on that.”

“Okay.”

The train ride proceeded onward uneventfully for a while after that. While Spike sat and mulled on the dilemma of what they should do next, Thorax spent most of it staring out the window, watching the terrain speed past with fascination. It was clear the changeling was enjoying his first train ride, despite the seriousness of their situation. They were not bothered much by the other passengers on the train either, most of whom appeared to be tourists leaving the Crystal Empire area and didn’t seem to think twice about the two. Which worked for them as this gave them the opportunity to plan their next move.

Eventually, having watched the terrain scroll by for a long while, Thorax had a thought. “Where is this train heading, anyway?” he asked, glancing at Spike.

Spike realized that they had been so focused on getting on the train to escape the Crystal Empire in the first place that neither of them had really stopped to think about that. They just wanted to get on the first train that got them away, and at the time it hadn’t mattered to them where it’d go. Fortunately though, the dragon was able to glance outside at the still-icy landscape and pick out a few key landmarks as they scrolled past and work it out. “South,” he deduced simply.

“Okay, but where in the south will we be getting off at?” Thorax pressed, wanting more details.

Spike, however, wasn’t too concerned about that just yet. “Anywhere we want, really,” he explained. Seeing his changeling ally still didn’t understand, Spike pulled out his season pass. “Because this season pass is set to be used to travel to any destination as many times as one wants before it expires, it really doesn’t have a set destination for it. That’s why it was so great that we were able to make use of it. As long as we have this pass, we can go anywhere the train goes. So if we wanted, we could ride this train all the way to the end of the tracks before we absolutely have to get off.”

Thorax stopped to consider all of this for a moment. “So…just how far is that, assuming that’s what we do?”

Spike racked his brain for a moment. “If I remember correctly, this particular train will go as far as Dodge City before it has to turn back.”

“I passed that not long after I left the hive,” Thorax noted aloud. He frowned. “But that’s still in Equestria…and aren’t we technically banished from Equestria as well? Shouldn’t we find someplace to go that’s outside of Equestria?”

“Probably,” Spike agreed, who had already been considering their options for that. “We’d probably want to head for someplace like Griffonstone or maybe even as far as the dragon realms.”

Thorax blinked. “The dragon realms?” he repeated, sounding alarmed by this suggestion.

“I’m friends with the Dragon Lord down there,” Spike explained. “She might be willing to take us in.” Maybe. It was always hard to tell with Ember. But Spike shook his head. “Either way, we’re on the wrong train for either of those destinations. We’d have to be on the northeast bound train to reach either of those locations, not the southbound.”

“So we need to change trains.”

“Yeah, but I was thinking we’re probably going to want to stop someplace here in Equestria first before we do that. You know, to get supplies for the trip. Maybe some money if we can. We just can’t stay too long in case ponies from the Crystal Empire do try to follow us.”

“But I guess that doesn’t really answer my question. Where are we going to stop?”

“I’ve been thinking about that, and I guess it doesn’t really matter, so long as it’ll have the basic things we need to get.”

Thorax considered this for a second. “We should probably stop in a big city then, and not a little village,” he advised. “That way it’ll be easier to hide in the crowd.”

“Good idea,” Spike said. Reaching across Thorax to pull out one of the complimentary maps of the Equestrian railway network the train service provided, he unfolded it and searched for the nearest large city the train would be stopping at. He tapped one sitting on the southwestern coast. “How about Vanhoover? You ever been to Vanhoover?”

“No.”

“Me neither.” Spike folded up the map again and pocketed it in case they would need it again. “Seems like a good place, then.”

Thorax grinned as the plan was settled. “Vanhoover it is, then.”

Author's Note

This is the way we leave the Crystal Empire, Crystal Empire, Crystal Empire, this is the way we leave the Crystal Empire, so early in the morning...

...actually it'd be more like late afternoon by this point for Spike and Thorax, but who's counting? :ajsmug:

Train Ride

Their destination decided, all Spike and Thorax had to do now was wait until the train arrived at Vanhoover, a city that was still several hours away. Because they had boarded the train relatively late enough into the day, it was likely they wouldn’t arrive until well after night had fallen. Until then, they worked to try and keep themselves distracted and busy with other things. Spike initially spent it attempting to determine why Shining Armor and a legion of crystal guards turned up at the train station in the Crystal Empire almost in time to catch them in the process of fleeing when they did. Eventually he decided it was likely one of two possibilities; one was that it was random chance, and that they had arrived on the station’s platform for some reason other than Spike and Thorax. The other was that somepony somewhere had found or seen something that clued them in that Spike and Thorax were going to be there.

Spike decided the latter was the most likely one, and wondered if somepony had noticed that Spike’s season train pass had gone missing from his room, something everypony could be sure he most certainly did not have when he cast himself out of the empire. If so, that would be enough to suggest that not only had Spike or Thorax managed to sneak back into the Crystal Castle undetected yet again, they had plans to try and leave the area by train. Certainly motive enough to investigate and take action if necessary. But because the season pass wasn’t for any specified train coming through the area, Spike was certain Shining Armor and his guards had no real way to be certain that he and Thorax were on this particular train, not the only train that was coming through the Crystal Empire today, and that was probably why they had made no noticeable attempt to stop or board the train as it pulled out of the station. For all they knew, it could’ve simply been a waste of time. So the real question that then remained was if there was anyone still at the Crystal Empire that could accurately confirm which train Spike and Thorax got on, and if so, if they would try and chase them down.

In relaying all of this to Thorax, the disguised changeling saw there was no way they could answer the question at the moment. “But it doesn’t really matter right now, does it?” he reasoned. “We can’t really do anything about it until we get off this train.”

So decided that was a problem that they would address further once at Vanhoover. In the meantime, they attempted to try and settle in and at least try to enjoy the trip. Fortunately, it wasn’t too hard to relax some. The other passengers on the train didn’t pay any attention to them beyond a passing glance, more interested in their own affairs. Few of them were crystal ponies, but most of them did appear to be tourists, a number of which likely returning from touring the Crystal Empire area. So it left one wondering how many of them were even aware there was a chance they all could be sharing a train car with two exiles to Equestria, currently trying to sneak around within the land they were supposedly banished from. However many there actually were, it seemed the disguises both Spike and Thorax wore were sufficient to dissuade notice. Whatever the case, the sense of peace it brought was a blessing for the dragon and changeling, giving time to soothe their frayed nerves, and it’d continue so long as they didn’t do anything to draw attention to themselves. By so doing so, they could insure a relatively uneventful trip.

The only real problem of note in fact was that they quickly discovered that the ponies sitting behind them happened to be a rather amorous couple. And the longer the train ride went on, the more they began to whisper lovey-dovey things to each other. Spike didn’t seem to think much about it until he noticed Thorax had started to subtly flick his tongue, no doubt lapping at the love the couple was probably filling the air with. Spike initially figured it was a good thing, because it meant the changeling could feed on the ambient emotions of any given room and didn’t necessarily have to get it from any particular directed source, easing some of Spike’s worries about keeping the changeling fed, one of the dragon’s bigger concerns.

But gradually Thorax’s lapping started to get more and more intense, and soon Spike could see the changeling visibly gulping down love, it had gotten so thick within the train car for the changeling. The couple behind them was probably producing so much of the emotion that it was like an all-you-can-eat buffet that the changeling just couldn’t resist. But Spike knew what could happen if Thorax lost self-control while feeding, and he was just starting to worry that his friend’s peculiar behavior might get them noticed when the couple’s affections grew to the point that they started to publicly make out with each other, and with increasingly growing passion.

This was too much for Thorax, and eye’s bulging in alarm, Spike jumped when he saw the changeling’s jaw open and his fully changeling tongue slither out, thrashing at the air. Thorax got as far as inhaling in preparation to hiss before promptly cutting it all short by stuffing his hoof in his mouth. He then turned to look at Spike in a panic, and Spike could already see the tell-tale flicker of cyan magic in the changeling’s disguised eyes, indicating that he was about to lose control of his disguise as well. And a changeling suddenly appearing inside a crowded train car would probably NOT end well.

Fortunately, they weren’t the only passengers bothered by the couple’s make-out session, because the conductor soon strolled up to them, saying that while he appreciated the fact that the two clearly enjoyed the other’s company, he advised them to hold off on outwardly displaying it until they could do it privately, for the sake of the other passengers on the train. Embarrassed, the couple thankfully readily agreed and let their love for each other cool down to more tolerable levels. Though to play it safe, Thorax kept his hoof stuffed in his mouth for several minutes longer before finally pulling it out with a relieved sigh. The two agreed to swap positions on their seat after that so Thorax could sit by the aisle, the idea being that Thorax could quickly flee and hide in the train car’s restroom should the event reoccur and the changeling came close to losing his disguise again.

But fortunately this was their only major close call while on the train, and on the upside, it kept Thorax well-fed. Spike, however, was another matter. He hadn’t had anything to eat since yesterday afternoon, and the aching emptiness of his stomach was starting to get increasingly harder to ignore. He wasn’t sure he had ever gone hungry for this long before. Nonetheless, he kept it to himself, not wanting to worry Thorax about it just yet, telling himself he could get food in Vanhoover and then everything would be all right. In the meantime, he attempted to distract himself by staring out the window and watching the scenery go by, having by now transitioned from frozen wastelands to green-brown flatlands, while absently playing with the curls of the wig he wore under his fedora with one claw.

Thorax proved to not be fooled, however. When a meal trolley started to make rounds through the train cars as the sun started to set, offering food to those willing to spend an extra couple of bits, the disguised changeling watched it closely as it drew towards them. He had been studying Spike’s season pass for the past few minutes, and he held it up when the trolley came up to their seat.

“Hey,” Thorax spoke to the pony pushing the trolley, drawing Spike’s attention suddenly, who hadn’t noticed the trolley making its way up the aisle until now. “According to this, we can use this pass to get something off of that, right?”

“Thorax…” Spike began to interject in a whisper.

The pony pushing the trolley—a stout but kindly mare getting up there in years—glanced at the pass in Thorax’s hoof and grinned. “You certainly could m’dear,” she said sweetly. “In fact, you could have one of the dinner trays if you like.”

“Thorax…” Spike again began to interject.

Thorax pushed on regardless. “We’ll take two of those then, please.”

Spike leaned forward urgently. “Thorax, I really don’t think…”

But it was too late. The mare had already accepted the proffered pass from Thorax’s hoof, noted the pass’s serial number down into her notebook, and then cheerfully returned it while also handing over two trays of the dinner meal. “Here you go dears, enjoy,” she said.

“Thank you,” Thorax responded, accepting the trays as the mare pushed the cart onward.

“Thorax, you shouldn’t have done that,” Spike objected.

Thorax seemed to ignore the dragon’s objection as he pushed one tray over to him. “Here Spike, enjoy yourself,” he said softly before turning his attention to his own tray, examining the food on it curiously.

Spike only stared at his tray for a long moment, a dish of au gratin potatoes with melted cheese sprinkled over them with a dollop of macaroni salad and a couple of celery sticks serving as side dishes. “Thorax that season pass doesn’t cover for the price of these meals,” he stated simply.

Thorax sighed, lowering the celery stick he had been nibbling on.

Spike continued. “All the season pass lets you do is have the meal at a discount on credit. They then send the bill later to the account holder of the season pass for paying…who in this case would be Twilight.”

Thorax bowed his head. “I know,” he said. “It says all of that on the back of the pass.”

Spike’s brow furrowed, not understanding why the changeling did it then. “When Twilight gets that bill…”

“…she’ll know that we bought a meal on a train, yeah,” Thorax said, nodding. “But the way I see it, it’s not going to tell her when and where we get off the train, now will it?”

Spike opened his mouth to respond then closed it again, considering that point. He had helped Twilight with her budgeting every now and then and had seen the bill for train meals like this one before, and they really didn’t say anything about which train it was ordered on or where the train was going, just the price for the meal. As well as a date, which a pony as smart as Twilight could use to figure out a range of possible destinations the train could’ve stopped at…but if they were right that the ponies back at the Crystal Empire had already determined they had escaped on a train, this probably wouldn’t tell them anything they didn’t already know.

Spike shook his head regardless. “It’s still an unnecessary risk,” he pointed out.

“So is going hungry.” Thorax turned to look at Spike. “I know you’ve been downplaying it, trying to not make it a big deal…but if anyone should know the sight of someone going hungry…it’d be me.” He nudged Spike’s tray again. “So eat up. Please.”

Spike looked at the tray before him for a moment, and found he couldn’t help but grin a little at Thorax’s concern for him. He picked up the fork included in the tray and started eating at the au gratin potatoes. He quickly found that once he started, he couldn’t stop, realizing just how very hungry he actually was. “Thanks,” he whispered to Thorax after a moment.

“You’re welcome,” Thorax responded, continuing to nibble at his celery stick.

Spike watched the disguised changeling for a moment. “I thought you fed on emotion,” he said as he watched his friend chew on the celery stick.

Thorax swallowed before responding. “I can still eat some solid foods,” he assured the dragon. “Just not exclusively. Granted, none of this is probably going to give me any real nourishment…it’ll just go in one end and…well…”

“I get the idea,” Spike said with a smirk.

“I just have to be careful not to overdo it, or it could give me a stomachache,” Thorax went on. “And I’m already pretty full.” He continued to nibble at his celery stick nonetheless. “But I’m trying to keep up appearances for our fellow passengers, you know.”

Spike’s grin grew. “Good thinking,” he said. “Just…don’t overdo it. It’s not exactly the best of times for you to get sick right now.”

Thorax simply grinned back and didn’t respond.

Spike kept eating with growingly more and more eager enthusiasm as his stomach became more demanding to be further filled until finally he had cleared the tray of the meal it had contained. Thorax by this point had nibbled on a little bit of everything from his tray then decided he had enough and allowed the still-hungry Spike to have the rest. The little dragon began eating it with gusto as well, but eventually stopped himself partway, realizing that instead he probably ought to save it for later. They had no guarantees of when he might get access to food so readily given their banishment. So with reluctance, Spike instead wrapped up the remainder of the meal and stuffed it into Thorax’s saddlebag where it wouldn’t be a temptation for him.

The only other real event of note during their train ride came as night fully fell, when Spike slipped away to use the little restroom at the back of the train car. Just as he was finishing and was in the process of cleaning his claws in the included little sink, Spike unexpectedly felt an all-too familiar feathery-feeling in his stomach and with a brief burst of dragon fire, belched up a sealed scroll. Surprised and apprehensive about the sudden scroll and what it might contain, but relieved it chose to happen while he was somewhere private and unwitnessed, he carefully opened it, gingerly unfurling it so to see whatever the message written inside might be while lifting the sunglasses he wore so to clearly see the words. It read:

Spike,

I have just been informed of the situation by Princess Cadance. We believe
you are still in the presence of the changeling in question and are attempting to flee
the area. I do not understand your motives for such a surprising course of action, but
I cannot help but fear greatly for your safety should you choose to continue to remain
on this path, and I am certain I speak for the others as well when I say as such.
I strongly urge you to stop now, part ways from the changeling, and immediately turn
back for the Crystal Empire if you are still able, and I pray that such is the case when
you receive this. If you find you are in danger at present and cannot safely flee,
attempt to hold onto the seal of this scroll however possible for as long as you can.
It has been imbued with a tracking spell, and will allow help to track you down and
rescue you, although I again pray your situation is nothing so grave as that. Otherwise,
given the threat Cadance has described to me, I fear I will have to continue to enforce
their rulings on the matter, until such time we are able to safely recover you from
changeling custody and the threat neutralized. Whatever the case may be, please
have strength, hold tight, and permit us to assist how we can, Spike.

-Princess Celestia

Spike stared at the message for a long moment, letting the words of the message sink in. Though it did not explicitly state it, given that it attempted to sound friendly and reassuring in tone, he soon realized the reality of what Celestia was saying. Unsure for a moment whether to cry or destroy the message in anger as he saw that even Princess Celestia wouldn’t aid or support him, favoring the side of the ponies that had turned against him. Anger ultimately won out, and with barely controlled fury, Spike ripped the scroll to shreds, then took the attached seal and whacked it repeatedly against the side of the sink until it snapped in two. Finally, not satisfied with all of this, as Spike stepped out of the closet of a restroom again he looked around to insure he wasn’t being watched then strolled over to the train car window sitting across from the restroom door, opened it, and hurled the remains of the message outside, promptly tossed out of view by the wind. Closing the window again, Spike then returned to his seat next to Thorax.

Thorax clearly could tell how grumpy he was as he approached and seemed taken aback. “Something wrong?” he whispered once Spike had planted himself back in his seat.

“I just got a message from Princess Celestia while I was in the restroom,” Spike responded darkly.

Thorax blinked in surprise. “A message? How?”

“She can send messages to me through my firebreath,” Spike explained briefly but then waved it aside to get to the gist of the matter. “Unfortunately, the message made it clear that she too has chosen to side with Cadance and the others back at the Crystal Empire, in that usual…exasperating…passive-aggressive manner of hers. So she was basically urging me to stop siding with you and turn back.” He slumped back in his seat, his anger exhausted for the moment as dread settled on him instead. “Clearly, the others got to her before she could have a chance to hear anything different.” He buried his face in his claws. “Aw Thorax, we should’ve turned straight to her when we got cast out…if we had…we might have been able to convince her of our side of the story before she could have a chance to be tainted by the others…but it’s too late for that now.”

Thorax still wasn’t sure he understood. “So she believes you’ve left to side with the enemy she does not trust too…” he began to summarize quietly, “…and she decides to just send you a message?”

“That’s how Celestia works, honestly. When in doubt, send a reassuring letter, advising a course of action. Usually to Twilight, but obviously given the circumstances…”

“No offence to the princess considering how well she has personally defended Equestria for so long, but…why did she expect that to help?”

“Well, to be fair, according to the message, the seal that was attached to was imbued with a tracking spell she hoped to use to find us.” Seeing Thorax’s eyes widen at this, Spike quickly reassured him. “Don’t worry, I broke it and tossed it out a window, along with the rest of the scroll. It’s not going to be leading them to much of anything.”

Thorax was still frowning however. “Couldn’t she just try to send it again, though?” he asked.

“Probably, but as long as we’re quick and get rid of it right away, I think we can stay safe.”

“I might have a better idea.” Thorax leaned closer. “What sort of magic does this firebreath messaging use to work?”

Spike considered it quickly. “I’m not exactly sure…I think Twilight told me once that it worked something like teleportation, but…”

“That’s what I thought,” Thorax said, and after double checking quickly to make sure no one was watching, discreetly allowed his black horn to momentarily emerge from his disguise and used it to cast a small spell on Spike.

Spike felt it tingle throughout him. “What was that?” he asked.

“A spell that blocks teleportation,” Thorax explained, hiding his horn again. “If I’m right about how Celestia sends you messages, then that should prevent her from being able to send any more, at least until it wears off.”

“When does it wear off?”

Thorax grinned. “In a few weeks.”

Spike returned the grin, feeling a little reassured by this. “Think she’ll have given up by then?”

“If not, then I’ll just refresh the spell.”

Spike nodded his head. “All right then,” he settled himself into a more comfortable position and turned to gaze out the train car window. “So I guess that settles that.”

“Guess so,” Thorax said, leaning back in his own seat, and fell silent.

The train ride dragged on as night slowly started to fall outside. With a sated tummy, Thorax eventually appeared to doze off, quietly leaning his head back with his eyes closed and silently sleeping. Spike, however, remained awake, gazing out the train car window and lost in thought. He thought about himself and Thorax and their predicament, and where they might end up next. Wherever it might be, Spike figured the road ahead was going to be rough as they sought to find some way to return to something resembling normal life while at the same time not get caught and get themselves into even further trouble than they already were in. Fortunately, as both had already proven to one another, they were always keeping an eye out for the well-being of the other. They weren’t just friends, they were partners, a team. Their well-being was going to depend on the other keeping safe and healthy. Which was good, but Spike was still worried about those impending trials.

And while he was naturally worried about his own welfare, he was actually starting to feel more worried for Thorax’s continued welfare at this point. Spike, after all, was simply a small dragon who was already well adjusted to life in Equestria and some of the lands beyond, already known to be living in Equestria and accepted as such, and though he would probably always be a little out of place, he could still fit into the same roles in the world as anypony else would. But Thorax, as a changeling, didn’t have that luxury. Not only was he at best merely loosely familiar with life in Equestria and was still playing catch-up with all its little quirks, Thorax’s physiology meant he had different requirements to survive, which could prove hard to maintain. To say nothing of the fact that they were banished simply because changelings were deemed unwelcome in Equestria regardless of intention, meaning Thorax was likely going to keep himself perpetually disguised and living a double-life, which Thorax’s passing comments on the matter suggested to Spike they could be trying for the changeling in the long-term.

In short, Spike feared Thorax was the one who was going to have the harder time living the life of an exile than Spike was going to.

If anything though, as Spike turned his head to watch the dozing and disguised changeling, this only made the dragon that much more determined to stay by Thorax’s side, helping insure Thorax would be able to still live the best life they could expect given their circumstances. As no doubt Thorax intended to do back in return for Spike.

And Celestia as his witness, he wanted to do everything he could to make sure they succeeded.

Author's Note

Slightly longer chapter than usual this time, because the section with Celestia's letter was added after the fact over the weekend in response to a point one commenter had made, lengthening the chapter slightly longer than how I had originally written it. It jars the original flow of the chapter slightly more than I'd care, but it gets the job done, and manages to address more than one point I had been looking to address but hadn't been sure I'd be able to fit it in until much later in the story. This fixes that for the time being, though of course more details on that aspect of the matter will be given later in the story.

If you're of the opinion that Spike judged Celestia's standing the matter too quickly and harshly though...you're absolutely right. That's the point. :raritywink:

A Place to Sleep

Naturally considering their luck, their train got unexpectedly delayed at one of the outlying stops along the way and began to run late. As such, it didn’t pull into the spacious Vanhoover train station until somewhere around midnight that evening (as neither Spike nor Thorax had any sort of timepiece, it was hard to know for sure). Though Spike was still awake when the train finally did arrive, it had gotten late enough and him tired enough that despite staring out the window at the train station and directly at a sign that read “Vanhoover North Train Station,” he almost didn’t realize it.

Fortunately, the announcing shout of the train conductor roused him from his dazed state. “All departing for Vanhoover!” the conductor bellowed loudly to the passengers in the train, the number of which had thinned considerably over the past couple of stops.

As other passengers started to collect their things and move to step off the train, Spike stood up and gave the dozing Thorax a nudge. “Hey, we’re here,” he whispered aloud to the disguised changeling.

Thorax’s camouflaged ice-blue eyes opened immediately as if a switch had been thrown, banishing sleep immediately. He stood up and stretched. “Well, guess we better get off then before the train decides to move on,” he said, awake as if he had never been dozing in the first place.

As they had brought little aboard the train with them that wasn’t already stuffed into Thorax’s saddlebags, they were able to just stroll right off the train and onto the train platform, which was draining itself of travelers just as quickly it had been filled with them exiting the train. Worried that lingering about on the platform was going to draw unwanted attention to them then, Spike and Thorax followed the example of the other passengers stepping off the train by moving on through the quiet and largely vacant train station and out onto the city street beyond, marking the outer edge of the city of Vanhoover. There they sat and watched the other passengers trot on into the dim streets, eager to get to wherever they were heading and none stopping long enough to even notice the dragon and his disguised escort. Not long thereafter, the train they had exited was heard blowing its whistle and then puffing on out of the station again, bringing a sense of silence upon the area shortly thereafter.

Though Vanhoover was certainly a sizable city, still lit with a wide array of twinkling lights in its many skyscrapers, the late hour had made it very quiet and still. It seemed the city had largely shut down for the evening. Intimidated by the tranquil serenity of the city, the two exiles sat on the cobblestone road in silence, taking in their new surroundings.

“So now where to?” Spike asked finally, the sentence partly muddled by an involuntary yawn that slipped from his mouth at roughly the same time.

Thorax noted the yawn with a small smirk. “Sounds like the first thing we should do is find someplace safe to get some sleep,” he reasoned.

“But where? We don’t have any place to stay to spend the night.”

“Oh, I’m sure we can find plenty of places we can spend the night,” Thorax stated confidently, turning and starting down a neighboring side road. “Just leave that to me.”

Since Thorax seemed to know what to do, Spike followed him without protest. It occurred to him that considering Thorax had already been wandering about on his own before now, he was probably more practiced at this part than he was. Either way, Spike was too tired to really object anyway, which was what probably surprised him more, as Thorax seemed perfectly alert and awake, despite having been dozing for the better part of an hour mere moments before. Thorax also seemed to be navigating the dim city streets better than Spike as well, who was struggling even though he’d removed the sunglasses he was wearing as part of his disguise shortly after starting so to be able to see clearer. Twilight had long told him that, as a dragon, he possessed slightly better night vision that ponies, but to Spike the difference couldn’t be that great because he really couldn’t navigate that much better in the dark. Thorax, however, didn’t seem at all bothered by it, which got Spike wondering what sort of night vision the changeling had in those pupiless eyes hidden behind his friend’s current magical mask.

After several minutes of exploring the quiet backstreets of Vanhoover, Thorax eventually led Spike to a block of warehouse-like buildings. An old red-brick one located on the far end appeared to have been long abandoned. Several signs were hung around its vicinity warning that it was still private property and that trespassers would be prosecuted, but the signs were worn and fading and there was clear evidence that they had been getting ignored, as there were clearly pony-sized holes in the equally degrading fence enclosing the building and obvious signs of vandalism.

“You really think we can safely spend the night here?” Spike asked Thorax skeptically as they slipped through one of the holes in the fence and walked up to the two story building.

“There’s an easy way to find out,” Thorax said, strolling up to the building’s dusty brick wall. “Keep an eye out for any trouble for a second, will you?”

Spike nodded and gazed out at their surroundings for anyone that might catch them in the act, but it seemed he had little to worry about. There was simply nopony around at this hour. He glanced back at Thorax in time to see the disguised changeling stroll confidentially up to the building’s exterior and then, without losing stride, began to scale on up the wall as if gravity had suddenly started pulling sideways instead of straight down like normal. Spike felt his eyebrows go up at the sight, having forgotten that changelings could climb walls with such ease.

Thorax climbed as far as where the building’s lowest window was missing more than one pane of glass, and leaned his head over to peer through it. “Oh yeah, no one’s been in here for easily a couple of weeks at least,” he said with confidence. “I can hardly smell any lingering emotion in the air in there.”

Spike blinked, the statement taking a brief second to fully sink in. “Wait—you can smell emotion?”

“Sure I can,” Thorax responded cheerfully, looking back down at Spike. “Can’t you?”

“No. I didn’t even know that was possible.”

“Oh,” Thorax thoughtfully remarked as he scaled back down the wall with ease. He shrugged as he stepped back down onto level ground. “I guess it must be a changeling thing then.” He looked around and then motioned to a large pair of wooden double doors that barred the warehouse entrance. “That way will probably be our best way in.”

While Spike’s tired brain attempted to wrap itself around the idea of being able to smell emotion, they headed over to the doors. Not unexpectedly though, they found the doors had been chained and padlocked shut.

“So…what do emotions even smell like?” Spike asked finally while Thorax examined the lock.

Thorax shrugged again. “Depends on the emotion.”

“Let’s say love, then.”

“Well…um…” Thorax frowned, considering the question. “…hm. I’m not sure I can describe it in a way you could picture without a common frame of reference…in fact I’m not sure the Equestrian language even has the right words for it now that I think about it…I’m going to have to think about that a little. I can at least tell you that love smells good, though.”

Spike shrugged. “Fair enough.”

Setting aside that thought, his friend turned his attention back to the padlock. “Hmm, looks like this is a standard enough of a lock…some basic magical protections in place against lock picking, but that’s about it. Simple alohomora spell ought to do the trick.”

Adjusting his stallion disguise so that a unicorn’s horn now appeared on his forehead, the disguised changeling cast a small spark of magic at the padlock that promptly made it pop open. The door thusly freed, the two then slipped inside. It was almost pitch black inside the warehouse except for what little light was managing to get through the building’s dusty windows, but Thorax fixed this by lighting his horn to make an impromptu flashlight. Shining it around, they saw there was little inside the building except for some forgotten pallets, a few crates larger than they were, and various pieces of garbage, weeds, dead leaves, and other forgotten waste scattered about the floor.

Spike’s nose wrinkled as his sniffed the warehouse’s stale air. “What’s that weird sour smell?” he wondered aloud.

“Urine,” Thorax answered matter-of-factly. “I think we haven’t been the first ones to seek shelter in here.”

Spike glanced around the warehouse again warily. “And…you’re sure there’s no one else in here?” he asked.

“Positive,” Thorax stated with a reassuring grin as they strolled into the middle of the spacious interior. “Nobody has been in here recently enough for there to still to be any lingering emotive energy, so it’s highly doubtful anyone’s been in here for weeks, nor that they’re likely to return soon.” Seeing Spike didn’t fully understand, the changeling elaborated. “All living things produce an aura of sorts of whatever emotions they’re experiencing at any given time. We changelings refer to it as amor, or emotive energy, and that’s more precisely what it is that we’re actually feeding upon. But when whatever’s producing that emotive energy moves about, it’ll leave a little bit behind them wherever they go, a kind of emotive hoofprint if you will. Until that eventually dissipates away again, that emotive energy can still be detected telling a changeling like me roughly how long ago something’s been in the area.”

“Like a hound dog following somebody’s scent,” Spike reasoned, catching on.

“Kind of…can’t really use emotive energy to track down any particular someone, as the smell isn’t distinctive to the individual…but yeah, basically the same sort of idea. Point is that nobody but us has been in here in weeks.”

“Huh.” Spike thought about this new tidbit of data for a moment, finding the idea that he was probably leaving a trail of emotive energy wherever he went right now unusual.

“Anyway, it’s late enough as it is,” Thorax went on, stopping to face Spike. “And it’s been a…long and stressful day for both of us. We’d better get some sleep.”

Spike kicked what appeared to be an old coffee cup probably left behind by some previous intruder, watching it bounce off the warehouse’s concrete floor until it slipped out of the bubble of light Thorax was producing with his horn. “Yeah, and I’m certain this dirty warehouse floor will be the most comfortable of surface ever to sleep on too,” he pointed out semi-sarcastically, even though it was immediately followed by the thought that he was in no position to complain.

Thorax sighed in sympathetic agreement though and looked around. “Well, maybe we can find something else other than the floor to sleep on real quick,” he reasoned. The light his horn was producing suddenly split in two, resulting in a separate orb of light that swooped down to hover near Spike. “You wait here. I’ll go poke around real quick.”

Not eager to explore the dark and creepy warehouse, Spike readily remained put as Thorax walked off, searching for anything that would be better to sleep on than cold hard concrete. He soon vanished behind a short row of forgotten crates, leaving Spike standing on his own in the middle of the warehouse. Suddenly feeling alone and vulnerable, he started to wonder if staying here was what he really wanted to do.

CRASH! “Balani devoveo!”

“Ah!” Spike yelled, startled by the sudden sound. “What? What? What happened? Who’s there?”

“Sorry that was me!” Thorax was heard calling out with a groan. “I tripped over something…I think it’s some old toolbox…”

“Oh. You okay?”

“Yeah I’m fine, though I think I might have bruised my knee…”

“Good, good…but um, that was you that shouted, right? I-I didn’t quite catch what you said, so…”

“What do you mean?” More rattling echoed out as Thorax was heard shuffling around with something.

“When you tripped, you shouted something I didn’t catch…what did you say?”

“Oh, um…” Spike could hear the embarrassment in Thorax’s voice. “…nothing polite.”

Spike paused for a moment, feeling his own face heat up a little. Was Thorax implying that he swore?

Thorax suddenly reappeared from behind the crates, his light breaking up the darkness of the warehouse a welcome sight to Spike. “So, I was able to find some tarps back there,” he explained, nodding his head in roughly the direction he found them as he strolled back up to the dragon, the ball of light that had been hovering around Spike zipping back to meld with the disguised changeling’s light on his horn. “But they’ve been sitting there for who knows how long gathering dust and insects and I figured it wouldn’t be wise to use them in that state. The only other things I found we really could use to sleep on besides that are the old wooden pallets, but uh, they’re old and splintering, so…”

“It’s okay,” Spike interrupted as he sat himself down on the floor. “Thanks for looking anyway.”

He started to lie down on the cement floor, taking off the hat and wig parts of his disguise he was still wearing and setting them to one side. Thorax watched him for a moment, before pulling off the saddlebags still on his back and gently set them down beside Spike’s head. “Here, you can use this as a pillow.”

Spike willingly pulled the bags under his head. “Thanks,” he said, shedding the trench coat he had been wearing and draping it over himself like a blanket.

Thorax waited until the dragon was settled in. Then without removing the cloak he still wore, he dropped his disguise with a flash, returning to his natural changeling form for the first time since they left the Crystal Empire. He then lowered himself to the floor, curling up in a ball so that his head rested on his forehooves while also gradually letting the light his horn produced fade away, permitting the darkness of the warehouse return.

Spike watched him for a moment, letting his eyes adjust to the darkness. “Not going to sleep in disguise?” he asked, more out of curiosity than anything.

Thorax shook his head without opening his eyes. “I generally don’t. If I go to sleep with a disguise on, I’ll eventually relax too much and let the disguise drop anyway.”

“You didn’t do that when you were sleeping on the train.”

“I was more of…cat-napping, then. Didn’t want to accidentally let my guard down.”

Spike kept silent for a moment longer, watching the changeling, starting to realize how little he really knew about this curious creature that was now his only friend. “Thorax?”

“Yeah?”

“We’re friends and all now, but…I’m starting to realize I don’t really know you all that well.”

“There’s…really not a lot to tell about me, Spike. I already told you why I left the hive, and…”

“No, I mean…I don’t really know anything about you as a changeling. There’s all these neat things I didn’t know you could even do…when we get the chance…if we get the chance…can you tell me more about changelings? At least so I can understand you all as a race better?”

Thorax still kept his eyes closed, but a grin appeared on his face. “Sure.” A pause as he waited in case Spike said anything else. He didn’t, so he continued. “Good night Spike.”

Spike rolled over to look up at the dark ceiling of the warehouse. He grinned. “Actually…I think it’s late enough that it’s technically morning now.”

The two chuckled to themselves for a moment.

“Well, good morning then, Spike,” Thorax amended, settling back down to sleep.

Spike settled down himself. “Good morning, Thorax.”

Author's Note

Almost forgot to get this posted tonight. I blame work, dinner, and a fanfic about a young Twilight wondering if ninjas had kidnapped her parents that I finally got around to reading tonight. :twilightsmile:

I feel like I got a little heavy-handed with demonstrating some of Thorax's abilities as a changeling in this chapter, but at least I was smart enough to decide to choose to remove some others and save them for later chapters. :twilightsheepish:

Specters

“…and that’s it,” Thorax concluded, averting his gaze away from the attentive little dragon he had crossed paths with. “That’s my story.”

“So, you’re out here because you want to make friends with ponies, not enemies, and that the love of friendship would be all that’s needed to keep changelings fed and sated?” Spike summarized with wide-eyed wonder.

“I know, it’s probably never going to happen…” Thorax said dejectedly, averting his gaze.

“No, I think it’s a brilliant idea!” Spike declared eagerly, grinning broadly as he threw his arms out. “Once we tell everypony about this, we can bring peace between changelings and ponies forever and ever, you’ll never go hungry again, and you’ll have lots and lots of friends!”

Thorax grinned himself, enthralled by that prospect and Spike’s enthusiasm, and started forward to hug the little dragon, as he assumed that’s what friends did.

But then a metal cage suddenly appeared around Thorax, halting him in his tracks.

“Not so fast, criminal scum!” Shining Armor declared in a booming voice, standing so darkly over them that he almost seemed to tower over them. As a spotlight suddenly shone down on Spike, isolating the dragon from the rest, the stallion focused his attention on him. “Spike the Dragon, the brave and glorious, you stand accused of aiding and abetting a known enemy of Equestria, attempting to assist in the escape of that enemy, theft of prison keys, disobeying the orders of the crown, and above all, putting the enemy above the needs of your fellow ponies! How do you plead?”

Having turned extremely determined and resolute, albeit angry to the point of barely constrained fury, Spike had his answer ready immediately. “Guilty!”

“No!” Thorax objected, trying to squeeze between the bars of his cage unsuccessfully. “No, don’t punish him, punish me! He did nothing wrong! He doesn’t deserve this! For queen’s sake, he’s one of your own!”

Thorax’s pleas went unheard. “Then you leave us no choice!” Shining Armor declared boldly. “Spike the Dragon, for your crimes of betraying the ponies of Equestria, you are hereby banished from Equestria and all affiliated territories, and will henceforth be denied access within these proud lands at any time on the grounds that you will face grave punishment should you be found in violation of this decree!”

“We expected better of you, Spike,” Princess Twilight said gravely as she appeared beside Shining Armor, staring at the unrepentant dragon with a dark expression.

“You were supposed to be our friend,” Princess Cadance added as she appeared on Shining’s other side, wearing an expression almost identical to Twilight’s.

“If you all won’t let me befriend Thorax simply because he’s a changeling, then all of you are no friends of mine!” Spike declared with a bravado that defied his usual character.

“No!” Thorax again tried to object. “Don’t blame him for any of this! He was just being kind, a friend! It was…it was all me, my fault, not his! Don’t punish him for my actions! Leave him out of this! Please!” Seeing he still wasn’t being heard by the dragon’s accusers, he turned to Spike. “Please, Spike, don’t do this!” he pleaded. “Don’t sacrifice your livelihood for my sake!”

“It is already done!” Spike determinedly declared. “I will not cave to the peer pressure of others that are blinded to the good that is within you, fair Thorax! I know you are telling the truth, that you will do no harm!”

“We will not believe that,” Cadance stated firmly, stepping forward.

“But it is true!” Thorax persisted. “I want to be your friend! Your ally! I don’t want to harm anypony!”

“Then who is that you have in your hooves?” Cadance asked bitterly as she approached the caged changeling.

Thorax gazed down and saw in horror that he had Starlight Glimmer held in his hooves, the mare with her eyes rolled up, legs stiffly poking aimlessly upward, and her tongue lolling limply out of her mouth being nearly completely drained of emotive energy.

With a yelp, Thorax dropped Starlight, clamping both of his holed hooves over his mouth to stop himself from feeding further off the mare’s emotive energy he hadn’t even realized he had been devouring without restraint. Starlight didn’t respond as she hit the floor and laid there unmoving with her legs in the air.

Thorax attempted to articulate some sort of response as he backed up into a wall, eyes locked on Starlight. “But…I didn’t…I didn’t realize…I didn’t mean to…I don’t want to harm anyone! I’M NOT LIKE THIS!”

“Oh, but you are,” Cadance pointed out with emphasis.

Only it wasn’t Cadance’s voice anymore, and Thorax looked up to see with a chill of fear it was Queen Chrysalis that stood before him now.

“This is what you are, Thorax,” his former queen reprimanded with malice. “You are a changeling, you will always be a changeling, and you can try to fool yourself as much as you want, but you can never change the fact that you are the predator, and they are your prey.” A twisted grin appeared on her face. “So why fight it? Give in. Feed. Take your fill!”

Thorax pressed his forehooves over his mouth, feeling the burning desire to feed suddenly reaching intolerable levels like he hadn’t eaten in many moons. “NO!” he shouted, turning himself away from the changeling queen.

Something then wrapped itself tightly around his neck and, his breathing constricted, Chrysalis used her magic to involuntarily drag Thorax up to her, who gazed at him with an unforgiving smirk that said refusal wasn’t going to be an option.

“Come,” she said coldly, “Feast with us.”

She then stood to one side, revealing to Thorax’s horror Spike sealed within a green cocoon, floating within a slurry of suspensive fluids, weakly struggling against his confinement. He’d open his mouth as if to shout, but only a soupy stream of bubbles would emerge from it. Thorax knew what he was trying to say though; he was calling for Thorax to help him. But Thorax was more concerned by the swarm of very hungry changelings that had gathered around the cocoon.

“No!” Thorax choked out, knowing what was about to happen and started forward to try and stop it, but the grip around his throat jerked him back and held him tight. “Don’t!”

He was ignored, and as one, the changelings, showing no restraint, all began to feed upon the trapped dragon. Thorax was helpless as he watched his friend slowly be drained of emotion, growing weaker and stiller…

“NO!” Thorax as he desperately struggled against his restraints with little avail. He turned to Chrysalis, taking joy in watching Thorax squirm. “Please, your highness, spare him!” Chrysalis only laughed at his pleading, which infuriated Thorax. “Why are you doing this!?”

“Survival of the fittest, Thorax,” Chrysalis replied calmly. “What cannot fight back does not survive.” She narrowed her eyes at him. “And you need the reminder.”

Thorax, in a panic now, desperately tried to free himself as the feeding continued, but Spike had gone frightfully still already and Thorax was afraid that, under the onslaught of several changelings feeding at once, it was already too late. “No, please…” he murmured, trying to grab at the magic pinning his throat. “He’s got nothing left! He deserves better than this! Please! I don’t want to see him harmed, I want protect him from harm!”

Shining Armor suddenly reappeared in front of him, armed with a spear now which he placed the point over Thorax’s heart menacingly. “You were never going to be able to protect him,” the stallion growled dangerously. “You are a changeling. Harm and destruction surround your very being. You were going to bring him to harm the moment you got him to side with you over us. And you knew that. You KNEW you were always going to lead him to harm and you did it anyway!”

Thorax felt tears come to his eyes as he weakly struggled against the magic that still wrapped around his neck, holding him still. “I’m sorry…” he whispered aloud, squeezing his eyes shut to try and hold back the hot tears. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean for any of this to happen!”

He opened his eyes to see that it was Princess Twilight holding the spear over his heart now, looking utterly unforgiving. “Too late,” she stated in a snarl.

She then drove the spear down.

And with a start, Thorax awoke in a cold sweat, breathing hard.

Wiping the genuine tears that had seeped into his solid blue eyes, the disoriented changeling looked around to get his bearings. He was still in the abandoned warehouse, now much more lit from the light generated as the sky outside gradually brightened in preparation for dawn. He found the cloak he had gone to sleep with still fastened about him was now wrapped around him so that the collar about his neck dug into his throat, explaining the choking feeling he felt in his nightmare. It appeared he had unknowingly tried to use the cloak to form something resembling the mossy nests he used to sleep in back in the hive during the night and ended up only entangling himself. But Thorax ignored all of this and turned his attention to Spike. The dragon still had his head on the saddlebags, but he otherwise lay sprawled out on the cement floor of the warehouse so quiet and still that the changeling suddenly felt a flare of fear rise up within him.

“Spike!” he said, his voice sounding raw. “Spike!”

With a snort, Spike suddenly awoke and looked up sleepily at Thorax, to the changeling’s utter relief. “Thorax?” the dragon mumbled as he blinked several times, trying to refocus his vision. “What is it?”

Thorax didn’t reply but instead let out a heavy sigh of relief as he pressed his hooves over his eyes again, trying to calm his unraveled nerves.

Spike sensed the changeling’s distress. “Thorax?” he prompted again, worried as he sat up.

Thorax pinched the bridge of his snout with one holed hoof and took a deep breath. “I…I had a bad dream,” he admitted reluctantly.

“Oh,” Spike murmured in understanding, sympathetic. “What was it about?”

Thorax again hesitated. “It started out simply enough,” he admitted. “…you and me were talking about how I wanted to befriend ponies…but then Prince Shining Armor appeared…and we got banished but with more…gravitas…then I realized that Starlight Glimmer was…and there was Queen Chrysalis…but you were in a cocoon…they were feeding…I was choking…then Shining Armor…he turned into Princess Twilight…and then she…” Half-heartedly, Thorax mimed out being stabbed by a spear.

Spike blinked to himself for a few moments, trying to process the very disjointed and confusing narrative. He didn’t quite follow with all of it, but he got enough to get an idea of the scope of the nightmare. He winced, and couldn’t help but inwardly compare it to the significantly more innocent dream he had just been having, where he and Rarity, alone, worked to navigate a whole valley made of strawberry ice cream in a quest for the perfect potato chip, which seemed all that more ridiculous in comparison to Thorax’s dream. Even though his silly dream still painfully reminded him that their banishment likely meant he wasn’t going to associate with the fashionista anymore, Spike pushed the thought of his dream aside in favor of Thorax’s.

“You…going to be all right?” he asked his changeling friend as he watched Thorax gradually calm down again.

Thorax took a few more deep breaths. “Yeah,” he said after a brief pause. “Yeah, I think so.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah.” Thorax waved a hoof in Spike’s direction as he turned away. “You can go back to sleep…sorry for disturbing you.”

Spike didn’t obey right away. But seeing that Thorax didn’t want to talk about it any further, the dragon eventually conceded and settled back down to go back to sleep. It was only once Thorax heard his little friend start to snore that he looked back at his cohort. He couldn’t help but grin sadly, glad he had the dragon’s company, who had done so much for him already and at such a great price, far more than Thorax could have ever hoped or dared to ask. But the rebukes of his nightmare still weighed heavily on his mind, and he found himself very worried if they would still prove true in some manner. Neither of them knew what the future held in store for them.

But Thorax rose and stood protectively over the dragon for a moment, determined to prove the specters of his dream wrong. Spike was the only friend and ally he had left in the world. He wasn’t about to let anything to take even that away from him now.

Author's Note

I figured it was time we explored some of Thorax's fears and demons about their situation this time around.

And since this is Equestria and dreamwalking's a thing, no, Thorax's dream was NOT brought on by any outside meddling by say Chrysalis trying to mislead him or Luna trying to punish him or anything like that. Sometimes a dream...is just dream. :raritywink:

Vanhoover

When Spike next awoke, it was well after dawn, but still early morning still. Light now streamed into the warehouse mostly from the sun rising in the east, making it better lit and much less intimidating and fearsome in appearance, and more just like the forgotten ruin it was. Feeling stiff from sleeping on the hard concrete floor and as such taking the time to pop several of his joints, Spike nonetheless felt rested enough. Sitting up, he pulled the trench coat he had used as a blanket off his legs and glanced around for Thorax. He saw that the changeling had removed the cloak he had been wearing finally, which he had left in a heap around the spot Thorax had spent the night at. But there was no immediate sign of his friend and for a moment Spike wondered if Thorax had for some reason left.

Thankfully, though, he soon spotted Thorax sitting peacefully on top of a large old crate that sat against the warehouse’s west wall, his back to Spike as he seemed to be gazing out the dusty windows that lined the upper two thirds of the wall. The changeling’s gossamer wings were spread but relaxed, shimmering in the light of the sun shining in from behind them, and he seemed to be lost in thought.

Curious, Spike wandered up to the base of the crate, which was much taller than he was. He assumed Thorax had flown to get up on top of it like he had. “Thorax?” he called aloud hesitantly.

Thorax turned and looked at Spike. “Good morning,” he greeted the little dragon. “Did you get enough sleep?”

Spike rolled one of his shoulders, trying to work the stiff muscles loose again. “Yeah,” he said simply. “You?”

Thorax lowered his gaze slightly. “Yeah,” he replied, even though Spike was quite certain the changeling hadn’t slept a shred more since his nightmare.

Spike watched the changeling for a moment. “So what are you doing up there?” he asked.

Thorax replied by leaning down and reaching out a hoof with which to help Spike climb up himself. Once clambering atop of the box, Spike turned and peered out the windows the edge of which came down almost level with the top of the box itself.

“Wow,” Spike whispered, enthralled by the sight before him.

Thorax had wiped the dust from many of the panes of glass composing of the window, giving them a clear view of the sprawling cityscape of Vanhoover, beautifully aglow in the golden rays of the rising sun. Most of the city could be seen from here, including the city’s iconic Ponies Gate Bridge, which Spike had previously only seen in pictures. Their view was unobstructed on to the coast in the distance where the city bordered the North Luna Ocean. Because it sat to the west, on the opposite side of the sunrise, the waters that stretched forth on to the horizon were tastefully cast part in shadow and part sparkling in the early morning sunlight.

It was this body of water that Thorax had his attention directed towards. “I’d always heard of the oceans,” he explained aloud, gazing out at the view. “But I’ve never actually seen one before now.”

“I’ve seen the Celestial Sea a couple of times before,” Spike spoke up. “This is the first time I’ve seen the North Luna Ocean, though.”

“What does the Celestial Sea look like?”

“Pretty much the same as this, actually.” Spike grinned. “Still a pretty sight, though.”

They continued gazing out at the view for a another moment or so, then Spike’s gaze wandered down to the rest of the top of the crate they stood upon, and saw Thorax had also taken a large plank of wood and had been marking it with a piece of sidewalk chalk the changeling must have found lying around.

Spike tilted his head at the symbols the changeling had drawn, appearing to be a series of circles and sideways eye-shapes, but with occasional circular notches taken out of them. “What’s this?” he asked Thorax.

Thorax followed Spike’s gaze. “Oh, I was just passing the time making some notes, trying to figure out how likely somepony from the Crystal Empire might come chasing after us here,” he explained, picking up the chalk with his magic again and proceeding to make a new mark on it.

Spike stared at the symbols and realized what they were. “You mean that’s writing?” he asked, surprised.

“Well and a little math, so it’s more of a mix of letters and numbers.” Thorax admitted. He pointed one hoof at one of the circular symbols. “Letters.” He moved his hoof to one of the sideways eye-shapes. “Numbers.”

“I don’t recognize any of those, though.”

“Well, unless you know linguae mutationis, I wouldn’t expect you to.”

Spike paused, glancing at Thorax. “You saying this is all a sort of…changeling language?” The idea such a thing existed surprised him, especially considering Thorax was clearly fluent in Equestrian, so much so he had never stopped to think it might not be the changeling’s native language.

He heard Thorax chuckle, who understood Spike’s thinking. “I wasn’t born speaking and writing Equestrian, you know. Changelings have our own language, just like a lot of other races. It’s just when around ponies…Equestrian is the language you want to be using, obviously.” Thorax made another mark while speaking. “Changelings are actually pretty good with languages, so we generally know more than one on average. We have to. No good if we can change ourselves to look the part if we can’t also speak the language.”

Spike shrugged to himself. It made sense. “How many languages do you know, then?”

“Not as many as most other changelings, admittedly. In addition to my native language and Equestrian, I really only know Diamond Dog, Zebra, and a little bit of Breezie. I was set to start learning Saddle Arabian at one point, but then the whole invasion of Canterlot happened, and, well…you know what happened after that.” Thorax looked off into the distance wistfully for a moment while Spike gaped at, to him, the impressive number of languages the changeling knew. He then glanced at the dragon. “How many languages do you know?”

Spike twiddled his claws together sheepishly. “Just Equestrian.”

“I suppose I could teach you something else then if you like,” Thorax offered.

Spike chuckled to himself. “It’d be kind of ironic if I took you up on that, actually,” he admitted. “Twilight’s always been trying to get me to learn a second language because she—” he trailed off suddenly as the memory of Twilight standing to one side while permitting Spike to join Thorax in banishment unexpectedly returned to the forefront of his attention.

Recognizing this, Thorax cleared his throat and changed the subject. “Anyway, I’ve been running the odds on anypony from the Crystal Empire tracking us to here in Vanhoover specifically, and I’m finding it’s actually not as big as we feared.” He faced Spike. “I mean, think about it. All they could know at this point is that we had your season train pass and that we boarded a train. Unless someone at the train station in the Crystal Empire spied us boarding which train and was able to piece together that we might not be who we seemed, they aren’t actually going to know which train we boarded, at least not with reliable certainty, and we know more than one train went through the Crystal Empire yesterday. There is the matter of the tracker Princess Celestia attempted to send you, but by the sounds of it you destroyed it quickly enough that the spell almost certainly didn’t get enough time to send a reliable signal back to her. Of course, as you pointed out last night, getting dinner on the train means that a bill will be sent to Twilight that will reveal that we were on the southbound train, and that we were still on it by that evening, but she’s not going to get that bill right away, will she? Until then, they could only guess which train we might have boarded, unless they manage to find the remains the scroll and seal you disposed of, which, without the tracker, is a one in a million chance. Plus, since we’re technically banished, I’m inclined to think that they’d assume we would head someplace out of Equestria rather than head deeper into it, and that they’re more likely to try and track us using a northeast bound train.”

“When they do get the bill for that dinner,” Thorax continued, “that will give them an idea of some of the stops we might have gotten off at, which would include Vanhoover, but keep in mind that we passed I estimate five other stops since getting that dinner on the train that would be possible places we could’ve stopped at before we arrived at Vanhoover, and I estimate there were about a dozen more the train stopped at after Vanhoover, because for all they know, we could’ve kept riding that train well into dawn. Feasibly, they could think that we’re still on that train by this time in the morning. That means they’d have a search radius of several hundred miles to cover, with no surefire means of knowing which of those stops we actually stopped at unless we’ve done something we haven’t considered to clue them in, and I’ve been racking my brain and I can’t think of anything. And as you haven’t received any further messages from Princess Celestia, that means either the spell I cast to prevent them from coming has worked or she only sent the one, and without those messages, they have no other reliable way of narrowing their search area without some other lead to follow.”

“So the way I see it,” the changeling concluded, “we have probably a day or so of safety we can spend in Vanhoover getting whatever we need to proceed before we really need to start worrying about ponies coming here looking for us, and when they do arrive, it will most likely just be a small party come to discreetly poke around for any clues, and not a big investigation force. If we continue to keep a low profile like we’ve been doing…I think we’ve got a good chance of not ever getting found by them here, or at least long enough to be able to move on to the next destination we choose to head for.”

Spike glanced between Thorax and his piece of wood of written notes for a moment, regarding both with surprise. “You’ve really thought this out,” he stated, impressed.

Thorax fidgeted with his hooves sheepishly. “When you’re a changeling, good risk assessment is an invaluable skill to have,” he explained simply.

“Okay, so we’ve got a few days at best to get our acts together,” Spike deduced. “How do we want to use them?”

“Well you said we should get as much supplies for a long journey as we feasibly can,” Thorax said, and pointed one hoof out at the cityscape outside the warehouse windows. “So I was thinking I’d go out real quick in disguise and do a bit of scouting…see what might be the best places to get some of these things.” He glanced back at Spike. “What sort of things should we prioritize?”

“Food and water primarily,” Spike responded immediately. He rubbed his chin for a moment. “We probably will want some basic camping gear too, light stuff we can carry easily…we should probably make a list, actually.”

“Tell you what then,” Thorax said, standing up, handing him his piece of chalk. “You stay here and put together the list while I go out scouting for places of potential interest to us for a couple of hours. When I get back, we can then work out how we want to proceed from there.”

Spike accepted the piece of chalk. “Sure,” he said. “But while you’re out doing that Thorax…” he hesitated. “…just…be careful you don’t get caught.”

Thorax put on the stallion disguise he had worn on the train ride here, but adjusted slightly so that the stallion was now a unicorn and bore a different cutie mark featuring a pair of books. He gave his dragon friend a soft grin. “So long as you do the same.”

Spike returned the grin. “You bet I will.”

Acorns

To go job hunting meant the two would have to disguise themselves again, and in doing so, they both agreed it’d be smartest to adjust their disguises as much as possible so to look different from the disguises they had used to leave the Crystal Empire with, in case someone there had indeed noticed them boarding the train they had departed on. For Thorax, adjusting the disguise was simple enough, as he merely took back on the same disguise of the dark grey stallion again, still tweaked to be a unicorn with the cutie mark of a pair of books, but further refined to be slightly taller, slightly leaner, and with slightly harder edges around his snout. Of these changes, Thorax admitted that he had selected them all at random except for the unicorn’s horn, as he was finding that disguising himself as a unicorn was more useful than disguised as an earth pony or pegasus because it enabled him to draw upon his magic at will without raising immediate suspicion.

Spike, however, had to work a bit harder adjusting his disguise. Of the elements he had worn before when leaving the Crystal Empire, he chose to keep only the fedora; he opted to lose the trench coat because in this warmer climate he figured he would only get hot under it. He was also going to forgo the sunglasses as well until Thorax took them with his magic and was able to magically remove the tinting on the lenses, making them appear as regular spectacles. Wearing them made Spike feel more confident at pretending to be a totally different dragon, and Thorax commented that they made the dragon seem more “intelligent,” so Spike ended up keeping them as well.

Then, to insure that Spike looked the part of an average citizen innocently looking for an earnest pay rather than some bum off the street like he feared they both were in danger of appearing as already, he also pulled out from his bag of disguises a thin white button-up shirt with a navy sweater vest to go over it. At the bottom of the bag he also found a maroon bow tie, the butterfly wing-like ends of which were decorated with three small diamond-shaped gems on each wing. It brought back bittersweet memories of life before his banishment immediately, as the bow tie had been a gift from Rarity, a mare Spike was growing increasingly certain he would not see again. But it was with that thought in mind that led him to choosing to wear the tie as well, completing the attire.

Thus, upon insuring they were straight on the aliases they had adopted for themselves—“Thornton” for Thorax and “Spark” for Spike—they then headed out into the streets of Vanhoover, looking for any jobs they could do to earn any amount of money at all. Because of their circumstances, Spike felt urged to not be particular about what sort of jobs they pursued, but knew they still needed to keep in mind their skillsets for the jobs they applied for. Spike, of course, had the skills of bookkeeping, organization, notetaking and transcriber, as well as some cooking and housekeeping, all of which were skills he had learned while growing up with Twilight, but he wasn’t confident of how well they’d apply to the sort of jobs he could hope to get. This was all complicated by Thorax’s skillsets however, which were notably less diverse than Spike’s as they included basically just general heavy-lifting and moving things around, common tasks within a changeling hive. Spike noted the changeling also had math skills, but according to Thorax, only at an intermediate level and doubted it’d be too applicable in a job specialized in the field. He also had language skills, being multilingual, but it quickly became clear that there didn’t seem to be much demand for such a thing in Vanhoover at present.

In fact, it quickly became clear that their greater problem was not that their skills were limited or select but that the job market in Vanhoover was choosey about whom they hired. Among the first jobs they tried were various restaurants operating in the area, but even when the two had enough qualifications to meet the job requirements, they were generally turned down simply because they had no actual previous experience working in a fast-paced restaurant. At other potential employers they found that other applicants would simply win out over them for a variety of minor reasons. Furthermore, most employers only needed to hire one new employee and not two, unable to take on both of them at the same time. In such events, the employers ironically showed immediate interest in Thorax who, thanks to his disguise, appeared as a common pony, whereas Spike, regardless of his own disguise was clearly not a pony, and the dragon quickly found that Vanhoover ponies, not adjusted to seeing a dragon wandering their streets, didn’t know what to expect from Spike and were more inclined to just not take the chance, despite Spike’s assurances that he would cause no trouble. So these employment offers quickly didn’t go far.

They weren’t interested in splitting up and taking separate jobs anyway, because that meant one would have to go work it on their own while the other did likewise somewhere else. Not only did that mean it would be harder for them to be able to keep track of each other, especially if trouble arose, Spike feared Thorax wouldn’t be prepared to operate on his own in this unfamiliar land of Equestria that the dragon had realized by now the changeling really only knew so much about, and Thorax likewise feared for Spike’s safety on his own, given their present circumstances. Nonetheless, even when they relented and attempted pursue jobs separately in hopes of bettering their chances they didn’t make much further progress, still facing many of the same problems plus some new ones. Thorax nearly got a job moving cargo at the Vanhoover docks but this crumbled upon learning that due to the circumstances of the job, Thorax wouldn’t be able to actually start until the following week, and likely wouldn’t get his first paycheck until the end of the current moon, too long for their needs as they needed the funds sooner. Spike also found a possible job as a junior clerk of a small business, but it fell through when the employer made it clear that he needed Spike needed to commit to staying at the job for up to half a year to be hired, and Spike knew he shouldn’t stay in Vanhoover that long with ponies possibly coming after him soon.

There was also the problem of some of the more reputable employers automatically disqualifying them upon learning that neither of them had resumes they could offer (which led to some initial confusion on Thorax’s part as the changeling had never heard of such a thing before now, and still seemed to struggle to understand why such a document was needed). These woes were then all topped by the fact that neither Spike or Thorax were familiar with Vanhoover and its job market, and the only surefire way they had to find potential jobs was to search for businesses that happened to have signs saying they were hiring. And they found these signs were sometimes not easy to find, as with some businesses, they learned from chatter with passersby on the street, didn’t even put up signs and instead advertised that they were hiring through other means the two didn’t have ready access to. And so, after spending the rest of the morning searching unsuccessfully, the two were getting frustrated and disheartened by the time noon rolled past.

“I didn’t think job hunting would be this hard,” Thorax murmured to Spike as their wandering led them into a city park.

“I didn’t either,” Spike confessed, who thought it would’ve been easy to find short-term work they could do to earn some quick bits. It was back in Ponyville at least, which only served to make the dragon homesick for the village he couldn’t return to. He stopped and sighed, surveying their surroundings. “I haven’t seen any other potential places to check for a little bit…have you?”

Thorax shook his disguised head sadly.

Spike took in a deep breath then let it out slowly again. “…let’s take a break, then,” he suggested. “Find someplace shady to sit and think about where we want to go from here…maybe rethink how we’re approaching this.”

“Can we get a drink too?” Thorax inquired, panting slightly. Spike noticed that his tongue was hanging out of his mouth perhaps a bit too far for a normal pony, and wondered suddenly if it might draw unwanted attention. “I’m parched.”

Spike looked around the park they were now roughly in the middle of. “I think I saw a drinking fountain around here somewhere…” he said, turning around to look for it. “…I don’t see it now though.”

“We’ll split up to look for it,” Thorax suggested, walking off in one direction. “This park’s not that big, it shouldn’t be too hard to find. Whoever finds it first can point the other to where it’s at.” He glanced back at Spike. “Maybe we’ll find another job offer to explore along the way.”

Though he doubted that at this point, Spike nodded and headed off in the opposite direction, looking for the drinking fountain. After only a few minutes of searching though, he found it located to one far side of the park. In comparison to the few other public outdoor drinking fountains Spike had seen in his time, most of them in Canterlot, it wasn’t an especially fancy fountain; it was composed of a small central column with a series of spouts poking out from both sides that dribbled out clear water at a steady rate. The water then collected into one of two small basins below the spouts, one hung lower than the other so foals could easily drink too. Spike stopped to get a drink, relieved to find the water was cool and fresh then proceeded to look for Thorax.

He at first waited at the fountain, thinking that Thorax would find it on his own soon enough. But when the disguised changeling didn’t appear, Spike decided not to wait any longer and, after taking note of the fountain’s location so he wouldn’t lose track of it again, he proceeded to go searching for his friend. When he didn’t immediately find Thorax, he started to worry that the changeling had found trouble, but instead was relieved to find Thorax standing amongst a small cluster of trees, and appeared instead to have simply become distracted.

“There you are,” Spike said as he strolled up to the camouflaged changeling. He jabbed a thumb in the direction of the fountain. “I found the drinking fountain.” He studied Thorax who was gazing up into the limbs of the trees surrounding him, a faint and calm smile on his face, and followed his gaze. “What are you doing anyway?”

“Shh,” Thorax shushed softly. “It’s an acorn grove.”

Spike blinked and studied the trees again. “Well, it’s certainly a group of oak trees,” he agreed, “but I don’t know if I’d call it a grove per se…”

“No, no, it’s…” Thorax interrupted, seeing Spike didn’t understand. He broke his reverent gaze from the trees and looked at his dragon friend, suddenly hesitant. “…you’d just laugh at this though.”

“I won’t laugh,” Spike promised.

“…you promise?”

“Cross my heart, hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye.”

Thorax raised an eyebrow. Spike shrugged.

“It’s a Pinkie Promise,” he explained. “You break it, and you’re likely to lose your friend.”

“FOREVER!” Pinkie Pie suddenly declared without any forewarning, startling Mrs. Cake as she stirred batter, nearly spilling it all over the floor of Sugarcube Corner. She gave her pink assistant a puzzled glare as Pinkie returned to decorating cupcakes as if nothing happened.

Not sure he understood, but satisfied as to the truthfulness of Spike’s promise, Thorax glanced around to make sure they weren’t at risk of being overheard, but the nearest ponies were a small gathering of foals playing kickball several yards away, nowhere near close enough to overhear. Certain of their privacy, the disguised changeling gazed up into the tree branches hanging over his head. “There’s a changeling legend,” Thorax began to explain solemnly. “It explains that, long ago, a very special acorn fell and began to grow, and from that plant sprang the first changelings.” The changeling in hiding respectfully studied the acorns hanging from the limbs of the surrounding oak trees. “It’s been said ever since then that acorns carry a sort of sacred…aura of wisdom, knowledge, and enlightenment. If a changeling surrounds themselves with that aura, it’s believed you can tap into some of that wisdom, and help be guided to where you need to be in life.” Beginning to see what this was all about, Spike let his gaze get drawn up into the tree limbs as well while Thorax continued. “Back at the hive, we have a whole acorn grove nearby, a sort of sacred place of sorts where we grow acorns and changelings can peacefully go to ponder and mediate. Some even pray. I’ve heard that even Queen Chrysalis routinely visits the grove. So when I saw this small acorn grove, I couldn’t help but stop and ponder. If anybody could use a little guidance right now, it’d be us.”

Spike stared up into the tree limbs for a long moment then glanced over at Thorax. “The first changelings grew from a plant?” he repeated with uncertainty.

Thorax grinned sheepishly and broke his gaze from the plants. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to push my beliefs onto you like that,” he apologized in good humor.

“No, no, it’s okay,” Spike said, returning his gaze up at the trees as he tried to maintain an open mind. “You’re not wrong after all…with how things have been going for us the past couple of days…I guess it couldn’t hurt.”

Thorax's grin grew in earnest and returned his gaze up to the tree limbs, silently ruminating. Spike did likewise, trying to clear his mind and, out of respect for Thorax, attempted to give this an honest try. For the first minute, the little dragon didn’t really notice anything significant. But gradually he began to be aware of the peaceful silence that had settled around them. A gentle breeze stirred the branches of the oak trees they stood among, and soon Spike had to concede that, if nothing else, it was indeed a very nice place to sit and think.

Then the breeze blew a forgotten newspaper into his face.

Thorax snorted as he attempted to suppress a laugh, ruining the moment, while Spike worked to pull the paper off his face. Holding it before him, he saw just what exactly had flown into his face with a frown. “Sheesh, at least it could’ve been the funnies,” he grumbled. “but no…”

“What page is it, then?” Thorax asked, curious.

Spike rotated the paper in his claws as he observed just what it was that he held. “The classifieds, actually,” he observed.

“The classifieds?”

“A portion of newspaper where ponies can have little ads printed in it. You know, things like yard sales, carriages for sale, and…” Spike blinked and gave the classifieds he was about to toss away before him renewed attention. “…job offers.” But then he frowned. “Aw, but these classifieds are probably days out of date.”

“Well, maybe not,” Thorax injected and pointed one of his masked hooves at the paper’s header. “Isn’t that today’s date?”

Spike blinked again as he realized the changeling was right. “But…” the dragon began, running the odds of such a lucky find in his head. “…you do realize how slim the chances of something so useful just getting blown to us like that are…right?”

The two exchanged glances for a moment. Then, grinning softly, Thorax returned his gaze to the limbs of the oak trees and the acorns hanging from them.

“Gratias balanis ago,” he murmured humbly aloud in his native tongue, before nudging Spike as he turned to leave, not questioning the event further. “C’mon. Show me where that drinking fountain is real quick, then we can head back to the warehouse to look those classifieds over in closer detail.”

Spike watched the changeling walk off, for a moment at a loss for words, before gazing up at the acorn-laden tree limbs himself. “Um…thank you,” he murmured aloud a little self-consciously. Then he caught himself. “I-I mean, gr—gratias tibi ago.”

He then scampered off to quickly catch up with Thorax, the oak limbs rustling in the breeze again as they departed.

Author's Note

A more light-hearted and world-building chapter today. We're getting into the more "slice of life" part of the story, so these will be getting more frequent.

On the subject of the acorns, this all stems from the MLP comics (for those that don't know) which in one issue explained the origin of the changelings comes from a rotten acorn that fell long ago and grew into this wicked and twisted-looking plant. When a well-intentioned Starswirl the Bearded nailed up a sign warning about the dangers of this plant, the plant broke open and freed the changelings from within...according to the comics. Since then, I've been debating about how much of this I'm actually supposed to treat as canon, especially with all that season six has explored about changelings, but this story did give me a sort of "creation myth" vibe, and I thought that, at the very least, it could serve as a neat basis for something of a belief system for changelings. So I made some adjustments to it (originally for another changeling-related fanfic I was planning, presented in greater detail than what I give here, but "To Where And Back Again" airing messed up my plans for that completely) and stuck it here.

And since I probably won't get another chance until after the weekend, merry Christmas and happy holidays to everybody. May your celebrations be peaceful, safe, and cheery. :pinkiehappy:

Fly Leaf

Once they had returned to the warehouse, the classifieds Spike and Thorax had recovered was studied in earnest and indeed quickly proved useful. For one thing, it enabled them to be able to go through and take stock what jobs they had already tried unsuccessfully and could rule out straightaway, as well as give them details about other job offers and be able to also rule them out when they were not qualified for them rather than blindly wasting time trying them without knowing in advance the full details about it. This helped to narrow down the list of jobs considerably.

More importantly though, it made them aware of a whole slew of new job offers they hadn’t previously been aware were even an option to them, and better still, precise addresses on where they could find them so to inquire about their candidacy. So after assessing their collected skills again and using them to determine which jobs they would be best qualified and thus had the best chances of getting, they circled and numbered them in order of which ones were most likely to be successful. That done, the disguised dragon and changeling set out yet again to try their luck once more at the job hunt.

The first three proved to be busts, the employers of the respective establishments deciding they were not interested in hiring either Thorax or Spike for whatever reason. A fourth had already filled the position offered and by now had sent notification to have their ad in the classifieds removed for tomorrow’s paper. By then, because these locations were scattered about the city of Vanhoover and it took some time to travel between them, it was well into late afternoon, and soon evening would begin to settle upon the city.

“We’re probably going to have to call it quits and head back for the warehouse to spend the night again soon,” Thorax observed aloud as he eyed the sun, sinking low as it neared the horizon. “We’ll have to try the rest in the morning.”

Spike winced at this, looking at address numbers on buildings as they walked down the more moderate-sized backroad lined with small businesses and still full of patrons wandering about. “The only problem with that is as more time goes by, the less likely these job offers are still going to be valid.”

“I know,” Thorax said, having had the same thought. The disguised changeling gazed vacantly down the city street. “But maybe we’ll get lucky at the next destination.”

“Well we’re going to know for certain shortly,” Spike announced, adjusting the false spectacles he wore as part of his disguise as he abruptly stopped. “Because I think this is the place.”

They stopped to stand before a humble and aging three-story townhouse-turned shop, the exterior lined with panels of stained wood. The displays of books clearly seen through the store’s front bay window positioned next to its front door made it clear what sort of wares the store specialized in, but nonetheless, a warmly-colored sign hung over the door made it especially beyond doubt.

“‘Fly Leaf’s Books and Stationery,’” Thorax said aloud, reading the sign. He looked the building over once more. “Well, it seems friendly enough.”

“I betcha it’s privately owned too,” Spike added. “So less worry about that silly corporate nonsense we’ve had to deal with at some of those other places we’ve tried today.”

Thorax pulled a face at the memory. “Think we’ve got a good chance, then?”

Spike crossed two of his claws for luck. “Only one way to find out. You ready?”

“As I’ll ever be.”

Jointly, the two on-the-run friends strolled on through the store’s front door, a service bell ringing cheerily as they opened the door. Inside, they found the store’s interior, decorated with the same stained wood paneling as the exterior, fairly quiet and empty. Shelves lined both of the side walls from floor to ceiling, filled with books of all types. Stout bookcases were arranged in an organized pattern across the middle of the room, also filled with books with more still stacked on top in tasteful arrangements, but there was also a group of bookcases filled with stationery supplies as promised on the store’s sign outside. The familiar sights and smells of all of this made Spike immediately long for Twilight’s library in Ponyville, but he pressed that thought out of his head as he and Thorax approached the store’s front desk and looked for the store’s proprietor.

The needed pony, however, did not seem to be present on the store’s sales floor currently. The back wall of the store offered two exits out of the room though. One was a staircase leading up to a higher floor, a sign hung next to it suggesting that there were more goods to be had upstairs. The other was blocked by a pair of batwing doors with another sign hanging over it that read “employees only.” Spike determined that the missing proprietor had to be though one of them.

“Hello?” he called aloud while Thorax continued to take in the store beside him, pulling off the saddlebags he had been carrying nearly all day and placing them by the front desk with his magic.

“Just a moment!” a friendly voice called out from another room. A second later, the batwing doors swung open and a pumpkin orange-colored middle-aged mare with a wavy mane hanging loosely about her head the color of vermilion poked her head out. An open book with the pages fluttering about served as her cutie mark. Immediately spying Spike and Thorax, she put on a welcoming grin and approached them. “Hello!” she greeted. “How can I help you?”

Spike held up their copy of the classifieds. “Well, we saw the ad in the paper that you’re hiring here and came to inquire about it,” he explained, a response that had become well-rehearsed by now.

“Oh good!” the earth pony said as she stepped up behind the front desk the two gathered at and offered one hoof to shake. “I’m the store’s owner, Fly Leaf.”

“I’m Spark,” Spike introduced as he shook the proffered hoof, giving the mare the alias he and Thorax had devised for himself. He motioned to the disguised changeling standing beside him. “And this is my friend and traveling companion Thornton.”

“How do you do, ma’am?” Thorax asked, taking the mare’s hoof to shake next.

“Oh please, there’s no need for any of that ‘ma’am’ business,” Fly Leaf said, waving off Thorax’s formality. “You can just call me Fly.” Still grinning, she then focused on the matter at hoof. “So, you’re both here about the assistant job, then? I was only looking to hire one, but…”

“That’s right, if you’ll have us,” Spike said, nodding. “It’s still available, right?”

“Oh yes, don’t worry about that, you’re the first to come in since the day before yesterday asking about it,” Fly remarked with a small frown. “Just haven’t been getting very many ponies interested in the job as there always seem to be some “better offer” somewhere else, so I’m frankly glad you’re here.” Her grin returned as she gave the two a curious glance. “Though I have to admit, you two seem to be an unlikely pair, a unicorn and a dragon…” As this hadn’t been the first time they had been told this during their job search and trying to explain it only seemed to complicate the matter, they chose not to comment. “…you said you were travelers?”

“That’s right,” Thorax said, jumping in to explain the cover story, not entirely fictional, that they had devised along the way during past interviews for jobs. “We joined forces when we became friends as I’ve been going about from destination to destination, observing interesting things along the way and now Spike comes along and helps by keeping company.”

“May I ask why two seemingly as young as you two chose to do that? Education? A greater career choice in mind?”

Thorax shook his head at both. “More just because we can, really. I mean, it’s out there, so why not, right?”

Fly grinned. “Why not indeed? So what brings you to a place like Vanhoover then?”

“More just passing through for the moment…we’re actually hoping to head out of Equestria to someplace like Griffonstone or further next.”

“The problem is that we’ve been left pretty much…broke at the moment after our more recent journey,” Spike continued with an apologetic grin. “So we’re trying to save up some more bits before we head off to our next destination.”

“Ah, so you’re probably not looking to stay long term,” Fly reasoned, nodding her head in understanding. “Well, it would be nice to get somepony that could stick around for a while, but I’m not picky either. I’ve taken on short-term help plenty of times before so I can more than accommodate that.” She folded her forehooves onto the surface of the front desk and leaned closer to the pair. “So I trust you two have a good idea of what the job would ask of you already, right?”

“I used to do volunteer work, of a sort, in a library before meeting Thornton,” Spike explained. “I imagine working in a bookstore can’t be too different from that.”

“And…I’m good at moving things and putting them away,” Thorax added uncertainly.

Fly considered this information for a moment. “Couple of questions,” she stated. “First off, do either of you know how to do bookkeeping?”

“I know some of the basics by association, actually,” Spike offered, remembering the times he had helped Twilight with budgeting, which naturally the bookish mare had always tended to go all out on. “Though I wouldn’t say I’m an expert…”

Fly grinned. “I’m not looking for one, just someone that I can share some of the workload with. And how about a cash register? Either of you know how to work one?”

Spike was more hesitant about this, wincing as he waved one set of claws side to side, expressing his uncertainty. Thorax, however, cautiously raised one hoof. “It’s just calculating out the total prices and the amount of money to give back to the customer if necessary, right? I know the math behind that, so I think I could do that…” he glanced at the cash register that sat next to Fly. “…though I might need a run through on what all the buttons do…”

Fly nodded to herself, again considering all of this. She seemed satisfied enough with what she heard thus far. “Noted,” she said, reaching under the desk to pull out some parchment and a quill. “So you two have any references or past job experience I should know about?”

Here Thorax and Spike turned worried and exchanged glances. This was usually where the job interviews started to go awry. “We’ll be honest with you Miss Fly,” Thorax confessed finally. “We don’t have any of that to give you, much less any formal documentation of it, beyond what we’ve already told you.” Almost belatedly, he added. “Because we’re travelers, see.”

“Sorry, we wish we did,” Spike added by way of apology, though he wasn’t sure it’d be of much aid. “If it helps though, we’re being truthful about what we can do, and we really are interested in doing the job and doing it as well as we can, if you’ll let us.”

It did give Fly a moment’s pause for the first time in the conversation, and she went quiet for a moment as she proceeded to study the pair again. “Curiouser and curiouser,” she murmured aloud. “I at least assume you’ve both had the usual basic educations for your age, right?” When they both nodded, she turned pensive for a moment, as if debating inwardly. Then to their surprise, she shrugged. “Well, you two seem to be genuine enough and young enough that I can certainly see why you wouldn’t have much other references to give yet, so we can come back to that,” she conceded, and proceeded to jot down some notes on her parchment. “Before we continue though, any questions you two have for me?”

Thorax and Spike exchanged glances quickly again, heartened by the fact that she was still willing to hear them out. “I actually do have one, yes,” Spike said, placing the classifieds on the front desk. “Your ad mentions ‘RB offered,’ but we weren’t sure what ‘RB’ means.”

“Oh, it just means I offer optional room and board with the job if anyone’s interested,” Fly explained dismissively without looking up.

Spike’s eyebrows rose at this, however. “Wait, really?” he asked, surprised.

Thorax, however, was still lost. “Room and board?” he repeated.

“Basically I offer lodging upstairs along with basic meals as part of the job,” Fly elaborated. “I always have as a courtesy. Call me old fashioned. The Vanhoover University students used to love that sort of deal, but of course these days, in order to accommodate the costs for providing it, I have to take the necessary money for the room and board out of the accompanying paycheck, resulting in somewhat less pay altogether, and most prospects that come in here lately haven’t been too attracted to that, so again, it’s only if you’re interested.” She looked up from the parchment she had been jotting notes down on. “Are you two saying you’re interested?”

“We just might actually,” Spike admitted, who couldn’t quite believe their luck. If they could land this job, this added benefit could actually help solve some of their other problems he had been worried about.

“Not even put off by the cut in pay that’d come with that?” Fly asked next, looking a bit surprised herself. It apparently wasn’t the sort of reaction she was used to.

Thorax made an almost apologetic grin. “We’d probably take any pay we can get at this point,” he admitted. He rubbed two of his disguised hooves together sheepishly. “It’s…been bit of a long day of nothing but rejections.”

Fly’s grin returned once more, and she nodded her head. “I hear what you’re saying,” she said in sympathy. “Job-wise, it’s not always the most forgiving of places, Vanhoover.” She stopped and studied the pair again, this time with a bit of sympathy in her gaze. “You two are…low on options…aren’t you?”

Thorax and Spike exchanged glances. “Is it really that obvious?” Spike asked with a wince.

“We don’t want to be a burden to you if that’s going to be a problem for you Miss Fly,” Thorax added. “I mean, you’re the one who would have the final say in all of this.”

“No, no, it’s fine,” Fly assured them, waving the matter aside. “Just making sure we’re all on the same page here is all.” She tilted her head. “I guess I just find the fact two so young, polite, and innocent being forced into this sort of desperation as…” she trailed off, her thought unfinished, but clear nonetheless. She then rapped one hoof on the desk and stood, her demeanor turning friendly again. “So you’re really interested in that room if I hire the pair of you, then?”

Spike, thankful for her segueing due to the sensitivity the subject had been veering towards, nodded eagerly. “It’d make things a little easier for us in the long run, so it seems like it’d be almost perfect for us.”

Fly snorted a chuckle at this, walking out from behind the front desk. “Well, at least let me show you the room first so you can see what you’d be getting yourself into before you go saying that,” she stated as she headed for the staircase leading upstairs, beckoning for the two to follow.

Trailing behind the store’s proprietor, they walked upstairs, past the building’s second floor (which as suspected was full of more of the shop’s wares for sell, the floor appearing to be almost entirely dedicated to stationery products), and on up to its uppermost third floor, the entrance to which was again marked as “employees only.” Here, up in what was virtually the attic spaces of the building, was a small hallway running roughly the length of the building’s horizontal width, broken by a smattering of doors leading to other rooms. The other doors presumably led to other living spaces and probable storage rooms, but Fly led them straight to the door that sat almost directly across from the staircase and opened it, motioning her potential employees inside to look.

“It’s really not much,” Fly explained as the two curiously began to look around. “As you can see, except for the desk and the wardrobe over there, it’s pretty much unfurnished.”

Clearly loft space that was subsequently converted into living accommodations after the fact as the ceiling opened up straight to the rafters and the far half slanted downwards partway, following the tilt of the building’s slanted roof, the room was decently sized. It had one dormer-style casement window on the far wall from the door that formed a small niche-like awning jutting out from the slanted wall surrounding it. A small window seat was placed directly under it, fitting neatly in the gap, with the seat padded with a worn but not-yet-frayed red cushion. The end wall to the right from the room’s entrance was lined with bookcases built into the wall, making two vertical stacks of presently-empty shelves, one stack shorter than the other so to accommodate the room’s slanting ceiling. Where the wall met the corner was another bookcase joining with but running perpendicular to the others. Immediately next to it was a small desk with a wooden stool serving as a seat for it, filling the gap of wall space between the bookcase and the door leading in and out of the room. By contrast however, the other, left side, of the room felt emptier, its wood-paneled walls bare and its floor vacant save for an old oak wardrobe closest, and another door leading into an another, attached, room.

Thorax poked his disguised head through this second door. “It does have what appears to me as an attached bathroom though,” he noted aloud, looking back at Spike.

Spike stepped over to peek as well and saw a medium-sized bathroom with just the basics; a sink, toilet, and set against the opposite wall, a clawfoot tub. “Well that’s pretty nice,” he noted aloud. He turned and glanced back at the room overall again. “Actually, it’s not a bad room altogether.”

“Sure beats the room I grew up in,” Thorax mumbled under his breath, shooting Spike a knowing grin, the disguised changeling no doubt thinking about life in the hive.

“I just figured I ought to at least show you two what the room was like before we went any further with any commitments,” Fly explained. “Because if the drop in pay to cover it doesn’t deter ponies, then it’s usually when they see that it’s just converted attic space and also unfurnished that turns them away.”

“Well, it is a little empty, and it’ll probably stay that way because it’s not like we have any furniture to fill it with…” Spike mumbled aloud.

“Because we’re travelers, see,” Thorax again reminded to Fly, overcompensating in fear Spike’s mumblings might arose suspicion.

But Fly didn’t seem to have any misgivings about the pair at all. When the sound of the store’s front door bell ringing as it opened downstairs echoed up, she readily motioned for them to keep looking around. “Sounds like I have a customer downstairs,” she explained in her usual friendly manner as she turned to exit. “So tell you what, while I go handle that, I’ll leave you two up here to think it over for a bit.”

She then departed. Once she was gone and well out of earshot, Spike looked to his friend. “So, what do you think?” he asked, motioning to the room.

Thorax gave it another look over. “Well, I’ll say this much; we’ve seem to have gotten further on this job hunting thing here than anywhere else today,” he remarked. He nodded his disguised grey head in the direction Fly Leaf has departed in. “I’ve been sensing puzzlement directed at us from Miss Fly, but also a sense of…optimism. She doesn’t seem to have any significant misgivings with us yet that I can see.”

Spike grinned. “It does seem like we’ve got a chance at least,” he agreed. He looked around the room once more. “And the job would come with room and board too. That covers both food for me and living space for the two of us, meaning we don’t have to find those things separately somewhere else.” His grin grew. “And it means we won’t have to stay in that pesky abandoned warehouse in the meantime.”

“The warehouse isn’t all that bad,” Thorax stated, turning and walking into one corner of the room as he continued to look around.

“Well, it’s got a good view, I’ll give it that much,” Spike said as he climbed into the window seat and peered out the window at the back alley below for a moment. He turned around again, sitting on the seat. “Still, we wouldn’t have furniture like a bed or anything here,” he noted aloud. He patted one set of claws on the cushioned window seat, finding it was decently soft. “I suppose one of us could use the window seat as a bed, but we aren’t both going to fit on this.” Spike pulled a face. “Trying that even if there was the space would be…awkward anyway.”

“Agreed, so you could have the window seat, and I’ll just sleep on the floor in a corner somewhere,” Thorax settled immediately.

“You sure?”

“Absolutely. Just give me something like a blanket to put under me and I’ll be fine. It’d be a bit like the mossy nests I slept in back at the hive.”

“Well, the room’s not ours just yet,” Spike reminded anyway as he jumped up again. “Fly Leaf hasn’t given the final word that we’re hired just yet. Wouldn’t surprise me if there are still a few things she might want to try and clear up about us first before she does, so this all could still go south.”

Thorax tilted his camouflaged head. “…why would we go south?” he asked, not understanding the phrase’s intended meaning.

Spike rolled his eyes. “Never mind,” he said. “I guess all we need to settle on for now is whether or not we want to tell Fly Leaf that we’re still interested.”

“I think I am still,” Thorax offered.

“And so am I,” Spike agreed. “So let’s go tell her and see where that takes us next.”

When they went back downstairs, they found that Fly Leaf had finished with the customer, who had already left, and was still straightening things up afterwards at the front desk. She looked up as they approached. “So, I gotta ask, you really still think you want the room and the job?” she inquired aloud but with a grin on her face, suggesting that it was more formality at this point.

“Yeah, we’d still like the job and the room and board offer, if you’re still willing to give them to us,” Spike responded as he and Thorax took up their original positions before the front desk.

“I thought so,” Fly said with a satisfied nod. “So I’ll tell you two what. Because you two only have so many references and work history you can give me, and I just want to make sure you’re both really up for the task, how about you both come in by eight in the morning tomorrow when I open, and I’ll let you two work a shift, as a sort of trial run so we can all get a feel on how this’ll work for everypony.”

Spike and Thorax, who had been expecting more inquiries about their work experience or past that they could only give so much about due to them being secretly banished and on the run, were surprised by the generous offer. “And if that goes well?” Thorax prompted.

“Then you’re hired,” Fly replied. She shrugged. “I think it’d only be fair after all. It’s not like I’ve got anybody else asking for the job at the moment anyway, and while I was only planning on one assistant, I won’t say no to two, and besides…you two strike me as a good team.”

Spike, reflecting back on the things the two had been through together the past couple of days, couldn’t help but grin ironically a little. “Well, we’ve gotten this far,” he admitted before, after having first turned to get quick confirmation from Thorax, nodding his head in agreement. “It’s a deal then, Miss Fly. We’ll be back tomorrow morning at eight.”

“I’ll see you two then,” Fly responded with a nod of her own.

The two turned to leave then, Thorax retrieving his saddlebags from where he had left them next to the front desk. “Bye,” he said with a wave of his disguised hoof as he and Spike slipped out the store’s front door again.

Fly returned the wave and then proceeded to watch the two walk off and on up the street through the front window of her establishment.

“Aw Fly, you big softie,” she sighed aloud to herself with a grin before turning to head back to work.

Author's Note

Slightly longer chapter than usual. I had tried to split it, merging part of it with what will be the next chapter, but they didn't mesh together well, so I decided not to split it.

Emotions

As the two outcasts passed the night again at the abandoned warehouse, they found themselves in good spirits. They knew they hadn’t secured the job and its benefits yet, but for the first time since they had been banished, they felt very optimistic that things were going their way.

“I still can’t believe our luck managing to find a possible job that’ll also offer room and board,” Spike said aloud, shaking his head in awe at the thought as he pulled out of Thorax’s saddlebags the leftover meal from their train ride to Vanhoover. He figured he’d better eat it now before much more time passed or it’d go bad, and either way, he felt like celebrating.

Thorax, having dropped his disguise and sitting nearby to the dragon as an orb of magical light he had cast lit their spot for them, looked more pensive. “I didn’t know that whole room and board thing was even done,” he confessed.

“And see, that’s the thing, it’s not,” Spike admitted to the changeling, digging into the cold, but still tasty, leftover au gratin potatoes. “At least, not like it used to be. Back in the day, it used to be a common practice in Equestria, especially among private stores like Miss Fly’s bookstore, but not so much anymore. Now it’s a dying practice. I know, because Twilight used to lament all the time about how it was fading out. She used to daydream about doing that, getting a room and board job in a bookstore or someplace to make a living in…until she came to Ponyville and got running a library all to herself instead, which I guess was even better for her. But the point is that it’s not so common now. That’s why Fly Leaf said she was ‘old-fashioned’ about it. Not many ponies bother with the room and board, at least not in fields and businesses like hers.”

“So we’re really unbelievably lucky finding her and her business then,” Thorax reasoned, rubbing his hole-riddled front hooves together in thought.

Spike chuckled, thinking back on the day in full. “Guess you were right about those acorns then,” he commented.

Thorax grinned back, watching the dragon munch with his solid blue eyes. “You seem to be in good spirits.”

Spike looked at the ground for a moment, still grinning but it had turned somewhat bittersweet. “It just feels like, for the first time since we were kicked out of the Crystal Empire, things are going…right for a change.” He poked his plastic fork at his meal. “The past couple days it’s just been like one thing going wrong after another, or feeling like I gotta sleep with one eye open or keep looking behind my back, or the trouble we’re both fleeing from will jump us and make things worse. Living in fear of what the future might bring…if we can still keep ourselves safe…fed…taken care of…” he let out a shuddering sigh almost of relief. “But not now. If things work out tomorrow like we hope…and maybe it’s premature of me to do so but I can’t help but feel confident that it will…then I won’t feel like that quite so much, that we can rest easy. It feels like a great weight has been pulled off my shoulders, and it feels wonderful.” He then chuckled. “Besides,” he continued as he adopted a more teasing tone, returning to his meal. “If things do work out tomorrow, then I’ll get to live the dream life Twilight always wanted but never quite got, which would serve her right.”

He took a bite of his meal, looking at Thorax for a beat, grinning, before the realization of what he just said sank in. “Wow,” he murmured, surprised at himself. “I’m rubbing in that of all things? That’s kind of…petty, actually.”

Thorax had adopted a serious expression. “You felt hurt by Princess Twilight’s role in your becoming cast out,” the changeling pointed out simply, having noticed this in Spike well before now. “So your first instinct is to sort of…lash back in some attempt to try and get even in some way…any way.”

Spike chewed thoughtfully for a moment. “Can you blame me?” he asked softly for a moment, his former cheer suddenly melting away as he thought back about the ponies he had once trusted in but now felt had all but betrayed him.

A morbid moment of silence fell between the pair.

“I’m probably like an open book to you, aren’t I?” Spike reasoned aloud.

Thorax glanced at him, his soft blue eyes conveying confusion. “How do you mean?”

“Well…your thing is emotions. You feed on it…taste it…heck, you can even smell it somehow. You probably can tell exactly how I’m feeling, what my mood is, at any given time.”

Thorax’s gaze wandered off the dragon, pondering the question. “It’s not so simple as that,” he admitted to his dragon friend. “I don’t think you realize just how much a flurry of emotions you, or anyone for that matter, can be at any time.” He fiddled with his hooves for a moment. “Ponies think the best way to hide their thoughts and feelings is to not show any emotions at all…but from my point of view, the better way is to show as much as you can, because then they all overlap and muddle together, and for a changeling like me at least, that’s very confusing. It’s difficult to pick out which one is key, the one core emotion you should associate with whoever it is that is demonstrating it. The one that has the real meaning for the moment. Plus, emotion doesn’t necessarily reflect one’s intents or thoughts. Someone might be feeling sad and driven to tears when thinking about what would be seen as a happy thought, for instance.”

Spike pondered this for a long moment. He then asked the question he wasn’t sure he actually wanted answered. “What sort of emotions am I feeling right now?”

Thorax hesitated to respond for a long moment, looking at Spike with a look that was silently asking if it would really be wise for him to answer that. But finally he gazed at his hooves, collecting his thoughts. “Joy,” he listed off at first, starting with the positive. “Love. Kindness. Optimism.” He glanced up at Spike with an almost apologetic look before continuing. “Frustration. Rejection. Fear. Sadness. Anger. Hatred.” A pause as Thorax debated to himself before finishing the list. “…and loneliness.”

Spike was silent for a very long moment afterwards. He snuffled his nose and wiped at it with the back of his arm. “All that at once, huh?”

Thorax shrugged. “To be fair, some are far greater in strength than others which are more…whispers…at the moment…and some sort of…pulse…over time.” But then he nodded. “But yes. They’re there. All at once.”

Spike thought about that telling thought for a second. “Huh.”

“You have to keep in mind that emotions are raw and in the moment though,” Thorax continued. “And they certainly don’t determine anyone by their presence alone.”

“I just hadn’t realized some of them were even there right now,” Spike confessed. He let out a shuddering sigh. “Sort of…humbling, in a way.”

Thorax made a comforting smile. “Don’t get too focused on them, though,” he advised by way of reminder. “As I said, it should be your actions that define you, not your emotions.” He paused then added, “Besides, you have a lot on your mind right now so…some of them are understandable for you to be feeling right now.”

Spike went quiet again as he stared at his meal, not having taken a new bite of it in a while. “What are you feeling right now, Thorax?” he asked suddenly.

The changeling was caught off guard by the question, and momentarily was unsure how to answer. “It’s a bit harder for me,” he admitted finally. “I’m less aware of my own emotions than those around me. It’s more just background noise that you learn to…tune out.” He considered the question a moment longer. “But I suppose I feel not dissimilar to you for the most part.”

Knowing some of the things that were making himself feel like he was, this got Spike thinking. “Back in your hive,” he began. “Did you have to leave behind any fellow changelings behind that were close to you? Family? Friends? Well not friends, or you wouldn’t be out here in the first place…but…you know, things like that.”

“Sort of…we don’t really socialize with each other in the same way. In the hive, you interact with someone when needed, like to ask a question, or help complete a task, or receive instruction on what to do. Beyond that…you’re left to yourself most of the time. So I didn’t really have any of that to worry about when I left the hive. That was part of the point, actually.” He waved one hoof vaguely about himself. “I see these ponies of Equestria and all their families and friendships, and I can’t help but think how we changelings don’t have anything like that…and I think we’re the worse off because of it. Equestria has something we don’t. Something important. And I would love to be able to bring that back to the hive and show the other changelings that maybe we should be like that too. Make them see the benefits of that way of life.” He then shook his head. “No, the only thing I remember really bothering me greatly was the fact that I left the hive very consciously aware I was also betraying my queen.”

Spike nodded his head. “Queen Chrysalis,” he murmured.

Thorax nodded back. “But even for her I can only find so much concern. There are times when she means well, of course. Times when you can see that really does want the best for the hive and its future. But Queen Chrysalis…is not a forgiving queen. She likes to hold grudges. Long grudges. And sometimes about things that, in the long run, seem more insignificant. So I admit, there are times where I feel like any grief my betraying the hive gives her just…serves her right.”

Spike gazed at Thorax in sympathy. “That sounds…miserable.”

Thorax nodded sadly for a moment, but then he abruptly looked up at Spike and grinned. “But you know what? Despite everything, and being on the run as a banished outcast in both my hive and Equestria…in some ways I’m more…pleased with life now than I ever was before.” His grin grew. “At the very least, I’ve got you as a friend. Couldn’t ever claim that before now.”

Spike grinned too. “No, I suppose you couldn’t.”

They were silent for a moment again, Spike finally returning to his meal to finally finish it off. Thorax yawned suddenly. “Well, not much point dwelling on all this gloomy stuff right now anyway,” he muttered then nodded to Spike. “Since we need to be up early, I’m going to call it an early night.” Pulling out his cloak and wrapping it around him like a sort of nest, he started to settle down, curling up into a ball. “Good night, Spike.”

Spike watched his friend settle down as the changeling let their magical light go out. “Good night, Thorax.”

Author's Note

So this chapter just came about from me sitting down and just writing, got off on a bit of a tangent, but it all somehow works out anyway. I like the points I was able to convey with this chapter.

Embittered

It had been the last time he and Twilight had privately conversed in depth before he and Thorax were cast out of the Crystal Empire.

Twilight had to spend several minutes pacing in the adjacent corridor where she thought she couldn’t be seen before she finally came to stand before the prison cell in the Crystal Castle’s dungeons. Sitting cross-legged on the floor with his arms folded inside the cell, Spike looked back at her with a look that was part sullen and part cross. There was a lot he could say, but he waited for the clearly concerned alicorn to speak first.

Frazzled and upset, Twilight ran a hoof through her mane, trying to find a way to voice her thoughts. “I—I don’t even know where to begin,” she admitted finally, almost in defeat.

Spike ignored her statement. “Where’s Thorax?” he asked.

Twilight frowned. “Never you mind where the changeling’s at.”

Spike’s eyes narrowed slightly, showing he wasn’t going to accept that answer. “Twilight…please.”

Twilight was silent for a moment longer, but finally her resolve caved. “He’s being kept somewhere separate for now,” she explained simply. “I can’t tell you where, though…” she bit her lip. “…for fear of what you might try and do now if you did.”

Spike didn’t respond, but nonetheless satisfied with that answer he sighed and looked down at the floor.

Twilight, however, was still trying to figure out where to begin, shaking her head with worry and fear as she pressed one hoof to her lips in concern. “I really can’t believe it, Spike,” she stated. “You’ve stunned everyone with this. Starlight’s floored…Cadance is upset…Shining’s beside himself…and I’m…” She continued to shake her head, feeling tears starting to prickle in her eyes. “…why did you do it, Spike?”

Spike heaved a mighty sigh. “Because I had to,” he stated plainly.

“Because you had to?”

“Fine, because I felt I needed to,” Spike amended.

“That’s not much better, Spike!” Twilight declared. “Do you even realize what it is that you’ve done? You broke a convicted enemy out of jail, attempted to aide him in his escape behind our backs, and you assaulted three of the royal guards in the process! Spike, those are criminal charges!”

“Hey, I only knocked out one guard, the one guarding Thorax’s cell!” Spike objected. “The one that had been watching over me I simply tricked and locked into a room and Shining Armor caught me before I could really do anything to the third one!”

“Spike!” Twilight exclaimed. “This is serious! You realize this has worsened every single thing about this situation, and it’s thrown you right into the thick of it!”

“I know!” Spike hollered back, rising to his feet suddenly. “But I wish I hadn’t felt like I didn’t have a choice but to do it! I’m sorry ponies were hurt because of it and it probably was stupid and reckless of me to do and has only made things worse, but Twilight, what did you expect me to do? You were threatening to kick him out into the frozen wastes with nothing and I…” his tone dropped suddenly, turning soft and apologetic. “…I panicked. Twilight, I just wanted to make sure Thorax stayed safe…that’s all.”

“And you thought all of this was the way to do it?!” Twilight exclaimed, ludicrous now. “Why is that changeling so important to you anyway that you’ll put his well-being before everypony else’s?”

“Because he’s my friend, and right now everypony else isn’t even bothering to give him the same courtesy,” Spike responded strongly, resolute. “And because he’s a good changeling. But I’m done arguing with you about it because it’s clear you just won’t listen! And I wish I knew why, but we’ve spent all day arguing about this going nowhere but in circles and I’m tired of it! So I’m not doing this anymore! Just…whatever it is you want to say, stop beating about and just say it and get it over with already!”

Twilight was silent for a long moment, before taking a deep breath and relenting. “Spike, there’s no such thing as a good changeling,” she stated plainly, evenly, and above all, firmly. “You’re trying to sympathize with something that can only mean to do us all harm.”

Spike’s expression turned sad at this, and he slowly approached the row of metal bars that divided him from her. “I’m sorry then Twilight,” he said. “But you’re wrong. I wish I could get you to see that…but I’ve run out of ideas on how to do it.” He voice cracked as his emotions started to surface. “Nothing else has worked.” He sank to the floor, turning distraught.

Twilight looked at him sadly. “Spike, please,” she pleaded. “End this. Let the changeling go…before more harm is done…before you end up doing something you’ll really regret.”

Spike folded his arms around his knees and rested his head atop them, sniffling. “…I can’t Twi. It wouldn’t be right. And as hard as it’d be…I gotta stand up for the moral high ground here.” He took a deep breath. “Right now…all I have left to hope for is that the rest of you will do something to stop before you’re the ones to end up doing something you’ll regret…if you haven’t done it already, that is.”

Tears were starting to seep out of the corners of Twilight’s eyes. “Please Spike…” she pleaded again, desperate. “You’re starting to go down a path I just can’t follow you on…not this time. And if you continue down it…” she trailed off, unable to bring herself to say it.

Spike made a weak chuckle. “You know, despite everything Twilight…” he began, looking back up at her with a small grin. “…I just know you’re smart enough to not let that happen.”

Twilight merely looked back at him, trying to keep a calm face but gradually failing. “Spike, I need to know,” she said. A flicker of fear flashed in her eyes but she otherwise looked Spike hard in the eye. “If you had to pick, right now…whose side are you ultimately with? Our side…or the side of the changeling?”

Spike stared back at her. “The right side.”

“Which is?”

“…please don’t make me do this, Twilight…”

“Which side, Spike?”

“Since you’re not going to listen to me or give me much alternative, I don’t really have a choice!”

“Which side, Sp—”

“THORAX’S SIDE!”

A long moment of bitter silence fell.

“…the changeling’s side?” Twilight repeated slowly, softly, wanting to be sure but fearing the answer.

Spike sighed, and sadly nodded his head. “I have to, Twilight.”

“…why, Spike?”

“Because like I said, I’m trying to defend a friend I’ve made.” He looked her forlornly but seriously in the eye. “Like you taught me to. And if that really means I have to make an enemy of you to do it, even if I don’t want to…then I’ll do it. Because it’s still the right thing to do. Otherwise I’d just be abandoning that friend. And changeling or not…that’s wrong. Especially when I know he’s done nothing wrong to deserve it.”

Twilight was silent for a long moment, looking unsure what to say. She swallowed uncomfortably. “There’s nothing I can say that’s going to sway you from that…is there?”

Spike looked at her sadly for a long moment as he gave the question some serious thought. But he still nodded his head in the end. “Yeah.”

Twilight closed her eyes for a long moment. She nodded her head slowly. “Okay,” she said in a sorrowful whisper.

“Twilight…” Spike then went on after a momentary pause. “…whatever happens next…promise me that you’ll keep it from ending badly…that whatever you do…you’ll still do what you’ve got to know, deep down, is the right thing to do.”

Now openly crying, Twilight placed one hoof on the bars of Spike’s cell. “Yes Spike…” she agreed between sobs. “…whatever I do…it’ll be the right thing to do.”

This cheered Spike greatly. “I’m glad to hear that,” he said softly.

Twilight, however, was biting her lip as she finally turned to go, saying one final thing that puzzled Spike. “…don’t thank me yet.”

At least it puzzled Spike then at that time. But now, mere days later as Spike lay on his back staring up at the ceiling of the abandoned warehouse while reflecting back on the memory of this event, sleep lost on him, the unspoken meaning behind Twilight’s words was suddenly clear to him. Sitting up as if in a daze, he glanced around the empty warehouse, only faintly lit as it was still some time before sunrise, and confirmed that Thorax, curled up in a ball with his cloak still wrapped around him nearby, appeared to be asleep still. Finding no will to try and go back to sleep himself though, Spike rose and wandered over to where the large crate sitting next to the warehouse windows was.

As the crate was taller than he was, it took some work to get up on top of it, but he eventually succeeded and once there, he simply sat there and stared out the windows at the dim view of the Vanhoover cityscape, dwelling on his misgivings, and occasionally being driven to tears. He wasn’t sitting there for terribly long, however, when he heard the drone of Thorax’s wings approaching.

“What’s wrong, Spike?” the changeling asked, clearly not as asleep as first thought as he flew up and landed on the crate with Spike.

“Oh nothing,” Spike remarked, quickly wiping his eyes and standing, turning to face his fellow exile with a forced smile on his face. “Just couldn’t sleep. Sorry if I woke you up.” He moved to the edge of the crate so to begin climbing down. “But since we’re both up now, we might as well…”

But Thorax abruptly stopped him, blocking the dragon with one hoof and looked the dragon seriously in the eye. “Spike,” he said repeated firmly. “What’s wrong?”

Spike bit his lip and hesitated to respond, avoiding eye contact.

“I know I said last night that being a changeling didn’t guarantee me reliably knowing what you’re feeling all the time,” Thorax continued. “But right now you’re giving off waves of sadness in droves.”

Spike closed his eyes and made a sorrowful sigh. “I realized why she let me go and join you in banishment, Thorax,” he finally confessed.

It occurred to him that he hadn’t given Thorax any frame of reference of whom he was speaking of, but the changeling seemed to know anyway. “Why?” he asked simply, prompting the dragon to keep going.

Spike squeezed his closed eyes tighter. “Because from her point of view…I had made myself seem like a lost cause. She wasn’t going to let herself trust you or see you as anything but an enemy, and thought that if I kept siding myself with you…I was only going to become an enemy in the end too. She didn’t want that, of course, and she tried valiantly to talk me out of it. But what I didn’t notice then was that she saw what looked to her as me going down a dark path, and she couldn’t bring herself to follow me…and she’s a princess…she knows she has the safety of Equestria to look after…so when I made it clear I wouldn’t abandon you Thorax she…she let herself be talked into believing letting me go with you was the safest thing to do…or else I was just going to be a threat.” He snorted suddenly, his sorrow suddenly turning into anger. “She was being blinded though, why couldn’t she JUST—” Spike cut himself short and shook his head, pulling away from Thorax as he worked to stuff the storm of emotions back down within him. “Sorry, I-I don’t mean to vent, and we don’t have time for that, not when we…”

But Thorax suddenly cut him short by putting a hoof to the dragon’s mouth, shaking his head slowly. “Bottling it up won’t change it either,” he stated seriously. He then picked up the surprised dragon in his hooves and flew him back to the center of the warehouse, gently placing him down on the floor, before walking around the puzzled dragon to face him again. “I’m going out to relieve myself,” he announced in an almost unnecessarily formal manner. “I’ll have to leave you alone in here for a few minutes while I do that…okay?”

Spike gaped at him, not entirely sure he was following the changeling’s intent behind all of this. “Oh…kay?”

Satisfied with that, Thorax nodded his head and turned and walked matter-of-factly towards the warehouse exit. Opening the door to slip out, he paused once to look back at the dragon with an almost sorrowful look, before vanishing outside, the door closing behind him, leaving Spike alone inside, and left to his own devices.

Thorax actually did have a genuine need to relieve himself, and took the time upon exiting the warehouse to wander over to a nearby empty lot, overgrown with all sorts of wild plant life that offered plenty of privacy, to do his business. He did so while undisguised, as he couldn’t relieve himself while also maintaining a disguise, but it was still early enough and dark enough that he had little fear of being noticed, and disguised himself properly as soon as he was done. It didn’t take long for him to finish, but he was in no hurry to return straight to the warehouse afterwards. Instead, he milled about outside for several minutes, waiting on up to a half-hour, keeping an eye on the warehouse from afar in hopes Spike would take advantage of the moment as he hoped. He saw little activity or noise come from the warehouse though, and so when he finally returned to the warehouse, he feared he would find Spike had done little to enact upon the opportunity.

Instead, though, he reentered the warehouse to find things in disarray, one of the old tarps Thorax had found their first night having been dragged out and, with apparent fury, violently whipped about before finally getting aggressively ripped to shreds, the tattered remains being left strewn everywhere. Sitting in the middle of the mess was Spike, kneeling on the floor. His eyes were tear-streaked, and his claws were scuffed from his display of fury, but now the little dragon, fully vented of his pent-up frustrations, just sat there calmly and forlornly staring at the mess he had made in stunned shame.

Thorax trotted up to him and quietly laid down onto his belly beside him. “Feeling better?” he asked softly.

Spike nodded his head slowly. He snuffled and wiped his nose with the back of his claws quickly. “How did you know?” he asked quietly.

Thorax gazed down at the ruined tarp strung about them. “It’s been pretty obvious for a while now,” he said. He looked back at Spike. “I’ve told you that changelings feed on positive emotions. But we’re also capable of feeding on negative emotions like anger, rage, and hatred too…it’s just not healthy to do so.” He nudged his way a little closer to the dragon. “We call changelings that do this Irritati, or the Embittered, because feeding on such negative emotions sort of…poisons them over time. They become addicted to it, and are viable to become more unstable both emotionally and mentally as well as becoming very irrationally aggressive or violent. They end up only hurting themselves in the end, in addition to changelings around them.” He put a holed hoof on Spike’s chest. “You’re not a changeling…but bottling up your own anger and hatred like that was poisoning you too, and if you keep doing it, you’re going to end up hurting yourself too…in ways far more painful than any physical injury.”

Spike nodded to himself. “Well, in that case…I’m deciding something,” he said simply.

“What?”

Spike looked at Thorax. “I’m moving on. Whatever happened when we were banished…it’s already happened, done, and in the past. We can’t do anything to change it now…so there’s not much point in dwelling on it. It’s obviously not doing me any favors at least. So I’m no longer looking back. That chapter of my life is over. All that matters now is where we’re going to go from here on, and work at making a good future for ourselves, whatever that entails of us.”

Thorax grinned slightly and patted the dragon on the back as he stood. “Shall we go get started then?”

Spike grinned himself and stood as well, feeling free from his bitter emotions of old. “Yeah, let’s do that.”

Author's Note

To give you an idea how much of a buffer of completed chapters I had complied, this was the first chapter I began writing after I first started posting this story on FIMFiction, and it was written very much in response to input I was getting from you readers at the time. It's my hope it clears up a bit better a few fuzzy spots in the story's premise, while also furthering the story forwards, while also conveying just where Spike stands on all of this personally...and just how deeply it's cut him.

The First Night

Fly Leaf permitted both of them to go gather their things and settle into the room that came with their newfound employment that same evening, and so the two disguised outcasts eagerly returned to the abandoned warehouse they had been staying in for the final time to make preparations. As they really had quite little, it didn’t take long. After Spike had a light dinner of the berries Thorax had scavenged for him the other day (and only light, because he could only tolerate so much of the bitter fruit, no matter how hungry he might be) and some tidying up of the warehouse in hopes to minimize any evidence they had ever been here just in case, the two gathered what few things they had, confirmed their respective disguises as Thornton and Spark were still in place, and departed for Fly Leaf’s book and stationery store.

By the time they returned to the shop, Fly Leaf was already in the process of closing up for the evening. Thus, considering her two new employees done for the day, she cheerily waved them on up to the room. “You already know where the room is,” she reminded.

So they promptly took their things up into the little room upstairs, and upon closing the door behind them, they both stood there and savored their small reward in silence for a moment.

Spike took a deep breath, grinning. “It’ll be nice to have a proper place to sleep tonight,” he mused.

Thorax however, still disguised, was eyeing the room’s only window, realizing something he had overlooked before. “We should probably think about getting some curtains for that window then,” he observed, pointing a disguised hoof in its direction. “So to insure privacy. We are technically still on the run, and I don’t really want to have to wear my disguise perpetually even here.”

“Good point,” Spike remarked, considering the problem for a moment. He pulled out his trench coat from his bag of disguises and climbed up onto the window seat to drape it over the window, covering it up. “That better?”

“Much,” Thorax said, and promptly dropped his disguise with a flash of cyan, stretching his natural changeling body afterwards as if it had gotten cramped under the disguise.

Spike sat himself down on the window seat and proceeded with the task of determining where to stash their things for the time being. “Well, I think today’s been a rousing success,” he noted aloud as he did this.

Thorax nodded in agreement, turned around as he took in the room again. “Modest though it is, we really were lucky to get all of this,” he said. “I’ll be sorry when it’s time to leave and move on to the next destination again…I think I’m going to like it here…” he got a faraway look for a moment. “…it feels safe here.”

Spike looked around the room they now had to themselves. “It does,” he agreed, though he was cautious to tell himself not to get too attached; they were only staying here temporarily until they had gathered enough supplies to leave Equestria entirely. “Also, we’ve got a paying job to back it up, and going from what we did today, it’s decent enough.”

“Yeah, and it’s great helping customers here,” Thorax remarked wistfully as he pulled out his cloak and selected a corner opposite the window seat to mark out a sleeping area for himself. “When you successfully help them, they’re always so thankful and cheery afterwards. So much positive amor in the air…it’s like a continuous free meal for me!”

Spike chuckled at the changeling’s glee. “Well, I wouldn’t go telling the customers that,” he said, who could only imagine how they’d react if they knew the dark grey stallion with the light blue mane giving them their change was actually a changeling. “But you’re right. It really hasn’t been too bad, and it’s great to be able to be doing something…productive for a change again. Actually, the work reminds a little of…” he thought back to the days when he’d help Twilight organize books in her library, work not dissimilar to what he was doing here, and was surprised at how much he missed it. “…better times.” He shook his head, pushing the thought from his mind. “Anyway, here’s to us making our own better times now.”

“Hear, hear!” Thorax agreed with a grin, raising one of his holed hooves in a mock toast then, chuckling, the two resumed getting settled into their new living quarters.

One of the first things Spike did after that was to make use of the room’s attached bathroom to take what felt like a far overdue hot bath. Finding some soap in a cupboard under the bathroom sink, either provided as a courtesy by Fly Leaf or left behind by whoever had been the room’s previous occupant but whichever it was Spike wasn’t questioning it, the dragon made use of it to give himself a good cleaning. He was relieved to find that he didn’t appear to be anywhere near as dirty has he had feared he had gotten during his time as an outcast thus far, but nonetheless the scrubbing felt rejuvenating and he knew he had probably needed it either way. He had frequently worried while working today if he was getting…malodorous…and just couldn’t tell, being adjusted to it.

As such, when he completed the bath, he urged Thorax to take one as well, because although the changeling seemed fine, he figured it would be better to play it safe. Curiously though, Thorax didn’t seem particularly eager to take a bath and at first attempted to shirk it. He finally relented when Spike persisted and listed the reasons why, but the changeling insisted he do so in complete and total privacy. Spike was more than happy to comply—it was a bath after all—but found Thorax was serious about it; once the changeling had started to bathe, he wouldn’t let Spike open the door even just a crack for any reason, even when Spike just wanted at the bathroom sink for a quick moment to wet a rag to wipe down some of the shelves in the room that he found had gathered dust. Even when Spike suggested Thorax draw the shower curtain that surrounded the clawfoot bathtub to hide behind, the changeling would not be swayed. No one was allowed to enter until the changeling had both finished bathing and had taken the time to properly dry off at the very least.

Assuming it was some changeling habit that was behind this behavior, Spike decided not to fight the matter and, donning his outfit and disguise again (save for the fedora, which he decided earlier in the day was silly to wear indoors), wandered downstairs in search of another sink to wet his rag with. He had learned by this point that the building contained three bathrooms after all, one on each of its three floors. There was the private bathroom attached to Thorax and Spike’s room on the third floor, then another on the second floor that was cleverly split so that the toilet and sink was free for public use by customers while keeping the bathtub it contained barred off for private use, presumably by Fly Leaf after hours. A third smaller one was on the first floor far in the back near the entrance that led to the building’s back ally porch, but it only contained a toilet and sink with no bathtub. Spike only needed a sink though, and proceeded to the second floor’s sink to use.

Unfortunately, when he went to use it, the knob came off in his claws without turning on the water. Surprised and annoyed by this turn of events, he went down another floor with the knob still in his claws to find Fly Leaf, so to alert her of the problem. He sought her through the double batwing doors that separated the shop’s front room from the back where Fly Leaf’s private living part of the building was, leading straight into a small and aging, but tidy, kitchen with white-washed walls. Here he found Fly Leaf working on a simple dinner, and promptly showed her the sink knob that had come off in his claws.

Fly Leaf didn’t need much explanation to know what happened. “Again?” she bemoaned as she took the knob from Spike. “That’s the third time this past moon! I thought for sure I had it fixed so it wouldn’t do that again!”

“Maybe you should send for a plumber,” Spike suggested as he decided, while he was here, to use the kitchen sink to wet his rag finally.

“I did, after the second time it broke,” Fly Leaf bemoaned. She glared at the knob in her hoof. “Obviously, the plumber didn’t help.”

Spike shrugged, wringing out the excess water from his rag. “Send for a different plumber this time then,” he suggested next.

“Either that or just break down and replace the whole confounded faucet,” Fly Leaf grumbled. She shook her head and changed the subject, turning to Spike. “So why were you in the second floor bathroom anyway?”

“Thornton’s taking a bath in the third floor bathroom and wouldn’t let me in long enough to wet a rag so I could clean some of the shelves in our room,” Spike explained, turning to face Fly.

“Guy really likes his privacy, huh?”

“Something like that, I guess.”

“Well, while you’re down here, I might as well run you through how meals are going to work around here, seeing I don’t think I’ve done that yet,” Fly explained, leaning on the kitchen counter. “Like we talked before, basic meals come with the room and board part of your employment, so basically at mealtime, you’re pretty much free, within reason of course, to whatever you can find in here to eat.” She motioned vaguely to the kitchen surrounding them. “You’re free to get your own food and prepare it in here if you want too, if you decide you don’t want anything I have in here.”

“We’ll keep that in mind then, Fly,” Spike said with a nod, turning to leave.

“Have either of you had anything for dinner yet, by the way?” Fly asked curiously as she watched him head for the batwing doors leading out. “Because I’m happy to give you two something to munch on if not.”

“Yeah, we got a bite before bringing our stuff here,” Spike explained, pausing at the doors. He figured Thorax wouldn’t be interested anyway since solid foods didn’t give him much nourishment. But then his own stomach reminded him that the berries he had eaten weren’t very filling, so he added, “…but I guess I could go for something light to nibble on, since you’re offering.”

Fly grinned and tossed him a roll from a bread box she had opened next to her. “Give a shout if either of you need anything else, though,” she said.

“Will do,” Spike agreed, biting into the tasty roll as he exited and went back upstairs.

When Thorax finished with his bath finally and Spike satisfied with the state of the shelves now (even though they didn’t have much to put on them), they both agreed to call it a night as it was starting to get late now and Fly Leaf wanted them both up and awake, ready for work, by the same time in the morning. With Spike settled down on the window seat to use as a makeshift bed and Thorax settled down on the improvised “nest” (as Thorax called it) he had made from his cloak in the corner, the two friends bid each other goodnight and went to sleep. Spike had been deeply asleep a couple of hours when Thorax suddenly shook him awake again.

“Huh?” Spike sleepily murmured, struggling to keep his eyes open as he rolled over to look at the changeling anxiously standing over him, fidgeting to himself. “…something wrong Thorax? It’s really late.”

“Uh, yeah…” Thorax began, averting his gaze as if embarrassed and unsure how to explain. “It’s just…I need to, um, use the restroom.”

Spike stared at him blankly for a moment, noticing Thorax’s fidgeting did look like the changeling really needed to go. “Well, you know where it is,” he said, and pointed in the general direction of the room’s adjoining bathroom, not understanding why the changeling needed to wake him up for this.

“Ah, yeah, well…see, that’s the problem,” Thorax struggled to explain. He grimaced as he tried to keep himself from fidgeting and looked at Spike. “…promise not to laugh?”

“Thorax, I’m literally too tired to laugh right now,” Spike assured him, propping himself up. “So what’s the problem?”

“…I’ve never actually used an Equestrian toilet before now.”

Spike just stared at him sleepily and blankly for a long moment. “’Kay…” he murmured slowly. “…so?”

“Well, it’s just…I’m realizing now that I’m not…entirely sure how it’s supposed to…you know…work.”

Spike stared at him for another moment, before closing his eyes and sighing. “Okay,” he said, getting up. “Let’s see if we can give you a quick crash course then.” Exhausted, Spike trudged for the restroom while the anxious Thorax followed him, the changeling trying not to dance in place as he continued to hold it in, but wasn’t succeeding very well. “Considering you’re a changeling and your race is constantly coming in to feed off our emotions, I would’ve thought you’d have the chance to do this before now.”

“Changelings trained as hunters or ambients would,” Thorax explained as they filed into the dim restroom. “But I was trained as an invader; invaders never leave the hive until after the infiltrating changelings had all done their jobs before us and things were ready for us to come and, well, invade…like when the hive tried to invade Canterlot. And trust me, in that instance we made sure we all went before we left.”

“What about after you abandoned your hive?”

“Never had the chance to get close enough to an Equestrian restroom until we came here, so usually I just dug a hole somewhere outside and used that.” Thorax winced as he sat himself down on the floor and squeezed his hooves together anxiously. “Can we hurry this along, please?”

“Well, I honestly don’t understand what more you need to know,” Spike grumbled, rubbing his tired eyes as he regarded the toilet before them. He waved his claws at it. “There’s the toilet—use it.”

“Yes, but…I’m not entirely sure what the right way to use it is!”

“Okay, okay,” Spike rubbed at his face sleepily for a second. “…don’t changelings have toilets in the hive?”

Thorax thought about it for a second as he bounced in place. “Well…sort of…latrinae are really more just boxes with holes in the top for you to…well…”

“I get it, so they’re like outhouses,” Spike said, catching on. He supposed to himself dimly that a flush toilet probably would seem mysterious to someone that had never encountered one before. “All right—same basic principle here, then.” He patted the seat of the toilet briefly. “The only real difference is that, after you’re done, you pull this to flush.”

He pulled the toilet’s handle to demonstrate. Thorax jumped and scampered backwards away from it at the loud roar of water it produced, defensively lighting his horn with cyan magic briefly, before leaning closer to peer into the bowl, comprehension starting to dawn on him as he watched the bowl refill. “Oh!” he cried in understanding. “I get it, so to clear away the mess afterwards! That’s—that’s pretty clever actually…”

“Yeah, yeah, genius,” Spike grumbled sarcastically before continuing on. “Then to clean up, there’s toilet paper if you need it, and of course the sink to wash your hooves at.” He motioned at both of these things in turn before turning to face the changeling. “Any other questions?”

Thorax thought for a moment, then shook his head. “No, I think that covers it.”

“Good, I’m going back to bed then,” Spike remarked and promptly turned and left the restroom, closing the door behind him so to leave the changeling at it. He then clambered back onto the window seat serving as his bed and worked at getting comfortable once more. He was just starting to drift off when the toilet flushed again and Thorax stepped out a few seconds later, looking much relieved. “All done, then?” he asked.

“Yep!” Thorax responded brightly as he moved back to his sleeping area, proceeding to curl up to sleep. “See you in the morning.”

“Right,” Spike said as he started to lower his head back down. He briefly stopped when he observed that Thorax had managed to get a piece of toilet paper stuck to his back hoof without his noticing, but ultimately sleep won out and Spike decided he could wait to alert the changeling in the morning when his brain was more awake.

Author's Note

A more light-hearted chapter today. Though the story will continue to progress in various ways in the background, expect the next several chapters to be more light-hearted slice of life entries as we explore Spike and Thorax settling into a new life and beginning to explore what possibilities this may offer them. :twilightsmile: In this instance, the two settle into their new living quarters.

It had also occurred to me at one point that the changeling hive as it was portrayed in the show didn't strike me as the sort of place that would have flush toilets, and I got to wondering if Thorax had ever had the chance to encounter one before now. So that explains that part of this chapter. :rainbowlaugh:

Black Sheep

Their second day working at the little book and stationery store began smoothly enough, and once they had joined Fly Leaf for a simple breakfast of cold cereal (which Thorax joined in on, even though he naturally ate little of the offered breakfast) and had opened the store for business, proceeded much like how it had gone the day previous. Once she had assured that Thorax and Spike were set up at their respective jobs however, again with Thorax handling the cash register and Spike maintaining stock and assisting customers, Fly Leaf decided to take a do-it-yourself manual she owned and, ignoring Spike’s advice last night to hire a plumber to do it, went into the second floor bathroom to attempt to fix the sink’s faucet knob herself.

She spent most of the morning working on the task, and by noon believed she had finally finished and opened the restroom for public use again, only to have a customer come down fifteen minutes later with the knob in question in their hoof, the knob having proved to still be broken. Fly Leaf then accepted the knob from the customer and quietly slipped into the back of the shop. According to Spike, who happened to be in back at the moment checking through the boxes of inventory that lined corridor running alongside the kitchen, Fly marched all the way into the back bathroom and locked herself inside long enough to let out a long and angry yell so to vent her frustrations, before returning to politely thank the customer for bringing the broken knob to her attention and promising to have it fixed at the soonest convenience. However, she in reality set the knob aside, not wanting to worry about it again today, and put up a notice that the sink was out of order in the bathroom in question, which remained in place the rest of the day.

Instead, seeing that Spike and Thorax were still performing their respective jobs admirably, decided to swap their jobs, so that Spike was working on the cash register and Thorax worked on the floor assisting customers, insuring that the two were adequately trained that they could jump in and assist at multiple tasks in the shop if needed. They spent most of the afternoon with their jobs swapped like this. Thorax continued to perform well as he helped customers and maintained stock, while Spike managed on the cash register, but quickly revealed that he wasn’t as skilled at it as Thorax was. Spike also proved that he indeed not the best at mental math, as he discovered he struggled at counting back change to customers, but fortunately Fly Leaf readily and patiently assisted him when needed, and soon was satisfied that Spike could do the job decently enough if ever needed.

Then as the afternoon started to turn to evening, the work day started nearing its end, and the number of customers fading to a faint trickle, Fly Leaf left Spike and Thorax running the major operations of the shop while she went in back to start working on what she would only say was “a surprise.” As it was unlikely neither of her new employees would need anything from the back this close to closing time now, she forbade them from coming in back so to maintain the surprise, and only came out from the back once when it came time to close up the shop for the day before promptly returning. Spike and Thorax only started to get some idea as to what their boss was up to as they were doing some final tidying up around the closed store and both began to notice the warm smell of food beginning to waft out from the back kitchen, deducing Fly Leaf was cooking something.

At last, just as the disguised changeling and dragon were wrapping up and were wondering if they needed to stay downstairs still until Fly told them otherwise, Fly emerged out from in back again. “All right you two,” she told them cheerily, motioning for them to follow her into the kitchen. “Who’s hungry?”

Curious, the two exchanged glances then followed her through the batwing doors into the kitchen to find the small dining table set in there had been set out for three and was adorned with a casserole dish at its center, hot, steaming, and fresh from the oven.

“I decided to make a little celebratory dinner for my two newest employees,” Fly explained to the pair happily, and motioned for the two to sit at one side of the round table while she sat herself at the other end. “Now I’m not that great of a cook, but…”

“No, no, it’s looks really good!” Spike declared, his mouth watering at the savory smell of the dish, eagerly taking the offered seat. “Thanks, Fly!”

Thorax however, naturally, was a bit more hesitant as he sat down beside his dragon friend. “What is it?” he asked as neutrally as he could, not wanting to accidentally offend Fly while also tilting his head curiously at the dish, inwardly debating how much of it he could eat so to safely keep up appearances without also upsetting his changeling stomach.

“Funeral potatoes,” Fly responded sunnily as she proceeded to dish up her two employees heaping servings of the dish.

Thorax gave her a confused look, wrinkling his disguise’s brow. “…did somepony die?” he asked, not understanding.

Fly laughed as she dished up some of the dish for herself. “No, no, no one’s died, Thornton. True, the dish gets its name because it’s often served at funerals, but it’s not exclusive to just funerals. My mother would make it for dinner all the time when I was a foal.” Seeing Thorax still regarding his plate of the dish hesitantly, she elaborated. “It’s just a casserole dish made with hash browns, cheese, onions, cream sauce, sour cream, and topped with some bread crumbs to make a kind of crust.” Seeing Thorax still appeared hesitant, she gave him a teasing smirk. “Unless you’re allergic to any of those things, I promise it’s not poisoned, Thornton.”

“Thornton’s a bit of a…stingy eater, actually,” Spike provided as an explanation in-between his own bites of the meal, covering for the changeling’s hesitation to partake likewise. “Not really one to eat an awful lot at mealtimes.”

“Oh, I’m not having that,” Fly said, waving the matter aside, and motioned to Thorax’s unicorn disguise. “A young stripling stallion like you? You need to keep your strength up, so eat up!” She nudged Thorax’s plate with one hoof.

Thorax bit his lip, but he otherwise relented and proceeded to pick at the dish. Spike, meanwhile, had eagerly cleared his plate already and was helping himself to seconds, while Fly also enjoyed the dish she had made. Upon tasting his first bite of the dish, Thorax found that it did in fact taste very good, but also found upon swallowing that the bite weighed heavily in the lower chamber of his changeling stomach, already sated for the day with several helpings of positive emotions while working, and was really reluctant to eat too much more. Nonetheless, not wanting to offend Fly or rouse her suspicions, he continued to nibble at the dish.

“So,” Fly said about halfway into the meal, looking to make conversation. “I know you two are friends and normally travelers, but I don’t really know much else about either of you. So tell me about yourselves.” When both of them looked at her blankly and didn’t immediately respond, she prompted them on a topic. “Either of you have family?”

“Oh, well,” Thorax began and thought to himself as he wondered how to respond. “I suppose so, but…we’re not really that close anymore. In fact, I haven’t spoken to most of them since we were nym—I mean, foals.”

“Really?” Fly was surprised by this. “Why not?”

Thorax tried to shrug off the matter. “I guess you could say we had…differing opinions about…things.”

“Thornton’s something of the black sheep in his family,” Spike offered, trying to be helpful.

Thorax looked at the dragon in puzzlement. “Black sheep?” he repeated, not understanding the idiom, which caused Spike to grin a little, amused by the fact that someone claiming to be as fluent in language as Thorax had such a selective understanding of some it’s common phrases.

Fly, however, understood and chuckled a little herself. “There’s always one in every family, isn’t there?” she remarked aloud. She then turned her attention to Spike. “How about you, Spark? You have any family?”

Spike’s grin immediately vanished and was replaced with a frown as he no doubt thought about the ponies that had made him an outcast. “Let’s just say we had a falling out and leave it at that,” he said bitterly.

Fly frowned herself, put off by the fact that neither of the two seemed to have good relations with their family members at present. “Well, that’s not very heartwarming,” she mulled to herself as she cleared her plate with one final bite. “I, on the other hoof, am on very good terms with my family, and proud of it.” She grinned. “I’d hate to be on bad terms with any of them, especially my own siblings.”

Spike looked up as he cleared his own plate yet again. “You have siblings?” he asked partly because he was genuinely curious, and partly because he saw it as a chance to pull the conversation off him and Thorax.

“Mm-hmm, an elder brother named First Edition, and a younger sister named Chapbook.”

“What do they do then?” Thorax asked, who had only managed to clear a third of his plate and really didn’t want to push himself to clear anymore of it at this point. “Do they have their own shops they run?”

“No—well, not selling books and stationery like me, at least. First Edition works as an editor for a hoity-toity publishing company over in Manehatten, while Chapbook stayed home down in Tall Tale, where she owns a small private printing press, printing off booklets and pamphlets for businesses and such.”

“You grew up in Tall Tale?” Spike asked, who, much like Vanhoover itself before he and Thorax had arrived, knew of the humble city by reputation but hadn’t yet visited it himself. When Fly nodded in confirmation, he continued. “What brought you up to Vanhoover, then?”

“It was the first city I found that had a place available I could make a shop out of,” Fly responded, motioning to the building they sat in. She grinned as she gazed up at the ceiling of the kitchen, reflecting back on her memories of the event. “The moment I saw this place, I knew it was perfect, so I just had to buy it and move up to turn it into a store.” She returned her gaze onto her coworkers. “But of course we all go and visit our parents’ home in Tall Tale as often as we can. We in fact just got together for a family reunion two moons ago.”

“Well it’s good to hear that one of us has family they can rely on,” Spike remarked with a small grin.

Fly returned it faintly, inwardly wishing she really wasn’t the only one at the table that could claim that before glancing back at Thorax. “Sheesh Thornton,” she said, noticing his plate was still largely full. “Not a fan of funeral potatoes, huh?”

Thorax, relieved to be called out on it finally, shook his head and set down his fork. “No, I guess not,” then added, “Sorry, Miss Fly.”

“Ah, don’t worry about it,” Fly said, waving the matter aside. A kitchen timer behind them suddenly dinged and Fly promptly rose to open the oven. “It just means you’ll have plenty of room for dessert.”

Thorax froze for a split second, before turning to watch the pumpkin-orange earth pony pull not one but two pans of the dessert in question from the oven, setting one on the stovetop while bringing the other to the table. “…dessert?” he repeated hesitantly, who wasn’t sure he could safely down much more solid food.

“Yep!” Fly Leaf declared as she set a hot pie on the table before them, “My grandmother’s favorite recipe for cherry pie, using only garden fresh ingredients and made with love, as she used to say.”

This caused Thorax to perk up immediately, his past hesitation suddenly forgotten. “Love?” he repeated. “Really?”

“She didn’t mean it literally, Thornton,” Spike pointed out with a teasing grin.

“You never know,” Thorax argued back. Fly took this to mean he was much more interested in the pie and eager to insure he was properly fed, took the liberty of serving him first with an extra-large slice of pie. The largeness of the slice briefly intimidated the disguised changeling, but after taking his first bite, he then proceeded to eagerly eat the rest of the slice with a gusto that surprised both Spike and Fly as they worked at their own slices. “Mmmmm,” he hummed to himself afterwards, savoring the lingering sweet flavor in his mouth.

“I take it you liked the pie, then,” Fly Leaf remarked with a grin.

“Yes,” Thorax agreed with a nod. He then gazed at the pie still left in the pan, and held up his plate. “Could I have another slice?”

Fly was happy to oblige, but Spike, knowing Thorax had limits to the amount of solid food he could eat, was more hesitant. “Now don’t overdo it, Thornton,” he warned.

Thorax waved him off, digging into the second slice. “Aw, one more slice isn’t going to hurt,” he promised.

Author's Note

Presenting the chapter in which I probably give way what part of the states I grew up in by referencing funeral potatoes. :rainbowlaugh:

I had originally devised this chapter to serve as a means to reveal more about Fly Leaf, and while I did do that, as you can tell, I also ended up bringing up other points too.

In case you couldn't already tell, yes, the next chapter is going to pick up from where this one's leaving off. :raritywink:

Made With Love

A pie and a half later however found Thorax leaning listlessly back in his seat, one hoof patting his disguised barrel. “…so full…” he mumbled but with a big and silly grin on his content face, his snout somewhat sticky with red cherry pie filling.

Spike leaned against the table, his head propped up with his elbow as he regarded his friend with a frown, rapping the claws of his free hand on the table edge in disapproval. “Think you might have overdone it now?” he asked aloud, then shook his head. “What happened to ‘just one more slice’ Thornton?”

“But it was made with love,” the camouflaged changeling repeated gleefully, as if this justified everything.

Fly could only regard him somewhat in surprise, looking between him and the two pie trays that lay on the table, the first one that he had emptied and the second he had cleared the large majority of, eating far more pie than either she or Spike had. “Well, at least I see the pie was a huge hit, nonetheless,” she remarked with a smile.

Thorax only hiccupped in response, still wearing his foolish grin.

“I…think we’ve had enough to eat for one night, Fly,” Spike intervened finally on the changeling’s behalf.

Fly fortunately nodded. “Agreed,” she said, standing up and beginning to collect the dishes. “Help me clean up?”

“Sure,” Spike said, standing up and collecting some dishes himself. He elbowed Thorax in the side. “C’mon bud.”

“Right away, my good friend!” Thorax responded with an almost sickly amount of good cheer. He then promptly flopped out of his seat and flat onto the floor. “Ow,” he added in an eerily sweet tone, more like it was an afterthought than anything.

Spike and Fly Leaf stood and regarded him lying on the floor for a moment.

“Then again, maybe I should get this useless lump upstairs first,” Spike amended with a sigh.

“Good idea,” Fly agreed, taking the dishes Spike had collected from him.

Spike bent down and heaved Thorax back up onto his hooves. “Up and at ‘em, Thornton,” he said, leading the wobbly changeling in disguise towards the exit. “I’ll be back down to help in a minute, once I’ve got him sorted.” he told Fly.

“Wheeee,” Thorax murmured aloud, holding one of his hooves in the air, still wearing that annoyingly sappy grin on his face as they headed for the stairs under Spike’s guidance.

“You are out of it,” Spike observed with some annoyance as they proceeded to slowly mount the stairs. “Just what led you to eat far more pie than you could clearly handle anyway?”

“It was made with love!” Thorax repeated with a sing-song voice.

“Not literally, you dummy!” Spike grumbled, and gave the changeling a light shove to keep him moving. He wondered if there was something in the pie that had clouded Thorax’s thinking, and inwardly he reviewed the obvious ingredients of the dish for a possible candidate.

After slowly stumbling up the stairs to their room, the two finally slipped inside, Spike turned to lead his friend towards his nest-like sleeping area, though Thorax didn’t seem to care at the moment. “Home sweet home!” he declared happily into the room as Spike led him across it.

“Yeah, yeah, great,” Spike murmured as he lowered Thorax down into the nest and stepped back to give him a look over.

Thorax, looking as content as could be, snuggled himself tighter into the cloak he had used to make the so-called nest, and let his disguise drop with a flash of cyan magic. No longer hidden behind it, Spike noticed Thorax’s belly was notably swollen; not enough to be alarming of course, but enough to see it was bloated. The changeling had clearly had more than he should’ve. But for the moment he seemed content to just lie there, so Spike waved him off and turned to go.

“Right, so you just stay there and sleep off…whatever this is,” he instructed as he exited, going back downstairs to help Fly clean up from dinner as promised.

By the time he came back some minutes later though, Thorax’s euphoric-like behavior had been replaced with one that looked notably more uncomfortable and unpleasant.

“Ugh,” Thorax groaned, rubbing at his tender and grumbling belly as Spike returned. “I can’t believe I ate that much pie.”

Spike, feeling a bit more satisfied with this, couldn’t help but look a bit smug. “It finally catching up to you, huh?” he remarked.

Thorax nodded slowly. “Bleh,” he mumbled. “It’s left the second chamber of my stomach feeling like it’s full of rocks.”

Spike raised an eyebrow at the changeling. “Second chamber?” he repeated. “Your stomach has two chambers?”

Thorax nodded again slowly, and vaguely poked his belly at where the supposed chambers would be located within. “Upper one’s for converting emotive energy into something the body can use, and the second one’s for processing it and any solid foods,” he explained weakly. This was followed by a belch when his poking of his belly upset something within. He groaned again.

“Well, I’m not too inclined to give you much sympathy over it,” Spike pointed out, folding his arms. “You know your own limits better than I do, so why did you let yourself gorge yourself like this?”

“It was good pie!” Thorax declared, his eyes bulging empathically over this point. “And it was made with love!”

“No it wasn’t!” Spike repeated.

“Yes it was!” Thorax pressed. “Food can be imbued with emotive energy too!”

Spike blinked, taken aback. “Oh,” he said. “Really?”

“If the pony or whatever making it is passionate enough about it, then yeah, it absorbs some of the bleed off!” Thorax pushed himself up a little. “So it wasn’t like it was all inedible for me!”

Spike regarded the changeling’s swollen middle skeptically for a moment. “And just how much of all that is actually going to be nourishing for you?” he asked, motioning to the changeling’s stomach.

Thorax averted his gaze and mumbled something incoherently.

“Thorax,” Spike repeated firmly.

“Only about a sixteenth of it,” the changeling finally admitted reluctantly. He let out another belch. “Ooh boy.”

Spike folded his arms again. “Sounds to me like the other fifteen-sixteenths are making you gassy then,” he observed in disapproval.

“Yeah,” Thorax admitted. He winced as his stomach gurgled for a moment. “Sorry.”

“Don’t apologize to me, you were the one who’s gone and done this to himself even—”

“No, no…I don’t mean sorry for that.”

“…then what did you—?” Spike’s snout wrinkled as a sour odor wafted up to it suddenly. “Aw, Thorax!” he groaned in disgust, clamping his claws over his nose as he quickly figured out what happened. “Talk about silent but deadly!”

“Sorry!” the changeling apologized again in a whine. “I couldn’t help it!”

Spike clambered up onto the window seat and opened the window so to ventilate the room a bit better. He was suddenly glad it was scheduled to be a warm and clear night tonight, because he was beginning to think he was going to need to keep the window open for the remainder of the night. “At least tell me you learned your lesson over this,” he said to his friend.

Thorax put on that silly and content grin of his again. “It was still worth it,” he mumbled, satisfied despite the discomfort he had put on his belly.

But the pie still got the last word in the end. By the following morning, Spike was awoken from sleep by Thorax suddenly springing up and urgently rushing for the restroom. Catching sight of Thorax’s face before he vanished from the room and quickly deciding he didn’t want to find out what was going to transpire next, Spike chose to depart the room himself, going to use one of the downstairs restrooms. Nonetheless, he was certain that whatever it was that did transpire…it wasn’t pleasant for the changeling.

Author's Note

The inevitable outcomes from last chapter. :rainbowlaugh: Also, a little changeling biology, the bigger goal I was seeking to accomplish with all of this, actually. But a little humor doesn't hurt too. :twilightsmile:

Danger

The next few days passed relatively uneventfully after that and were largely spent by Spike and Thorax settling into their new job and way of life that came with it. Fly Leaf was very pleased with how quickly they settled into the job that she quickly found she could trust the shop would keep running normally if she had to step out for some reason and leave the two in charge in the meantime. Upon discovering this, the earth pony decided to make use of it, and began experimenting with what this left her free to do during her lunchbreak, thinking she could possibly make use of it to occasionally meet with vendors to arrange new deals of stock for her store, but at the same time, she didn’t want to rush into the matter. Spike and Thorax were inwardly thankful for this, if only because they didn’t want to be given too much responsibility for the shop’s operations too quickly at the very least.

Regardless, the two disguised outcasts seemed to be accepted as the part of the store’s staff fairly fast by the regulars who frequented the store, many of whom warmed up quickly with them, especially Thorax, who as always was friendly with all the customers he helped (and was frequently receiving praise for it from said customers). Being both outcasts that had reached the point that they had accepted this thinking that they weren’t wanted by those who knew who or what they actually were, this warm reception of the populace of Vanhoover made for a nice change. It was hard not to make the effort to give it back in return.

By the end of their first week was when Fly Leaf quite gladly gave the two their first payment of their weekly wages, believing they had more than earned it. But the payment also brought back the memory of their current predicament to the two outcasts, and with it, the need to plan ahead for their next move, well aware that staying in Vanhoover too long would not be wise when they were both supposed to be banished. Thus now that they had access to money that was rightfully their own, they proceeded to plan to make use of it.

Agreeing to set aside part of their weekly pay to save and keep on hand in the event of an emergency, the rest Spike would take to various stores to purchase the supplies they would eventually need when it came time to move on to their next destination. He also took the time to obtain basic amenities such as blankets and pillows that would be easy to travel with, but also could be used for normal use in their room in the meantime. He also obtained a set of curtains for their window, granting them better privacy than draping Spike’s overcoat would. And he also used it to start collecting a supply of travel food, but quickly seeing that they could only carry so much food at a time, knew they would be gathering enough to travel with fairly quickly with the amount of money they were making (which wasn’t considerable of course, but enough to make a living out of if needed), and not wanting Fly Leaf to think they were hoarding food, Spike also decided to purchase a supply of food for their own (by which largely meant just Spike) use on a day to day basis.

Thorax, meanwhile, obtained copies of an atlas and a series of maps of Equestria and the surrounding lands, and after the shop was closed would spend part of every night using them to plot out the best routes to the best destinations outside of Equestria to spend their banishment before bed. By train would naturally be the easiest, but Spike didn’t want to risk using his season pass again, certain that it had been rendered void by now (so Thorax had begun using it as a bookmark instead), and travel by train was easy for others to track too, not to mention didn’t actually run all the way to some of their possible destinations, so they had quickly decided they should consider all alternate means of travel to play it safe. Very quickly the changeling had amassed a whole stack of papers filled with notes on their planned voyage, all written in the strange circular characters of his native language.

The idea was that should they ever fall into the wrong hooves for some reason, they couldn’t be easily read or translated, except most likely by another changeling, and Thorax admitted that while he had been continually keeping his eyes out for one ever since he had left his hive as a precaution, he highly doubted ever crossing paths with one out here. He explained that, even if any other changelings that were out here for whatever reason (most likely to gather love for the hive) took notice of Thorax, they would be able to tell what he was, disguised or not, and would not bother him, so to protect his cover as well as their own. The point though was that Thorax’s navigational notes would be safe from discovery written in his language while they were in Equestria as Thorax was the only one who could interpret them. Though a couple days after Thorax started all of this, Spike reasoned he ought to be able to read the notes too, in the event of an emergency. So Thorax was also sitting down with the dragon and trying to teach him how to at least read the changeling characters as well.

It was slow going though, because it was quickly realized that Spike had to understand more than just the characters, but the whole language as well. Plus Spike quickly discovered that the changeling language curiously didn’t phrase sentences in the same manner as the Equestrian language did; most notably with verbs which often fell at the end of a sentence in linguae mutationis rather than somewhere in the middle like in Equestrian as Spike was used to. In an attempt to cheer up the dragon whenever the language lessons grew frustrating for him though, Thorax would point out that at least he wasn’t trying to teach Spike the changeling number system, which according to him, “operates in base twelve” unlike the Equestrian numbering system. Spike never quite knew what that meant, but Thorax only used that as a testament of his point.

Otherwise life had become fairly normal for the both of them, and there were times when it was easy to forget they were supposed to be banished from Equestria and in hiding, so much so that both started to let their guard relax some. Though they quickly learned they needed to be careful to not let it down too far as at some point after a few days of working at Fly Leaf’s shop, Thorax started getting the habit of occasionally slipping up and referring to his dragon friend as “Spike” in public and not “Spark” like he should. Worse, as this was his given name and would just respond to it normally without even thinking about it, Spike wasn’t even catching it…

…until Fly Leaf finally asked the question. “Why does Thornton keep calling you Spike?” she asked curiously after overhearing a work-related exchange between the two coworkers.

Spike froze, realizing the error but was totally unprepared on how he should respond. He glanced at Thorax but saw the disguised changeling had the same deer-in-the-headlamps look too. “Uh…”

“…it’s a nickname?” Thorax offered suddenly. “…because of the spikey scales on his head.”

“Yeah!” Spike agreed, quickly latching onto that idea.

“Oh!” Fly responded, accepting the explanation without question. “All right then.”

A couple of days later though, Spike realized Fly was starting to make use of the supposed “nickname” too. But as it didn’t seem to be causing any undesired attention and none of the customers visiting the store seemed to be picking up on it, Spike decided it would be better to not to bring the more attention that making a fuss would do to it and left the matter be.

Though more than halfway into their second week in Vanhoover, Spike suddenly found himself wishing the subject of the supposed nickname had never come up at all when the danger of discovery it presented suddenly became all too real.

They got word of it at a perfectly unsuspecting time too, midway through the afternoon one day during a lull moment in the shop’s business. Spike, having been tasked to do some bookkeeping work, had pulled aside Thorax for a moment so to try and sort out a small inconsistency at the front desk, while Fly Leaf currently stood on a stepstool, restocking books on one of the upper shelves of a bookcase. It was at that time that one of the shop’s regulars, a retired and elderly white pegasus the three only knew as the friendly Mrs. White strolled in through the front door.

“Hello Mrs. White!” Thorax, who the mare was always especially friendly with, greeted cheerfully when he heard the chime that accompanied the door’s opening, looking up from the ledger he and Spike were huddled over. “Welcome to Fly Leaf’s Books and Stationery! What can we get for you today?”

“Oh, just the usual I’m afraid Thornton,” the snow-white pegasus said with a grin as she creakily strolled up to the front desk.

Spike glanced up at her, peering at her over the rim of the glasses he wore as part of his disguise. “Glue dots?” he guessed.

Mrs. White made an amused sigh. “Glue dots,” she confirmed. “My scrapbooking club has been working on a massive project for the local library, and we’ve been going through those accursed things double-time lately.”

Spike laughed. “I’ll go fetch some for you real quick,” he said, stepping out from behind the front desk. “About how many boxes are you needing?”

“Better give me five boxes, seeing how fast we’ve been eating them up,” Mrs. White said, and gave the dragon a warm grin as he scampered off to the shelf in the back that held them. “Thank you, Spark!”

“No problem, Mrs. White,” Spike responded as headed for the shelf, having no trouble finding the boxed rolls of adhesive tacks, as he hadn’t even known what glue dots were prior to coming here, and thus had made it a point to remember everything about them after discovering them.

“Five boxes, huh?” Fly Leaf remarked, looking down at the elderly mare from where she still stood atop her stepping stool, sorting books. “This must be some project of yours, Mrs. White.”

“Oh, you have no idea, Fly,” Mrs. White said wearily, turning to look up at the store proprietor. “This thing’s gotten so complicated that it makes my old job working as a lightning handler back in my days at the Cloudsdale Weather Factory seem as simple as sleeping.” She rolled her eyes. “My gosh, do I miss those days. I’d still be doing it now if my doctor hadn’t practically ordered me to retire and keep myself grounded these days on account of the osteoporosis in my wings.” She gave her wings a weak flutter, sadly no longer strong enough to keep her airborne for much longer than a minute. “You know I was quite a capable mare back then.”

“Of course I do, Mrs. White,” Fly assured the mare as she stepped down from her stepping stool, having heard the impressive tale of Mrs. White’s hard-working weather factory days many times before.

“Course, I’m not completely incapable now,” Mrs. White continued, motioning to herself proudly. “Despite all the setbacks, I’ve still managed to keep things together enough to get the project more than halfway done, way ahead of schedule, and that’s despite the continued shortage of supplies, brought about by constantly running out of things like those pesky glue dots,” she shot Spike a grin which the dragon returned as he, having gathered the five boxes as requested, started to bring it back up to the front desk, “and a shipment of a special shimmer stock the club’s using getting delayed briefly because of all the crystal pony guards that have been running around town today.”

Both Spike and Thorax looked up from what they were doing sharply, alarmed by this.

“Crystal pony guards?” Fly asked puzzled, approaching the front desk herself. “In Vanhoover?”

“Oh yes, and they’ve been going and poking their snouts in every little thing too,” Mrs. White grumbled. “You mean you haven’t seen them? A whole group of them seemed to have arrived in town this morning.”

“I haven’t had a chance to get out of the shop today,” Fly explained with a shrug. “And none of them have been in here.”

“You’re sure they’re not just tourists…right?” Spike asked hesitantly as he started to set down the boxes of glue dots on the front desk.

“Absolutely,” Mrs. White said confidently. “They had all the helmets and regalia you’d expect with guards, and they’re clearly here on business from the Crystal Empire itself.” She huffed indignantly. “They aren’t being especially easy to work with either. It took a lot more effort to clear up that fiasco with that shipment of shimmer stock than it should’ve, and I’ve heard the train station has gotten all gummed up because of them standing guard there, meddling with ponies as they board and exit the trains.”

Thorax suddenly fumbled with one of the boxes of glue dots as he was working to ring it up into the cash register, and he and Spike exchanged worried looks briefly, this news not being good.

“But I don’t understand,” Fly persisted, apparently missing the worried looks of her two employees. “Why are crystal pony guards here at all?”

“Something about a search for a couple of criminals…” Mrs. White said with a shrug, her knowledge of the details being limited.

“Your total is ten bits, Mrs. White,” Thorax took the chance to interject, trying to keep his voice steady in light of the worrisome news.

“In Vanhoover?” Fly repeated as if she didn’t hear Thorax while Mrs. White counted out the money and slid it across the desk to Thorax. “What sort of criminals are we talking about here? Should we be worrying about them?”

“Well, personally I think they’re barking up the wrong tree looking for the scamps in Vanhoover,” Mrs. White responded as she accepted the bag Thorax handed her, the boxes of glue dots tucked inside, and placed it on her back. “This is a respectable city, after all. But they’re insisting they’ve got to search the area anyway, and it sounded like they’re going be thorough about it, so I’ll bet my last bit that they’ll be here for a week or two.”

“Must be some criminals then,” Spike couldn’t help but remark flatly, already having a good idea who they were looking for.

“Sounded like it,” Mrs. White agreed as she turned for the exit again. “From what I heard from those guards it seems they’re looking for an escaped changeling and some accomplice…a dragon I think they said?” She gave Spike a kind grin. “No offense to you of course, Spark.” She then nodded at the group. “Anyway, I need to be off. Ta-ta, everyone!”

She then departed, the trio watching her go in a beat of silence, still processing what she had said.

Fly tilted her head. “Huh, a changeling in Vanhoover?” she muttered to herself, and shook her head, turning to walk off, getting back to work. “Crazy. Well, I guess I hope Mrs. White is right then, that those guards are just following a false lead and it’ll all blow over soon enough.”

But the fearful glances Spike and Thorax exchanged between themselves as she walked off suggested they knew that wasn’t entirely the case.

Author's Note

Now how had Rainbow Dash put it?...Ah yes!

:rainbowdetermined2: DUN DUN DUNNNNNNN!

Wanted

That night, Spike and Thorax discussed their options now that they were faced with the prospect of the crystal guard searching for them in Vanhoover now.

“We knew this was going to happen,” Thorax reminded as he sat in the middle of their room, watching Spike pace in a circle around him. “We know they’re here checking for us because it’s one of the possible places we could be, but we agreed it was likely they couldn’t actually know for certain we’re here. So long as we continue to keep a low profile…”

“I know, I know,” Spike murmured, rubbing his chin as he paced. Unlike Thorax, who had dropped his disguise now that they were in the privacy of their room, Spike still wore all elements of his, absentmindedly adjusting the false glasses he wore as part of it. “But while that seemed so easy back then, now that they’re actually here…I’m riddled with worry.” He glanced at the changeling. “And now that I think about it, have we actually been keeping a low profile? I mean, we’ve been working with more customers than we could ever keep track of for the past week and a half, all of whom have likely seen us and could potentially identify us…”

“Well, more likely for you than for me at least,” Thorax pointed out, his way of reminding his dragon friend of just how complete and utterly a changeling can disguise itself.

“Not helping,” Spike grumbled, looking at his feet as he kept pacing.

“Sorry.” Thorax fiddled with his hooves for a second. “Are you thinking we should perhaps flee the area anyway, just to be safe?”

“The added precaution probably wouldn’t hurt, but would we actually get far?” Spike reasoned. “You heard Mrs. White. The crystal ponies are very clearly keeping the train station under close guard. They may not know where we stopped at, but they certainly know by now that we took a train to leave the Crystal Empire, and they’re going to be watching for us to make sure we can’t do it again.”

“They were doing that in the Crystal Empire, and we still managed to slip past them,” Thorax pointed out.

“The crystal ponies are certainly going to wise up eventually, and we’ve pushed our luck enough sneaking under their noses as it is,” Spike pointed back. “And anyway, the train wouldn’t be practical because my season pass is certainly invalidated by now and they’re going to be stricter about enforcing that now.”

Thorax shrugged. “Then we get a new ticket. We have the money for it now.”

“But not a lot, which brings up another problem. We haven’t been able to get as many supplies to leave like I’d hoped we would by now. Unless we did take the train, and used it for the whole journey, we wouldn’t be able to travel far with what supplies we’ve got right now.”

Thorax shuffled his holed hooves for a moment again. “I…don’t really want to leave at all if we can help it,” he stated timidly.

Spike stopped pacing at last and looked at him for a moment. He gave the changeling a small, comforting grin. “Agreed,” he said. “Besides, I’m beginning to think staying put and sitting tight, hoping for the best, is the better option available to us. A risk, yes, but…”

“We just need to make sure nopony notices us for who we are more than usual in the meantime,” Thorax reasoned.

They also decided that, seeing Thorax, as a changeling, could physically alter his whole appearance to disguise himself but Spike couldn’t, Spike especially needed to keep a low profile. Thus, at Thorax’s suggestion, it was decided that Spike would avoid leaving the shop for any reason if at all possible, and as the two didn’t frequently leave the store anyway, that wasn’t so hard to do. The only time Spike really ventured far from the shop was when he went out to spend some of their profits on supplies, which he had been doing on the grounds that he was more familiar with the Equestrian public than Thorax. Nonetheless, Thorax voiced confidence that so long as Spike provided him with a list and directions on where to go, he could take over that task while disguised himself in the dragon’s stead.

Spike was really more worried about the patrons that came and went from the shop they were working in anyway. Spike wore his disguise continuously while working in the shop, and no customer ever saw him without it. Even Fly Leaf hadn’t seen him without it yet, even though Spike suspected that had she had, the earth pony mare probably wouldn’t think much of it. Nonetheless, Spike worried it might not be enough, as it couldn’t ever hide the fact that he was still a dragon, likely the only one in Vanhoover, and that could draw attention to himself considering that’s precisely one of whom the crystal guards were looking for. He felt it would be better if he could minimize contact with the customers for a while, and fortunately soon had an idea on how to do that.

The front half of the first floor of Fly Leaf’s building consisted of the shop’s front room, but the back half consisted of the kitchen and other common living amenities for the staff that lived here. Among them, directly across the adjoining corridor from the kitchen, was a room that doubled as a living room and a private office for Fly Leaf. Dividing the two rooms right down the middle though was a long, double-width, hallway, normally wide enough that two ponies should’ve been able to stroll down side by side with room left over. However the walls of the corridor were lined with shipping boxes full of the store's goods, lying in wait for their turn to go on display out front, and narrowed the corridor’s free walking space greatly to the point that they had to go single file to navigate it. And even then, the boxes of goods spilled out of the corridor, as at the far end of the corridor where it terminated abruptly with a back door directly ahead, a mud room/cloakroom to the left, and a narrower corridor that branched off the main one to the right, which was again filled with boxes of store goods yet to go on display, except for where the door leading to the first floor bathroom stood. In short, Fly Leaf had every free space in this section of the building filled with stored stock as much as possible, making it into a sort of cluttered storage area, really.

Fly had her own system for organizing all of this, and it got the job done well enough. But for once, all those years Spike had spent having to put up with Twilight’s obsessive needs to organize efficiently became useful, and Spike had already been thinking about approaching Fly about a better way to store stock. So that next morning while they were all breakfasting and getting ready for the new workday, Spike pitched the idea to Fly and volunteered to take it upon himself to carry it out. Fly was initially hesitant about it; she knew it would be a time consuming project that would keep Spike mostly in the back and not helping run the store up front like she preferred. But fate happened to be looking in Spike’s favor because only about an hour later it was discovered, entirely by chance, that none of them could find a box of an item they needed to restock up front due to a shortcoming in Fly’s organization system. So Fly relented, and almost immediately started to see benefits as Spike began reorganizing the back, spurring her to give further support in the project.

Because this meant Spike spent most of the workday busy in the back then, this left Thorax working up front. As Fly was the one to fill in for Spike’s usual tasks, Thorax spent most of his time manning the cash register as usual, which he was happy to do, but as an added precaution decided to also try and minimize his contact with customers where possible, limiting conversation with them. Some of the shop’s regular customers, who had caught on fairly quickly that Thorax was a friendly fellow that was happy to lend an ear to chat, took notice, but not enough to really stress the matter. Meanwhile, Thorax kept an ear out for chatter about the crystal guards and their ongoing search in the city. There seemed to be some griping about it as it seemed the search was causing disruptions in the normal flow in the city’s operations, but otherwise there seemed to be no indications at all that any pony was connecting the dragon and supposed unicorn they knew as Spark and Thornton, the two new employees at Fly Leaf’s Books and Stationery, as the very two the crystal guards were searching for. At the very least, it suggested that the ponies of Vanhoover were a trusting bunch that didn’t question ponies they saw as friends.

So by the end of that second week in Vanhoover, Thorax began to feel confident that they would be able to successfully avoid discovery altogether. He was still in good spirits that Friday afternoon, relatively late into the work day and the store momentarily empty of any customers for the moment, and had taken to playing with a rubber band while continuing to man the register. Spike was, of course, in back working at reorganizing their boxes of stock, and was reportedly making good progress. Fly herself was momentarily out of the store; as she still hadn’t been successful in fixing the faulty knob on the second story bathroom sink herself, she had finally relented and decided to make use of the lull in business to go consult a new plumber she had recently found out about.

She had only been gone for about ten minutes and Thorax wasn’t expecting her back too soon, nor for many customers to come in, so he was surprised when his hidden changeling ears heard the store’s front door open.

He turned his head to look at the door as he continued to play with his rubber band, stretched it between his hooves. “Hello, and welcome to—” the rubber band abruptly shot out of his hooves and across the room as he suddenly jerked them apart, cutting himself short as he watched two formal-looking crystal pony guards, complete with the usual armor, file into the shop.

“Hello!” one of the two greeted, strolling right up to Thorax standing paralyzed in shock behind the front desk. “Are you the shop’s owner?”

“No,” Thorax managed to squeak out, nervously glancing between the two guards, worried about why they might be here.

They seemed to be nothing but cordial though, and didn’t seem to suspect Thorax of being anything more than the young unicorn stallion he was presently disguised as. “Can we speak with the shop owner for a moment?” the guard continued.

“She’s not in at the moment,” Thorax explained quickly, “Went out to run an errand real quick. I couldn’t tell you when exactly she’ll be back.”

“Well, we’re here representing the Crystal Empire royal guard, visiting Vanhoover investigating a case.” the second guard explained, taking over. “Have you heard anything from any of the other locals about us yet?”

Thorax nervously faked an uncertain shrug. “Bits and pieces,” he lied. He was glad the two guards before him weren’t changelings too, otherwise they’d have certainly detected the waves of emotive terror that he was no doubt giving off at the moment by now.

Instead, the guards seemed to chalk up Thorax’s apparent nervousness to just a general intimidation by the presence. “We’re not here to cause any trouble for you,” the second guard assured, pulling out a sheet of parchment from a pack contained in his saddlebag. “We’re just trying to spread public awareness of why we’re here and who we’re searching for, and we were hoping that you could maybe help.”

“Help? Help how?” Thorax asked, perhaps a bit too quickly. He could feel sweat prickling his brow and wondered how he wasn’t trembling at the moment.

“A little more than a couple of weeks ago now, we had a changeling convict and a misled accomplice escape from the area of the Crystal Empire. We have reason to believe that they may have chosen to hide in Vanhoover after escaping.”

“A changeling?” Thorax repeated and forced a laugh. “Why, that means it could be anyone, couldn’t it? I mean, that changeling could be standing right in front of you and you’d never be able to tell, right?” The moment the words were out of his mouth, he wished he hadn’t phrased it like that.

The guards chuckled though. “You’re absolutely right actually,” the first guard admitted. “Hay, you could be the changeling for all we know.” Thorax felt his face pale at the very suggestion and found his brain absolutely blank for any sort of response he could give to that comment that wouldn’t also give himself away, but the guards only laughed harder at Thorax’s obvious discomfort, playfully misinterpreting it as something innocent. “Don’t worry son, I’m just teasing you,” the guard assured him playfully. “We’re not accusing you of anything.”

“We’re actually more hoping we can find the changeling by finding the accomplice we believe to be still with him,” the second guard said, and held out the sheet of parchment in his hoof for Thorax to see. “He’s a young dragon. Maybe you’ve seen him?”

Thorax took the sheet and saw immediately it was a wanted poster of sorts for Spike, and in addition to printing his name in big letters, featured a large photograph of the purple dragon. The photo showed Spike sitting on a stool and appearing to be writing in a scroll with a quill, but had looked up from it with a grin long enough for the photo to be taken, whatever the original occasion for the photo might have been. The photo seemed entirely too cheery considering what it was being used for though. But realizing the guards were waiting for an answer from Thorax, the disguised changeling made a show of looking like he was unfamiliar with the photo before finally looking up from it.

“No, sorry, can’t say that I have,” Thorax lied, trying not to think about the fact that the very dragon they were looking for happened to be in the back room right that moment, probably completely unaware the guards were here or so close.

“That’s okay,” the first guard assured Thorax, and tapped the parchment with his crystalline hoof. “So what we’d like you to do with that is hang it up somewhere where anypony who might have seen the dragon can easily see it and read it as they come through, like in your front window.”

“I’m not allowed to hang anything in the front window,” Thorax quickly objected. It wasn’t a lie too; the front window, bearing the store’s name in golden serifed letters painted on it, was Fly Leaf’s favorite feature of her shop, and she spent a lot of time carefully setting up elaborate displays to promote her wares in it, putting a lot of work into it. As such, one of the very first rules she told Spike and Thorax when she took them into her employ was that nothing was ever allowed to be put in the front window that would in some way obstruct it.

“Hang it somewhere else where it can be easily seen then, like a notice board or something,” the guard recommended. “We just ask for any and all assistance you can provide in aiding us in our attempts to find these two runaways.”

You assume that I’d want to, Thorax thought to himself, but said instead, accepting the parchment, “I’ll see what I can do.”

The guards nodded in satisfaction. “That’s all we ask,” the second guard said. “Let us know if you see or hear any leads. Contact information is on the sheet too.”

“I noticed,” Thorax said, nodding his head while nervously waving as the two guards exited the shop, inwardly thanking the almighty Informis Una herself that they were finally leaving. “Bye!”

He waited until they were well out of sight before promptly taking the wanted poster and discreetly incinerating it with his magic under the front desk, leaving nothing but ash behind which he then promptly swept into a wastebasket. Hanging that accusing poster somewhere in the store was the very last thing he wanted to do. All it would take was one observant pony noticing the poster, and then observing Spike working in the store in passing and seeing through his disguise. Indeed, the only thing that was probably keeping Spike from getting noticed right away at this point was the glasses, shirt, and sweater vest he wore as part of his disguise. If anypony ever thought to draw glasses on Spike’s photo on the poster, for whatever reason…

But Thorax had an even greater fear, and that was the leading reason why he destroyed the poster so quickly. He didn’t dare give Fly Leaf any chance to see it. They had been lucky enough thus far for her to not really question Spike or Thorax about what brought them here to Vanhoover, despite the mare clearly having questions about it, but Thorax feared that would all end the moment she saw the photo on that poster, as he really couldn’t see how she wouldn’t be able to put two with two upon seeing it.

Which also left the greater problem that Thorax knew he couldn’t do much about. He had destroyed one poster. But inevitably there were going to be dozens, if not hundreds more floating out there in Vanhoover that neither Thorax nor Spike could have any control over which their friendly proprietor could possibly see any time she stepped out the door.

Author's Note

Getting this posted a little later in the evening than has been my habit due to me, almost ironically, being preoccupied writing a later chapter for this story that won't be popping up for some chapters more still. It's proving to be a bit of a challenge writing it as it happens--but more on that when we get to it. I guess consider that as something as a vague teaser, then? :raritywink:

Downplaying

When Fly Leaf returned from her trip to the plumber, Thorax made absolutely no mention of the visit from the crystal guards or the poster they had given him and had subsequently destroyed. In fact, he barely made reference to it to Spike, downplaying the situation, not wanting to worry the dragon. But Thorax himself was very worried about the matter, and wished there was something he could do about it. His first thought was possibly sneaking about town at night and removing as many of the posters circulating about as he could, but realized that wouldn’t help much; the guards would only send out more upon noticing the disappearance of the originals. Plus, it would probably only clue them in that their targets were in fact in Vanhoover, because who else would take the time to remove the incriminating posters? It ultimately wouldn’t help.

His second thought was to maybe try and keep Fly Leaf in the shop as much as possible, and that way minimize Fly Leaf’s chances of seeing the poster at the very least. So whenever she declared she needed to run out of the shop to go do something, Thorax started volunteering to run the errand for her, so she wouldn’t have to. Fly Leaf was initially fairly impressed by this, but it only lasted for about a day as Fly Leaf, an independent mare, didn’t want Thorax doing everything for her (as it was quickly becoming), and finally put her hoof down when Thorax offered to run out to get her lunch for her instead of her doing it and politely asked that Thorax let her do some things for herself still.

Thus unable to do anything to stop the distributing of the posters of Spike through Vanhoover except within their shop and unable to keep Fly Leaf from going out where she could possibly see one, Thorax was left to having to sit tight and pray that everything would still work out, his fears never coming to light. And for the first couple of days after the guards had visited the shop, it seemed his prayers were answered as business went on as normal. Customers came, customers went. The store opened, the store closed. And still no pony seemed to make the feared connection that the so-called “criminals” the crystal guard was searching for were right here in front of them. Their frankly astonishing luck continued to hold out.

Spike at least seemed to be in good spirits about it, helped by the fact that he was making good progress on reorganizing the storage in back. By the following week he was already about halfway done, and already all of them were seeing the vast improvement his new organization system was bringing. Even Thorax was quite impressed by it, but no one was more impressed than Fly Leaf, who was utterly amazed how Spike seemed to be finding ways to fit the stacks of boxes into precisely the same space yet appearing to take up less of it, while still being easy to find.

“Where did you learn to organize like this?” Fly asked in amazement once while talking with Spike about his progress on the project.

Spike took on a faraway look. “It sort of rubbed off on me from someone I used to know,” he explained simply.

Meanwhile, Fly was finally making progress of her own on the second floor’s bathroom sink. Having gotten the new plumber in to work on it over the weekend, the plumber seemed to finally work out whatever it was everyone else had missed and got the sink’s faulty knob repaired at long last…and this time it was staying repaired. Fly waited a day or two after the repair so to put the sink through its paces nonetheless, insuring the repair was indeed going to be permanent this time. By the following Tuesday she was at last satisfied that the knob was going to stay repaired, and slipped out late that morning to run and pay off the bill for the repair real quick before the store’s usual afternoon rush arrived. She left Thorax in charge while she was gone, and the disguised changeling expected her to not be gone long.

Instead, she didn’t get back until nearly a half-hour later, more than double the amount of time he was expecting, and by which point the afternoon rush had started in earnest, leaving Thorax somewhat overwhelmed as he started having to pull double-duty. “That took you longer than expected, Miss Fly,” he noted with relief when a somewhat annoyed looking Fly Leaf reentered the shop, in time for the rush of customers to have thinned to more tolerable levels for the moment.

“Yeah, sorry about that,” Fly Leaf apologized, trotting to go return her pocketbook in the back. “I got held up against my will on the way back. Everything still went alright here while I was out though?”

“Well, I survived it at least,” Thorax responded earnestly which got a chuckle out of Fly. “What held you up, though? Some complication with the plumber and paying the bill?”

“Oh no, that all went perfectly fine,” Fly responded with the wave of her hoof. “No, what happened was that after I finished with that and was walking back here, I got stopped by those pesky crystal pony guards that have been running about town lately, who wanted to ask a whole bunch of questions on whether or not I knew anything about their little search for crooks.”

Thorax froze, and glanced over at Fly out of the corner of his eye. “What did you tell them?” he asked, worried.

“The truth, of course,” Fly answered curtly. “I don’t know anything.”

Thorax was quiet for a moment, letting Fly vanish in back to put away her things and not speaking again until she emerged again. “…and what did they tell you?” he asked next, in the most innocent manner he could think of.

“Just the details of who they’re searching for,” Fly responded simply, her attention more focused on correcting a detail on a shelf she was passing, “A changeling and a dragon accomplice. It seems they’re following a possible lead now that appears to suggest that what might have been the two had been spotted in this neighborhood of town before. Since they had already asked if I lived in this same part of town, they were asking if I had seen any sign that could back this claim up. Of course, I told them I hadn’t seen anything of the such.”

Thorax mulled on this for a moment. So far, everything still seemed to be fine. But there was one detail that was still nagging him. “Why such a delay then, if you didn’t have much to tell them?”

“Because they had plenty to tell me,” Fly griped, moving on to another set of shelves, checking to make sure the items on it were all tidy. “They wouldn’t let me go until they had given me the whole spiel about who these two runaways were, what they are accused of doing, and why those crystal ponies thought they might be in Vanhoover of all places. Of course, they conceded that Vanhoover wasn’t the only town they’ve been searching in the area, which is a bit of a relief to me if only because it means we aren’t the only ones that have to deal with it. Although they seemed confident that if their crooks were anywhere in the region, they were probably here in Vanhoover.”

Thorax fidgeted with his disguised grey hooves for a second, watching as Fly Leaf cycled through the shelves of her store, insuring everything was in order. “So…they’re just leaving no stone unturned then, so to speak?” he reasoned, thinking that would be what a perfectly normal pony who was certainly not the changeling the guards were looking for and on the run would say at this point.

Fly chuckled at Thorax’s description of it, approaching the front desk. “Basically, yes,” she agreed, turning her back to Thorax as she stopped to straighten a few books on a nearby shelf, “though that seems to entail getting the populace involved too. Heck, they even showed me a picture of the dragon they’re looking for, because they seemed convinced there was a high chance I might have seen him somewhere before.”

Thorax involuntarily jolted his hooves at this, banging one of them on the edge of the desk painfully. “You saw a picture?” he gasped with semi-concealed panic as he worked to shake off the pain of his aching hoof.

“Of the dragon, yes,” Fly repeated without looking away from what she was doing. “Apparently they’ve been distributing posters with the picture to businesses across town.” She suddenly glanced at Thorax. “Speaking of, have any posters been handed out here that you’ve seen? The guards seemed surprised to hear that I hadn’t seen or heard of any arriving in my shop.”

“No,” Thorax quickly lied, but it came out mildly squeaky, and when Fly gave him a puzzled look, the camouflaged changeling feared he was giving himself away.

But then Fly grinned and she stepped up to him. “Are you afraid someone’s going to confuse Spark for this fugitive dragon because he’s a dragon too?” she asked softly, placing a reassuring hoof on her employee and friend.

Thorax felt himself relax a little at the gesture. “More than you know,” he decided to admit, seeing no harm in saying that much.

Fly grinned and chuckled a little. “I understand,” she said. “You two are friends, after all, and no doubt you want to make sure he stays safe.” She gave him a playful nudge. “But I wouldn’t worry. If anyone was going to think that, I think somepony would’ve said something by now, so I don’t think that’s a deduction anybody’s going to make at this point.” She gave him a final pat and turned to walk off. “Besides, I told those guards straight up that I hadn’t seen specifically that dragon they’re looking for, and that none of my employees looked a thing like him.” She gave him a wink before trotting upstairs to check on things up there.

“Oh good,” Thorax breathed in a sigh of relief, the tension leaving him. But then Fly’s choice of words sank in a bit more fully, and he found himself gazing after the mare, mildly puzzled for a few moments, before he finally decided he was thinking too hard about it and pushed his puzzlement aside and got back to work.

Said Preparations

Fly Leaf’s determination of the situation proved to be correct. After another two weeks or so of their searching and not finding any leads, the crystal guards finally conceded they were not going to find what they were looking for in Vanhoover, and by the end of their first moon since Thorax and Spike had arrived in the city, nearly all of the crystal guards had vacated the city. They had left their posters behind, of course, and word was that Vanhoover citizens were still expected to report anything relevant to the case to their local authorities, but otherwise the matter was considered over by the populace at large and life in the city returned to normal, to the relief of the two runaways that had managed to evade detection after all.

By this point in time Spike had successfully completed work rearranging the back storage area of the shop, and as promised, had made it more effective and efficient in the process. Fly Leaf was so pleased with the end of the result that she decided she was going to leave further management of the back storage to the little dragon, adding it to his list of day-to-day tasks. As such, Spike found himself more intensely involved with managing the store’s inventory than before, but not so much that he wasn’t able to emerge from the back finally and make regular appearances in the rest of the store, to Thorax’s enjoyment, who liked having Spike out where they could regularly interact while working.

A number of their regular customers were also pleased to see the dragon out front where they could interact with him, having accepted Spike as one of the store’s reliable assistants. None of them seemed to have in any way determined he was the same dragon pictured in the crystal guard’s wanted posters and saw him fully as not just a friend, but as another Vanhoover native, and thus one of them who could be trusted. This, of course, worked to reassure Spike and Thorax fully that they were indeed in the clear from immediate detection, and not foreseeing any pony coming through the area searching for them again anytime soon, they figured they would continue to be free to stay in Vanhoover for as long as needed until they were fully prepared to head on out of Equestria entirely as they had planned.

Thus by the first weekend after the departure of the crystal guard from the city, the two outcasts found themselves free getting back to said preparations in full, and started making plans on how to use that time, as well as their pay for that week. After all, Fly Leaf had her shop open for every weekday during normal business hours without fail, but because she too needed time to do other things besides running the store, she closed the shop for weekends, freeing them all up to do other things with no work to worry about. Fly Leaf typically spent it either doing some weekly budgeting, taking care of various maintenance issues about the store that she couldn’t reasonably do while the shop was open, reworking the display in the front window according to her tastes that week, or running out to take care of errands of her own. In such instances, she was usually either running out to get her own supply of groceries, or she was gauging the stock of her competition and seeing what appeared to be popular with customers at any given time.

One store in particular was a rival stationery store that sat just a block up the street from Fly Leaf’s called Stationery Plaza, and was owned by the prideful Letterpress, an earth pony mare that whose secret-only-to-herself goal was to dominate the stationery market in Vanhoover, outdoing her competitors such as Fly Leaf. Possessing a bigger staff than Fly Leaf and thus allowing her store to be open on Saturdays without her actually needing to be there to supervise unlike Fly, Letterpress would often drop by to Fly’s shop, claiming to “visit as friends,” but in reality she was there just to gloat over her most recent victories to Fly Leaf. Fly, being a good natured mare who was more interested in promoting good relations with her competitors than viewing it as just a contest, humored Letterpress in a vain attempt to try and keep the relationship at least friendly. Although Fly did also concede she secretly did it because by letting Letterpress gloat, she was also announcing to Fly what things she was doing to promote sales at her store, and thus giving Fly an idea how to compete back. Purportedly, the two were also fierce “all-bets-off” competitors when it came to decorating their shops for holidays, although Spike and Thorax had not been working at the shop long enough to see it for themselves yet.

Whatever the case, Letterpress was always expected to drop by on most Saturdays, and none of them in Fly Leaf’s Books and Stationery ever really looked forward to it. Fly Leaf at best only tolerated it, and generally had to down more than one cup of a sugary soda drink she favored beforehand in order to get through it. Thorax also didn’t particularly care for Letterpress, saying to Spike that the only emotions he ever seemed to get out of her was pride, pandering for her own ego, and gloating (which Spike didn’t know even counted as an emotion until Thorax claimed otherwise), none of which were particularly appetizing for the changeling. He likened it once to sitting down to a buffet where the only thing served was unsweetened and uncooked oatmeal; you got tired of it pretty quick and eating too much of it just made you gassy afterwards. Thorax also admitted that Letterpress’s yellow fur, jet black mane and tail, rather rotund belly, droning tone of her voice, and her liking for wearing striped sweaters, all made her remind him of a bumblebee.

Spike, meanwhile, straight up just didn’t like her or her entitled attitude, and often found he couldn’t help but get into disputes with Letterpress whenever the two were in the same room for too long. Letterpress, likewise, took a quick disliking to Spike as well and though she seemed like she was trying to keep it to herself, Letterpress’s lack of tact made it very obvious anyway. Because of this, Spike quickly learned to make it a point to be anywhere but where Letterpress was when she visited, in part so to avoid any arguments the two might get into, and partly to preserve his own sanity.

But because of his needing to lie low during the period of time the crystal guards were in the city searching for him and Thorax, Spike couldn’t leave the shop like he normally would when Letterpress visited, and found it was hard to avoid her during her visits when he was stuck in the same building as her. As such, though Thorax had been handling their weekend trips for supplies for their planned journey out of the country for Spike and had been doing so without any outward hitches, by that first weekend after the crystal guard left, Spike felt it would be safe for him to resume handling this task himself, taking it over again from Thorax, and was eager to have a means of escaping Letterpress again. The only problem was that Thorax had found he enjoyed making the trips himself, as it gave him a chance to go explore the rest of the city they were staying in. Furthermore, on the days such supply trips were done, there wasn’t much else to do at the shop, and he loathed to give it up. Also, he didn’t really want to have to be stuck in the shop with Letterpress either.

“Can’t I come too?” Thorax pleaded as he sat in their room, watching Spike put on his disguise in preparation to leave.

“I don’t see why you’d need to,” Spike admitted as he slipped his navy sweater vest overtop of the white long-sleeved shirt he had become accustomed to wearing now. “This isn’t really a two person job, you know. We don’t really need both of us to go to run these errands, do we?”

“Maybe,” Thorax conceded as he watched Spike switch to putting on his bowtie next. “But there’s not really any point in me staying here either, because I don’t have anything to do. And with Miss Letterpress likely to arrive soon…”

“Stay up here then,” Spike suggested, adjusting the tie quickly before slipping on the final part of his disguise, his false glasses. “Work on your maps and keep figuring out the best routes we should take when we leave the country.”

“I’ve already plotted out about all the best routes I can,” Thorax stated, and trotted closer to Spike. “C’mon Spike, please? It’s fun getting out of the shop and seeing the rest of the city for a change.”

“Thorax it’s not that I don’t want you to come,” Spike admitted apologetically as he picked up the list of things they had planned to get today. “I just can’t help but feel it wouldn’t be smart for both of us to go out, where we could be noticed.”

“But we’re noticed together in the shop every day without any trouble,” Thorax pointed out. “The crystal guards have all left, and there’s not really any ponies seriously looking for us here at the moment. The Vanhoover populace has already demonstrated that they haven’t figured out who we actually are, and we’ll both be in disguise after all. I’m more than capable of using more than one disguise as we run errands too if it makes you feel better.” Thorax leaned closer, disguising his solid blue eyes in a flash of magic to appear big, innocent, and pleading. “Please?”

Spike smirked at his changeling friend for a long moment then shook his head. “I suppose it would be pretty fun to have some company for a change,” he relented finally, and motioned for Thorax to follow him, grabbing his fedora off the desk in the process. “C’mon then.”

“Huzzah!” Thorax declared brightly, and promptly switched to his usual Thornton disguise. Slipping on his saddlebags, he galloped up beside Spike as they started downstairs, putting one hoof around his friend’s shoulders. “Two friends out having a day on the town!”

“All right!” Spike agreed brightly, having to admit he did like the sound of that.

Author's Note

A bit of an interlude, almost fillerish, chapter today that wraps up a couple loose-ends from the last chapter and sets the scene for the next. I'll be honest, I'm not entirely satisfied with it being a standalone chapter; I had originally envisioned it as the opener for the next chapter. But the next chapter is a fairly lengthy one (at least longer than what's become the average for this fanfic) and I realized everything here didn't really relate to that next chapter and it seemed to make more sense to split it off as it's own chapter anyway. So I did.

But as it's likely the last chapter to get posted in January, it seems as good a chapter as any to end the month with, so there's that at least. :twilightsmile:

A Day on the Town

As it turned out, Thorax appeared to have been doing more than getting groceries during the period of time Spike had been laying low, using that time to explore around the city. Spike first started to notice this as they headed to the first store they needed to stop at, when Thorax directed Spike through a shortcut he had found during the time he had been running for supplies, a route some minutes faster than the route Spike had been accustomed to traveling and a bit more direct. At first Spike didn’t think much of it but once at the grocery store in question, where they planned to obtain some canned goods for their travel stash and also some day-to-day goods to use while they continued to stay in Vanhoover, he got to wondering to how Thorax found the shortcut and what else he might had been up to while he and Thorax were discussing what brands with the best prices were be most ideal for them and their budget.

“See, this brand would be the cheapest of the bunch,” Thorax explained, hefting up one can before Spike as they stood in an aisle of canned soup. He then hefted up a can in his other hoof. “But this brand, while costing a little extra, would have the higher quality of soup, and looking at the expiration dates, would last just a little longer.” He looked at Spike with his disguised ice-blue eyes. “So the question is which do you think would be the better purchase? The one that has the better quality or the one that will save us a couple of bits?”

Spike, who had never needed to do price comparisons before becoming an outcast, wasn’t sure how to respond, and preferred to defer to someone who clearly seemed to know more about it than he did. “Well, which do you think would be best?” he asked the changeling.

“I don’t know, you’re the one who’s probably going to be eating this stuff, not me,” Thorax pointed out, glancing between the two cans in his hooves. “So whichever it is, I figure you should have the final say.”

Spike considered it for a moment. He knew the higher quality product would have the better taste…but he also knew the cheaper one would leave them with more bits leftover they could use elsewhere, a tempting prospect considering their paychecks only went so far. “I guess it’d better be that one, then,” he concluded, pointing at the cheaper one. “I’m sure it’ll do for our purposes. I mean, we can’t be too choosey about this, right? The higher quality’s really only worth it if you can afford it.”

Chuckling, Thorax put the cheaper can into Spike’s shopping basket and returned the higher quality one to its shelf. “A fair and wise point,” he admitted.

As they turned to move on down the aisle, Spike changed the subject. “So, Thornton,” he began, being careful to refer to the disguised changeling by his alias as they walked past another store patron. “That shortcut you lead us down to get here…it was pretty effective.”

“Well, it saves one’s hooves a bit of wear and tear at least,” Thorax admitted, stopping to look at a selection of boxed goods for anything they needed.

“But I just got to wondering how you might’ve discovered it,” Spike continued. He nudged his friend with an elbow. “Have you been taking the time to explore around without telling me?”

Thorax winced. “Yeah, okay, sorry, but I got curious,” he admitted.

“Hey, so long as you didn’t do anything that might give us away, I don’t really have a problem with it,” Spike quickly assured his friend. “I’m just wondering why you hadn’t mentioned it.”

Thorax shrugged sheepishly. “I guess I thought you wouldn’t approve,” he explained. “I mean, you’ve been so cautious about lying low, especially after the crystal guards turned up…”

“But I trust you,” Spike assured him. “I know you understand the seriousness of our situation if not better than I do, and I know you wouldn’t do anything foolish. Besides, just because we’re…” he glanced around to check if anyone was listening. “…keeping a low profile, doesn’t mean I want to keep you too restricted. Thorax, I followed you out into the Frozen North joining you in banishment because I wanted to support you in finding a better life than what you had. That obviously didn’t work out entirely like either of us planned, but that goal still hasn’t changed. I want you to be able to live as free a life to do your own thing as we can.”

This all heartened Thorax some. “Well, okay then,” he said. “Guess I’ll keep…exploring around then.” His grin grew. “There are a couple of other places I’ve been stopping at when it was me doing the errands.”

Spike tilted his head at him, grinning. “Now you’re making me curious as to what they are.”

“Maybe I can point out some of them on the way.”

“Please do!”

So as Spike and Thorax finished in the grocery store and strolled back out into the streets of Vanhoover together, the streets filled with cheerful ponies going about their business as it was a pleasant day out, Thorax proceeded to do just that. Their next stop was to an outdoor sporting goods store to look at purchasing a tent to travel with; thus far all the tents they were interested in were outside their price range and they were still saving up the needed funds to get one, but Spike liked to check in regularly in case one of the desired tents ever went on sale into a price range they could afford. But part way Thorax suddenly stopped Spike and turned for a nearby shop they were passing.

“Let’s stop here for a second,” Thorax said, trotting up to the small store.

Spike glanced up at the store’s sign, which read Monterey Jack’s Cheese-Topia. “A cheese shop?” he repeated as he followed the changeling. “Why?”

“You’ll see,” Thorax responded as he pushed open the door.

The door dinged as they opened it, and the smells of the many varying kinds of cheeses lining the interior wafted into the noses of the two outcasts as they slipped inside. A cream-colored pony dressed in a white apron and matching chef’s hat stood behind the counter and display case, turning to grin brightly when he saw the disguised Thorax enter.

“’Ello Thornton!” the stallion declared brightly in an accent Spike reckoned hailed from the Trottingham area, or at least the Griffish Isles.

“Hello Mister Monterey,” Thorax greeted back as he walked up to the counter, already surveying the cheeses on display. Remembering Spike sheepishly standing beside him, he motioned to his dragon friend with one hoof. “This is my friend, Spark. He’s helping me run a few errands today, and I thought he’d like to try one of the samples you give out on weekends too.”

“Samples?” Spike repeated.

“That’s grand!” the stallion, named Monterey apparently, said and proceeded to open the display case. “Right then, wot’ll be yore selections t’day lads?”

Thorax hummed to himself, rubbing one of his masked grey hooves on his chin as he considered his options for a moment. Finally he tapped one hoof at the cheese he wanted. “Let’s try a bit of this colby jack cheese today.”

Monterey took a cheese knife and cut off a thin but still sizable slice of the large yellow and white cheese wheel in the case, stuck a toothpick in it, and handed it over to Thorax, who eagerly took it. Monterey then turned his attention to Spike. “And wot ‘bout you then, lad?” he asked.

Spike didn’t really know much of anything about the different types of cheeses, and was hesitant to select something at random, for fear he might end up with a cheese he wouldn’t like, but there were few cheeses in the display case he even recognized. “Uh…” he said with indecision. He tapped the case finally. “Some mozzarella, I guess?”

Monterey cut off a similar piece of the softer white cheese and handed it over to Spike like he had done with Thorax’s piece of cheese. He watched as the two sampled their respective bits of cheese, Thorax eagerly while Spike a bit more conservatively. “Meetin’ to yore satisfaction I trust, lads?” he asked with pride for his wares.

Spike found his mozzarella soft and chewy with a mild but noteworthy flavor he found he liked more than he expected. Surprised, he nodded his head. “It’s pretty good,” he agreed, taking another bite of his slice.

“Mmm,” Thorax hummed in content as he chewed on his colby jack with a pleased expression. “Makes me think of home,” he admitted.

Monterey laughed as he closed up the display case and turned his attention back to Thorax. “Y’know Thornton, one of these days I’m gunna get ya to buy a whole block of cheese,” he remarked teasingly.

“You know I’d love to Monterey, but unfortunately it’s not in the budget right now,” Thorax responded with an apologetic grin. “Maybe someday soon though. Besides, that gives me plenty of time to figure out just which one of your wonderful cheeses I like best.”

Monterey laughed again. “Well, can’t say no to that,” he conceded and nodded his head at the two turned to leave. “You lads take care now,” he said before turning to call to an assistant working in the back. “Oi! Where’s that Wensleydale I asked ya to bring up front? We’re practically out of it up here, lad!”

Back out in the street, Spike continued nibbling on his sample of cheese while also watching Thorax delicately chew at his, savoring the taste with a sort of reverence that both amused and surprised the dragon. “I never took you to be a cheese connoisseur,” he observed.

Thorax nodded his head. “One of the few things I miss from the hive is some good changeling cheese,” he admitted with a soft sigh. “I know I won’t find any of it in Equestria, but I guess I keep secretly hoping every time I pass Monterey’s shop that I’ll manage find a real close equivalent to it.” He took another bite of his sample of cheese. “This colby jack comes close, but it’s perhaps a bit too sharp in favor, and the texture isn’t quite right for what I’m looking for…”

“I didn’t even know changelings made cheese,” Spike admitted as he bit the last piece of cheese off his toothpick, knowing that changelings didn’t typically eat much solid food, favoring emotions instead. “Where do you get the milk to make it with?”

Thorax snorted a laugh. “Where do you think?” he asked glancing at his friend, thinking it obvious. When he saw Spike’s blank look though, realization hit him. “Oh right, I suppose you wouldn’t know.” He swallowed his bite of cheese before continuing, leaning in closer so to explain in a whisper, avoiding being overheard by passerbys. “Look, I know to Equestrians we appear very insect-like, and we do lay eggs and all…but we are still mammalian you know.”

He then straightened and trotted onwards, returning to his sample of cheese, while Spike emptily blinked, then blinked again, working at processing the full implications of Thorax’s statement. The dragon then shook his head and cleared his mind of the thought, deciding he didn’t want to think too hard about the subject, and was glad he had already finished his cheese before learning this little detail—he wasn’t sure he would’ve wanted to eat anymore after that.

Their trip to the outdoor goods store proved to be unproductive; the type of tents they wished to obtain were still out of their price range, but Spike at least took heart in noting that they were getting much closer to having enough bits to buy it. He estimated they would have secured the desired tent before the next moon rolled around, and by then they would likely have all the things they planned to have obtained and be ready to move on to their next destination. So with that positive note in mind, they proceeded on to their next and final destination, a discount thrift store where they hoped to find a good backpack for Spike after having realized they had neglected to get one despite having planned on it from the beginning before now.

Both Spike and Thorax had visited it before; Spike once when he got the curtains for the window in their room, and Thorax twice, once when he was scouting about Vanhoover when they had first arrived, and again while Spike was laying low from the crystal guards in town to get a cloak for Spike as well. Spike knew a route to get there from the outdoor goods store, but again, Thorax happened to have figured out a faster way since the dragon had last visited the store and led the way through a more worn-looking part of town. As Thorax’s last shortcut had proven to be quite effective without problem, Spike trusted the same from this one as well. But as Thorax started to lead the way through a narrow street, he observed they were approaching a gathering of rough-looking teenage ponies hanging under the archway of a walkway cutting across the street. And they were eying the approaching disguised outcasts closely.

“Uh Thorax…” Spike said, pointing a claw at the group which he feared might be one of the small but troublesome local gangs he had heard Fly Leaf make mention of in the past and was growing increasingly worried as Thorax continued to lead them right toward them.

“I see them,” Thorax assured his friend calmly. He leaned closer. “Don’t worry; just let me do the talking.”

Spike frowned, wanting to ask why but was cut short when they had finally drew close enough that one of the lanky teens called out to them. “Hey Thorny!” he shouted at Thorax in a sort of teasing manner, which drew chuckles from his cohorts.

Spike realized Thorax had encountered the group before as Thorax calmly returned the greeting. “Good afternoon, gentlecolts.”

This drew more laughter from the gang, amused by the idea that Thorax would call a rebellious group like them gentlecolts. Nonetheless, as Spike and Thorax grew close enough to start to pass under the archway, the gang moved to block their path.

“Who’s the lizard?” the teen that had spoken first, the apparent leader, remarked as he stepped closer to the pair, jabbing a hoof at the nervous Spike.

“This is Spark,” Thorax replied, placing a hoof on Spike’s shoulder as the dragon uneasily fiddled with the quilted weave of his navy sweater vest. “He’s with me.”

“You hang with a lizard Thorny?” the leader noted with an amazed laugh. “Celestia, the hits just keep on coming! You’re certainly an odd one, Thorny.”

“I try, Ragg,” Thorax responded with a small grin, calling the teen by what Spike assumed was his name. Spike was more just amazed Thorax was keeping so calm and confident about it; Spike didn’t like the look of their situation at all, and though Ragg came across as cheery, he didn’t miss the hidden and underlying challenging tone Ragg was giving.

“So what you doing walking through my street, Thorny?”

“Just passing through, as usual.”

“Well, you know I can’t just let you pass without a little something-something in return.”

Spike gulped and started to back away, but Thorax gently stopped him. “The usual?” he asked, lighting his camouflaged horn suddenly.

“You know it, Thorny,” Ragg said with a nod.

Thorax nodded back. Then he abruptly darted to the left, leaving Spike’s side with a suddenness that surprised the dragon, and raced to the leftmost support of the archway they stood under. His horn still lit with magic but not appearing to be forming any spells, Thorax then surprised Spike again as the disguised changeling, without slowing, proceeded to gallop on up the side of the archway, scaling it in a way only a changeling could. He ran across the length of the curving arch above their heads as Ragg’s gang called out shouts of impressed joy before Thorax galloped back down the rightmost support of the archway and onto the ground again, the whole feat taking only a matter of seconds. Ragg and his accompaniment burst out into a series of cheers while Thorax returned to the side of the baffled Spike, nodding his head under the praise, letting his horn go dark again without having ever once cast any spell that Spike visibly saw.

“That magic trick of yours never gets old, Thorny!” Ragg declared as the gang suddenly parted, permitting the two to continue down the street without further challenge. “You keep chill, y’hear?”

“And a good day to all of you too, gentlecolts,” Thorax responded with a polite grin as he urged Spike forward again.

They walked off, leaving the gang behind them, for several moments in silence. Finally, somewhat shell-shocked, Spike finally found his voice. “What just happened?” he asked.

“I did a trick for some acquaintances,” Thorax answered simply. “And they gave us their best wishes.”

Spike gave the changeling look, his head still reeling. “And just how did you come to make the acquaintance of that lot?”

“Same way we did today; I was looking to take a shortcut heading into this part of town, and stumbled across them in the process,” Thorax explained. “Of course, I didn’t realize they would be there or that this street is apparently their territory for some reason. I felt I was pretty civil with them when they stopped me and I explained why I was there and what I was doing to Ragg, their leader.”

“Speaking of, is that really his name?”

“I’m no expert on common Equestrian names, but I think it’s actually a nickname. Anyway, thinking my explanation would settle the matter, I started to step around them but then one of them abruptly moved to block my path. He startled me though, and for a fleeting second I actually thought he meant to harm me.” Spike didn’t mention how likely he thought that was really the intention. “So I panicked, instinctively acted to avoid them, and ran up and down the arch like you saw me do just now. And that impressed them enough that they decided I was all right, and let me through without further trouble.” Thorax shrugged. “That’s how it’s worked ever since I come through here. I run up and down the arch to amuse them and they let me through. Apparently it’s a sort of “move” they can only wish to do themselves, but they often do a series of motions that are similar…they call it “parkour”…?”

“They know parkour?” Spike declared, apprehension vanishing under his envy as he looked back in the direction of the gang they had passed by. “I always wanted to learn how to do that! A stallion came through Ponyville once giving classes on how to do it, but Twilight wouldn’t let me join, thought it was too dangerous…”

“Whatever the case, they see my running up and down the arch as the ultimate parkour trick,” Thorax continued to explain. He leaned in closer. “Secretly, I think they’re jealous, but don’t tell them I said that.”

Spike pondered all of this for a moment. “Why did you light your horn for the trick, then?” he asked, pointing at Thorax’s horn he still bore while disguised as a unicorn. “You and I both know you didn’t need it to do that trick.”

“Well, the first time I did it accidentally,” Thorax admitted. “I had it lit in case I needed to defend myself with magic, because remember, I thought I was being threatened. But then Ragg and the rest, seeing it, thought it meant magic was what I was using to make the trick possible, and have never questioned that assumption. So I just kept repeating it afterwards to keep up appearances, and so I could avoid having to explain how a seemingly ordinary unicorn can apparently walk up walls with ease without any apparent aides.”

Spike winced. “Yeah, that probably wouldn’t end well with that gang,” he admitted.

“Aw, well, they aren’t all that bad, really,” Thorax said in the defense of the group. “They’re actually pretty friendly when you get to know them. I think they just get together for some fun and games, like play tag.”

Spike’s eyebrows went up at this, having a hard time picturing the gang of teens playing something as innocent as tag. “Tag? Really?”

“Oh yeah, the last time I went through here, they mentioned they were leaving to visit a deli restaurant about a block up from here and go tagging.”

Despite everything, Spike couldn’t help but snicker a little at this. “Uh, actually Thorax, they aren’t referring to the game when they say tagging.” He gave the changeling a quick explanation of what he knew of the graffiting practice.

By the end of the explanation, Thorax was frowning and gazing back in the direction of the gang, even though they were long out of sight by now. “Huh,” he remarked. “But they seem like such a nice group…”

Spike rolled his eyes. “I’m sure they do,” he remarked so to humor the changeling. “But just as long as you remain on friendly terms with them, that’s all I care about at this point.”

“Well, that shouldn’t be a problem then.”

Spike merely smirked again and didn’t comment further.

The trip to the thrift store proved to be successful, and the two were able to secure a used, but reliable and durable backpack still in decent shape for Spike that wasn’t too expensive considering their limited funds. Thorax suspected the previous owner of the backpack was a unicorn, because he also detected that the backpack had at some point been cast with a “homebrewed” (as Thorax put it) spell that made it waterproof, an added bonus. Thus, satisfied with what they were able to accomplish today and successful in obtaining largely everything they set out to get, the two called it a day and proceeded to head back to Fly Leaf’s shop. Along the way, Thorax again suggested a different route to get back, this time more of a scenic route skirting along the edges of the city park rather than a shortcut, but it gave them both a chance to admire lush growth inhabiting the park as they passed it.

Gazing at it as they casually strolled past, Spike reflected back on their day today and all the little deviations off the beaten path Thorax had led him off of today, and found he couldn’t help but grin a little. “Hey Thorax?”

“Yeah?”

“Thanks for all of your leading as the guide today. It’s made the day more…interesting.”

“Oh, well, thank you.” Thorax shrugged his shoulders. “All I did was suggest we take paths I knew were slightly faster.”

“Except for the cheese shop.” Spike motioned to the park they were walking past. “Or this little detour past the park.”

“Oh, well, those are just because I thought they were interesting, and that you might enjoy them too.”

“And I have. That’s sort of what I’m getting at here.” Spike rubbed at the green spines on the back of his head, adjusting the fedora he wore on his head for a moment. “You’ve taken the time to go and explore Vanhoover and enjoy some of the things it has to offer while we’re here, and I haven’t really.”

“You have good reason not to, given our predicament.”

“True. And I had thought it wouldn’t be worth the risk personally. But…seeing you went and did it and nothing awry happened…it’s got me wondering if I should…loosen up just a little and…join you some in the exploring. I mean, we’re probably going to be in Vanhoover for a little while longer still…might as well take the time to see what it all has to offer while we’ve got the chance, right?” Spike shrugged himself. “Maybe we’ll find something that’ll be of help to us in the long run…and if not, maybe it’ll make life feel a bit more…” Spike grinned to himself, “…normal. And maybe that’s more important anyway. Trying to live a normal life despite our…less than ideal circumstances.”

Thorax shared in the grin with the dragon. “I certainly can’t say no to that,” he agreed warmly, gazing at his friend and liking the idea of helping him to be able to live some semblance of what would have been normal life for him were it not for him joining him in banishment.

“Then it’s settled,” Spike agreed as they pressed on for Fly Leaf’s shop. “When we go out, let’s make it a point to see what else we can find of interest in this city, big or small.”

Author's Note

So of course I noticed a lot of you seemed to be thinking that Spike and Thorax's little foray out into the town would end badly. Sorry if this is a disappointment to any of you, but that was never the intention. Look at it this way though; you could say I'm still keeping y'all guessing. :ajsmug:

To address another point I've been seeing come up in the comments a lot, though the characters in the tale may not seem like they're outwardly displaying it, know that me, the writer, is fully aware of the fact that just because they evaded the crystal guard does not mean they should lower their guard or let themselves feel too comfortable and complacent in Vanhoover, and this has been taken into consideration while writing. So know that's not something I'm overlooking, it's just the nature of the story thus far hasn't offered me ample opportunity to demonstrate that...and I never said these characters are necessarily going to think the same as you or me on the matter. :raritywink:

In actuality though, my goal with this chapter was more just for the world-building. Vanhoover is a town that hasn't really been portrayed in canon as of yet, so I figured that while I had the cast here, might as well take the chance to explore the town a little, show some of things it might have. Additionally, I wanted to see where Spike and Thorax (especially Thorax) would go in said city and what would catch their eyes if they were free to wander the city, as a sort of means of building their characters as well. Let's not forget the slice-of-life tag on this story after all. Its there specifically with chapters such as this one in mind.

The next couple of chapters will be seeking to achieve largely the same goals as this one, and because I also feel there's more to tell in this tale than just the grief and brooding over the fact the two are outcasts. But never fear; I'm not forgetting the main premise of the tale in doing this, and of course that will still be present moving forward. :twilightsmile:

Repertoire of Magic

Spike made good on that goal as well, and as the following week began, took the time to poke around Vanhoover whenever he went out, time permitting. It wasn’t long before he found Vanhoover had a comic store, and being a bit of a comic enthusiast and longing for the comic collection he had left behind in Ponyville, the dragon quickly found plenty to do there, pursuing the wide selection the actually fairly sizable store held while occasionally taking the time to stop and read ones he took interest in. He couldn’t quite justify buying any of them of course, but he enjoyed having access to them and knowing the option was available to him regardless.

Shortly thereafter he also found that there was game store nearby selling all sorts of games, but more importantly was a key retailer in the area of merchandise for the tabletop game Ogres and Oubliettes which Spike was also a fan of and had been missing his games with fellow player Big McIntosh back in Ponyville lately too. Thorax, however, wasn’t at all familiar with the game, or even what a tabletop game was, so Spike decided that, unlike the comic books at the comic store, he would save a small portion of their funds to try and get at least a basic set for the game, using that to teach Thorax how to play and to hopefully be able to take with them to play in any future travels they make. In the meantime, the game shop had an attached arcade which Spike took the time to introduce to Thorax one day during their lunch break. Also unfamiliar with any sort of electronic gaming that was rapidly gaining popularity as the new technology began to manifest itself in Equestria, the disguised changeling was immediately fascinated with even the most simple of arcade games, to the point that Spike had to physically drag him away when their lunch break ended.

Thorax also continued to explore about town, and now that he effectively had Spike’s permission, started to branch out further than before, further than Spike was more tentatively doing. He found a number of random shops specializing in all sorts of things this way, which Thorax took great joy in exploring, if only to see what it was they had. However it was a tip from Fly Leaf that led Thorax to find what caught his attention the most; the Vanhoover City Library. Here, the changeling in hiding was stunned to find that, through this library, he could access virtually any trove of written information he desired without restriction, and he marveled at how diverse a selection he had before him.

As it turned out, in the changeling hive, written knowledge in any form, book or otherwise, wasn’t so readily available. According to Thorax, this was largely due to previous turmoil in changeling culture that resulted in the loss of a great deal of written knowledge, many decades before even Queen Chrysalis’s birth. As a result, any remaining written knowledge, as well as any new works written thereafter, were kept very secure by the presently ruling changeling queen and were not made accessible to the changeling public without her permission or the supervision of an authorized changeling looking after the text’s safety. When they weren’t in use, they were kept locked up in a secure archive deep within the hive. The only time Thorax was allowed to even see these texts while still in the changeling hive was during his schooling when they were pulled out for teaching only, and even then he and his fellow students were closely supervised by both the attending educator and the assigned caretaker of that particular text while it was pulled out. Thorax explained that this was all done for the protection of the texts, but Spike secretly suspected changeling queens such as Chrysalis also used it to manipulate what her subjects could and could not learn, so to ensure she maintained fine control over them. Knowledge, after all, is a powerful thing.

Whatever the case, Thorax saw he now had a unique opportunity to read any book he desired for a change and was nearly overwhelmed by the possibilities. The first time he visited the library he tried to read as many texts as he could and was dismayed when he had to leave, thinking he was unable to bring any books with him to keep reading. So he was overjoyed when, while lamenting this to Fly Leaf and Spike at dinner that evening, it was pointed out he could borrow the books from the library for a time, he just needed to get a library card. The following day Thorax went in and got precisely that, and was so excited about it that when he went to sign his name on the back of the card, he nearly signed it in his native changeling rather than Equestrian and had to quickly scribble out the first letter and start over as a result. When he returned to the shop, he brought back with him as many books the library would permit him to check out in one go.

Fly Leaf was amused by Thorax’s exuberance but fully encouraged him to “expand his horizons” through reading and otherwise didn’t think much of it. Spike, however, found Thorax’s newfound bookworm behavior a little too like Twilight when she got to binge reading a bit too hard, and knew from experience that rarely ended well. Therefore he was a bit more cautious about promoting Thorax’s new voracious appetite for wisdom. Indeed, initially Thorax only read for reading’s sake simply because he hadn’t the opportunity to read texts freely like this before and was perhaps too eager about exploiting this chance. For instance, one of the first books Thorax took the time to read was an outdated almanac from thirty years ago…just because he could. He wanted to read in other words, but hadn’t yet figured out just what he should read.

Fortunately, it did not take him long to figure it out. Quickly Thorax started to veer towards texts discussing spells and magic, which Thorax proceeded to spend his time studying in his spare time. His reasoning was so to try and expand his repertoire of magic, as he really only knew what would be basic magic for most changelings, and thought it would be useful to have access to a far wider range of magic on demand while he and Spike remained as outcasts in hiding. And Spike agreed with that. What Spike didn’t particularly care for from the idea was that Thorax’s studying of magic inevitably led to him experimenting with said magic…resulting in occasionally peculiar circumstances, especially when things didn’t go as the changeling planned. And soon it became all-too common for Spike to walk in on the changeling and find something had gone…amiss.

He started to suspect trouble could only come from this studying when he stepped into their room one day and found Thorax was sitting on the ceiling.

“Decided to study up there today?” Spike asked sarcastically, tilting his head as he gazed at the changeling, undisguised as he normally was in the privacy of their room, had his snout buried in a magic textbook.

“I’ve been studying gravity spells,” Thorax replied, his brow furrowed as he attempted to puzzle out the text before him. “At least…I’ve been trying to.”

Spike let out a laugh at this, proceeding to step into the room. “Heh, yeah, they aren’t easy. I remember when Twilight first started to experiment with gravity spells. Accidentally made herself weightless and I had to tie her down like a balloon so she wouldn’t float away while she tried…”

“No wait, Spike!” Thorax suddenly cried out in warning as he noticed Spike strolling closer.

Too late, Spike crossed an invisible boundary and with a sudden gut-wrenching flip suddenly found himself falling upwards, joining the changeling on the ceiling with a thud. With a groan, Spike picked himself up as he figured out what had happened. “You’ve reversed gravity in our room,” he stated bluntly.

“Just in this one spot of the room, actually,” Thorax said with a frown as he turned back to his textbook. “I’m not sure what I did, but I’m trying to fix it.” He glanced back at the dragon as his friend sat himself down and looked at Thorax with a mild glare. “You couldn’t tell?”

“You can walk up walls, Thorax, I thought you were just using that to…shake things up,” Spike admitted grumpily.

Thorax rolled his eyes, or at least as close to it as his pupiless blue eyes could manage, but Spike had been around the changeling long enough now that he could tell the intended gesture anyway. “I can’t walk up walls and then sit down on the ceiling Spike,” the changeling explained like this should’ve been obvious, and motioned to his rump sat neatly on the ceiling that had now become their relative floor. “I don’t have grippers on my butt like I do on my hooves after all.”

Spike rolled his eyes himself, folding his arms, but decided it wasn’t worth arguing. “Just get us down,” he urged.

“Working on it,” Thorax grunted. He squinted at the text before him for a moment before lighting his horn, standing up. “Okay, I think I’ve got it.”

With a flash from his horn, gravity suddenly righted itself again. Thorax kept himself from safely falling from using his aforementioned grippers in his hooves to grip the ceiling, keeping himself from falling, but Spike suddenly found himself falling back towards the floor below, and only managed to stop his fall by grabbing the changeling around the neck.

Dangling now so the weight of the dragon’s body was nearly choking the changeling, Thorax quickly popped off the ceiling with a buzz of his wings and righted himself so their feet both pointed towards the floor again. “Sorry, I probably should’ve given you more forewarning.”

“I should’ve been thinking ahead to that myself,” Spike admitted, preferring to take the blame for that himself as the changeling lowered him back down to the floor, Spike releasing his hold on his friend the moment he felt his feet touch the wooden flooring. “But I think in the future, if you’re going to experiment with magic in here…maybe you should hang a sign on the door so nobody just walks in here unprepared.”

“That’s a good idea, actually,” Thorax agreed, and levitated a sheet of paper over to himself to make a note of it.

In practice however, whenever Spike saw the makeshift note Thorax would thereafter hang on the door to their room while practicing magic, it told him to instead veer away from the room until Thorax was finished, because he quickly found he’d was likely to walk into the middle of some new magical mishap and Spike found he didn’t have the gumption to have to deal with it directly too often. After all, he had learned long ago from living under Twilight’s roof that the best way to handle the mare’s own magical mishaps was to try and stay out of it, only getting involved more directly whenever Twilight couldn’t resolve it on her own or the mishap was big enough that it was causing trouble for others too.

Spike often feared, in fact, that Thorax would eventually create a mishap that it would draw unwanted attention from ponies outside, to the point that there was a small part of him that wanted to put his foot down on the experimenting for their own safety. Yet at the same time, he didn’t want to restrict his changeling friend like that…especially since that despite the many mishaps, Thorax was clearly enjoying his self-teaching of magic. Plus, the changeling knew the need to be careful, and had successfully managed to keep every spell he cast while practicing, regardless of it being successful or not, contained to their room, so no one outside him, Spike, and Fly Leaf was generally even aware of Thorax’s experimenting. And of those three, Fly Leaf never got herself involved either, as she was already in the habit of respecting the privacy of her two employees and rarely ever entered their room since they had moved in, and even when she did, she got their explicit permission first. It was a nice gesture they of course returned; to date, neither of them had even seen inside Fly Leaf’s own room yet.

However, when upon asking Fly for her opinions on Thorax’s (or rather, Thornton’s) experimenting with magic, the shop owner admitted some of Thorax’s mishaps with his experiments worried her, more for any potential damage it might cause to either Thorax or Spike than any damage of what was really her property (though she also admitted that wasn’t far behind). But otherwise she thought his magical experimenting was a good thing for him.

“From what he’s told me, this wasn’t the sort of opportunity he got where he grew up and naturally he’s eager to make use of it,” Fly explained to Spike. “And heaven forbid, I certainly don’t want to stand in the way of that. It’s exciting to see him get so caught up in this, and you know Thornton’s really just trying to expand his horizons by experimenting with magic like this.” She dotingly readjusted Spike’s false glasses that he wore and gave him a warm grin. “Look, I know his blindly trying to teach himself often only ends up making a big mess for you to deal with, but sometimes that’s how ponies learn, Spike. By making a mess, they learn what they did wrong, and that gives them motivation to learn to do it better. And honestly? I think Thornton hasn’t done anything wrong. So maybe he’s been the cause of a couple of magical mishaps, but nothing that wouldn’t be expected and he’s done no real harm. So long as it stays that way, I personally have no problem with him continuing to experiment. It’s a wonderful thing for one to want to try and improve themselves like that. Besides…” she teasingly poked Spike’s snout with her orange hoof. “…when you keep a positive attitude, you might find even the mishaps can be fun little adventures.”

Spike couldn’t help but grin at Fly Leaf’s wise words, and realized she had made her point well. He certainly didn’t want to stand in the way of Thorax continuing to grow as an individual either, and decided to try and keep that positive attitude about the matter. It did wonders in helping him find the patience to deal with the more trying moments of Thorax’s experimenting. And anyway…Spike always did like a good and fun little adventure.

Author's Note

So this chapter was originally going to end with Spike getting frustrated by Thorax's magical mishaps to the point that the two have a small spat and Fly Leaf has to step in to get them to make up. But I quickly found I didn't like the nature of the argument, which seemed both partly out of character for both Spike and Thorax and the set up for it didn't seem very plausible. I also felt it didn't add anything significant enough to the story overall that would keep it from just dragging things out unnecessarily...especially as I found it was probably going to bleed into a second chapter I didn't feel I wanted...so I opted to cut it and try this simpler approach instead.

It works...thought I do feel like the chapter has a bit of a non-ending as a result. But as the main point is to just establish Thorax experimenting with magic and discovering the joys of the library, it gets what I wanted accomplished.

There was also a second scene regarding a different magical mishap that got cut, but this will be recycled as an opener for a later chapter, so you readers have that to look forward to. :twilightsmile:

Story Time

That following Saturday, with shop was naturally closed for the weekend, meant there was little work that needed to be done, but as Spike wandered downstairs, he still hoped Fly Leaf could give him some sort of task to try. However, when he arrived in the shop’s front room, he found Fly Leaf strapping a saddlebag full of books onto her pumpkin orange back, preparing to leave.

“Hey Spark,” she greeted as she spied the little dragon trotting down the stairs. “Hey, are you and Thornton going out for anything today?”

“Not really, Thornton’s busy practicing magic, and I was just going to keep myself busy with something down here,” Spike replied, self-consciously adjusting the false glasses he wore as part of his disguise.

“Oh good!” Fly motioned to another bag full of books sitting on the front desk. “Can I perhaps ask you to help me carry these books to the city library then?”

Spike shrugged and dragged the bag off the desk, pulling it over his shoulders. “Sure. But what’s the occasion?”

“The library’s holding a seasonal charity event today,” Fly Leaf explained, moving to unlock the front door long enough for them to step out. “Ponies from all over town come to donate books and help run the event and it’s become tradition for me to donate some of the surplus from my stock then stick around to volunteer to read for a story time event for foals.”

Spike blinked and grinned in mild surprise as he took his fedora from off a hook near the door, placing it over his green spines. “That’s nice, I didn’t know you did that!”

“Well, it’s the first time the event’s been held since I took you and Thornton on as staff,” Fly Leaf reminded as she opened the door and held it open for Spike to step out. “Speaking of Thornton, you think he’ll want to come with?”

“I don’t think so, it sounded like he’s going to be a while working on a troublesome spell this afternoon,” Spike explained.

As if to prove this, a muffled bang was suddenly heard from somewhere upstairs, sounding like Thorax’s spell had yet again misfired. “Thornton!” Fly Leaf called up to her other employee. “Spark and I are heading out for a bit! Please don’t burn down my shop in the meantime!”

“I won’t!” Thorax was distantly heard calling back down.

Satisfied enough with that promise, Fly and Spike then headed out and off down the streets of Vanhoover, heading for the library. They chatted in passing as they went before Fly Leaf became inquisitive about the dragon beside her.

“So Spark…” she began, then frowned, “…or do you prefer Spike? Thornton seems to favor the latter, but I’ve noticed you answer to either name, so…”

“Uh…” Spike began, momentarily unsure how to answer. “Probably Spark would be better…especially in public.”

“Spark it is then,” Fly Leaf settled then continued with her original thought. “Anyway, you and Thornton said you’d both been traveling about before coming here…so what sort of places have you been to?”

“Oh, well,” Spike responded, having to think about it for a second. He saw no reason why he couldn’t be truthful about this though. “Canterlot, Appleloosa, Manehatten, Fillydelphia, Rainbow Falls, up into the Frozen North…”

“Any place exotic?”

“Well…Thornton hasn’t, but I’ve been down to the Dragon Realms before…”

“That doesn’t surprise me, you being a dragon and all. That’s probably home for you.”

Spike hesitated for a moment. “Actually…I was hatched and raised in Equestria.”

Fly gave him a surprised glance. “Really? How did that happen?”

Spike shrugged. “It just did. I actually hadn’t ever been down to the Dragon Realms until very recently, and that was just for a passing visit…maybe I’ll visit again sometime…we’ll see.”

“Hmm.” Spike could tell from her tone that Fly Leaf was curious still about the matter, but she didn’t pry further.

A couple blocks from the library still however, Fly Leaf decided she was hungry and stopped at a pony with what Spike thought was a shabby-looking food cart, selling pita pocket sandwiches. Despite the questionable appearance of it all, Fly bought one for herself anyway, pointing out it was at a decent price. “You want one?” she asked Spike as the pony, a rough-looking stallion that didn’t look much better than his cart, prepped her pita pocket.

“I’ll pass, thank you,” Spike said, looking at the somewhat sloppy state Fly’s finished pita pocket looked and decided he didn’t trust it.

Fly Leaf seemed to find the pita pocket tasty though, and had eagerly downed it all by the time they arrived at the city library. They found the building unusually busy due to the charity event, as it seemed Fly wasn’t the only pony who had come to donate and participate. Because Fly was a regular participant in the charity event though, she was recognized by the head librarian who assisted with Fly and Spike dropping off the supply of donated books. She was both pleased and relieved to see Fly Leaf as she knew she could always count on Fly to volunteer to read to the foals for the story time event, and this year it seemed Fly would be the only pony to do so; everyone else couldn’t make it for one reason or another, and as the story time event was a highly popular one with the foals, the librarian was starting to fear they would have a lot of disappointed foals to deal with.

Fly Leaf assured that she would participate in the story time event, then she and Spike went and sat near the little amphitheater where the event would take place and waited for things to finish getting ready for it. While they sat and waited, Fly Leaf pulled out the storybook she planned to read and showed it to Spike.

“The Adventures of Air Flap the Pegasus,” Spike read the title aloud, grinning at the cheery-looking cover. “Can’t say I’m familiar with it.”

“It’s a relatively new book that seems to be pretty popular with foals these days, so I figured it’d be a safe bet to read it.” Fly explained. She then frowned and stifled a small, sour belch and thumped at her barrel with one hoof for a moment.

“Something wrong?” Spike asked.

“I think that pita pocket I had is making me a little gassy,” Fly admitted, her frown deepening as she let out another small belch. “…maybe getting that wasn’t such a good idea after all.”

Spike grinned to himself, but withheld any comments he could’ve made on the subject. As the minutes drew on, parents started to file their foals towards the amphitheater and getting them settled down for the reading that would be taking place shortly. But the closer the start of the event drew, the more and more ill Fly Leaf started to appear. Soon she was leaning heavily on a nearby bookshelf and was breathing deeply in-between letting out more sour belches, which had been gradually getting more frequent.

Spike grew worried as he noticed her face had taken on an unhealthy green tinge. “You okay, Fly?” he asked with concern.

“Yes,” Fly initially responded, but then groaned and shook her head, amending her answer. “No…I’m starting to think there was something bad in that pita pocket I ate…”

Spike winced and his concern grew. “Food poisoning, you think?” he asked.

“Probably a safe bet,” Fly agreed with a weak nod as she let out another belch. If possible, she turned a little greener still. “I should rat out that stallion that sold it to me to the authorities…it’s against the city safety regulations to be running a food cart like that if the food he’s selling isn’t—URP!”

Her cheeks suddenly puffing out, Fly slapped a hoof to her mouth as her eyes grew wide in alarm, then spun around and, somewhat wobbly, ran for the nearest restroom which, lucky for Fly Leaf, wasn’t too far from where they had been sitting. Spike watched after her as the bathroom door slammed shut behind her, realizing the mare was just about to be sick.

“Uh…uh…” he stuttered, unsure what, if anything, he should do now.

“Okay Fly Leaf,” then came the voice of the librarian from behind Spike as she strolled up with a pleased expression. “We’re ready to begin and those foals are all rearing for a good story, so…” she trailed off when she noticed only Spike was here. “…where’s Fly Leaf?”

“Uh, in there,” Spike admitted, jabbing a claw anxiously at the bathroom door. “Fly’s not been feeling too good all of the sudden…we think it was something she ate on the way here.”

“Oh dear,” the librarian stated with concern, and she trotted over to the bathroom door and rapped upon it. “Fly? You alright in there? Fly?” She opened the door and poked her head inside in time for the sound of Fly Leaf retching, hopefully into a toilet, inside. “Oh dear, Fly!” the librarian cried, and started to slip inside, only to about face and point at Spike. “Stall them!” she urged.

“Me? But—” Spike started to object but he was ignored as the librarian ducked back into the bathroom. Spike bit his lip for a second, then figured to go ahead and step into the amphitheater and take over for Fly Leaf on the reading. After all, how hard could it be to read a storybook to some foals?

It wasn’t until he was out before the group of cheering and applauding foals, thinking Spike was the one that had been planned to read from the beginning, that he realized he didn’t actually have the storybook in question with him; Fly still had it with her when she ran into the bathroom, and he had no alternatives at hand. He had nothing to read. Quickly, he racked his brain for a solution.

“So uh, hello everypony,” he started off politely. “Um, so there’s been a small hiccup…Fly Leaf, the uh, mare who’s gonna read to all of you…has been, uh…unexpectedly held up, and can’t read to you right now…but hopefully she’ll be able to soon, and…”

“Are you going to read to us?” a young filly suddenly called out from within the crowd.

“Uh, well, no,” Spike began to hesitantly explain. “Because, you see, as I was saying, I’m not the one…”

“Read us the story already!” another foal called out from the back of the group, quickly joined by more foals who all weren’t listening to Spike trying to explain the situation.

“Get on with it!”

“Read us a story!”

“If you don’t read us a story, I’m gonna cry!”

“Mommy, the lizard-thing won’t tell us a story!”

Spike pressed his claws to his face in frustration for a moment, making a small growl. “Okay, okay,” he relented, even though he still had no idea what story he was going to tell them. “You want a story? I’ll tell you a story. This is the story about…” he looked around quickly for inspiration before spying a picture of a mouse on a sign hanging near the library’s children section. “…a mouse. A friendly little mouse named…” again he searched his brain for inspiration. “…Squeak. Squeak the mouse.”

A colt raised his hoof. “What sort of mouse was he?”

“A house mouse, the kind of mouse you’d find living in the wall of your kitchen, and that you’ve probably seen your mothers scream like little foals at the sight of whenever they scamper by.”

This drew a series of giggles from the gathering of foals, and Spike saw one mare sitting to one side, probably the mother of one of the foals, roll her eyes in good humor at the jab. Heartened by this positive reaction, Spike pressed on.

“So Squeak lived in the wall of such a house with all his mouse friends, and they all played together and did things together and were having a great time.” Spike paused briefly as he realized he needed some sort of antagonist now to create conflict. “But also living in the walls of the house was this big mean rat that didn’t like Squeak or his friends, and lived alone, plotting ways to mess up Squeak’s day.”

“Boo!” one of the foals fittingly called out at this. “Boo on the rat!”

“That’s right!” Spike agreed with a nod, pointing a claw in the direction of the foal. “This wasn’t a nice rat at all! Anyway, one day, Squeak was playing with a ball with one of his friends, and the rat saw this and decided; he was going to take that ball and keep it for himself. That way, Squeak and his friend wouldn’t have the ball, and they’d be sad, messing up their day and leaving them in a foul mood while the rat would take joy in their misery.” Getting caught up in the moment, Spike let out a wicked cackle at this, which drew more boos for the rat from the foals, voicing their disapproval of the rat’s bad behavior. “So when the ball accidentally went out of bounds during Squeak and his friend’s game, the rat dove for it to try and snatch it away from them! But Squeak and his friend hurried over and tried to take it back. And they tugged and tugged and tugged, until it popped out of all their paws and soared up through the air and landed…uh…” On the other side of the amphitheater from the library’s children’s section was the library’s cooking section, marked with a picture of a cooking pot on a sign, and Spike quickly recalled what Fly Leaf had cooked for dinner last evening. “…a ginormous pot of simmering seven-cheese stew!”

The foals all oohed and awed at this twist, save for one foal who declared out loud that the pot of stew sounded delicious.

“And thus it boiled down to a race to see who could retrieve the ball safely from the stew first, the rat or Squeak and his friend!” Spike went on. “While the rat went off to plot his own ways of getting at the ball, Squeak tried jumping in after it, but the stew was too hot, and he burned his bottom.”

The foals laughed at this.

“It became clear then that the only way to get the ball back was with something that could keep the hot stew from touching them,” Spike continued. “And that was when Squeak’s friend had the genius idea of using…” he spied one foal that was wearing a t-shirt with the picture of a sailboat on it. “…a boat!”

“A boat?” more than one foal called back in surprise.

“Yes!” Spike agreed. “With toy remote-controlled motorboats! With such a boat they could safely sail the seven-cheese stew and recover their lost ball!”

“Like pirates!” a filly near the front cried.

“Yes! Like pirates!” Spike agreed again, running with that idea. “Which meant Squeak and his friend had to put on the appropriate attire to look the part, and when they had, Squeak wasn’t Squeak anymore, because he’d become SQUEAK, SCOURGE OF THE SEVEN-CHEESE STEW!”

Several of the foals shouted out praise for this, but then one curious foal asked “What did Squeak’s friend become?”

“The sidekick!” Spike replied without hesitation. “Because every good hero needs a sidekick, right? Anyway, now dressed for the part and their motorboat ready, they cast off into the stew and went after their lost ball, but guess what? They found out the big mean rat had gotten the same idea, and came chasing after them with a motorboat of his own!”

This drew gasps of surprise from his youthful audience.

“And so the chase for the ball was on! Squeak and his friend dodged right, dodged left, trying everything they could so to lose the rat in the stew and get to the ball first, smashing through waves of cheesy stew and…”

“This must have been one heck of a pot of stew!” one foal observed suddenly.

“Oh, it was!” Spike assured. “It was a massive, family-sized pot of stew, a huge, stovetop-breaking sort of pot of stew meant to serve dinner for a whole family of healthy hungry ponies! And it was a big family!” He wanted to liken this imaginary family to the Apple family, but not only did he know that would risk revealing who he actually was, he knew it’d just go over the heads of his attentive audience and so chose to just leave it at that. “And the rat and Squeak chased—”

“Don’t forget his friend, the sidekick!”

“—and his friend, the sidekick, chased each other all across this huge pot of stew, bumping and racing and ramming each other, trying to get the other to submit or capsize, or at least moored up long enough for the other to reach the elusive ball first! Finally, the ball came into sight, and both sides made a mad dash for it in their boats. They drew closer and closer—they were neck and neck—and THEN…” Spike paused for dramatic effect. “…the rat got the ball first.”

The foals all jointly gasped in alarm at this twist. One melodramatically cried out “no!” and toppled over in a play faint.

“Yes, the rat got the ball first before Squeak and his friend!” Spike reaffirmed. “But…the joke was on the rat, because he was so busy gloating over the fact that he got the ball, he forgot to watch where he was steering his motorboat, and it slammed into the side of the pot, causing it to tip over, spilling the seven-cheese stew all over the kitchen floor in a cheesy flood of epic proportions, and it got everywhere, and we’re talking everywhere! On the floor, on the stove, on the cupboards…everywhere. And Squeak, his friend, and the rat, went with it. But they had a bigger problem at that point, because remember when I talked about your mothers screaming at the sight of mice? Well, just such a mother, hearing the pot tip over, came to investigate. Squeak and his friend, knowing the danger, ran and hid post haste—”

“What does post haste mean?” a foal interrupted suddenly.

“It means very quickly,” Spike explained quickly, trying to not lose his train of thought over the interruption, and jumped right back to telling the story. “Squeak and his friend ran and hid, but the rat, so focused on having snagged the ball before them still that he failed to notice, and so he was still sitting in the middle of the mess when the mother pony comes marching in and sees him. And can you guess what happened then?”

The foals giddily and loudly all did their own impressions of their mothers screaming at the sight of a rodent in their kitchens.

“Exactly!” Spike declared in approval. “So she gave that rat what for!” Then, remembering the average age of his audience, added, “Humanely, of course. She caught him and he got sent to an animal-friendly science lab where they put him through a series of safe and simple tests, um…” Spike decided he was going too easy on the rat now. “…that he didn’t study for!”

Several of the older foals oohed loudly, voicing their sympathy for the rat and his testing predicament.

“But!” Spike continued. “When the rat got caught, he dropped the ball in the process, leaving it free to be retrieved by Squeak and his friend, and they didn’t get caught, so we all know who won out in the end. And so, with their ball safely retrieved and the rat no longer where he was going to cause them trouble, Squeak and his friend got back to playing their ball game…” Spike thought for a second if there was a way he could sweeten the ending. “…and invited all his other friends to join in too. And they all had an excellent game of catch for the rest of the day. The end!”

The foals all immediately cheered and applauded at this cheery ending. Spike was beginning to think he had successfully resolved the story time issue and was about to bow out and exit the amphitheater to check on Fly Leaf when the foals started to call out requests.

“What happened to Squeak after that?” one filly asked.

“Yeah, what other adventures did he and his friends get up to?” a nearby colt agreed as more foals voiced interest in this subject.

“Another!” one colt cried loudly, throwing the juice box he was slurping from onto the ground to emphasize his cry.

“Yeah! Tell us another story!”

Spike hesitated, but then seeing the first one seemed to have worked out, he shrugged. “Well, all right then,” he said, and proceeded to devise a follow-up story.

Again making it up as he went along, Spike dove into the further adventures of Squeak the mouse and his friends, relating to his attentive and young audience the story of how Squeak conquered and seized control of the cat tower from the house cat that also lived in the house, and how Squeak was able to locate and dig up a special mouse treasure buried in the backyard while at the same time evading the machinations of the pet dog that was trying to stop him. Spike was just beginning to piece together the premise for a possible fourth story involving Squeak diving into a pond for an underwater sort of adventure when the librarian finally returned and took charge again long enough to make an announcement.

“I want to thank Spark for stepping in unplanned like that,” she said. “The pony who was originally going to read to all of you, Miss Fly Leaf, unexpectedly became ill at the last second. Fortunately, she seems to be doing a bit better now, but she’s sadly not in a condition where she could read to you, and if it had not been for Spark stepping in so quickly, we would’ve had to cancel story time altogether. So let’s all give an applause for Mister Spark real quick.”

The foals all stomped their hooves in approval, with some going to extra mile to hoot and holler their approval. Feeling a little put on the spot and the thought coming to him that perhaps he was drawing a bit too much attention for someone who was trying to lie low, Spike sheepishly grinned, waved, then hoping to speed the applause along, made a polite bow real quick. Fortunately, the librarian called for the attention to come back on her as she proceeded to announce what was next on the itinerary for the library’s charity event, allowing Spike to slip out of the amphitheater finally. He was going to go look for Fly Leaf when the librarian, finished with the announcement and stepping away from the amphitheater herself, pulled Spike aside.

“I just want to personally thank you again for keeping those foals entertained,” she told Spike. “They would’ve been deeply disappointed if they hadn’t gotten to hear any stories like promised, but you not only insured that didn’t happen, you kept them more engrossed than I’ve seen one of our storytellers for this event do in quite a while.”

“Aw, well,” Spike said, shrugging off the praise. “You said to stall, and they were demanding a story…so I improvised.”

“I noticed, and I’m highly impressed,” the librarian continued before tilting her head at him. “Did you really make up all of those stories just from the top of your head?”

“Completely and utterly,” Spike confirmed with a nod then shrugged. “It probably showed.”

“Well, I don’t know about that, you seemed to keep those foals more than entertained with your tales, so whatever you were doing, you were doing it well. I’d go as far as say that you have a talent for this.”

Spike chuckled at the idea. “Nah,” he pressed, shrugging off the idea. “Besides, what would I even use a talent like that for?”

The librarian shrugged herself, before starting forward again. “Writing your own stories comes to mind,” she said. She motioned for Spike to follow. “Anyway, Fly Leaf should be over here. One of my assistants is studying nursing and sat down to check her over. They should be done by now, assuming Fly Leaf has continued to improve.”

Spike followed her obediently, amused by the librarian’s suggestion. “Heh, me? Write? That’d be the day.”

Fly Leaf however, upon Spike telling her about it, seemed to agree with the librarian. She was sitting in a private study area of the library where there were few patrons, looking pale and weary, but assured Spike her stomach had settled down and she was more than alert to speak on the matter. “I think she’s not wrong, Spark,” she commented as the librarian’s assistant finished up checking Fly Leaf over now that the ill mare was in a better position to be looked over. “You seem to have enough of a knack for all the right skills for writing at least.”

“Really?” Spike said, still skeptical of the whole idea while he sat to one side, waiting for the assistant to finish with Fly Leaf. “You could see me be a writer?”

“Well, I could see you be a lot of things,” Fly admitted, smiling warmly at her dragon employee. “But your little improvisation for the foals demonstrates you can piece together an enjoyable story from scratch with ease or little preparation in advance. I only heard bits and pieces from here, but I heard enough to tell that they were still fairly well rounded stories despite that lack of preparation. Not many ponies can do that, you know.”

“But they were just these silly random things,” Spike reminded.

“True, but you were keeping your audience in consideration, and it was more than that to them,” Fly pointed out. “It wouldn’t surprise me you could whip together stories for all sorts of audiences too if you just put your mind to it.” She placed one orange hoof on Spike’s shoulder. “Look, I’m not telling you what to do or anything. That choice is entirely up to you. I just think you aren’t giving yourself enough credit for your abilities.” She then shrugged. “Besides, I’ve seen your handwriting. You’ve got excellent penmanship, diction, and grammar, and you write fast.” She smirked. “Spelling could use some work though, but that’s nothing a good dictionary or thesaurus couldn’t fix.”

Spike’s brow furrowed over his glasses as he considered that. “Huh,” he remarked.

The assistant had finished her assessment of Fly Leaf’s condition not long after this and confirmed what they already knew; she had gotten food poisoning, likely from something that had gone bad in the pita pocket she had eaten. Fortunately for Fly Leaf though, her case seemed to be mild, and it was the assistant’s hope that whatever it was that had upset Fly had been “upchucked” (as the assistant politely put it) back out earlier and that the worse was over now. Fly simply needed to take it easy and rest up as her body recouped from the trauma and advised she drink lots of fluids to insure she didn’t get dehydrated. No need to stay at the library any further then, Spike escorted the still somewhat weak-kneed Fly Leaf back home to her shop for her to rest up, but during the whole trip back, he considered the supposed writing abilities he was told he was underestimating in himself.

Author's Note

I had so much fun writing this chapter. :rainbowlaugh:

I've long been of the opinion that Spike could mature into a successful writer later in life if he put the effort to it, so since I figure him getting banished and having taken his life affairs more directly into his own claws that previous in his life, needing to plan ahead with what he could do with himself now, it seemed like as good an opportunity to possibly explore that. So expect future references to Spike toying with writing in passing in chapters yet to come.

Radio Dramas

Ultimately, Spike decided he might as well do something about it.

“A dictionary?” Thorax asked, surprised as Spike sat at the desk in their room, flipping through a pile of parchment he had been working with, the book in question sitting beside the dragon.

“And a thesaurus,” Spike added, pointing at the second book that sat under it, his most recent purchases. “Figured I might as well while I was at it.”

“Okay, but why did you need to buy a dictionary and a thesaurus?” Thorax asked, the changeling scratching at the chitin on his forehead, tilting his head as he didn’t quite understand this unexpected purchase the dragon had made.

“I didn’t, really,” Spike admitted, taking up a quill and scribbling down a note on the parchment before him. “I just decided that, since I might as well be thinking of what else I should be doing with myself now that I’m an outcast as well, as getting positive input for it, I might as well be using my free time productively and try…writing.” He nodded at the changeling beside him. “Sort of like you and all the magic you’ve been studying the past couple of days.”

Thorax shrugged. “Okay, fair point,” he conceded. “I guess I just wasn’t expecting you to spend some of our funds on something…something like this.”

“Don’t worry, they were cheap.”

“Oh, I don’t mind about that it’s just…I know you well enough to know you wouldn’t just do something like this unexpectedly.”

Spike paused and regarded the two books he had quickly gone out to buy after escorting Fly Leaf back home from the library. “I didn’t really expect it either,” he admitted. “And sorry I didn’t at least tell you in advance I was going to do it. But…it’s never too early to be thinking about your future, about what I could do with myself…and I thought it wouldn’t hurt to try it.”

Thorax’s eyebrows went up. “Okay,” he said. “What will you write?”

Spike sighed. “I’m…still figuring that out.” He motioned to the parchment before him.

Thorax leaned further over the dragon’s shoulder to look at it. He realized it was a list of possible story ideas Spike could write. “Hmm,” Thorax hummed to himself. “Will you write about our adventures as outcasts?”

“Only if you want a hefty dose of grief to go along with it,” Spike said, rolling his eyes. “And I’d have to do it at least anonymously obviously, or it’d give away who we are and where we are.”

“Oh yeah,” Thorax said, smirking at himself for not thinking of that. “Though it’d be cool if the day came where we wouldn’t have worry about that.”

Spike sighed, not thinking it likely, but he grinned at Thorax’s optimism. “Well, just so long as we can both see that day together.”

“I wouldn’t have it any other way,” Thorax said with a grin, patting Spike on the shoulder before turning for the door, throwing his disguise up. “Anyway, I guess I’ll leave you to it.”

Spike nodded, starting to turn back to his notes, but then had one final thought. “Oh, and Thorax?”

“Yeah?”

“Since I went and got something for myself like this, I guess it’s only fair that you have that same opportunity too. So I’m okay with you using some of our funds to get something for yourself too, so long as it’s not too exorbitant in price.” Spike smirked. “Maybe you could use it to finally get that block of cheese Monterey’s been hoping you’ll buy one of these days.”

“Eh, I’m still trying to figure out which cheese I like best,” Thorax hemmed and hawed, thinking about the possibilities. “But I’ll definitely consider it, thanks.”

He wandered downstairs to the quiet first floor, thinking he might head in back and get a head start on sorting the newest shipment of books that had arrived earlier that evening, but paused when his disguised but still sensitive changeling ears picked up the sound of music. Curious, he followed it into the back portion of the building, and into the living room that sat across the hall from the kitchen. He wasn’t in this room terribly often; it doubled as Fly Leaf’s office and thus contained a desk, several locked filing cabinets, as well as a safe containing all of the important documents and funds for the shop all along one wall, things Thorax felt he, as the lowly assistant, wasn’t worthy of handling. So he made it a point of veering away from it, especially when Fly Leaf was inside doing work.

Today however, Fly Leaf was sprawled out on the couch that sat against the wall opposite of the doorway, skimming through a book while she took it easy, still recovering from the food poisoning she had gotten. While she did so, she hummed along to some music that was playing, but Thorax wasn’t immediately able to determine its source. He cautiously slipped through the doorway of the room to look around and satisfy his curiosity when Fly glanced up at him and grinned.

“Evening Thornton,” she greeted the disguised changeling with a nod of her head.

“Hello Miss Fly,” Thorax greeted back politely, taking a ready position before her in case she wanted to put him to work for something. But she instead returned focus to her book, revealing she was simply acknowledging his presence. “So…are you feeling better?”

“Getting there,” Fly said. “Still a little light-headed, but my stomach is feeling better and my appetite’s coming back, so I think the worst is over. I should be back on my hooves in time for the work week to begin again on Monday.”

“That’s good to hear,” Thorax said as he found his gaze wandering about the room. It was really the first time he had gotten a good look inside the room, and saw now that, apart from the wall near the door where all of Fly’s office materials stood, most of the living room’s other walls were covered with a variety of pictures, mostly of Fly’s family. A notably large one of a prominent cityscape, but smaller than Vanhoover, hung directly over the couch Fly rested on that Thorax assumed was Fly’s hometown, Tall Tale. But it was a picture of three young ponies immediately next to it that especially caught his attention. Though she was only a filly, Thorax was able to pick out Fly Leaf from it, allowing him to guess who the other two ponies portrayed in it were. “Are these your siblings?”

Fly glanced up at the picture and grinned. “Yeah, me, Chapbook, and First Edition, back around when we were foals.” she said. She then tilted her head at her employee. “You have siblings, right Thornton?”

Thorax grinned sadly as he gazed up at the picture of Fly Leaf and her own brother and sister. Changelings didn’t really think of such relations in terms of siblings like ponies do due to how nymphs were usually brought up so that the merits of the individual were more important, but he did have a number of recognized clutchmates that he assumed would be the closest equivalent. “I suppose so,” he replied. “But like the rest of my…family…we aren’t very close.” He let his gaze wander at the other pictures of Fly’s family through the ages. “I’m…admittedly a little jealous, even.” He waved a dark grey hoof at the many pictures and other knick-knacks from her family Fly Leaf had on display in the room. “It’s pretty clear you don’t have that problem.”

Fly winced as she looked around and saw Thorax’s point. “Now I kind of feel like maybe I’m flaunting it by displaying it all like this,” she stated with some guilt.

“Aw, don’t be,” Thorax said, turning to face her. “You should proudly display your love for your family, because it not only shows how much you love them, it also inspires those such as me to try and find a way to obtain the same for myself and follow your example.” He grinned. “And hopefully I will be able to someday.”

Fly grinned sheepishly herself, gazing about the memories she had displayed in the room. “It is nice knowing one has family members that love you,” she agreed. “And while living away from their immediate presence like this, it is nice to have the reminders of that. The pictures, the mementos…” she motioned a hoof at something across the room. “…and the best birthday gift ever.”

Thorax turned and finally saw where the music that had been playing the background throughout this conversation was coming from; an ornate wooden box with two round knobs and a dial at the top that stood about three feet tall. Surprised and fascinated with the curious device, Thorax slowly approached it, attempting to determine how it was making the music it was clearly emitting. “What’s this?” he asked innocently.

“Cabinet radio, and a pretty high-quality one too,” Fly explained. “They don’t come cheap, so I was quite surprised when Chapbook gave me that for my birthday a few years ago, not long after I had moved up here to Vanhoover.” She chuckled as she watched the concealed changeling look it over with awe and fascination, tapping one hoof at the needle within the dial. “I take it you’ve never been around one before.”

“No,” Thorax admitted simply. He had faintly heard of radios through word of mouth back in the hive, but none of the devices had ever reached the hive before. They, like a lot of items of pony creation, were generally considered contraband in the hive and were not permitted within in favor of promoting changeling ideals and way of life instead. “It wasn’t really something…accessible…to me while growing up.”

“I’m not surprised. They’re still expensive enough that they’re not something every pony could afford, so much so there are plenty of ponies content to stick with record players still. I’m lucky enough to have one myself, in fact.”

Thorax squinted his eyes at the controls on the device, still puzzling out its functions all while it continued to play music. “How does it work?”

Fly pointed her hoof at the radio from where she lay on the couch. “Knob on the left adjusts the volume. Knob on the right tunes in to different stations.”

“Different stations?” Thorax reached one hoof for the rightmost knob, but then hesitated. “Can I…?”

Fly grinned and waved her hoof dismissively as she returned to her book. “Knock yourself out. I was getting bored with this station anyway.”

Thorax returned the grin, and then gently nudged the knob back and forth a few times. He immediately got only static at first, but soon learned that doing so moved the needle in the dial so it pointed to different numbers listed on it. When he pointed it at certain spots within the dial, the static cleared and a new sort of audio would play from the device. Sometimes it was more music, while at other times it was at least one pony talking. Some stations had groups of ponies acting out stories which Fly Leaf explained were “radio dramas,” and when Thorax showed interest, suggested a few stations she knew would be playing a few at this hour. So the disguised changeling played around searching for a radio drama he could start listening to from the beginning, before finally stumbling across one right as the announcer started introducing it.

“…and now it’s time to turn it over to the Griffish Isles Broadcasting Company for another entry in the ongoing adventures of that hero of time and space, DOCTOR HOOVES!”

The program had Thorax’s attention almost immediately, and while Fly Leaf watched with occasional amusement, the changeling remained utterly riveted to the drama as it played for the next hour. By the end of that hour, he nearly had his snout touching the dial of the radio, leaning forward in anticipation so much so to hear what would happen next as the stakes in the drama continued to rise higher and higher.

“Will the Doctor be able to escape the clutches of evil yet again and save the world?” the announcer declared dramatically as the program drew to a close. “Or will the ponies of this world fall to the rule of the alien Dimenost?”

“Please say the former, please say the former!” Thorax practically pleaded as he eagerly stared at the radio with wide eyes.

“Tune in next week to find out, in another episode of—”

“Ah! No! No!” Thorax declared in alarm, hooves flying to either side of his head in a panic before using them to grab the sides of the radio, as if he could plead it to give him more. “I can’t wait until next week to know whether or not the Doctor escapes! I need to know now! Don’t leave me not knowing what happens next! I have to know!” The radio, of course, didn’t listen, as the broadcast then proceeded into a commercial for toothpaste. “Augh! No! Go back! Tell me more!”

Fly Leaf, by this point, was stifling laughter at Thorax’s eagerness with one hoof, trying to keep composed enough to seem sympathetic. “Sorry Thornton, they only play the program once a week,” she explained. “I’m afraid you will have to wait until next week to hear what happens next.”

“Noooooo!” Thorax wailed in a whine, throwing his head up to the ceiling as he sat back in dismay. “I need more!”

“Well, I can’t help you with the next episode in the drama until it airs next week,” Fly offered. “But I do know they sell previously aired episodes on record, and I think the program’s been airing for a few years now, so there should be plenty available.”

Thorax turned to look at her for a long moment, and suddenly he knew how he was going to use Spike’s offer to get something personal for himself.

“A record player?” Spike inquired a couple days later when Thorax presented his purchase to his dragon friend in the privacy of their room.

“I bought it used from the thrift shop,” Thorax explained as he set it up on a small stand Fly Leaf hadn’t been using and had graciously donated to him. “It’s in good working order, but only cost ten bits. I also bought a few records to play on it for an additional five bits total, so I only spent fifteen bits altogether, which I’m told isn’t too bad, considering.”

“No it’s not,” Spike said with an approving grin, who knew a record player could go for a fair bit more these days if bought new. “I guess I’m just surprised. I didn’t know you were interested in such a thing.”

“I didn’t either until just a couple days ago,” Thorax responded with grin. “But I am now!”

“Okay,” Spike said with a shrug. “So now that you have it, what are you going to play on it?”

Still wearing his proud grin, Thorax showed him the cover for the first record in the set he had purchased.

Spike peered at the cover. “‘Doctor Hooves: The Complete First Series,’” he read aloud.

Thorax nodded as he pulled out the record to place on the player’s turntable. “It appears I have a lot of episodes to catch up on.”

Author's Note

So obviously, it's been well established by now that Equestria doesn't have anything like computers or TV. But it has been well established that they have lots of audio-based technologies like sound systems and headsets (in one episode, wireless, no less) so there's no doubt in my mind at this point that Equestria has radio. And as such, I've long fancied the idea the ponies of Equestria had those classic cabinet radios from back in the day to use to listen to things such as radio dramas. Thus when considering what sort of things Thorax might take an interest in and saw an opportunity to explore all of that at the same time...naturally I jumped at it.

As for the selection to serve as the radio drama...when you think about, it was the obvious choice, really. :rainbowlaugh:

Sky Trek

It thus became the norm for Thorax to pull out a record to play on his new record player every evening after work, and then simply sit to one side and attentively listen to it as it played. Naturally, most of what he played were episodes from his new favorite radio drama, which he was now an avid fan of. However, before they had even gotten halfway through the following week, Thorax had already finished listening to them, which was a problem as he was still left eager for more.

“So put on another,” Spike suggested early one evening, not long after the shop had closed for the evening, as Thorax pulled the most recent finished record off the turntable, lamenting that it had finished.

“I can’t, that’s the last one for that series,” Thorax explained as he glumly slipped the record back into its sleeve and put it back with the rest. “I’ll have to buy the next set to continue.”

“Right,” Spike said, looking up from the writing notes he had been working on at the desk, across the room from where Thorax and the record player were. “About how much do those sets sell for again?”

“For a full set? About five bits altogether, generally.”

Spike thought for a moment, gazing up at the bulletin board sitting above the desk they both had been using to hang notes and reminders to themselves to glance at their notes for their funds. Their funds had become streamlined enough now that they kept two stashes of money; one for long-term savings that they could fall back on in emergencies or extraordinarily large expenses, and another for more general, day-to-day, expenses. Of the two, the long-term savings was the one that contained enough funds that there wasn’t immediate danger of it running dry too soon, but Spike also didn’t consider buying another series of radio drama episodes on record as an “emergency.”

“Can I ask you to hold off on doing that until we get our next paycheck this weekend?” he asked his changeling friend timidly, turning in his seat to glance at Thorax.

Thorax sighed, but nodded reluctantly. “Yeah, I can,” he agreed, and wandered over to the window seat to sit down, staring at the wooden panel floor of their room. He sighed once more. “I’ll…just have to be content in not immediately knowing what will happen next.”

“Aw, you just need something else to keep you occupied,” Spike suggested as he turned back to his own project. “Seeing you like this radio drama series so much and it is part of the sci-fi genre, maybe you just need something else from that same genre to keep your appetite sated.” He thought for a moment. “Sky Trek comes to mind.”

“What’s Sky Trek?”

“It’s a long-running book series. I’ve only read one or two myself, but its Twilight’s third favorite series of books to read after Daring Do and anything written by Starswirl the Bearded. Starlight Glimmer, as I recall, is an even bigger fan of the series.” Spike shook his head to clear it of memories of his old life before being cast out, turning in his seat to look at Thorax again. “It doesn’t deal quite so much with time and space like your Doctor Hooves, but basically it’s set in a future Equestria where it’s about the adventures of the crew of this high-tech airship as they travel out beyond Equestria, exploring. You know, seeking out new lands and new civilizations, going where no pony had gone before, and all that.”

Thorax considered it for a second then stood up onto his holed hooves again. “I suppose it’s worth a try,” he reasoned. “But where would I find a copy of one of these books?”

“Well, Fly Leaf sells some of the books downstairs…maybe she’ll let you borrow one from the stock to read.”

So Thorax put on his disguise and went downstairs where Fly Leaf was sweeping the empty front of the store to ask.

“Well yes, I do sell Sky Trek books,” the orange earth pony confirmed to her employee, “but only the more recent entries in the series. I would think if you were going to start reading them, you’d want to start at the beginning with the first book.”

Thorax frowned. “Where can I find the first book?”

Fly Leaf glanced at the clock hanging on the wall. “If you hurry, you might be able to try the library real quick before it closes.”

So Thorax left for the library. Because it was faster, he ducked into a nearby alley after leaving the shop to change his disguise into a pegasus so to fly there instead of going by hoof like he normally would. He arrived only minutes before the library was to close for the evening, and the attending librarians were more interested in hurrying patrons out the door than welcoming more in. But nonetheless, Thorax was able to return to the shop with the desired book in hoof. He then took it up to his and Spike’s room and sat down on the window seat again to begin reading. He did not stop for dinner that was held later, and he was still reading it as it grew late.

Spike, deciding to call it a night, put away what he was working on and, studying the changeling with an amused expression, approached him. He knew Thorax was an avid reader, but this was the first time the changeling had been reading the same work for so long in one stretch without interruption. “Good book?” he asked.

“Mm-hmm,” Thorax hummed distractedly, his pupiless eyes glued to the pages of the book.

Spike folded his arms as he continued to watch the changeling read. “You know, I’m starting to think you’re a bit of a sci-fi nut, Thorax,” he observed.

“Mm,” Thorax hummed again, turning the page in his book.

“Anyway, I’m calling it a night, so can I have the window seat back so I can go to bed?”

Thorax didn’t immediately respond and continued to read.

“Thorax?”

Thorax glanced up slightly from the book, as if his eyes were reluctant to look away from the book. “Hmm?”

“Window seat. Bedtime.”

“Oh right, sorry.” Continuing to hold the book before him with his cyan magic, Thorax got up from the window seat and trotted over to his sleeping nest instead.

The window seat thusly freed, Spike clambered up onto it and pulled out his blanket so to transform it into his usual makeshift bed. Arranging his pillow into a comfortable position, he proceeded to lie down, but paused as he glanced over at Thorax sitting in his makeshift nest of blankets and other fabrics, continuing to read like nothing had changed. “Thorax, time for bed,” he reminded.

“Just a few more minutes,” Thorax promised without looking up, again turning the page.

Spike frowned slightly. “Don’t stay up too late,” he advised. “We still need to get up on time for work in the morning.”

“Mm-hmm.”

Spike gazed at the changeling for a long moment, not certain he was even listening, but the little dragon finally shrugged, trusting Thorax would insure he got to sleep on his own and snuggled down the night himself. He slept well, deeply, and comfortably for the full night before waking up again as the sun rose again the following morning, as had become the custom since taking up residence here. Sitting back up, he stretched then turned to see if Thorax was up. He was, but he was also still sitting in the exact same position reading his book as Spike remembered him being when he went to sleep the previous night. The only changes was that Thorax was now much further into the book than he was last night, looking to be only about a dozen pages away from the end, and there were now notable bags under the changeling’s blue eyes…which left Spike briefly wondering how one could get such bags under their eyes when their face was lined with chitin like Thorax’s was.

More importantly though, Spike was quick to realize that Thorax clearly wasn’t as well-slept as he should be. “Thorax,” Spike stated in a firm tone as he frowned at the changeling.

Thorax, as usual, was only half-listening. “Just a few more minutes,” he repeated, turning a page.

“…it’s morning now, Thorax.”

“Not for another few hours.”

“No, it’s morning now.” And to demonstrate it, Spike pulled open the curtains to their window, letting the early morning sunlight stream in.

Thorax winced as the sunlight glared into his eyes, but that still didn’t stop him from continuing to read. “Mm,” he murmured.

Spike’s eyes narrowed at the changeling as he started to suspect what happened. “Thorax, did you get any sleep last night?”

“Just a few more minutes.”

“Thorax!”

The changeling jumped and blinked owlishly at Spike. “What?”

“You stayed up all night reading that book?” the little dragon accused.

Thorax blinked, then glanced around their room as if it was the first time he had done so in several hours. “Huh, I guess I did,” he admitted. “I’m almost done though, so I’ll get some sleep then.”

“No, no, Thorax, it’s time to get up,” Spike repeated, dragging his claws across his face in frustration. “Now. If you try to sleep now, you’ll be late for your shift.”

“Mm.”

Spike groaned as it was clear the changeling wasn’t listening, and decided instead to proceed with getting ready for the day. He hoped that doing so would alert the changeling that it was time to set the book aside and get on with the day, although Spike was more worried about how useful the sleep-deprived changeling was going to be today. He was likely to be dead on his hooves the whole day considering he hadn’t slept a wink. Unfortunately, as Spike emerged from the room’s attached restroom after freshening up, he found Thorax still hadn’t moved and was still reading his book.

“Thorax,” Spike growled in a warning tone.

“Just a few more minutes,” Thorax promised distractedly, turning the page again.

Spike threw his claws into the air. “Fine!” he said in defeat. “But I’m not defending you when Fly Leaf gets after you.”

“That’s nice,” was Thorax’s only response as Spike headed out the bedroom door.

Author's Note

So I got Doctor Who(oves) into this story...the Trekkie in me thus demanded I get a pony-equivalent of Star Trek that I'd been toying with in here too. :rainbowlaugh: I really do think Thorax would be a fan of science fiction though...he seems to have the interest and forward thinking of what could be that generally comes along with an interest in things like sci-fi.

As you may have guessed, the next chapter will pick up from where this one leaves off, making them interconnected...so much so I did debate if I really wanted to keep them separate or go back and combine them again. But in the end I opted to keep them separate, so to maintain the word average the story's been sporting.

Entirely incidentally, I've been listening to a Star Trek soundtrack (Into Darkness in case anyone's wondering) while prepping this chapter for posting. :rainbowlaugh:

Sleep Deprived

Fly Leaf had prepared pancakes for breakfast that morning, explaining that she had “gotten a hankering” for them, and was eager to share them with her two employees. Spike was likewise eager to eat them, and quickly joined Fly at the dining table to enjoy the tasty meal. They were not, however, joined by Thorax throughout the whole meal. Ever since the incident with the cherry pie, Fly had backed off on trying to get Thorax to eat more, and didn’t take it personally now when she saw Thorax eating sparingly at mealtimes so long as the employee she thought to be a pony was eating enough to stay healthy. And it was clear Thorax was doing this much (Spike hadn’t opted to mention it yet, but he had noticed that the changeling didn’t appear nearly as lean when out on disguise now as when the dragon had first met him). Nonetheless, regardless of how much he did or did not eat at meals, Thorax still habitually joined them for meals, and so his absence of this occasion was quickly noticed by their employer.

“So where is Thornton?” Fly finally asked halfway through breakfast after having repeatedly gazed at the empty seat Thorax customarily filled with a concerned frown.

Spike rolled his eyes as he worked to empty his mouth long enough to reply. “I’m guessing he’s probably still upstairs, reading that book he checked out last night,” he grumbled. He shook his head. “I’m starting to regret suggesting he start reading it. You know, he stayed up all night reading.”

“He what?” Fly asked, glancing at Spike with surprise. “All night? Didn’t he get any sleep?”

“Not that I’m aware of, no.” Spike paused to take another bite from the sweet pancakes Fly Leaf had prepared. “I have no idea how he’s going to be awake enough to work today.” He glanced at Thorax’s empty seat himself. “Assuming we can ever get him to put that book down long enough to try it.”

Eventually though, Thorax was able to set the book down himself and finally came trotting downstairs at last in time for Fly and Spike to be in the final phases of their preparations to open the shop for the day. He came trotting down the staircase with a pleased grin on his face, but Spike, glancing up from the ledger he had been checking through at the front desk while Fly prepped the cash register beside him and gazing at his friend over the rim of the false glasses he wore, was quick to note that despite now wearing his customary disguise as Thornton, he looked almost comically tired, with the bags under his eyes still appearing quite obvious. A very glassy look in his eyes suggested the changeling was likely operating more in a daze from his lack of sleep than anything, so much so Spike was glad his friend still remembered to put on his disguise at all.

Fly also took notice of Thorax’s entrance into the room, and was quick to disapprove. “Nice of you to finally join us Thornton,” she said in a flat tone.

“Yes, here I am,” Thorax chirped, entirely missing Fly’s tone.

“I see you finally managed to rip your eyes off that book of yours,” Spike noted as he returned to working in the ledger, but watched out of the corner of his eye as Thorax trotted idly up to them. He was moving ever so slightly sluggishly.

“I just finished it,” Thorax explained as he stepped right up to Fly. “Where would you like me today, Miss Fly?”

Fly, shutting the cash register and turning to face him, took the time to look her employee over with a critical gaze before responding. “Spark tells me you pretty much got no sleep last night,” she said. Setting her rump on the floor, she folded her forehooves. “I can tell he wasn’t exaggerating. So I need to know, Thornton. Are you going to be alert enough to be able to work today?”

Thorax gave her a salute with one hoof. “Absolutely,” he said without hesitation.

Fly Leaf didn’t seem convinced. Nor was Spike, and both shared a doubting glance briefly. “I’m going to hold you to that then,” she warned Thorax regardless, and stepped aside from the cash register. “That said I’ll put you on the cash register as usual.” As she then walked off, Spike heard her mumble; “Anything more labor intensive than that and I doubt you’d last the hour.” Thorax, fortunately, didn’t seem to hear her and assumed his post while Fly went to unlock the front door for business, wearing a cheery grin that only seemed forced, given how foolishly tired he appeared.

Luckily for Thorax, business proved to be unusually and spectacularly slow that day, so much so that by noon, the shop had barely seen a dozen customers in total, usually only one at a time and with long gaps of no customers in-between. They found out why from one unicorn stallion who had come in to pick up a box of paperclips, revealing that they weren’t the only place in town so adversely affected.

“A major water pipe burst, quite epically, early this morning on main street,” he explained to the small staff of the shop while Thorax wearily rang up his purchase. “It’s flooded the whole street, and they’ve had to close off the block for repairs. As a result, its thrown traffic in town all out of whack, so now one side of town is hopelessly gridlocked while the other side, this side, has been left practically a ghost town. I had to take the long way just to get here myself, but I just had to get more paperclips so I can keep working on my paperclip chain at home.”

“Good to know we’re still being of service,” Fly remarked with a sarcastic grin as Thorax gave the stallion back his change, only to take it back real quick when he realized that, with his foggy and sleep-deprived brain, he had accidentally counted out the wrong change.

As business continued to be extraordinarily slow as the day progressed, Fly Leaf considered just cutting her losses and closing early, up until she found out that her competition, Letterpress at the Stationery Plaza, had already closed early for the day. So Fly instead chose to remain open on through normal hours, just so she could later claim to Letterpress that weekend she had gotten the greater profit out of today…even if it just amounted to a few pennies worth. That determined, Fly also decided that, since business was so slow, she would head out herself and try and learn just how long she needed to expect the city to be all disrupted like this. While she was out, she left Spike in charge, with specific orders to keep the store open and operating as normal. Perhaps in testament to the state of the situation, she was gone far longer than would be normal for such a task.

As noon rolled past though, Thorax was miraculously still awake and working, although he often had to prop his head up with one hoof, and spent long periods of the day while waiting for a customer to ring up staring blankly at nothing at all. The disguised changeling was clearly only fully awake on the outside. Nonetheless, Spike couldn’t help but be a little pleased that his friend had managed to keep himself alert adequately to do passable enough work this long despite how exhausted he clearly was. He should’ve known it wasn’t going to last though, when a pegasus mare came up to the front desk to check out not long after Fly Leaf had left.

“Okay, I think I’ve got everything I need,” she remarked as she set out all of the items she intended to purchase on the front desk before Thorax.

Thorax however, who presently had his head propped up with one hoof, didn’t respond.

“…sir?” the mare asked hesitantly, tentatively poking the unresponsive cashier with one hoof.

Thorax responded by letting out a snore suddenly, revealing he had finally dozed off.

Spike, who was across the room dusting shelves, heard the snore and whirled around. “Thorax!” he snapped without thinking and hurled his feather duster at his friend’s head.

The feathered end of the duster struck the side of Thorax’s face head on, and he jerked awake again with a start. “Whohowwhatwherewhensometimeswhy?!” he blurted out in a rush, eye’s suddenly wide as his hooves scrambled for grips on the edge of the desk before him. His eyes then locked upon the equally startled customer before him, who had pulled back a step at his outburst, and blinked. “Oh!” Thorax said, recollecting himself. “Oh, I’m sorry! I…I had drifted off there for a second because…see, I didn’t get much sleep…” he trailed off, clamped one hoof to his forehead in embarrassment for a second, and then started over. “…how can I help you, miss?”

“I’m…ready to check out,” the mare explained innocently, still giving Thorax a cautious look but inched her way back up to the front desk again.

“Right, I—” Thorax’s comment was briefly interrupted by a loud mouth-stretching yawn. It was a good thing his magical disguise masked the inside of his mouth as well or else it would’ve been a yawn that displayed his changeling fangs quite prominently to the already uneasy customer. “—I knew that. Let me just ring you up real quick. Sorry about all of this.”

“It’s all right,” the mare responded, though she didn’t sound entirely sincere.

Fortunately, it didn’t take much effort to ring up the mare’s total. “That’ll be nine—no,” Thorax squinted at the total displayed on the cash register for a second with his tired eyes. “—six and a half bits.”

The mare paid him then gathered her things and turned to leave. “Thank you,” she said. “I…hope you get some sleep soon, Mr. Thorax.”

Thorax blinked sleepily at her a few times as she slipped out the front door. He then squeezed them shut in embarrassment. “Did you refer to me by my actual name just then, Spike?” he asked aloud, while inwardly hoping they either never saw that mare again or she quickly forgot the name she had learned and who to associate it with.

“Yeah, I did,” Spike said, admitting to his own error as he grumpily trotted over to retrieve the feather duster he had thrown. “See what trouble your lack of sleep is causing?”

Thorax merely groaned, rubbing at his tired eyes with his hooves.

The shop remained empty of customers for a while after the mare left, during which Spike would glance every now and then at Thorax, to check on his status. It was quickly clear that Thorax’s weariness had finally reach a critical point; the changeling was struggling to keep himself awake, reaching a point where he would start to doze off, only to snap back awake with a jerk. Spike doubted he would be able to keep awake for much longer and started to wonder what could be done about it. Finally another customer, a unicorn mare younger and more timid than the pegasus mare that was in before her, bashfully stepped into the store. Seeing Thorax sitting at the cash register with his head once more propped up by one hoof was the closest, she approached the front desk.

“Um…excuse me?” she asked the changeling shyly, but then tilted her head in puzzlement at him.

Spike, who noticed, turned from dusting shelves and, even though he couldn’t see his friend’s disguised face from here, quickly figured out that the changeling had fallen asleep once again and sighed. “Thornton!” he cried, careful this time to use the right alias, and again hurled the feather duster at his sleeping coworker.

It bounced off Thorax’s head like before, but this time Thorax barely stirred, letting out a snore but not waking in the slightest. Spike sighed yet again and trotted over to the front desk while the timid mare watched curiously. The dragon poked his friend in the foreleg a few times, trying to get Thorax to stir, but it was clear the changeling had dozed off more deeply this time, enough that it might take more effort to wake him than before. Deciding then to focus on that more in a moment, Spike opted to prioritize the needs of the customer first.

“Welcome to Fly Leaf’s Books and Stationery, how can I help you?” Spike asked the mare brightly.

“Oh, yes, um, I’m looking for a particular type of pen,” she explained, glancing at Spike but keeping most of her attention on the sleeping Thorax. “Is…he all right?”

“Yeah, yeah, he’s fine, I apologize about that, but never mind him,” Spike said, luring the mare’s attention more fully on him. “What sort of pen are you looking for?”

“I’m not quite sure,” the mare admitted as she focused her gaze on the dragon. “My friend has one and said I could get one here, but I’m not quite sure what type of pen you’d call it.”

“Well…what sort of things do you want to do with it?”

“A kind of…fancy writing thing that my friend’s going to teach me how to do.”

“Sounds like a calligraphy pen to me then,” Spike reasoned, scratching his chin before pointing at a set of shelves sitting towards the back of the room, near the staircase that led upstairs. “You’ll find those on the shelves towards the back there.”

“Oh, thank you,” the mare said and trotted towards the shelves in question.

While she was looking, Spike turned his attention back to Thorax, trying to lure the changeling to wake back up again. “Hey bud, I need you to wake back up, please,” he said, poking the changeling’s left forehoof resting on the tabletop of the front desk while the other hoof was occupied propping up Thorax’s head.

He didn’t get any reaction from Thorax, but his attention was instantly brought off that when the claw Spike was using to poke the hoof suddenly went on through the hoof. He looked down in time to see a small cyan flash of magic as Spike’s claw unexpectedly tore through Thorax’s magical disguise, leaving a gap right over one of the holes in Thorax’s natural changeling hoof, now in view for all to see. And the gap, ringed by flickering cyan energy, was gradually growing bigger from there. Spike’s eyes went wide as he abruptly recalled something Thorax had told him; “If I go to sleep with a disguise on, I’ll eventually relax too much and let the disguise drop anyway.”

Spike gulped as he realized the implications of what could happen if he couldn’t get Thorax to wake soon. Uh-oh.

“Hey, um, I’m not finding them,” the young mare spoke as she suddenly stepped up to Spike, startling the dragon. “Where did you say they were again?”

Spike spun around to face her, bodily moving himself to block her view of Thorax’s hoof. Double uh-oh! “Uh, on the bookcase towards the back,” he repeated quickly while forcing a grin, pointing with one claw. “Next to the stairs there, about two bookcases back from here, and should be the third shelf down.”

The mare turned to look in the direction Spike pointed and grinned slightly. “Oh, okay!” she said, and trotted back towards the shelves in question.

As she did so, she unknowingly treaded upon the pale blue hairs of Thorax’s tail disguise, the weight of her hoof breaking the magic holding the disguise together and the tail abruptly vanished in a flash of cyan flames, revealing the changeling’s tail-like fin, the new gap in the disguise rapidly inching it’s way on up Thorax’s dock and onto his rump from there. Fortunately their sole customer didn’t even notice, but Spike had to suppress a squeak at the sight. Thorax’s disguise was thinning rapidly it seemed, and for all Spike knew, it could give away entirely at any moment.

Glancing over at the mare to make sure she wasn’t looking in their direction, Spike took Thorax by the foreleg and started to shake him, trying to rouse the sleeping changeling. “C’mon Thorax,” he urged through clenched teeth, “time to wake up!”

All he succeeded in doing however was to cause Thorax to overbalance slightly, resulting in the sleeping changeling instinctively shifting his position to compensate, banging one of his back legs into the inside interior of the front desk and causing the magical disguise around it to promptly collapse as well, revealing Thorax’s natural leg underneath. Spike stopped, realizing all he was managing to do thus far was make things worse, and urgently sought a new plan. Meanwhile Thorax blissfully slept on, unaware of the danger he had put himself in. The changeling yawned again, and Spike couldn’t help but notice that his friend’s changeling fangs had become completely visible this time.

Meanwhile, the mare had found the shelf Spike had directed her to, which she was looking over with a frown. “I’m not seeing quite the type of pen I’m looking for,” she said aloud to Spike, looking back in his direction. “Are these all the pens you have?”

Spike quickly moved to stand between Thorax and the mare’s line of vision, wearing his forced grin again. “Not entirely,” he admitted. “But if it’s not one of those, I’m not sure what it might be…can you describe this pen to me?”

The mare’s eyes rolled upwards as she pictured the pen she was looking for in her head. “Well, it has this metal tip at the end that comes to a really fine point and isn’t very wide…you can use it to draw really thin lines…”

“Okay, you’re probably looking for one of our drawing pens then,” Spike reasoned quickly, and pointed at the staircase. “Those are upstairs on the second floor, on the bookshelf next to the restroom. You should find everything you need there.”

“Oh okay, thank you again!” the mare said and turned to trot up the staircase.

Once she was gone Spike turned back to his situation with Thorax and quickly saw things were only getting worse there. The gaps in the changeling’s disguise were only getting increasingly bigger as the disguise continued to wear thin. Thorax’s rump and most of his hind legs were now undisguised and visible, and the gap that Spike had accidentally poked in Thorax’s left hoof had grown to the point that most of that hoof was now undisguised as well. Feeling the sense of urgency to wake Thorax increase, Spike fidgeted nervously as he sought a new solution, but knew ultimately that what he needed to do was find some surefire way to wake Thorax. Now.

He quickly stepped around the soon-to-be-undisguised changeling and took his friend’s head in his claws. “Sorry about this bud,” he apologized in advance as he lined up his claws, “but I really need you to wake up now and I’m out of ideas.” He then slapped Thorax across the snout as hard as he could.

But not only did this not wake up the deeply asleep Thorax, getting little more than a snort as the changeling’s head swayed about from the impact, it also tore a new gap in the fading disguise right over the left side of Thorax’s face, creating yet another growing crack in the mask that was keeping Thorax—and by extension Spike—from being discovered for who they truly were.

“I found the pen I was looking for!” the unicorn mare softly but happily declared as she suddenly trotted back downstairs, the pen she sought carried aloft with her in her aura of magic.

Spike yelped and slammed Thorax’s head down onto the top of the front desk to try and hide the unhidden half of his friend’s face. “Great!” Spike declared with forced enthusiasm as he again moved so his body blocked the mare’s view of Thorax’s rapidly-undisguising body, brushing Thorax’s now fully revealed left hoof off the desk and out of immediate sight. “And I’ll bet you’re ready to check out so you can head out now, right?”

“Oh yes, how very prompt of you!” the mare said as she stepped back up to the front desk. She gave Thorax a curious glance considering he was now in an entirely different position, but she remained none the wiser about the true situation regarding him. She set the pen down on the desk as Spike quickly worked to ring it up on the cash register. “Thank you again for all your good assistance with this.”

“No trouble at all!” Spike said falsely, glancing at Thorax as he worked with the register, noting with alarm that the lower half of Thorax’s body was now totally undisguised, the gap in the disguise proceeding to inch up the changeling’s back. Spike could see the tips of Thorax’s gossamer wings beginning to poke into sight, thankfully still low enough to keep hidden by the front desk itself…but not for much longer. “That’ll be eight bits even, please.”

“Just a second,” the mare said as she pulled out her coin purse and started to root through it.

While she did so, Spike noticed Thorax’s curved changeling horn become visible with a flicker of cyan and quickly grabbed Thorax’s right hoof and pulled it over the horn to hide it while the mare was looking away.

“Here you go,” she said, handing over the golden coins.

Spike quickly counted them to make sure it was correct then dumped them into the drawer on the register. “That’ll do it then,” he said before adding out of habit and without thinking, “anything else you need?” He then inwardly winced and thought to himself, Please say no.

The mare thought for a second as she picked up her new pen with her magic again. “Um, no, not that I can think of,” she said before grinning and turning for the door. “Thanks again, though.”

Almost immediately after she had turned her back to Spike, he saw another flicker of cyan out of the corner of his eye as both of Thorax’s changeling wings suddenly sprang free from the decaying disguise and unfolded themselves, one of them slapping Spike in his face. The dragon pushed the wing out of his eye as he watched the mare open the door and start to step out. Just a few more steps…

“Oh wait!” the mare suddenly declared, stopping and beginning to turn around. In desperation to keep him out of sight, Spike quickly gave Thorax a shove, pushing the changeling under the front desk entirely before the mare’s eyes could land on him again. “Do you sell hoofpaints? You know, for foals.”

“Uh, no actually,” Spike admitted. It was actually something Fly Leaf had long been trying to rectify, but hadn’t managed to strike a good enough of a deal with a distributer to be able to sell it yet, to his boss’s continued annoyance. But naturally this was the least of Spike’s concerns at the moment, more eager to just be rid of the mare. “I recommend you try that paint store on the next street over from here.”

“I will, thank you again!” the mare said with a nod and finally stepped out of the shop, the door closing behind her.

Spike leaned over to one side as he watched her stroll off through the shop’s front window. He then let out a sigh of relief and turned his attention back to Thorax. The changeling laid on the floor of the shop, still completely asleep of course. Either it had collapsed entirely when his body hit the floor or it had finished wearing off during the space of time Spike had his eyes off him, but Thorax’s disguise was now completely gone, leaving the natural changeling underneath fully exposed. Spike frowned at his sleeping friend, having given up trying to wake him now and deciding it would be better to just get him out of sight.

He first went to the front door and flipped the sign hanging it over to CLOSED and pulled the blinds down over it. He didn’t lock the door as well due to Fly using a complicated magic-based anti-robbery lock that Spike hadn’t had much luck figuring out for himself to date and feared messing with it now would only end in him accidentally setting off the alarm. So he instead hoped the CLOSED sign in the window would be enough to deter any new customers from entering for now. That done, he then turned his attention to moving Thorax, who proved heavier than Spike expected, so instead he resorted to dragging the changeling by the hooves across the floor and upstairs to their room, grumbling to himself about the situation the whole way. Once he had gotten Thorax laid down in his sleeping nest though, the changeling immediately sensed where he was and snuggled down into the soft cloths making up the nest and kept sleeping. It would’ve been a very sweet sight if it wasn’t for the fact Spike was exhausted from dragging the zonked changeling to the nest and stressed out from the trouble his dozing off had caused for the dragon.

By the time he got back downstairs, he found Fly Leaf had just returned and was looking for both of them. She immediately locked eyes on Spike when she noticed the dragon coming down the stairs and looked truly disappointed for the first time Spike had known her. She jabbed a hoof at the sign in the front door, which Spike noticed she had already flipped back to OPEN. “Why did you flip the sign to closed, Spark?” she asked firmly.

Spike sighed and leaned wearily on the railing of the staircase. “Thornton finally dozed off and is so far gone I couldn’t wake him back up,” he explained truthfully. “I flipped it to closed so there wouldn’t be any customers coming in and waiting to be helped while I dragged him upstairs to bed.”

Fly Leaf sighed and rolled her eyes, but her gaze softened. “All right, that makes sense,” she conceded, not blaming Spike further. But her next comment made it clear the blame was only being shifted onto Thorax. “I’m going to have to have a talk to him about all of this.”

“Might want to wait until he’s awake enough for it first,” Spike advised simply as he went back to work.

While Fly had been out, she had learned that the city was still working up at cleaning up the flooding the burst water main had caused to disrupt traffic in Vanhoover so much today, but were nearly done by the time Fly had left to come back here. Fixing the water main itself was going to take longer, but with the flooding out of the way, it would enable most of that city block to be reopened for use again and it was expected that would allow traffic to resume as normal in most of the city again. Regardless, business remained extremely skim for the remainder of the day, leaving the shop fairly quiet. Fly was still satisfied enough with the profits she was able to make from the slow day though, enough to have bragging rights against Letterpress at any rate, so it all still worked out. They had closed the shop for the evening and were in the process of cleaning up for the night when a notably more awake Thorax, properly disguised once again, sheepishly came back downstairs, seeking pardon with his employer he knew was rightfully unhappy with him.

“Thornton,” Fly greeted flatly, making her disappointment clear as the changeling approached her. “I take it you’re a bit more awake now?”

“Yes,” Thorax responded with a wince, and bowed his head in shame. “I’m sorry, Miss Fly.”

“I’m not the only one you need to apologize to,” Fly pointed out and nodded her head in the direction of Spike.

Thorax glanced over at his friend. “I’m sorry for all of this, Spark,” he said. “You were right.”

Spike sighed, but then nodded his head. “Apology accepted,” he said with a small grin. “But you did cause a bit of trouble for us today, bud.”

“Spark’s not wrong,” Fly agreed, drawing Thorax’s attention back to her. “You’re lucky today was such a slow business day or else I would’ve had to crack down on you sooner, and I probably should’ve done it sooner than I did regardless.”

Thorax’s ears drooped and kept his head bowed in submission. “I’ll accept whatever punishment you feel is best for my actions today, Miss Fly,” he stated, accepting his fate.

But Fly shook her head. “I’m just going to let you off with a firm warning this time, Thornton,” she said. “But I have to ask you not make a habit of doing this again in the future. Am I clear?”

“As crystal,” Thorax responded, raising his gaze again, looking a mixture of relieved and surprised at Fly’s mercy.

Fly then grinned and ruffled the disguised changeling’s pale blue mane with one hoof. “Well then,” she said, addressing both of her employees. “I think I’m ready to call it a night and put this…irregular…day behind us. How about you two?”

“I know I could use a good night’s sleep,” Spike agreed. He glanced at Thorax. “You in agreement this time, Thornton?”

“Oh yes.” Thorax yawned, proving he was not yet entirely caught up on his sleep yet. “I think I know that now better than anybody after the day I’ve had,” he admitted with a sheepish grin.

Author's Note

So this chapter was fun, but I'm looking forward to Friday when I post the next chapter...it should prove interesting for all of you. :raritywink:

Linked

“Thorax, do you know where my bowtie is?” Spike asked urgently one morning a couple of days later, the half-dressed dragon down on the floor and peeking under the wardrobe in their room.

Thorax, presently undisguised, looked up from the magic book he had been idly skimming through while waiting for Fly Leaf to call them down for breakfast. “Not off hoof, no,” he admitted after briefly searching his memory. “Last I saw it, you were still wearing it.”

“You must have seen it somewhere since then,” Spike pressed as he straightened and scratched at his green spines, eyes roving the room for any sign of it.

“I really don’t recall seeing it, Spike,” the changeling repeated apologetically. “You’re usually pretty good of keeping track of it on your own anyway.” It was true. Though Spike didn’t seem to practice the organization skills he clearly knew anywhere near as fervently in his private life, he still had a place for everything, and everything in its place.

“Well, I can’t find it now!” Spike persisted, trotting over to Thorax’s sleeping nest the changeling was sitting on and sifting through the edges of it in search of the lost bowtie. “And I need it for my disguise!”

Thorax blinked and frowned as he shut his book, surprised at his friend’s unease. “Do you really?” he asked as he watched Spike straighten again and begin to wring his claws anxiously while continuing to glance around. “I mean, the bowtie’s just an added decoration, really. I doubt you not wearing it will really risk giving yourself away in any manner.” Thorax shrugged. “Besides, even if you have misplaced it somewhere, I’m sure it’ll still turn up soon. I wouldn’t worry about it.” When he saw that Spike didn’t calm down any, he added, “Ask Miss Fly about it. Maybe she’s seen it.”

“Maybe,” Spike agreed half-heartedly with a nod.

But when they both went downstairs and gathered around the table for breakfast, Fly Leaf could only repeat what Thorax said. “Last I saw, it was still around your neck, Spark,” she said.

Spike groaned and let his head thump against the table in dismay.

“Now don’t be like that,” Fly reprimanded gently. “You still look fine without it, and I’ll bet you no pony will even notice you’re not wearing it. In the meantime, I’m sure it’s around here somewhere. It’ll turn up. We all just need to keep an eye out for it.”

But as the day wore on, it still went unfound, and this was with Spike making just about any excuse he could throughout the morning to search every place in the building he could think of for it. He even asked a few of the regular customers as they turned up in the store if they had seen any sign of the bowtie. But no one had. Both Fly and Thorax kept their eyes out for it, but they weren’t finding it either. Fly maintained the attitude that it’ll turn up in due time, but Thorax, more sensitive to Spike’s emotions than everyone else, quickly began to see there was something more to all of this and was starting to grow concerned as he sensed his friend growing increasingly more and more worried the longer the bowtie remained missing. So when Spike went upstairs for his lunchbreak around noon, Thorax followed him.

He found Spike in their room, again shifting through every corner of the room in search for the missing bowtie. “Still no sign of the bowtie?” he asked.

Spike, surprised Thorax was there, glanced up at him and shook his head. “I’m starting to get worried,” he admitted as he went back to searching.

“I know,” Thorax stated as he closed the door to their room and dropped his disguise. “But that’s what puzzles me about it, Spike. You’re getting oddly worried over what is just a bowtie that’s probably only been misplaced and will pop up safe and sound soon.”

“But what if it’s not safe and sound?” Spike asked, getting up and facing the changeling. “What if it’s gotten somewhere where it can be destroyed or ruined? I…I…” Spike trailed off, claws fumbling about in the air as he struggled to convey his concerns.

“Spike,” Thorax said, approaching his friend gently. “I can see you like the bowtie…but it’s just a bowtie.”

“No, you don’t understand!” Spike persisted, gazing up at Thorax’s chitinous face. “Rarity gave me that bowtie!”

Thorax’s eyebrows—or at least the changeling equivalent of eyebrows—went up. “Rarity?” he repeated, of course recognizing the name. “As in, element of generosity, Rarity?”

Spike nodded. “She’s…it’s just…” he trailed off again, blushing a little as he averted his gaze. “…it’s the only thing I’ve got left to remember her by…I’d shudder to think that I might’ve lost it.”

Thorax was silent for a moment, quietly letting what Spike had left unspoken find voice through the wash of emotions the dragon was putting off. “Well then,” he said finally, sitting down before the dragon. “Looking at it logically, where were you and what were you doing when you took it off? Certainly if we can figure out that much, the bowtie can’t be far off.”

Spike let out a groan at this. “And that’s the problem!” he whined in dismay. “I’ve been racking my brain all morning, but I’ve forgotten and can’t remember. I mean, obviously I took it off sometime before bed last night, but I don’t remember when and where. I’d thought it was up here in our room like usual, but I can’t find it in here! I can’t find it anywhere!” Stressed, he rubbed at his eyes with his palms. “And I just…can’t recall anything either! Any memory I had of what I did with it is just gone.”

“Now that’s not necessarily true,” Thorax assured, wrapping one of his dark holed hooves around his dragon friend. “I can almost guarantee you that the memory is still in there in your head, it’s just gotten where it can’t resurface easily.”

“But what could I possibly do to change that?” Spike asked the changeling, feeling helpless.

“One is to keep searching for the right trigger that will bring back the memory.”

“Well okay…but I don’t know what that trigger could be, and searching for it blindly could take ages, IF I find it at all.”

“True,” Thorax conceded. He hesitated for a moment, but feeling concerned about his friend’s anxiety, he came to a decision he wouldn’t make in normal situations. “So I might be able to assist in another way to help you find it more…manually. I just need your permission first.”

Spike’s brow furrowed and he studied Thorax in puzzlement for a moment, wondering what was meant by the vague statement. “Manually?” he repeated.

Thorax nodded, and now he averted his gaze for a moment before locking eyes with the dragon again. “I think I probably could help pick out the missing memories you need to find the bowtie quickly,” he said seriously. “…but to do it, I’d need to forge a mental link with you.”

Spike gaped at him for a long moment. “Wait a minute, wait a minute, hold on…” he said, waving his claws for Thorax to stop talking. He pinched the bridge of his snout for a moment as he processed this unexpected information. “Mental link? Thorax…are you telling me that you’re telepathic?”

Thorax hesitated for a second while half-heartedly shrugging his shoulders like it was no big deal. “Well…latently, yes. All changelings are.”

Spike gaped at him. “Seriously?”

Thorax blinked innocently. “Quite. Why wouldn’t I be?”

“You’re legitimately telepathic…and you never said anything about it before now?”

“I’ve had fairly little training or past experience using it. In fact, usually only healers specifically trained to treat mental injuries would have more training than that. Otherwise, few changelings make full use of these…to use your term…telepathic abilities in this day and age. So I didn’t think I’d even need to rely on them like this anytime soon.” He shook his head, realizing he was getting off topic. “But that’s neither here nor there. My point is that I could use such a mental link to help you find your bowtie by manually enticing your mind to replay the memory of wherever it was you left it.”

Spike stared at his changeling friend with wide-eyes. When he finally found his ability to speak again, he blurted out the first thing that came to mind. “But I’m not a changeling like you!”

“You don’t have to be a changeling for me to forge a mental link with you,” Thorax explained. “Though I will admit that you being a dragon does complicate it a little.” He tapped his curved, black, horn. “See, changelings forge the link via their horns, which serves as an ideal conduit when in contact. If you were, say, a unicorn, then I could easily use the unicorn horn as a substitute conduit. Since you don’t though, I’ll have to magically cobble together an artificial replacement to get by with…so it’d be a bit of a crude link, but yes, I could still do it…but only if I have your permission first.”

Spike gave the changeling a questioning look. “Why my permission?” he asked.

“Because it’s your mind Spike…and no matter how you look at this, you would be letting me access it and potentially every thought and memory within it, no matter how private.” Realizing that how he was making that sound, Thorax hurried to reassure the dragon. “Not that I would go looking for anything like that while linked, of course. I would work to stay out of all of that as much as the link’s quality will permit me while I look for the right memories…but I’m not going to do it at all unless you are okay with it.”

Spike’s brow only furrowed more though. “If it’s so…personal…” he began, “then doesn’t it seem a little…drastic…to resort to it for something like this?”

Thorax bit his lip. “Maybe,” he admitted. “…but you’re so worried about this that I feel obligated to help, and this is the best way I can think of to do it…especially since this bowtie clearly means so much to you.”

Spike couldn’t help but grin a little at Thorax’s desire to assist, but nonetheless, he still had some misgivings. “You said earlier you hadn’t used your telepathy before though,” he pointed out.

“No, I said I didn’t have a lot of practice with it,” Thorax corrected. “But any changeling can forge a simple mental link with another like this. It’s simple, at least for us. Most of us can do it almost instinctively upon hatching, and those that don’t are taught pretty quickly. So again, I can definitely do this, especially as it’d only be a temporary link.”

Spike considered it a moment longer, but still had his worries. “And you’re sure it’s safe?” he asked.

“I’d just do a very basic link,” Thorax assured. “It’ll barely even scratch the surface of either our minds. I shouldn’t need more than that. And even if something were to go wrong, there’s almost no chance it’d bring harm to either of us, lasting or otherwise.”

Spike fidgeted with his claws for a second. “…but there’s still a chance?”

Thorax used his reassuring hoof he still had hooked around his friend’s shoulder to give it a comforting pat. “I’m just offering as a friend Spike,” he said. “A mental link is a very personal thing no matter how you spin it though, and I recognize that, so I’m not going to do it unless you’re sure you want me to.”

Spike again hesitated. He certainly wanted to; he knew this wasn’t an experience he could get every day and didn’t doubt Thorax’s promise that it would help find the elusive bowtie he desperately wanted back in his possession. Fly Leaf was probably right in saying it would turn up on its own in due time but he didn’t want to wait until then, for fear of what would happen if the bowtie wasn’t someplace safe. At the same time though, he knew it wasn’t something he should treat lightly either. They were talking about linking their minds together, even if for a second, and while Spike knew Thorax wouldn’t be intrusive about it or do anything Spike wouldn’t want him to, they would be basically granting each other access to their inner thoughts and memories. A large part of what made him nervous about the idea actually was just what might be unveiled during the link.

But ultimately curiosity and his desire to get back his only reminder of one of his more cherished of pony friends won out. “Just for a minute, then,” he agreed and turned himself so he faced Thorax too. “Is…there anything I need to do to prepare?”

Thorax shook his head. “Just keep still. I can’t guarantee a successful link if you move around too much.”

“Okay,” Spike said, taking a deep breath and working to still himself as much as he could. “…I’m ready.”

“Right then.” Thorax lit his horn as he made his own preparations. “If at any time you change your mind about this, just shout, and I’ll stop immediately.”

“Got it.”

With one last nod, Thorax then carefully lowered his horn until the tip gingerly tapped Spike’s forehead, just under the base of his green spines. Spike could already feel the flickering warmth of the changeling’s magic starting to lap at him as Thorax took in a deep breath of his own, closing his eyes to concentrate. Spike, following his example, closed his as well.

“So you’re aware,” Thorax added as he quickly sensed a slight resistance to the link forming, “you’re probably going to see a quick mish-mash of memories from both yourself and myself for the first few moments due to how jury-rigged I’m going to have to make this link. I should be able to stabilize it quickly, but until then, I can only do so much to control what is shared. Are you still okay with that?”

Spike took in another deep breath before replying. He wasn’t, but he didn’t want to let his doubts pull him out now. “Let’s just get it over with.”

Thorax nodded. Letting his breath out again with a slow whoosh, he quietly began. As the tension from the anticipation was building, Spike was just starting to wonder how much longer it was going to take when he felt a very small prickle in the spot of his forehead where Thorax’s horn touched, and then, very jarringly, the link began. The experience was very hard for Spike to describe, but it was as if a metaphorical bridge had been built between his mind and Thorax’s and he had been moved to stand upon it. There, he was immediately assaulted by what he could only describe as a tidal wave of thoughts, and for a moment he could see into both minds at will. He had no real control over it though, as Thorax had forewarned; what memories or thoughts he was able to focus on were mere flashes that seemed to surface at random, and just as unpredictably, would fade away again, giving mere glimpses at them.

Some of the thoughts and memories that flashed before him were familiar and were recognizable as his own, but there were several that his mind felt were foreign. Among these memories, Spike saw glimpses of the attempted changeling invasion of Canterlot, except from above, in the sky. He saw glimpses of walking along the path in the mountains heading north, which he recognized to incidentally be the same mountains that ran near Ponyville, but he knew he had never set claw on this particular path before in his life. This was followed by a glimpse of himself, standing in a familiar frozen cave deep in the frozen wastes thrusting his claws hopefully as an offer to help towards the onlooker of the memory, whom Spike realized could only be Thorax. With a belated inward start he realized these foreign memories were all Thorax’s. The thought briefly stunned him as he thought how bizarre it was to see the event as seen from Thorax’s eyes instead of his.

There were others, though. He also saw glimpses of the throne room at the Crystal Castle with Shining Armor standing sternly before him as the unicorn uniformly announced Thorax’s banishment while to one side Spike saw himself trying to fight the guards holding him back, keeping him from interfering, the dragon bellowing out his protests to this ruling. It plodded up unwanted feelings of the event within Spike against his will, but thankfully the glimpses were short and soon he was watching a glimpse of himself wearing his disguise as Spark standing with Fly Leaf sharing a laugh over a joke just yesterday. It was at this point that Thorax seemed to seize full control of the link and, having realized they were in the right area of memories, focused on dredging up all the memories he could of the day in question.

The memories were initially a mix of Spike’s and Thorax’s throughout their workday yesterday, but rapidly Spike’s started to outnumber Thorax’s and replayed in longer and longer lengths as the memories started to group more and more around the events of that evening. Finally, one of Spike’s memories coalesced before him, replaying in staggered jumps, but Spike remembered it was yesterday evening, as they were closing the shop. Thorax had already gone upstairs. Fly Leaf was in the living room at her desk working on some final paperwork for the day. Spike himself, as the memory showed, was still in front, wrapping up some final cleaning. As it had been a fairly warm day that day, Spike had been growing hot and was anxious to pull off his shirt and sweater vest he wore as part of his disguise so to cool off. In his memory, he reached up to start untying the bowtie around his collar when he heard Fly Leaf call for him, asking him to retrieve one of the large jars of glitter glue they sold from in back so she could refer to the manufacturer information printed on it while filling out an order form for a new supply.

Spike had done so, and the memory jumped ahead to Spike in back, having pulled out the box in question and opening it so to pull out a jar with one set of claws while pulling the bowtie off his neck with the other. The jar proved to be heavier than he expected though, and that was when Spike saw in the memory of himself setting the bowtie down on top of a second jar that was in the box so the dragon could have both sets of claws free to lift the jar free from the box. The memory then skipped ahead again as Spike walked off with the jar to set beside Fly Leaf on her desk, but Spike focused on the memory of what was in his claws in that moment, and quickly noticed the bowtie was absent. He had forgotten to pick it back up again. It was then the memories turned back into a series of uncontrolled glimpses again, the memory at first jumping ahead to later that same evening with a memory of Spike and Thorax bidding each other a good night as they turned in, before becoming more random from there.

He saw a glimpse from his own memories of fawning over Rarity’s beauty while she worked at a sewing project easily a year previous from now. He then saw a glimpse of a cavern filled with hatching pale green eggs with what Spike could only describe as white worms with black spots but also the childish faces of changelings emerging from them. Another glimpse showed the memory of looking at a reflection of a pool in another, similar, cave except the face staring back in the reflection was, oddly, that of a depressed looking bovine. Then he saw a sorrowful glance back at the Crystal Empire, Shining, Twilight, and a series of crystal guards standing at the border, doing nothing but watch as the changeling and dragon they had allowed to be cast out trudged away.

With a gasp, feeling a flood of turbulent emotions bubble back up at the mere sight of the memory, many of which echoes that he had felt in the moment at the time, Spike instinctively jerked backwards and he felt the tip of Thorax’s horn leave his forehead. Immediately, the link ended, and Spike was back to standing before the seated Thorax in their room, panting heavily from the experience. Thorax, too, seemed to have been affected emotionally from the experience, but he hid it better and looked at Spike with a predominately concerned look, worried for his friend’s well-being. Indeed, Spike needed a moment to silently recollect himself, his brain struggling to piece together what had happened and to adjust to the glimpsed copies of memories he knew were not his now in his mind. Questions began to surface as gradually his mind reordered things, but then the replayed memory of what Spike had done with his bowtie came to the forefront.

“The box of glitter glue!” Spike burst aloud in a whispered exclamation unnecessarily, and quickly spun about to head for the door leading downstairs.

As he hurried downstairs, he noticed Thorax was quietly but urgently following, having put his Thornton disguise back up. Skirting along the edges of the noontime rush crowd in the shop, the two slipped into the back and into the corridor lined with boxes that served as Fly’s stockroom. Spike promptly went to nearly the very end, where the corridor terminated with the door that led onto the back porch, and found the box in question already pulled out, Spike having not put it back when he had pulled it down last night. Throwing open the cardboard flaps, he couldn’t help but let out an elated gasp when he spied his missing bowtie right where he had left it on top of the other jar inside. Snatching it up and pressing it to his chest, Spike felt the turmoil of emotions that the mental link had stirred up within him get the better of him, and tears of joy started to gather in the corner of his eyes.

He turned around to see Thorax standing just behind him, watching all of this with a pleased expression, and wrapped the changeling in a grateful hug. “Thank you,” he whispered earnestly.

Thorax wrapped one hoof around the dragon and returned the hug. “You’re welcome,” he responded back in kind.

Author's Note

So...this chapter...this chapter proved to be more of a challenge to write than expected. My original premise for it was basically that a minor incident would get Spike and Thorax talking, Thorax would bring up changeling ability of telepathy, and upon Spike showing interest, Thorax would then demonstrate and answer a few questions afterwards so to clear up loose ends. Seemed simple enough. But when going to actually write it, I quickly realized I was tapping into a much bigger subject than I had recognized, one I couldn't just blur through. It occurred to me that this was a potentially very deep subject, and I had to treat it as such...or it'd all fall flat.

This lead to a major rewrite, of course, and the whole premise of the chapter changed, hinging upon an event to justify the subject coming up altogether. I had a couple different ideas for that, including one in which Spike was found in an alley with a minor head injury as if he had been mugged, but Spike couldn't clearly recall what had happened himself, so Thorax, fearing they might have been discovered, links with him to double-check...but that idea felt like it required an awful lot of setup for what was intended to just demonstrate that Thorax is a touch-based telepath, so I abandoned it and other ideas like it for something...simpler.

I'm not sure this premise with the lost bowtie is quite adequate enough of a justification, but it suited my needs perfectly while also setting the right sort of scene I was looking for, so that's what I ran with.

But because the chapter did get revised, we did lose a couple of fun moments, including a conversational blurb in which Thorax whimsically recalls one of his clutchmates had struggled greatly in figuring out how to form a mental link and required extra aide and training than most, and a moment where Thorax drops an obvious Star Trek reference ("my thoughts to your thoughts") before an annoyed Spike calls him out on it, calling it cheesy (and it was, which was why I dropped it)...but it was necessary to insure a better chapter overall, I felt. I do hope it lives up to the hype I ended up generating a bit more of than I had really intended to do. :rainbowlaugh:

Also, I figure you all still have questions about all of this, but never fear; this ended up not fitting all into one chapter, so the rest will be covered in the next two chapters as well. Both of those should hopefully answer most of the major questions at least. :twilightsmile:

Memories

“Thorax,” Spike began when they were back in their room, preparing for bed after listening to one Thorax’s radio drama records in general silence. “Before you were banished…why didn’t you just use your telepathy to show and prove to Twilight and the others that you were telling the truth?”

Thorax looked up from his sleeping nest of blankets he was making himself comfortable on. “There wasn’t much point, Spike,” he stated. “They were too convinced they were right, and I was wrong.”

“But you could’ve shown them your own memories of everything that had brought you here, shown that you weren’t making it up!” Spike argued as he clambered onto the window seat that served as his bed.

Thorax just shook his head. “There was no guarantee that they wouldn’t just dismiss the memories as false,” he patiently explained, “then use it as an excuse to accuse me of attempting to mess with their brains.”

“But you can’t do that,” Spike pointed out, draping a blanket over himself as he kept himself turned over so to keep looking at Thorax. “You literally don’t have that capability. You told me that.”

“And it’s true. But I know of no way, then or now, to prove it to them except by word of mouth.” Thorax winced. “And it was already obvious by then that they wouldn’t trust that. They were too convinced already that I was untrustworthy. If anything, Spike, attempting such a mental link probably would’ve only made things worse.”

Spike sighed, letting his chin fall onto his pillow. “I suppose it doesn’t matter now anyway,” he admitted. “What’s done is done. They’re just too biased against changelings to believe any one of them could be different, and it’s their loss.” His brow narrowed slightly. “Sometimes I think I’m better off away from them now anyway.”

“Don’t say that, Spike,” Thorax said. “You know you miss them dearly.”

Spike sat up again. “And how would you know that?”

Thorax blushed faintly, cowering a little. “I saw into your mind today too, you know,” he reminded sheepishly, but gently.

Spike sighed but grinned a little. “Right,” he said, still getting used to the idea. He turned over and laid himself back down so that his face pointed upwards at the slanted ceiling of their room, quiet for a moment. The reminder brought back what he had seen of Thorax’s own memories during the link. He had grown used to the foreign feel of the memories, but it was still jarring they were there in his own head now. “Speaking of which,” he spoke to his friend. “Those memories of yours that I saw…I can still remember them in my head…will they ever fade away again?”

“Not likely, at least no more than any of your own memories would,” Thorax responded. “What you’re recalling is not really my memories but your own memories of seeing my memories.” Spike rolled over to give the changeling a puzzled look, so Thorax tried a different approach. “It’s sort of like watching a play be performed in a theatre. You’re not part of the events taking place on stage, but you still remember them because you were there watching them unfold. The memories you’re recalling are the same thing. They were never truly my memories; they’re just your memories of you watching them be replayed before you during the link, like they were the story of a play being performed. Basically, they’re your memories now, to use and recall as you desire.”

Spike hummed to himself and laid down again. “They sure don’t feel like it,” he mumbled, reflecting on the memories, which still felt jarringly out of place in his mind.

“That’s because you recognize that you were not the one who originally witnessed the events in the memories. That causes a disconnection in perceptions that your mind doesn’t quite know how to handle.” Thorax shrugged. “It’s something you just have get used to with experience.” Another moment of silence fell before Thorax spoke again. “Out of curiosity, what were the memories that you saw?”

“Oh…you know, the obvious, mostly,” Spike replied dismissively, waving his claws in the air casually as he did so. Sensing Thorax wasn’t content with such a vague answer, Spike relented and started listing them off in more detail. “Just things like memories from our banishment, our travels, your travels before we met, the invasion at Canterlot…what I assume were other changelings hatching, and uh…” He paused as one memory in particular surfaced. He rolled over to look at Thorax again. “What was the deal with the cow, anyway?”

Thorax, who had curled up in his nest and resting his head between his forehooves, raised it again to look at the purple dragon, unsure he understood. “Cow?” he repeated, uncertain.

“Yeah. There was one memory where there was this depressed looking cow staring at its reflection in a pool of water…I think it was in some kind of cave?…it was someplace underground.”

Thorax looked blank for a second longer, but then his eyebrows went up as he realized what Spike was referring to. “Ah,” the changeling stated curtly. “That was actually a bull, not a cow.”

“A bull?”

“Yes, because a bull is male, and a cow is female.”

“…so?”

“…I was the bull you saw.”

Spike blinked, taken aback first then quickly turning baffled. “Wait…what?”

Thorax chuckled a little at Spike’s reaction, but there was a note of bitterness hidden beneath it. “After the invasion of Canterlot failed and everything that happened from it,” Thorax explained, “I didn’t decide to leave the hive to try and befriend ponies on my own right away, but instead tried to convince the other changelings in the hive what I had seen, and how and why I thought we needed to do what the ponies did and try and befriend each other. I spent some moons trying…but you can probably already guess how my fellow changelings reacted to my ideas.”

Spike folded his arms on his pillow and rested his head atop of it so he could watch Thorax relate the tale. “Not well, huh?”

Thorax nodded. “Most of them viewed the whole matter as potentially traitorous, and it kept getting me in trouble with my superiors. Eventually, the queen herself had enough of my, we’ll say, antics, and I was already in an unfavorable light in her eyes before then. She thought I was too docile a changeling, so my ideas of befriending ponies certainly didn’t help. She had me brought before her to receive a punishment she hoped would deter me in pursuing the matter, the ‘pony myth’ as she put it, further, and forced me to take on the disguise of a bull…and left me locked in that disguise, unable to remove it on my own, for the next moon.”

Spike winced. “Ooh.”

“It gets worse. While I was disguised as a bull, I had to take on the same abilities as a bull, meaning I didn’t have much access to my usual abilities as a changeling during that time. And no offense to bulls or cows…but they just aren’t really built for the day to day navigation in a changeling hive. It was stressful and tiring to get really anywhere in the hive, so I spent most of that moon not straying far from my sleeping room, sulking. That is, whenever Queen Chrysalis didn’t find some excuse to drag me out into public for whatever reason, where she’d encourage the other changelings to tease me for my predicament.” Thorax bowed his head, his face displaying a confusion of emotions that were hard to read. “It was humiliating. Because of all that I realized I wasn’t going to get the rest of the hive to see it my way on my own any time soon…so that’s when I thought I’d just leave and try my luck with the ponies instead, thinking that if I could make any sort of progress there, it’d help sway at least some of the hive later.”

Spike frowned. “I’m sorry that hasn’t worked out much better either,” he apologized.

Thorax shrugged. “Relatively speaking, I’ve still had better success with ponies than I have with other changelings,” he said, giving Spike a friendly grin. He then sighed. “I’m really just more worried for my race, Spike,” he admitted. “The more time I spend in Equestria and see how ponies interact and befriend each other and can compare it to the starkly contrasting life in the Changeling Kingdom, the more I’m convinced we changelings are missing something important…and it’s keeping us from becoming truly better. That we’re…lost…without it.”

Spike was quiet for a long moment. “Maybe other changelings will realize that too,” he suggested, trying to be optimistic.

Thorax chuckled sadly at the thought though, making it clear that he didn’t think it likely. “It’s a nice thought,” he admitted. “But most changelings are just too dismissive about the idea to even give it much consideration, and even then they do it only to look down upon it.”

“You realized it.”

“I’m different from them. I always was. I never really believed in the rough and tumble way of life for changelings, and I was always seen as the…oddball…because of it. My…optimistic views of what else we could be as a race, what differences we could bring about, were often viewed as something to be squelched in the hive…to the point that some days I wondered if they’re right…and I just was never compatible.”

“…I think your views are a sign of intelligence and insight on changeling life that they lack, Thorax.”

“Oh, I know that. Queen Chrysalis told me once, years ago, that I was one of the most intelligent changelings in her hive…she claimed I easily had the potential to achieve a much better standing and rank in the hive than I did. She even thought I could be a good prefect…one of the changelings that handle day-to-day administrative affairs in the hive, serving directly under the queen herself. One of my clutchmates even told me once I had the eye for detail needed to be one of the queen’s centurions, the queen’s private army of bodyguards, and that’s not something you just tell any changeling, not for a prestigious rank like that. But both of them said it’d only happen if I stopped wasting those traits on what they saw as my…‘frivolous’…ideas. When I refused…they simply regulated me to the unimportant ranks of low standing like that of an invader…like it was punishment for my way of thinking.”

Spike regarded the changeling for a moment, realizing just how much Thorax had sacrificed for his ideas. “That sounds rough,” he admitted.

“Aw well,” Thorax said, waving the matter aside. “I don’t have regrets over what could’ve been, really. I suppose I see standing up for my ideas as more important, even if it means standing apart from other changelings.”

“That doesn’t make it right, though,” Spike pointed out. “Just because you think different from them doesn’t give them the right to…to…abuse you like that. I mean…Queen Chrysalis turned you into a cow—”

“Bull.”

“—into a bull for a full moon just because of this. That’s gotta be rough!” The more Spike thought about how rough it had to have been for Thorax from what he knew about changelings, the more he realized just how rough it must have been. “How did that even work anyway?” he asked. “I mean…sorry for my lack of tact, but…I know you can’t do important things while disguised like…you know…use the bathroom, and…”

“And that’s why it was a bull precisely,” Thorax explained, catching on. “That way the queen could make the needed adjustments to the disguise so to still be able to accommodate those…anatomical needs while still keeping the disguise locked.” Thorax frown deepened. “Otherwise, I’m quite certain she would’ve locked me into a disguise as a cow, as that would’ve been even more humiliating.”

Spike blurted out the question before his brain could think about what it was he was asking. “Why, can’t changelings take on disguises for genders other than their own?”

Thorax rolled his eyes. “Yes, but doing so means taking on certain traits that make it…” he shifted uncomfortably. “…awkward…enough that most changelings try to avoid it when they can.”

Spike blushed as he thought a little too hard about it. “I won’t ask,” he decided, cutting that line of thought short.

“Please don’t.”

An uncomfortable silence fell between the two for a moment. Spike then cleared his throat and settled back down on the window seat for the night. “Anyway,” he said as he laid his head back down, staring up at the ceiling again, “sorry for dredging up bad memories for you.”

Thorax laughed at this, settling back down for the night himself. “Actually, I was in the habit of not talking about it for so long now that it was kind of nice to get all of that off my chest for a change,” he admitted. “I’m just sorry that now you’re stuck with the memory now too.”

“Aw, it’s just a little piece, and that’s not so bad,” Spike assured to soothe Thorax’s worries. “Actually, I’m more just glad I have a bit of context behind it now…otherwise I’d be forever wondering just what the hay the deal was behind that.”

The two shared a good long laugh over the matter for a few moments.

“I guess this whole mental link business worked out for the better then,” Spike then reasoned, turning a little more serious. He turned his head so he could see Thorax. “At the very least, I feel like it’s allowed me to understand you a bit better…and why you are the way you are.”

Thorax grinned as he rested his head between his forehooves. “And I got to help a friend out of it myself.”

“All in all, a good day’s work then?”

“I should say so.”

“All right then.” Spike yawned and settled in for a good night’s sleep. “Here’s to doing the same tomorrow then.”

“Hear, hear.”

“Good night Thorax.”

“Good night Spike.”

Author's Note

Tying up a few final loose ends that I wasn't able to fit into the two previous chapters about the mental link. We'll be moving on to different subjects next chapter. :twilightsmile:

Fun in the Sun

The following Saturday, close to the end of Spike and Thorax’s second moon in Vanhoover, started out beautifully and was to be a sunny, warm, and clear day—all of which Fly Leaf noted as she read the weather schedule in the morning newspaper during breakfast. “You know, today’s probably going to be one of the last nice and warm days of the year,” she pointed out as she scanned the scheduled weather for today and the upcoming week following. “After today, the weather is going to gradually start to turn cooler and cooler as the weather teams start prepping for the autumn season that’s coming up. They’ve also got some big rainstorms scheduled so to get in the last of the moisture of the summer.”

Spike looked up from the plate of waffles he was munching on. “You saying we should enjoy it while it lasts, Fly?” he asked around his mouthful of food.

Fly grinned in good humor at Spike’s talking with his mouthful. “Well, it is the weekend, and we’re not opening the shop today…seems as good a day to do it as any.”

“I feel like you have an idea on how to do it, Miss Fly,” Thorax observed, the disguised changeling working on buttering the toast that served as his scant breakfast; his eventual compromise to keep up the appearance that he was eating like a normal pony for Fly’s sake, while also not eating anything in too large a quantity that it would upset his two-chambered changeling stomach (though the two slices of toast still tended to leave him feeling mildly bloated for about an hour or so afterwards).

Fly folded up her paper and set it aside, steepling her hooves together as she leaned closer to her two employees. “Have you two been down to the beach yet?” she asked innocently.

Thorax looked up from his toast. “The beach?” he repeated.

Fly smirked. “Vanhoover is a coastal city, in case you hadn’t noticed,” she teased.

Spike stopped to consider the matter, tapping his cheek in thought with the flat tip of his knife, sticky with syrup. “You know, I can’t say I have yet,” he admitted, who realized it did seem like it should’ve been the obvious place to visit at least once. “Thornton, you tend to wander to places in the city I don’t often…you been down to the beach?”

“I think I walked past it once,” Thorax dismissively. “But I suppose that’s all.”

“Well then,” Fly said like this settled the matter. “Sounds like a day at the beach should be fun for all of us then.”

“That does sound like a good idea!” Spike agreed, his eyes brightening eagerly behind the false eyeglasses he wore. “We could build sand castles, look for seashells, and go swimming in the ocean…”

“Personally, I’d be fine with just some shade and a book to read,” Thorax said flatly, thinking of the next Sky Trek book he had checked out from the library but hadn’t yet taken the time to get very far into.

“Oh, I’m sure we’ll get you in on the fun too Thornton,” Fly urged, nudging the apparent stallion with one hoof, before clapping the table determinedly. “It’s settled then. Let’s go to the beach!”

Thus, only a couple hours after breakfast found the three on their way off for the sandy coastline that divided Vanhoover from the North Luna Ocean, the day already showing it would be notably warm. All of them had taken their own preparations for the planned day of fun in the sun. Fly Leaf had donned a pair of wraparound sunglasses and a faded old t-shirt that read “GO BOG BEAST BUTTERFLIES,” Vanhoover’s local Pegasus Ball team (which Fly confessed was an only so-so team, but she supported them out of habit anyway). Not having any swimwear already in his possession however, Spike had to stop at a shop on the way there to get geared up. He stepped out of the shop wearing the least in terms of clothing he had since arriving in Vanhoover; he had donned a pair of blue swim trunks that he then proceeded to strut around in proudly, while also wearing a towel draped over his shoulders along with his usual false glasses, the lenses having the sunglasses tinting they originally had restored by Thorax at the dragon’s request. He also wore a floppy sunhat he was borrowing from Fly, but as he had made it clear that he planned to head straight for the water upon arriving at the beach, the hat would likely be removed soon.

Thorax, by contrast to the others, wore nothing new besides, of course, his usual disguise as Thornton, but he did have with him a towel (at Fly’s insistence) as well as an aging beach umbrella and the Sky Trek book he wished to read. He was also the one who seemed the least excited to actually be going to the beach. Both Fly and Spike tried to get him excited about the trip to the beach, but Thorax remained fairly ambivalent about it, repeating that he intended to simply find a spot on the beach to lie down at to read his book. Arriving at the sunny beach, already heavily spotted with plenty of other ponies actively going about and playing, didn’t seem to move Thorax much. He continued to simply trot onto the sandy beach while Fly and Spike, ditching the sun hat as expected, ran ahead and straight into the ocean lapping the picturesque coastline.

The cool water felt good under the rays of Celestia’s warm sun above them, and soon the dragon and his employer giddily engaged in a frenzied water fight for the next several minutes. It wasn’t until they were both sopping wet already and Fly Leaf decided to swim out into deeper waters that Spike realized Thorax was not with them. Looking back up onto the beach, he spied the disguised changeling had remained on the white sands a good distance from the waterline. Spike waded back out of the ocean and headed up to Thorax, watching as his friend, having laid out his towel and his book on the sand, struggled to try and set up the beach umbrella he had brought with.

“C’mon you…” Thorax grumbled with the stubborn umbrella, which was refusing to slide open like it should when it finally sprang open. “Ah ha!” Thorax declared proudly, taking his hoof off the umbrella’s runner. The umbrella then promptly snapped shut again, wrapping the closed canopy around Thorax’s head like a predator hungry for prey, and causing the changeling to fumble about within for a second before he managed to open the umbrella again. “There,” he said as he ensured the umbrella would stay open this time and stuck it into the sand beside his towel before lying down on top of it, levitating his book open before him.

Spike watched him do all of this, standing there dripping wet for a long moment in skepticism. “You’re just going to sit there and read?” he blurted out finally.

“Why not?” Thorax asked without looking up from his book.

“Why not? Thorax, that’s not where all the fun is!” Spike waved the changeling to join him in the ocean. “Come swim with me and Fly. The water’s great!”

“I’ll pass,” Thorax replied, turning the page in his book.

“Oh c’mon, why would you want to sit there and read instead of swim on a day like this?” Spike studied Thorax for a long moment, and then suddenly got a thought. “You…can swim…right?”

“Of course I can swim, Spike,” Thorax replied, rolling the blue eyes of his disguise like this should’ve been obvious. “I’d just prefer not to while we’re here.”

He went back to reading his book for a long moment, waiting for Spike to leave and let him be. Spike did not though, and finally Thorax looked up from his book again to see the wet dragon had sat himself down in front of him, giving his friend an unconvinced look.

“Thorax, are you afraid of the water or something?” he asked innocently.

Thorax frowned and didn’t reply, turning back to the book in hopes Spike would drop the subject if he ignored the dragon.

Spike pressed on anyway. “Whatever for?” he asked. “It’s just water. If you really can swim in it, you don’t really have much to fear.”

“I don’t like getting wet,” the changeling attempted to excuse.

Spike didn’t buy that. “Oh please,” he said, dismissing the excuse with the wave of his claws. “I know you like the baths you take back at the shop, and you’re fine with getting wet then.”

Thorax still didn’t reply, focusing on his book still, but Spike noticed him narrow his eyes at the comment.

Spike smirked, and tilted his head at his friend. “Or do I really need to remind you of last Tuesday’s…incident?”

Thorax had moved his record player into the attached bathroom in their room, where it sat in a corner near the door, playing a record the changeling had borrowed from Fly Leaf. As it played, Thorax himself sat in the bathtub, surrounded by bubble water up to his neck, weaving his head along with the cheery music as the changeling bathed.

“Disco girl!” the undisguised changeling empathically sang along to the music, using a back scrubber brush held aloft in his magic like a microphone. “Coming through! That girl is yooooooou!”

It was then that Spike, looking for a washcloth, abruptly opened the door and stepped into the bathroom.

Thorax jumped in alarm, splashing water everywhere as he curled himself protectively away from the surprised dragon, feeling exposed. “DON’T COME IN! DON’T COME IN!”

“I still can’t believe you were listening to girly northern pop sensation music,” Spike teased the disguised changeling.

“No, I wasn’t—it’s not important,” Thorax grumbled, not looking up from his book, but Spike could see his disguised cheeks blush a little in embarrassment.

“Look, my point is that getting in the ocean isn’t much different from a great big bath you take with friends,” Spike summarized. “It’s fun! And the only thing the water is going to do to you is cool you off, get you all wet, and maybe get your hooves pruney.”

“But that’s the problem, Spike!” Thorax hissed suddenly, lowering his book finally and thrusting his head forward at the dragon. “A wet changeling can’t fly!”

Spike blinked and pulled back from the sudden declaration. “But you’re in disguise,” he pointed out.

“The disguise isn’t waterproof, Spike,” Thorax explained in that same urgent hiss while glancing around the beach for anyone that might overhear. Fortunately, all of the nearest ponies were far enough away to not be able to hear the conversation, especially with the sound of the ocean nearby. “And when my wings get wet, they get floppy and can’t generate any lift until they dry off again, and until they do, I can’t rely on them to make a sudden escape if danger were to appear!”

Spike’s eyebrows went up. “Is that what this is about?” he asked. “You’re afraid you’d be stranded in the water if something were to choose that time to attack?”

Thorax again opted not to respond and instead turned his attention back to his book, using it to hide his annoyed face.

“Thorax, that’s ridiculous! Who’s going to attack you here at a public beach like this, where everyone could see it?”

“It’s changeling instinct!” Thorax argued. “A changeling just doesn’t feel safe in the water while it’s on its own!”

“All of you?” Spike repeated, incredulous. “How do you guys bathe then?”

“Generally, we bathe communally,” Thorax explained curtly. “There’s a large hot spring under the hive, and in regular social events, a quarter of the hive goes down there to all jointly bathe while the rest of the hive stands guard against threats. That way, every changeling can look after the safety of each other through the power of numbers.”

“What about when you’re away from the hive?” Spike asked in a challenging tone.

“Then a changeling on its own typically avoids getting wet where and when it can help it, relenting only when it is absolutely certain it can do so in complete solitude, when there’s nothing around that could potentially endanger it.”

“So that’s why you’re so persistent on such utter privacy when you’re in the tub!” Spike declared, making the connection. “And here I thought you just being overly prudish.”

Thorax rolled his eyes again. “We’re all naked all the time, Spike, wet or dry, so I don’t see why that would be your explanation for it.”

“You’d be surprised,” Spike responded vaguely, thinking about Rarity. He adored the mare, but even he had to admit the mare had odd perceptions about the subject from time to time. “But look, you can still maintain your disguise in the water like normal, right?”

“Perfectly.”

“Then you have nothing to fear! Everypony’s just going to think you’re another pony here for a swim and think nothing of it. And the water’s perfectly safe from any dangers; its Equestrian law for every public access beachfront like this to be treated with a repellant spell that chases away any dangerous sea life that could be in these waters up to a certain distance, and they guard the boundary where it ends, see?” he motioned out to sea where, some distance from the shore a variety of ponies, mostly pegasi, were stationed in a scattered line, sitting in buoy-like lifeguard seats anchored into the water, marking where the safe zone in the water ended. “And even if there was a danger, Fly and I would be there to make sure you stayed safe.”

Thorax, however, shook his head, persistent. “It’s too open and public!” he argued. “I don’t know the terrain or the ponies, and frankly, knowing I couldn’t rely on my ability to protect myself, my gut says I just can’t trust it.” He gave Spike a knowing look. “And it may not seem like it, but trust is very important among changelings.”

“You don’t trust it, huh?” Spike’s eyes narrowed slightly. “So you’re saying you don’t trust me on the matter then?”

Thorax gave Spike a withering look. “I didn’t mean it like that, Spike.”

“No, no,” Spike said, getting back up as the subject struck a nerve. “It’s all right. Clearly even after everything we’ve been through together in the past two moons, it’s still not enough to take me at my word.”

“Spike,” Thorax repeated, looking ready to object.

“Enjoy your book, Thorax!” Spike called sarcastically as he walked off back for the water. “I hope the tide comes in on you!” It was only after he had stepped back into the water though that the young dragon realized Thorax had sensibly set up his reading spot well above the tideline, but he didn’t take the statement back.

Thorax watched the dragon go, looking disappointed and mildly upset, realizing the subject had rubbed Spike the wrong way more than he realized, but nonetheless, after a moment’s debate, he still decided trying to pursue the subject wouldn’t help either and let Spike go. He instead turned back to his book and kept reading. Spike, meanwhile, went back to enjoying the water, and soon forgot about his spat with the disguised changeling as he continued playing with Fly Leaf, occasionally joined by other ponies coming into the water to take part. Most of these ponies were ones Fly knew personally, and some were regular customers to the shop. After more than an hour of this though, the two having been left on their own in their spot of the ocean once again while they played a game of catch with a cheap beach ball Fly had purchased at a stand up the beach, the pumpkin-orange mare noticed she hadn’t seen Thorax in a while.

“We should get Thornton in on the fun,” she remarked to Spike, tossing him the beach ball while turning her head to look at her other employee, sitting alone, reading, on the beach.

“I already tried,” Spike explained, turning grumpy as he recalled their earlier discussion and tossed the beach ball back to Fly. “He refuses to come into the water though.”

“Why not?” Fly asked, catching the ball with her hooves. “Can’t he swim?”

“Sure he can. Long story short, he just thinks he wouldn’t be safe here in the ocean.”

“Hmm,” Fly hummed in thought, pausing the game by setting the beach ball down in the seawater around them and draping one hoof over it so to keep it from floating away. “You know, when we were foals, my sister Chapbook was afraid of getting into the ocean too, despite being a better swimmer than the rest of us. First Edition and I had to resort to extra measures to convince her it was an unfounded fear during a trip to the beach once, many years ago. It worked too, and she was fine about it ever since.”

“What sort of extra measures?” Spike then tilted his head at the earth pony as he caught on to why Fly even brought it up. “Are you thinking it would work on Thornton too?”

Fly merely replied by giving Spike a mischievous grin.

Author's Note

'Cause dang it, top 40 hits are in the top 40 for a reason! They're catchy!

Ever since I decided I was going to have these two hanging around Vanhoover, clearly a coastal city, I wanted to do at least one chapter with them at the beach, so, indulge me while I do that now. :rainbowlaugh:

Also we finally learn why Thorax was so persistent that he bathe in complete privacy...and not for a lot of the reasons I remember you readers speculating about at the time. :raritywink:

Obviously, as a more light-hearted chapter, various references scattered throughout, some obvious, some more obscure...somebody other than me had better get the Bog Beast Butterfly reference though, or I will be severely...put out. :trixieshiftright:

A Nudge

The beach they were on was a largely unbroken stretch of white sand running along most of Vanhoover’s coastal side, but as it happened, near to their spot of the beach, there was a large and slanted outcropping of rock, jutting out from the white sands. It was about six feet wide, and at its highest peak was about ten feet tall. Thanks to continued wearing down from the lapping seawater and ponies scaling it over the years, its tip stretched out over the edge of the sea and save for a roughly pony-sized boulder that rested to one side of it, its top was relatively flat. Because the water directly below this edge happened to be several feet deeper than it typically was elsewhere along the coast on average—even at low tide—and free of any other dangerous obstructions, this outcropping of rock was often a popular spot for the older ponies to scale up and then jump off of, diving ten feet down into the waiting water below.

By this time of day however, there were oddly few ponies around it at the moment, and as such, Thorax had paid little attention to it, especially as Fly Leaf and Spike had been sticking to the water directly in front of him, some tens of feet to the left of the rock. However, when he suddenly heard Spike calling for his attention, he looked up from his book and saw that, for the first time, the dragon had gradually moved downcoast until he floated near where the high edge of the rock dropped away into the water below. Wondering what Spike needed, Thorax set aside his book and wandered closer to the rock so to better hear Spike, but also maintaining a good distance from the water that lapped at the sandy beach.

“What’s up?” he called back to Spike once the disguised changeling had drawn close enough that he stood virtually right next to this jagged outcropping. He glanced around and noticed their boss was absent. “Where’s Fly Leaf?”

“She saw somepony she knew and went up the coast a bit to talk with them for a while,” Spike explained before getting back to his problem. “Anyway, I was playing with a beach ball when I threw it too high and it landed up on this big rock!” he continued, and pointed one claw at the top peak of the rock, mostly just out of sight from Thorax’s view where he stood. “Can you go get it for me?”

Thorax glanced up at the peak then back at Spike. “Why can’t you?” he asked.

“You’re closer,” Spike replied, which was only true now because Spike had first called Thorax over, but Spike was clearly overlooking this. “Please?”

“All right, all right,” Thorax said and started to clamber up the outcropping at its base. “Up here, you said?”

“That’s right! Should be right near the edge I think…it’s hard to see for certain from down here, though.”

Though slanted as it was, the surface of the rock was largely level with enough divots pitted into its worn surface that Thorax figured that even if it wasn’t where Spike indicated, the ball wasn’t likely to have rolled far. However, after a minute of searching, he wasn’t finding it. “I’m not seeing it up here, Spike!” he called back down as he continued searching, but the relatively open peak didn’t have many places the ball could be hiding in.

“I’m sure it’s up there!” Spike called up, having paddled a bit further out into the ocean so he could see Thorax’s head poking up above the edge of the peak. “Keep looking!”

Thorax obeyed so to humor the purple dragon, but it quickly became clear it was a useless endeavor. “I don’t think it’s up here, Spike!” he called. He walked up to the edge of the peak to peer at his friend down in the water. Even though the disguised changeling was no stranger to heights, his leeriness of the seawater below made the drop feel dizzying. He instinctively gripped the rock face under his hooves tighter with the changeling grippers that enabled him to walk up walls. “Are you sure it even went up here?”

“Positive!” Spike called back. “You sure you’ve looked everywhere? Maybe it rolled away someplace!”

Thorax glared down at the dragon, confident the ball wasn’t here. “Spike, it’s not like there’s a lot of place—OOF!”

He was cut short when, jumping out of an unknown hiding place while Thorax was distracted, Fly Leaf rushed up and threw her weight into Thorax’s rump, trying to give him a shove off the peak and into the waiting water below. But because Thorax had been discreetly gripping the peak’s edge with the grippers in his hooves, she was hardly able to budge him. Blankly, Thorax gazed back at Fly Leaf and her attempts to push him, then down at Spike who had begun to look guilty and was avoiding eye-contact, before finally glancing back at Fly Leaf. His blank gaze quickly started to turn into one of unimpressed annoyance.

Meanwhile, Fly continued to try and push him over the edge unsuccessfully. “Sheesh, you’ve got really a good footing here, Thornton,” she muttered as she threw her whole body into the fruitless task, apparently oblivious to Thorax’s withering gaze.

“…this was all a ploy to try and force me into the water, wasn’t it?” Thorax finally asked flatly.

Fly looked up from her pushing at last and gave her employee an impish grin. “Is it really that obvious?” she quipped, trying to make light of the failure of the plot.

“It was all Fly’s idea!” Spike called up in his defense, jabbing a claw up at the orange mare.

“Yeah, but you were in on it!” Thorax fired back, shooting a glare down at the dragon. “What did you even hope to accomplish with this?”

“Well, it worked for my sister in helping her overcome her fears of the water…” Fly began.

“I’m not afraid of the water!” Thorax snapped. “It’s more about—well—uh—GRR! I just don’t feel comfortable getting in the ocean with all these other ponies around, all right? Can’t you two understand and respect that?”

Fly and Spike exchanged guilty expressions. “Look, Thornton, we weren’t trying to be mean or anything,” Fly explained simply. “We just wanted to help you see you had nothing to worry about, so you could join in the fun.”

“You’ve spent the whole time at the beach on your own, after all,” Spike added from down in the water. “You were left out of the group and all the fun…and that didn’t seem fair. We wanted you to be able to enjoy all of that too.”

“And yeah, I got the idea that if we possibly gave you a…nudge into the water, you’d see there wasn’t anything to be afraid of,” Fly admitted. “Even though it didn’t work, that still probably wasn’t the best of ideas, and I apologize.” She put a hoof on Thorax’s shoulder. “But when I suggested going down to the beach today, I was really envisioning all of us doing it together and having fun as a group. You may be my employee Thornton, but I also consider you a friend, and Spike too. All I wanted to do was spend some friendly activities with you both…and that wasn’t happening while you were on the beach and we were in the water.”

“Maybe we weren’t being very good friends by trying to force you to come with us into the water like we did, instead of trying to respect your fears and worries and maybe doing something instead you could have been comfortable with,” Spike continued in a heartfelt tone. “But at least we were being good friends in a way by trying to help you overcome your fears…and Thornton…I really do wish you could join us and have fun with us in the water too. It seems silly to let the fact it’s a little crowded stand in the way of that.”

Thorax was silent for a moment, gazing back and forth between the two, but he could easily sense in their emotions the friendly concern and longing for him to be included, all demonstrating their good intentions, and it soothed the anger in his heart. With a sigh, he peered down at the water below him. “It really means that much to you two, huh?” he said softly. He saw Spike nod. “I guess I ought to be flattered you care that much then.” He leaned a little over the ledge to get a better look at the water far below. Just the thought of jumping into it sent a shudder down his spine and he involuntarily raised his gaze to peer worryingly at the other ponies frolicking on or near the beach. “It’s just…something that I can’t ignore though.”

“If you really feel that strongly about it Thornton, we won’t force you to do anything you don’t want to, and again I’m sorry if we made you feel like we were at any time,” Fly stated, stepping up so to be standing beside Thorax. She then made a sweeping motion out at the other patrons on the beach with her hoof. “But look at all of these ponies who have been out here messing around both on the beach and in the water just as long and as much as we have this whole time, and they’re all fine. Don’t you think that if there was really something that was going to harm them out there, it would’ve tried it by now?”

Thorax saw her point, but he also knew she didn’t understand the full depth of Thorax’s fears, and that he had other fears to consider as a changeling in hiding that a pony wouldn’t. “But what if that threat’s just waiting for me to get into the water, where I’d be vulnerable?” he couldn’t help but utter out.

Fly folded her front hooves and gave him a disbelieving look. “And why in all of Equestria would any pony want to do that, Thornton?” she asked bluntly.

Thorax averted his gaze, knowing he couldn’t explain without revealing his true nature. But at the same time…he also didn’t really have a good answer. Assuming that his and Spike’s attempts to keep their true identities secret from the Vanhoover public had been successful thus far—and currently they had every indication that they were—then there really wasn’t any reason to expect any of these ponies present at the beach to do that. In fact, it now occurred to Thorax that letting himself be so leery of getting into the water would probably be more telling that he could be a changeling to onlookers than if he relented and swallowed his fears.

“Even if there was a danger,” Spike added from down in the water as Thorax debated to himself. “You know you can trust us to help keep you safe from it…right?”

Thorax peered down at the water and sighed again. “I do,” he admitted. “I really do.” He licked his lips, thinking to himself that maybe he was being a bit silly about this. And, being disguised as a unicorn, it wasn’t like he could rely on flying to escape should a threat arise anyway. He still felt a visceral tremor of concern shudder through him every time he thought of getting into the water though. He glanced over at Fly Leaf. “…you really think just jumping in and getting it over with will help?” he asked hesitantly.

Fly smirked a little. “Well, it’d at least have the advantage of not giving you a chance to chicken out at the last second,” she pointed out. “That’s why it worked for my little sister.”

Thorax bit his lip and pranced nervously in place, trying to keep the hidden grippers in his hooves from instinctively latching onto the rock under him while he leaned slightly over the edge of the outcropping of rock, working to find the nerve to just do it.

“If you’re not comfortable with that though, I’m sure we could think of something else gentler we could try,” Spike suggested.

“No, no,” Thorax said, shaking his head. “Miss Fly’s probably right, it’d probably be better to not give myself a chance to chicken out.” He leaned forward until gravity caused him to tip forward slightly, but he gulped and his front hooves scrambled on the rock edge to keep from falling. He let out a pitiful whine. “I just have to keep myself from chickening out long enough to even think about jumping.”

“Thornton, if you’re really this uncomfortable about it, it’s not really that big of a deal,” Spike assured.

“No, no…I think I need to do this,” Thorax assured as he tried again to leaned over the edge again, only to scramble back the moment he felt gravity start to take over. “…just as soon as I figure out how…”

He yelped when one of his hooves finally slipped and Thorax found his front hooves falling out from under him, the front half of his body dropping down onto the edge and teetered warningly, ready to drop off the ledge entirely. The disguised changeling letting out a panicked shout, immediately tried to backpedal and regain his balance, but Fly took the moment to plant a gentle push to Thorax’s rump and at last he fell free of the ledge and plunged headfirst into the water below in a spectacular splash. Initially he shot down deep into the water in a sort of misshaped dive, but with a skill that proved he did indeed know how to swim, Thorax soon rocketed back up to the surface and his head burst out of the water, first to gulp in air, then to immediately thrash about in a panic.

Spike quickly swam over to provide aide to his panicked friend, listening to him shout out what sounded like curses in multiple languages. “It’s okay, it’s okay, I’ve got you!” he said, grabbing onto Thorax, supporting him.

Thorax responded by immediately wrapping his forehooves around Spike in a death grip. “Get me out, get me out!” he pleaded, urgently treading water in a vain attempt to keep as much of his body out of the water as he could at a time, which wasn’t considerably much.

Spike didn’t get a chance to respond before Fly Leaf leapt off the rocky peak and into the water herself. “CANNONBALL!” she yelled as she dropped, splashing into the water with an almighty clap of sound.

It startled the already on-edge Thorax, and instinctively, he lit his horn and fired off a spell in the direction of the splash. Fortunately, his aim was off and Fly hadn’t surfaced yet, so the spell missed completely and struck the base of the rocky crag in a harmless shower of cyan sparks. But once Fly did surface, it only took a quick glance at Thorax’s masked face to see how terrified he was. He was also on the verge of pushing Spike under the water in his desperate attempts to try and push himself as high out of the water as he could, so Fly quickly swam over to help.

“It’s okay Thornton, we’ve got you, you’re not in danger,” she said gently as she put her hooves on Thorax and so to take some his weight off of the beleaguered dragon. She was rewarded by Thorax wrapping a hoof around her in a death grip too, but being straddled between her and Spike did seem to get Thornton to start to thrash less.

Spike repositioned himself so he wasn’t at risk of Thorax accidentally pushing him under anymore, but still be where he could render support for his friend while remaining in hoof’s reach. “Just calm down, Thornton,” Spike urged, adopting Fly’s calming tone too. “Take a deep breath and relax.”

Thorax obeyed and took a few deep breaths. It seemed to help and gradually he settled down into a calmer state, better able to tread water to keep himself afloat under his own power so much so he didn’t really need Spike or Fly’s help for this anymore. But he didn’t relax his grips on either the dragon or the mare much, and his eyes continued to dart around, ever alert and fearing for some kind of danger to come and snatch him up.

Spike let him do so for a moment before continuing. “So, you’ve been in the ocean despite your fears for about a minute now and nothing bad has happened,” he said. “What do you think?”

Thorax thought for a long moment, his expression unreadable. He suddenly shuddered. “Water’s a little cooler than I expected,” he observed simply.

Spike and Fly both laughed then started to direct Thorax away from the outcropping of rock and back towards their usual spot in the ocean. At Fly’s suggestion, they brought Thorax to slightly shallower water to let him further acclimate to being in the ocean. Here, the water was shallow enough that Thorax’s hooves could touch the sandy bottom to stand, but still be deep enough that the water covered his back, reaching up to his withers. Regardless, Thorax seemed a bit more comfortable with this arrangement because despite showing he knew perfectly well how to swim, he seemed to trust his ability to walk out of the water more than his ability to swim out of it, and liked having that option to just turn and run out of the water should he feel the need. However, he remained and bore through his instinctual desire to flee out of the water, and voluntarily joined in when Spike retrieved the beach ball from where he and Fly had truly stashed it to start up a simply game of catch.

At first Thorax participated in the game with very rigid and calculated movements, and was easily distracted whenever he sensed something that wasn’t Fly or Spike move in the water nearby. He nearly went into another panic attack when an adventurous little fish, barely bigger than Spike’s pinkie, came up and playfully nibbled at the changeling’s disguised hooves. But as the day gradually wore on and the longer Thorax went in the water without coming to harm and further seemed to be at no risk of it, the more he began to relax. As noon rolled by, the changeling was soon getting actually rather playful and they had moved on to other water based activities, including one-on-one water volleyball, a game of Marco Polo where they all took turns as the seeker, and even a swimming race.

At one point, Spike, seeing Thorax was growing increasingly less afraid of being in the water, challenged him in a race to swim out into deeper waters, almost to the very border of the established swimming safety zone, and Thorax readily followed…though at a cautious rate that caused him to lose the race. But upon returning to shallower waters, Thorax made it clear he was ready to do it all again. They also built a sand castle by the water, which Spike then destroyed upon completion in a silly reenactment of a cheesy monster film he had seen once. And as the tide went out later that afternoon, revealing a series of tidal pools nearby (and Spike fluent in tidal pool life thanks to a summer vacation some years back in which Twilight spent nearly the whole time studying tidal pools), Spike took Thorax, who was completely unfamiliar with tidal pools, from pool to pool giving him a tour of the life they found within, to the changeling’s utter fascination.

Soon Thorax’s book and sun umbrella he had brought with him were forgotten, and the three instead spent their time together playing in and around the ocean lapping at the beach. In fact, to Spike and Fly Leaf’s amusement, when it started to grow late and it was time to start heading back for the shop, Thorax didn’t want to leave the water, despite shivering as the precursor chill of the oncoming evening started to settle on the beach. Regardless, he was eventually convinced, and the three collected their things and started the walk back home.

Thorax was fairly quiet for the first part of that walk, but then finally he sheepishly spoke up again. “Hey Spike, Miss Fly?” he said timidly, getting their attention. He gave them a small grin. “About getting me into the water…thanks.”

“Think nothing of it, Thornton,” Fly immediately stated, returning the grin. “I’m just glad you were able to join in all the fun.”

“And I’m glad I didn’t let myself miss out,” Thorax added.

And, all agreeing they had a fun day at the beach, they walked on, cheerfully chatting like the trio of friends they had become.

Author's Note

So originally, my intent was to just have Thorax get pushed into the water like Fly Leaf planned, have him thrash about as he adjusted to being in the water, then come to realize he didn't need to fear being in the water as much as he thought, and proceed from there. It would've shortened things considerably, so much so I probably could've kept this all as one chapter like I had envisioned instead of splitting it into two like I ended up doing.

But then I realized that, being a changeling had having those grippers in his hooves that allow him to walk up walls, Thorax would probably be using them while on that rocky outcropping to insure he didn't fall, and wouldn't be so easily pushed off like expected. I threw it in thinking that'd make the whole scenario funnier and a little less predictable...but it also got everybody standing around and talking, and that dragged things out a lot more than I expected it would.

In the end though, I think it worked out for the better, because some good discussion on relevant topics came up that might not have otherwise. Like some of your readers commented on last chapter, Fly and Spike weren't being very respective of Thorax and his fears and wishes by trying to force him into the water like this and this is discussed, but I also feel I adequately convey that there was really no ill intent behind it; Spike and Fly were just trying to help him see he had little to fear, and knew he was getting left out staying on the beach like he was, and thought that wasn't fair to him. It also helped to make it feel like Thorax more voluntarily got into the water, and that made it feel a bit more ethically solid doing it that way, and it sets Thorax on the path of trying to conquer this fear altogether, one of the goals of all of this.

The leading goal, however, was really more show Thorax, Spike, and Fly all as just friends with few other obligations standing in the way, rather than as the employer and employees they're usually as. I wanted to show their interactions had grown beyond a mere employment level, and show just how deep it's been getting...because that will be highly relevant in upcoming chapters, especially the more...imminent...ones.

Also, because I realized it didn't come up in this chapter (so much so I considered adding in to the chapter itself real quick but couldn't find a good spot to do it), the reason Spike had reacted so negatively to Thorax's distrusting his claims going into the water would be safe was because it was a lack of trust in Spike from ponies such as Twilight that got the two banished in the first place...so it's become something of a touchy spot for Spike ever since.

Staying

Spike arrived at the closed door of their room and saw the sign hung on the outside alerting that Thorax was inside, practicing magic. Realizing now might not be a good time to interrupt, Spike cautiously rapped on the door. “Uh, Thorax?” he called. “I wanted to come in and check something in our supplies real quick.”

There was a momentary pause before the changeling within gave any sort of response. “Well okay, but uh, now might not be the best of times…” Thorax finally called back. “Can you maybe…give me a moment to sort out this spell I’m currently working on?”

Spike rolled his eyes and proceeded to open the door and let himself in. “It should only take me just a second, that shouldn’t be long enough to—YIPE!”

With a yelp, his feet slid out from under him and as Spike found himself sliding across the floor on his back, he saw the floor of the room had been turned into a flat sheet of perfectly smooth, and thus very slippery, ice.

“I warned you,” Thorax remarked as he slid past him, sat on his rump with a magic textbook levitated before him while he urgently looked through the words printed upon it.

“All right, what did you do now?” Spike relented in asking as he tried to push himself back up onto his feet, only to have them slip out from under him again.

“I’m not even sure, the spell wasn’t supposed to do any of this,” Thorax admitted, frowning as he didn’t find what he was looking for and started flipping through the pages of his book while he bodily bounced off the far left wall of the room like a pinball and proceeded to slide back across the room once more.

Spike, using the nearby window seat as a handhold to lever himself up to his feet again, looked at Thorax. “Flip to the back of the book,” he urged. “There should be an index of things to try in the event of a malformed spell getting cast.”

“What do you think I’m doing?” Thorax asked, lazily pivoting around in circles as he slid past the dragon again, skimming through the instructions listed in the back of the book. He shrugged to himself as he did so. “Well, at least this mishap’s kind of fun,” he admitted.

“Fun?” Spike repeated with an amused snort, running in place for a second as his feet threatened to slip out from under him again. “How you see an accident like this as—”

“I think I got it!” Thorax suddenly exclaimed as he lit his horn once more in time to bounce off the rightmost wall of the room.

At the same time, he fired off the new spell with a boom of cyan magic, creating a spherical shockwave that washed across the room. Boosted by the blast, Thorax slid backwards back across the room on the ice, almost riding the shockwave as it restored the ice back into wooden floor behind him. Spike, letting go of the window seat for a second to test his balance, lost it one last time as the shockwave washed over him and he found himself unprepared for the ice to suddenly vanish under his feet. It reached the other side of the room in time for Thorax’s back to thump loudly into the leftmost wall of the room, any further sliding immediately stopped as the last of the ice vanished.

A beat of silence fell, but then Thorax stood back up and shook his undisguised body. “Well, that’s settled that,” he remarked.

“Okay, Thorax, no offense?” Spike said, also picking himself up and strolling across the room, back on track for his original goal. “I get you’re enjoying toying with magic and that’s great and all, but it is a little frustrating putting up with the mix-ups that come along with it. I can never quite know what I’m going to find when I walk in here anymore.”

Thorax looked sheepishly at the floor. “Sorry, I’m not trying to be disruptive,” he apologized. He grinned though. “So tell you what then, we’ll compromise. I have been working on magic a lot for the past couple of weeks now…so I’ll stop putting quite as much focus on it, and work on it more occasionally. Would that help?”

Spike grinned a little as he arrived where they had been stashing their growing collection of travel supplies in the room’s wardrobe. “Yeah, it would if you won’t mind.”

Thorax nodded. “Then consider it done. I’ve expanded my repertoire of spells fairly considerably already anyway.” He levitated his notes over to himself and peered at the changeling letters he had jotted down on them. “Just let me finish working out this one spell I’m trying to somehow figure out and I’ll call it a day, promise.”

“Sounds good,” Spike said as he poked his head into the wardrobe to take count of their food stock and other supplies they needed for their planned departure out of the country. They had amassed a fair bit. “You know, it looks like we’ve got enough food that we could skip going to go out today to get more,” he said aloud as he pulled out their list of things they needed, still on the original piece of wood Spike had first written it on two moons earlier on the floor of an abandoned warehouse. “We don’t want too much after all, or it’s just going to weigh us down when we travel to our next destination.”

Thorax laughed as he studied his notes, comparing them to what was written in his textbook while pausing briefly to make a minor change. “I suppose not,” he admitted. “It would be rather hard to try and outrun the royal guards when bogged down with junk, wouldn’t it?” Spike, having finished his run-through of the list, suddenly paused, his eyebrows going up in surprise and didn’t seem to hear Thorax. Thorax didn’t notice and kept talking. “Though that is kind of amusing to picture…us two struggling to race for the border, weighed down with comically overfull bags while the guards leisurely stroll up to us to arrest us…ha!” He grinned to himself for a second before noticing Spike didn’t seem to be sharing his amusement. “Spike?” he asked, glancing over at the dragon. “What, you don’t think that’s funny?”

Spike didn’t reply for a moment, but he finally turned to face Thorax, numbly raising the wooden board that served as their checklist. “We have everything, Thorax,” he announced simply. “Everything we planned to get in preparation for leaving Equestria…we’ve got it.”

Thorax went silent, feeling a chill run down his back as realization and implications set in. “…oh,” he replied simply.

Spike looked down at the list again, studying it for a moment, as if double-checking to make sure he hadn’t missed something. “…so I guess we’re ready to leave Equestria now.”

Thorax set down his notes and fidgeted with his front hooves. “I guess…” he said quietly, not sounding excited about it.

Spike suddenly rose. “We need to start gearing up to go then,” he deduced, starting to pace. Realizing he had never closed the door to their room fully when he had first entered due to sliding around on the icy floor at the time, he ensured it was fully latched now to secure their privacy. “Packing up, planning when to leave, what route to take…”

“…what to tell Miss Fly…” Thorax added glumly.

Spike nodded to himself, not really listening. “…we’ll also need to make sure we cover our trail…get rid of any final evidence we were ever here in Vanhoover before we go.” He blinked. “Speaking of, we haven’t really settled on a final destination to go to, have we? Not that we have many options…there aren’t many discovered lands outside of Equestria, really…I guess either Griffonstone or the dragon realms since they’re the closest…I suppose we could consider Maretonia, but I really doubt we’d have any more luck fitting in there than—”

“…I don’t want to go, Spike.”

Spike paused in his pacing and, surprised at the statement, turned to look at his changeling friend. Seeing he had the dragon’s full attention, Thorax took a deep breath and began his confession. “I like it here. I like working here. I like Fly Leaf. She doesn’t suspect anything, and she trusts us, and actively looks out for us. We’re not in immediate danger anymore, and we’ve proven we can safely mingle with the populace without fear of discovery several times over now…I don’t want to go, Spike. I want to stay here.”

Spike blinked several times to himself as he processed this. “It’s not smart to stay here,” he pointed out. “So long as that banishment remains in action upon us, it’s in fact illegal for us to stay anywhere within Equestrian borders, and Vanhoover applies to that. If the right pony finds any hint that we’re here…”

“But no pony has! The whole of the crystal guard came down here looking for us, and they weren’t even able to find us!”

“That doesn’t mean we should be complacent and let our guard down!”

“I’m not saying we should! I just…would rather do it staying here…don’t you?”

Spike opened and closed his mouth several times as he worked to reply. Finally, he hung his head. “Yeah…I do,” he admitted. “I like it here, and I like working here too. And I also like Fly Leaf. She’s been not just a good boss but she’s also become a good friend, despite everything.” He shook his head. “And I said it before, we were very lucky to find this place. We’ve got a good place to live and a good job to support us…everything we need readily accessible or provided for us…and there is a part of me that fears we’re never going to find another deal like this anyplace else, especially wherever it is we’d end up next.” He frowned. “But we can’t stay, Thorax. Fly Leaf only lets us because she doesn’t know the truth, especially about you. And Equestria has made it clear to us it doesn’t want changelings here.”

“We have no guarantees a changeling would be accepted anywhere else too,” Thorax pointed out.

“Ember would accept us,” Spike stated confidently, then added by way of explanation, “she’s the Dragon Lord of the dragons, and a friend.” When Thorax continued to give him a non-confident gaze, he relented. “Well, she’d at least give us the benefit of a doubt, and she’d use her rank to chase away all the dragons that’ll…probably disagree.”

“That doesn’t sound like much of a life, Spike.” Thorax fidgeted with his hooves some more. “Besides…the Changeling Kingdom has had contact with the Dragon Lands before even reaching Equestria…and even though it’s been a decade or two since, sufficeth to say…we traditionally haven’t been on good terms.”

Spike looked at Thorax glumly for a moment, knowing he had a point but not wanting to concede to it yet. “We aren’t anymore safe here, Thorax. We’re potentially endangering ourselves the longer we stay here, honestly. What good is there staying here?”

“It’s home,” Thorax stated simply. “And I’m happy here. I’ve been thinking about this for a while now. It’s a wonderful little life we’ve built here. It may not be glamorous…but I’ve never had a better life than what we have right here, right now. Balani, it’s certainly a better life than what I was living back in the hive. And I feel safe here. At peace.” He grinned sadly. “Even with the knowledge I’m living a life in hiding, in constant fear of being discovered…I’m at peace here. And I know you do too.” He titled his head at the dragon. “Can you really promise me that we can find all of that just as well somewhere else? Can you really promise me we’d be any safer there than we are here?”

Spike didn’t answer, hanging his head as he let himself fall to the floor, landing on his rump with a dejected thud.

“Besides…” Thorax continued. “…what would we tell Fly Leaf?”

Spike sighed, rubbing his eyes with his claws. He had been wondering that himself. And the fact of the matter was that…he had no answer. Nor could he promise any greater safety if they were to leave than what they had here. It all depended on if wherever they would end up was more willing to accept a changeling than Equestria was. And the thought that he couldn’t shake from his head now was…if you couldn’t find acceptance in Equestria, renowned for it…where could you find it?

“Please Spike?” Thorax continued to plea. “Can’t we stay?”

Spike glanced up Thorax, studying his friend. But all he had to do was see the changeling’s solid blue eyes and see he was being utterly genuine. He really didn’t want to leave Vanhoover, and wanted desperately to stay. He was dismayed by the very thought of having to leave. And as much as Spike wanted to put on the brave face and pretend to be the logical one…he knew he felt the same, and that such feelings weren’t buried very deep in him either. He had already been ripped away from life as he knew it once before when he followed Thorax into banishment…he didn’t really want to do it again.

Spike sighed one more time, and then nodded his head, surrendering. “On one condition,” he stipulated. “At the first sign of clear danger, if it ever comes, we flee the area immediately the first chance we get. Without hesitation.”

Thorax nodded. “Agreed.”

A beat passed between them. “I guess that’s that, then,” Spike concluded, shrugging his shoulders before standing. “We’re staying.”

Thorax nodded again. “We’re staying,” he repeated in confirmation.

A long moment of silence passed as the two let the significance of this decision sink in. They both knew the ramifications of it, still dancing at the edges of their minds, taunting them. Yet neither of them voiced further objections to this choice, and gradually the weight of apprehension that had settled on them upon discovering they had prepared sufficiently to leave started to rise again. Spike looked at the wooden board with their list written on it still in his claws. He didn’t know if this was really the smarter choice for them to make. It probably wasn’t. But…it still felt better than the alternative. Silently, while Thorax quietly engrossed himself with his textbook and notes again, Spike walked back to the wardrobe he had left open and set their list back inside. He gazed at all the supplies and items they had gathered for their formerly planned journey stashed inside for another moment.

He then closed the wardrobe door.

Author's Note

So the question's finally come up...we'll have to see if their decision is going to work out like they hope.

Over the chapters, I've seen varying opinions among the readers on this subject, but a lot of you seem to be of the opinion that moving on from Vanhoover would be the smarter choice. Logically, it is. But I hope I was clearly able to convey why Thorax and Spike might be hesitant to actually do it...and that it's not just because they've let themselves become attached to life in Vanhoover.

Catalyst

It was the only time Thorax had ever gotten the chance to truly converse with the princess of friendship, but he remembered it well.

It hadn’t been long after Spike’s attempt to, upon failing to convince the others of the truth thus far, take matters into his own claws and attempt to break Thorax out of his cell in the dungeons of the Crystal Empire, only to be caught in the attempt. Now, they had yet again been separated, Thorax locked back up, this time in a different cell in a different part of the dungeons presumably so Spike wouldn’t immediately know where to find him in the event he tried the stunt again. Thorax had otherwise been unharmed still, though he wasn’t sure if that would last much longer. Spike had told him during their attempted escape that the ponies were planning to banish him from the land. Clearly, time was running out for the changeling.

As for Spike himself though, he didn’t know where the dragon had been taken, and Thorax was more worried about that. The ponies tried to hide it, for whatever reason Thorax could only really speculate but he hoped it was because the ponies were still holding the dragon in some high regard despite everything, but he could sense in their emotions the growing apprehension. Spike’s attempted breakout had startled them, and now they seemed ready to start viewing the dragon in a new light if they had to. Which then begged the question; what were they now willing to do to Spike for the supposed good of ending the believed changeling threat? Just how much danger was Spike in now from his own allies? His reputation was already damaged because of all of this…how much further would it go from there?

Thorax wasn’t willing to find out. Spike had already done far more for his sake than he could have ever hoped to have asked of the dragon. He didn’t wish to repay his friend’s unbounding loyalty and generosity simply by dragging him into the line of fire too. He deserved better. The problem was that, locked up as he was, he was basically helpless to do anything about it except verbally plea in Spike’s defense. And it had been well established by now that anything he said was largely ignored by the ponies. They refused to trust him. A part of Thorax thought he should’ve expected that, but admittedly, he had dared to believe in the beginning of all of this he could overcome that distrust. Perhaps he was a fool to have done so.

Whatever the case, the only thing left for him to do was to curl into a ball on the cool floor of his cell and sulk, pondering on the what-could-have-beens and what he should’ve done differently in all of this and wait for what he was thinking would be the inevitable outcome now and try and brace himself for it. Undisturbed and unspoken to for a good while, Thorax was allowed to loose himself in these thoughts…but he was still a changeling, trained enough to be alert of his surroundings that he didn’t miss the timid sound of hoofsteps coming his way. Looking away from the back wall he had been staring at, he turned his head to face the metal bars that sealed him into the cell in time for Princess Twilight Sparkle to step up, the dim lighting of the dungeons leaving her partly in shadow, making her seem more ominous than needed.

She stood there, eyes boring into Thorax, for a long moment, not speaking. Knowing she was here for more than shooting death glares at the changeling though, Thorax attempted to spur conversation. “Princess,” he greeted, speaking first.

Twilight’s eyes lined up with his. “Release him,” she stated bluntly.

She phrased it sternly, like it was an order, and that Thorax had no choice but to obey or face the full wrath of her anger. Going by only outward appearances, Thorax would’ve been fooled entirely. But tasting her aura of emotions revealed differently. It was not anger that surrounded her…it was fear.

“I cannot,” Thorax answered simply, knowing who “him” was.

“Cannot, or will not?”

“I cannot, as there is nothing to release Spike from. His actions are his own.”

Twilight’s eyes narrowed, but Thorax sensed the fear she was putting off increase. Thorax realized she feared that might actually be the truth and he suspected she was really searching for something, anything, that would quell that fear. “You have to have done something,” the alicorn pressed sternly, outwardly maintaining her dark demeanor but Thorax knew by this point it was simply a front. “Some mind trick or manipulation, some sort of spell you’ve somehow managed to hide from our detection, or…”

“I do not have the ability to do any of these things you are describing, Princess,” Thorax patiently explained, and it was not for the first time that he had tried to explain this to his pony captors. “I have done nothing to brainwash Spike, by any definition of the word, and I utterly lack any of the training or skill to even try if I wanted to, which I reiterate that I have absolutely no such desire to do such a thing to Spike, or anyone.”

“Don’t lie to me!” Twilight suddenly snapped, rapping her forehoof on the metal bars of his cell with a clang, startling the changeling for the first time in the conversation. “In your race’s invasion of Canterlot, your Queen Chrysalis was more than capable of mind controlling my brother with ease, so why couldn’t you do the same?”

Thorax forced his tone to remain calm and even as before. “Queen Chrysalis,” he explained simply, “as a queen, has access to more magical power at any given time than I, as well as far more magical training. Furthermore, as I recall, she had also been using then-Captain Shining Armor as a food source, which would have left him weakened enough that he would be more susceptible to manipulation of any sort. I do not have that advantage here.”

He sensed a flare of annoyance in Twilight’s emotions, and he suspected his continued cool demeanor was bothering her. “Have you been feeding on Spike, then?” she asked, almost spat, in barely contained revulsion.

The danger in her tone was clear, and though Thorax naturally hesitated before responding, he knew lying about this would only make things worse. “With his permission,” Thorax responded, “and only because I was starving when he found me.”

“I’ll bet you were,” Twilight grumbled. Thorax didn’t need to sense her emotions to know there was doubt in her words.

“I have been completely discreet though,” Thorax continued, stressing this point. “Nowhere to the same extent as Queen Chrysalis would have been feeding in your example, and I have no desire to change that, nor any intent to even try to overfeed on Spike, or anyone within or without this empire. I could easily glean what I need to survive on anypony without anypony ever needing to notice it was happening. Why would I do anything to change that?” Now it was his turn to narrow his eyes, gazing determinedly at the princess. “At any rate, I swear princess, on my life and the great Informis Una herself and all of her sacred acorns that I would never do such a thing to Spike, or anyone else of any race.” He let his gaze soften, tilting his head sadly at Twilight. “I truly only wish to be friends, princess.”

Twilight’s gaze also softened, but doubt was clearly still written upon it. “That’s touching,” she admitted without feeling. “But you’re a changeling, part of race of born liars and deceivers. Why should I believe you? For all I know, you could have already done precisely all of that and are just denying it now so to vainly hide your tracks.”

“If Spike had been fed upon and mind controlled in the same manner Queen Chrysalis had done to Prince Shining Armor,” Thorax stated levelly, “then you wouldn’t have need to come down here and ask me if it had been done, because it would already be blatantly obvious to all that such a thing had transpired to Spike by now. I think you know that, princess.”

And he knew that, because he knew from reports in the hive after the failed invasion that Twilight had been the only one to catch onto Chrysalis’s presence precisely because she saw something amiss in Shining Armor’s behavior—among other things—by the time the mind control was already getting put into place. And though he saw Twilight attempt to hide it by putting on another glare, he sensed her fear flare among her emotions again, telling him she had indeed determined this for herself. Not that she was about to admit it, of course.

“For someone who claims to not be very knowledgeable about this subject, you seem very fluent about it,” she pointed out. “I still say you’re lying. I can’t believe you are really here with peaceful intent.”

Thorax sighed, hanging his head, tired of all of this arguing. He could say whatever he wished at this point; they were never going to believe him. “I honestly do not expect you to at this point, princess,” he admitted, dejected. He raised his gaze back up at the purple alicorn. “But then again, I fully realize you have a grudge against me because I’m a changeling, and you’ve been letting it blind you from the obvious facts.”

Twilight, for the first time, was unable to hide her emotions from displaying on her features and pulled back slightly in alarm with widened eyes, and Thorax realized this was the first time she had even considered how much of an effect her personal bias might be having on this matter. “That’s…I’m not—that has nothing to do with it!” she insisted in an unsure stutter. “It’s not even relevant to this!”

“Princess Twilight,” Thorax interrupted before she could try and hide the matter. “I am not trying to dissuade you from this thinking. In all honesty…I can’t blame you. I’m aware on what you had been put through during the invasion at Canterlot; I can understand why you’d be immediately distrustful of any changeling you might meet after that.” He rose finally and approached the bars that divided him from the princess, placing his hooves around the bars. Twilight unconsciously took a cautious step back when he did this. “I can already see I can’t sway you or the others to my side, and I fear continuing to try to force a peaceful resolution will only create more harm for all of us, the last thing I want. I know what you, your brother, and Princess Cadance are already considering, so I urge you to simply banish me and be done with it.”

Twilight’s eyes widened again as she blinked in surprise. “I haven’t said anything about banishment,” she remarked aloud without thinking, not thinking about how she was only confirming Throax’s suspicions by saying as such, but Thorax didn’t bother reminding her of that. “How did you—?”

“I will not fight such a ruling,” Thorax continued without letting the mare finish. “I will in fact peacefully accept it, and to again demonstrate that I have no intention of harming anypony…I will voluntarily leave and go into such banishment without fight or protest.”

Twilight’s brow furrowed at this. “You would?” she asked, puzzled. “Why?”

“Because I have no wish to cause further trouble, and I’ve caused more than enough than I ever desired already. I can see it will be fruitless to try and resist anyway, and I fear trying would only drag those few who are supporting me down with me…” he gazed intently at Twilight. “And I don’t want that happening to Spike, not for my sake.”

He felt a flare of fear from Twilight again as the princess’s mind no doubt pictured such an event and knew she thought similar.

“Besides,” Thorax couldn’t help but add. “I can’t help but think you’ll be preoccupied with…other troubles…if and when you do banish me.”

Twilight frowned again and tilted her gaze questioning at him. “Is that…is that a threat?” she asked, trying to sound threatening but couldn’t stop the notable uncertainty from bleeding through into her question.

To Thorax, it implied that she already knew perfectly well that it was no threat; merely a statement of fact. He chose not to admit it directly though, and instead shrugged. “You would have to ask Spike after I am banished,” he answered cryptically.

Twilight’s eyes widened slightly, and Thorax couldn’t help but inwardly note to himself she had caught what he was implying. But as quick as the telltale had appeared, the alicorn shook her head and hid it again. “Spike had expressed fear earlier that you would perish if you are cast out and left on your own,” she stated pointedly, with an insincerity that clearly implied she did not believe that would actually be the case. No doubt she, like the others, were falsely thinking there were other changelings close by, waiting for Thorax, that would come to his aide.

Thorax had already been thinking about this possibility though, and though it naturally frightened him much more than he cared to admit or show, he was coming to terms with the fact that he could starve and ultimately perish out there if things didn’t work out here. He knew he wouldn’t have anywhere else to go, would have no reliable access to food or real promise of miraculously finding one soon once banished, and knew he would never be able to return to the hive in time to save himself from starvation…assuming the hive even took him back in after having turned traitor. Basically then, if the game was already lost, he might as well cut his losses. Thus, he again chose honesty as the best response; “My untimely death could very well be the case if I am banished, princess,” he said calmly and matter-of-factly, making it clear he at least was confident of its likelihood.

He quickly saw his morbid admission strike a nerve in Twilight, unsettling her, but she was quick to hide it again, and instead chose to avoid addressing it. “You also must realize,” she continued, and it was here that Thorax realized she actually was considering his advice to show her support for his banishment, “that assuming I were to throw my support in this supposed banishment, not to say any such thing is being planned right now, then my authority of my rule as the princess of friendship would be backing it up. And as the princess of friendship, I have enough authority that it can be used to legally rule to have you banished from all of Equestria altogether.” She narrowed her gaze seriously at Thorax as if she intended to try and dissuade him from this plan. “Otherwise, without my support, Cadance and Shining Armor alone have only enough authority to banish you from just the Crystal Empire.”

Thorax however simply shrugged, overlooking this detail because he viewed it as a moot point. He saw now he wasn’t welcome anywhere in Equestria, banished or not. Even if he was banished from just the Crystal Empire, he still wouldn’t have far he could go. “So be it,” he simply stated, conceding to this fate. “I never wanted to cause trouble, princess. All I want now is to stop it before it gets worse. And since I can’t convince you of the truthfulness of my motives, then if banishment is the only way to end the trouble I’ve caused…I accept that.”

Twilight studied him for a very long moment in silence. She was clearly trying to make sense of his resolution on this fact, not understanding his motives why he’d want to…of course because she never believed much of what he told her to begin with. It puzzled her though, and Thorax wondered for a moment if maybe he was seeing an ever so faint glimmer of thought in her that might be wondering if Thorax was being genuine from the beginning after all. But if that was what it was, it was quickly smothered again as Twilight finally snorted and, without further comment, turned and left. She never said if she would indeed push for Thorax’s banishment like discussed, but Thorax knew at that point that she had decided to. Thus he wasn’t at all surprised when that ruling of banishment did indeed come along no more than an hour later. And as promised, he accepted that banishment without a fight, taking comfort in the fact it would end the argument he saw was only dividing the ponies, and keep Spike from getting dragged down into further harm for his belief in Thorax.

Of course, Thorax thought to himself as he reflected back on this event in his and Spike’s room in Vanhoover two moons later, neither of us realized Spike would only choose to abandon the ponies and follow me into banishment rather than stand to one side and let me go alone.

As Fly Leaf had warned, the good weather they enjoyed on their day at the beach had come to an end by the following week, the weather growing cooler and the weather teams began bringing in rainstorm after rainstorm to get the city’s full quota of water down and on the ground before proceeding into the preparations for autumn. Such a rainstorm was going on now, and Thorax sat on the window seat in the darkened room, watching the drizzle rap against the panes of glass dividing him from it. It was very gloomy weather, and perhaps because of it, Thorax was feeling a tad gloomy himself, and couldn’t help but think about where he was in life now with some apprehension.

First and foremost, he wondered about his goal and dream to get ponies and changelings to trust each other long enough to become friends and allies, the whole reason he had come to Equestria in the first place, debating whether or not he would ever accomplish this goal. Seeing Spike was the only one he had managed to achieve that goal with, and he wasn’t even a pony, he was forced to admit he wasn’t seeing it likely…and the thought broke his heart. But in reality it wasn’t so much himself that he was worried about, it was Spike, and how he was dealing with banishment.

They had chosen to stay in Vanhoover because despite the lingering dangers, they were happy here. And Thorax still supported that decision entirely. He also saw that Spike was happy with the little life they had built for themselves here in Vanhoover too; the happiest he had seen the dragon since they left the Crystal Empire. But while Spike tried to hide it from Thorax as much as he could, Thorax still knew of the bitter emotions that boiled deep within the little dragon. Despite Spike’s attempts to not allow it to rule his life, he still showed lingering aggravations for the ponies and their role in their banishment. He blamed them resoundingly still for that involvement. And so, Thorax was left wondering that it was in fact himself who ended up being the very catalyst that put them both in their present situation for choosing to urge Twilight to back his banishment…and if maybe he should share some of that blame Spike had been directing at his former pony friends.

“Salue, Thorax!” Spike greeted cheerily in linguae mutationis as he suddenly entered the room, removing the glasses he wore for his disguise to rub the lenses clean against his sweater vest.

Thorax turned and grinned at the dragon. Though opportunities for him to sit down and teach Spike more about the changeling language had become infrequent, he was still pleased that Spike had learned enough that he could now converse in simple sentences in the language. “Salue, Spica,” he greeted back, before falling back into his musings while watching his friend turn to the desk and begin sorting through the mess of papers upon it, searching for something.

Spike, of course, didn’t yet know about how Thorax had urged Twilight into agreeing to banish the changeling. It was somewhat ironic, in fact, that Thorax had only done that mostly with the intent of trying to spare Spike some grief only to be surprised by both Spike following him into banishment and the ponies letting the dragon go with him instead, bringing the dragon that grief anyway, and then some. At times, when he knew Spike was in his low points, the changeling felt responsible for that. Yet for now he had chosen not to tell Spike for a variety of reasons. One was that he wasn’t even certain yet how to appropriately confess his own involvement in their banishment. But he also saw that Spike knowing about it would bring the dragon no lasting benefit or closure, and he feared it would only make Spike’s hostility about their banishment, already a bitter subject for the dragon, worse than it already was.

But above all, musing on their friendship as he watched Spike continue to sort through the papers on their desk, Thorax didn’t want to do anything that might end that friendship. It was that friendship that kept Thorax going some days…and he suspected it was very much the same for Spike. They needed that friendship too much. Besides…Thorax had gotten to wondering about Twilight’s involvement in this same banishment too.

He still couldn’t explain why the alicorn had chosen to let Spike leave with Thorax in the first place beyond Spike’s own deductions on the matter…but he thought it odd that it was only the crystal guard who seemed to have been involved in searching Vanhoover for them less than a moon ago, and not any of the other factions of royal guards that served in Equestria; the same faction of royal guard that happened to be captained by Twilight’s own elder brother. He also remembered what had been said when those two members of the guard had come to the shop explaining their mission; they had made it seem like they were looking to “rescue” Spike from Thorax. It made Thorax wonder if Twilight had come to regret her own role in the banishment, wanted to get Spike back, and was now throwing her weight as princess around behind the scenes to make it happen.

Unfortunately even if that were true, it seemed nothing had changed for Thorax; if what he had learned from those two guards were any indication, the princess of friendship, and no doubt her friends and allies, still saw Thorax as an enemy, to be treated as such. And he knew now that Spike wouldn’t be willing to side with the princess again without Thorax in tow. It was an impasse.

Spike finally found the piece of paper he was looking for, holding it up victoriously and turning to leave, only to pause when he noticed Thorax watching him. The changeling’s glum ponderings must have shown on his face, because Spike took on a concerned look. “Something up, Thorax?” he asked.

Thorax grinned and shook his head gently to clear his thoughts. “Just thinking a little too hard about things, I suppose,” he admitted.

Spike leaned his head over to look out the window at the rainstorm the changeling had been watching. “Yeah, watching the rain will do that to you,” he quipped before straightening again, grinning. “You need something to take your mind off it.” He motioned for the changeling to follow him. “C’mon downstairs. You can join me in watching Fly Leaf try and create that leaning tower of stationery supplies for the display in the front window again.”

Thorax grinned, and moved to follow the dragon out the door, putting on his Thornton disguise. “Sounds like just the thing I need,” he admitted, conceding to himself that Spike had a point. Dwelling on the gloomy thoughts wasn’t going to help anyone.

Author's Note

So this chapter is basically a sequel of sorts to the earlier chapter "Embittered," and much like "Embittered," this chapter was written largely in response to reader input I was getting at the time. Namely, the desire that we see a similar flashback to the events leading up to the banishment except from Thorax's point of view this time. Lucky for all you guys, I readily agreed; we needed more insight on Thorax's point of view of things, and set about making it happen.

Originally, the flashback was simply going to entail a circular argument between Thorax and Shining Armor, but I ditched that idea because I felt Shining was getting too much of the flak, and I felt Twilight opened more avenues of conversation anyway. It also enabled me to throw in a small twist to the whole matter of the banishment that I'm curious to see what the reaction will be.

I also took the time to answer an age-old question I've been getting since the beginning of the fanfic: did Cadance and Shining really have the authority to banish Thorax and Spike from all of Equestria? In this instance, yes they did...but only because Twilight threw in her support, and thereby her authority and all benefits thereof, as well.

Fallen Ill

Author's Note

Ah yes...this chapter.

Fallen Ill

The rain persisted on into the next week, leaving everything in Vanhoover feeling damp, cool, and rather gloomy. As this was traditional for the area by the end of the summer season, Fly Leaf wasn’t especially bothered by it, but Spike and Thorax were, more used to climates that were less likely to have so much rain in a row. Thorax reacted with occasional bouts of melancholy behavior until he found refuge in the books he was reading, which seemed to keep him in good spirits. Spike, on the other hoof, was just annoyed with the persistent rain.

“I swear, if I ever see another rain cloud before I hit middle-age, it’ll be too soon,” he’d taken to frequently grumbling, and reminded Thorax once that middle-age for a dragon was at a substantially higher age than it would be considered for a pony…or a changeling, for that matter.

The rest of Vanhoover seemed to reflect the gloomy weather too, like the whole city was being mired down by the rain, even though the city was in fact well-adapted to it. Regardless, the constant rain, even though scheduled moons in advance and everypony knew it was coming, made it so that most ponies didn’t particularly care to go out and about. It left the normally busy streets of Vanhoover emptier, and in turn, it meant a notable downturn in business for Fly’s shop. Again, Fly was used to this for the time of year.

“All this rain will be over before you know it,” she kept assuring her employees. “And then business will be back up to its usual height like nothing had happened.”

Nonetheless, it still left the task of getting through the waiting game. Like most of the other Vanhoover inhabitants, Spike and Thorax typically avoided going out into the rain if they could help it. When it started and seeing they had been lacking in that department, Spike had gone out and invested in some rain gear for himself and Thorax, which helped. But despite Thorax’s progress on conquering his instinctual fear of being wet around unfamiliar ponies they had achieved at the beach, the changeling still preferred to not get wet unless it was on his terms, and had taken to staying cooped up at the shop. So both Spike and Fly were surprised when Thorax announced he was running to the library real quick during his lunch break.

“You’ve been avoiding going out all week because of the rain, Thornton,” Spike pointed out from where he had been setting out new stock on a shelf. “But now you’re okay going out for something as mundane as a trip to the library?”

“I need to return the books I’ve checked out,” Thorax explained as he slipped Spike’s backpack onto his back, which he was borrowing so to exploit the waterproofing spell on it, keeping the books inside nice and dry. “I’ve finished reading all of these, and they’re due back today.” He motioned a hoof out the front window. “Besides, it’s stopped raining for the moment.”

And though the sky was still quite overcast, a quick glance was all they needed to see it had indeed stopped raining…for the moment.

“It’s only stopped because this rainstorm has rained itself out,” Fly pointed out from where she was manning the cash register. “The weather team’s probably already working at moving it out of the way to set up a new rainstorm in its place, and then it’s going to start right back up again.” She nodded her head at the changeling’s disguised form, which save for the backpack remained bare. “You could get caught out in it when it does. Shouldn’t you at least take a raincoat? Or maybe an umbrella, so to be prepared?”

Thorax persistently shook his head, politely refusing. “I plan to go and be back before it starts back up again, so I won’t even need those things,” he stated. “I know exactly where I’m going and what I plan to do at the library, so I’ll be back before the rain resumes, I promise.”

Fly sighed, but after glancing at Spike for help, who only shrugged in resignation, she relented. “All right,” she said in a knowing tone. “But I don’t want you walking in the rain dressed like that, so if for some reason you don’t get back before the rain resumes, then never mind if you’re late to come back from your lunch break, I want you to stay inside and wait it out. Spark and I can handle things here in the meantime.”

“I appreciate the concern Miss Fly,” Thorax said confidently as he proceeded to step out the store. “But I guarantee I’ll be back before the rain resumes. You’ll see.”

However, when the rain did resume in earnest some minutes later, Thorax wasn’t back yet.

Spike watched the rain fall through the front window while he stood on a stool, restocking shelves. “Well, so much for Thornton avoiding the rain,” he muttered, mildly amused at this predictable outcome.

Fly, however, was much less amused by it. “I fully expect him to not be back until this new rainstorm lets up then,” she said firmly as she handed a customer their change. “I don’t want him trying to walk in this weather underdressed like he was.”

“Thornton’s smart,” Spike assured his employer as the customer walked out and he noticed another stepping up to enter the shop. “He likes to think ahead and plan for every possible outcome. He’ll have something worked out to keep him dry.”

Fly’s counterargument to that was cut short as the front door opened again, the service bell ringing as a pony crossed the threshold into the shop, and the mare turned her attention to the new potential customer. “Welcome to Fly Leaf’s Books and Stationery, how can—Thornton!”

Spike turned around and saw it was indeed Thorax who had stepped into the shop, and as he was sopping wet from head to tail, he had clearly walked through the rain anyway. Despite shivering from the cold and wet state he was in, he wore a pleased grin on the face of his disguise. “I’m back with the new books I wanted to check out,” he announced with a hint of pride.

Fly repaid it by promptly stomping up to him and lightly slapping him across the face with one hoof. “You blithering idiot!” she exclaimed as she pulled him to one side in a motherly manner. “I explicitly told you not to try walking in the rain dressed like that! Spike, go fetch towels, quickly!”

Spike nodded, and darted upstairs to fetch clean towels from the linen closest on the third floor. When he returned, Fly had escorted Thorax into the kitchen in back and was in the middle of telling him off.

“…I told you not to worry if you were going to be late coming back from your lunch break!” Fly declared, pacing back and forth in front of her employee while Thorax sat on the floor before her, shivering still and sniffling every now and then. “I explicitly told you that, and you went and did it anyway! What were you thinking doing that?”

“It’s just rain,” Thorax responded. “When I got caught out in it as I was starting back, I decided I just wasn’t going to let it bother me. All it was going to do, really, was get me wet.”

“You hate getting wet Thornton,” Spike reminded pointedly as he strolled up with the towels and took the liberty of unfurling one and throwing it over his wet friend.

“I’m trying to not let that bother me anymore,” Thorax replied with a sniffle as both Spike and Fly took towels and proceeded to try and dry him off. Though he was still covered with his false Thornton disguise, the disguise still behaved precisely as if it was the real thing. Thorax put on a slightly smug look as he continued. “Like I’ve been getting urged to do as of late, and I did so.”

If anything though, it spurred Fly Leaf further. “That doesn’t mean be an idiot about it!” she argued as she rubbed a towel over the top of Thorax’s disguised head with more vigor than was strictly necessary. “Not even ponies native to Vanhoover are that dumb to walk that sort of distance in the rain without any protection! You could’ve caught pneumonia doing this!” Her tirade was cut short when they heard the service bell ring again in the other room, announcing the entrance of another customer into the shop, and she sighed. “Look, someone needs to run the shop. Spike, can you finish getting him dried off?”

“Yeah, sure,” Spike said, already in the process of helping Thorax dry off. He watched Fly exit the kitchen before turning his attention back to his friend. “Why did you do it?” he asked wearily. “Were you trying to prove something?”

“Like I said, I decided I wasn’t going to let the rain bother me,” Thorax simply repeated. He was shivering less now as the cold water on his body was wiped away and warmth started to seep back in. “And it’s not like it’s hurt me or anything.” He snuffled his nose again.

Spike folded his arms, unconvinced. “Need a tissue?” he asked flatly.

“Actually yeah,” Thorax said, sniffling again as he rubbed at his nose with one hoof. “All that rain seems to have gotten it running a little…but I’m sure one good blow and it’ll be fine again.”

Once he was dried off and the new library books he had checked out (kept dry thanks to Spike’s waterproof backpack he had taken to put them in) put away, Thorax went back to work like usual. But as the day went on, the sniffle Thorax was sporting didn’t go away, and if anything, only grew worse. Gradually he began to cough lightly and to repeatedly clear his throat as if trying to clear a persistent tickle. It wasn’t long before both Spike and Fly had deduced what was happening.

“Sounds like you’ve caught a cold,” Spike observed with a frown later on near the end of the work day.

Thorax cleared his throat before responding. “I’m fine,” he repeated, but not directly denying it while he worked the cash register. “I can still operate fine, runny nose or not.” He coughed briefly, drawing a worrying gaze from a nearby customer who moved to put some distance between her and Thorax.

Fly then strolled up, looking grumpy, and set a tall glass of water down beside Thorax with a gentle thump. “Drink,” she ordered simply.

Thorax blinked at her, and realized it’d be better not to object. “Yes ma’am,” he replied, and quickly downed the glass of water.

Thorax’s sniffling and cough didn’t let up as the evening rolled in though, yet Thorax persisted in saying there was no need to worry. Perhaps as her way of subtly saying what she thought about that, Fly Leaf made it a point to make a warming vegetable stew for dinner that evening, and though he avoided eating too much of the solid bits in the stew as per the norm with him, neither she nor Spike missed the fact that Thorax did seem to like gulping down the warm and soothing broth. Regardless, Thorax went to bed with the promise it’d all be over by morning. In the morning though, his cold-like symptoms had only gotten worse, and now Thorax didn’t seem quite so confident.

“Ugh,” Thorax groaned as he lay, undisguised, in his sleeping nest, sniffling, peering about with squinted and droopy eyes and looking otherwise miserable.

Spike, in the process of getting dressed for the workday, guessed what this was leading to. “Think you’ve got a cold?” he asked again, knowing already what the answer ought to be.

“A light cold,” Thorax persisted, but then he coughed sickly and groaned afterwards. “But all right, I’ll admit it…I might’ve brought this upon myself.” He squeezed his eyes shut and rubbed at his forehead with one hoof. “Informis Una auxilio mihi tribuit, my head hurts.”

Spike studied the ill changeling as he put on his bowtie. “You think you’re not going to be able to work today?” he asked.

“No, no, I should still work my shift,” Thorax croaked, starting to sit up. Instead, his head bobbed about dizzily and he gave up, flopping back down into his nest, coughing. “…but then again maybe I should stay up here…so I don’t risk spreading my cold to the customers or anything.”

“Fair enough,” Spike said, grinning a little, and nodded his head. “I’ll let Fly know. Ah, will I need to do anything to get you, y’know, breakfast?”

Thorax hummed to himself for a moment, tongue flickering out briefly to smack at his lips, a sign Spike had come to recognize as the changeling sampling the ambient emotions in the air.

Getting a thought, Spike tilted his head knowingly at Thorax. “Or will my concern for your health be filling enough of an emotion?” he asked, his grin turning into a smirk.

Thorax thought for a moment. “It’ll do for now,” he said with deliberate nonchalance, downplaying the matter.

Spike rolled his eyes, but couldn’t help but keep grinning as he turned to go. “You rest up and get feeling better, Thorax,” he said as he exited. “Drink lots of water; it’ll help with that cough.”

Incidentally, Thorax chose that moment to make a hacking cough. “Will do,” he grunted.

Fly Leaf naturally wasn’t pleased to hear that Thorax was too ill to work today considering how he had fallen ill in the first place, but like Spike she showed concern for his well-being and agreed it would be better for him to rest and recuperate, pleased Thorax was showing concern for the customers by not wanting to risk spreading the aliment on to them. That said however, she was worried that if Thorax’s cold was contagious, herself or, more importantly, Spike, were at risk of catching it themselves. She was concerned enough that Spike felt obligated to assure her that he felt fine still, but appreciating the risk regardless, he agreed to try and limit his exposure to Thorax during his work shift.

Otherwise the work day proceeded on fairly normally, and Fly and Spike managed without Thorax. Spike was quite conscious about the changeling’s absence in the shop though, and worried about his friend, alone and ill upstairs. So when he went on his lunch break, he went upstairs to check on Thorax. He found Thorax in much the same state as when he had left, resting in his sleeping nest and looking miserable…except now Thorax’s face had become a shade or two paler.

Spike felt his concern grow at the sight. “You…sure you’re managing all right up here?” he asked.

Thorax nodded weakly. “Yeah…gotten a little worse though,” he admitted. “Been feeling a little nauseous for the past hour or so.”

Spike winced. “Need me to get a bucket?” he asked.

“No,” Thorax said. He then made a gagging sound and suddenly looked paler. “…yes.”

Spike nodded and turned to fetch one quickly. Fortunately, they kept a bucket for cleaning purposes in the room’s attached bathroom, and figuring it’d work for this purpose, he retrieved it and brought it back to Thorax. Thorax kept it pulled close to him, wrapping his holed, black, hooves around the sides.

Spike, remembering his promise with Fly to try and do what he could to avoid catching the same ailment, moved across the room to sit at the desk, turned so to watch Thorax. The changeling really did look pretty ill, and he wondered what else he could do to try and help his friend recover. “Maybe Fly has some medicine you could take to alleviate some of these symptoms,” he started to suggest.

But Thorax immediately shook his head. “No medicine,” he stated.

“But Thorax…”

“The only medicine you’ll have access to will be meant for ponies. You don’t know if it’ll have the same effect on my changeling biology. For all we know, it could just make things worse.” He shook his head again. “No, it’ll be better to not take the risk.”

Spike hummed in disappointment, but knew Thorax had a point with that. He remembered a much younger Twilight bringing up similar concerns with Princess Celestia about Spike one time when he had fallen sick in his youth. Fortunately for Spike, after a bit of research, they were able to safely determine that pony medicine was safe for dragons too; slightly larger doses were just needed for it to have enough of an effect on his more robust physiology. Unfortunately, neither Spike nor Thorax could know if something similar would apply here, and Spike didn’t know how he could safely find out.

He tried a different approach. “How do changelings treat illnesses such as this?” he asked.

“The healers at the hive have a variety of treatments devised from herbs and such growing in the area,” Thorax explained. He made another gagging sound.

“None of which we’re going to have access to here in Vanhoover though, right?” Spike guessed with a sigh.

Thorax nodded. “I couldn’t tell you how to make the right treatments even if we did anyway,” he explained, who had begun to pant a little, wincing. “No, I know it’s going to be awful, but the best thing we can do is just wait for this to run its course natur—URGH!”

Spike averted his gaze, trying not to gag himself, as Thorax was finally sick into the bucket. He retched for several moments getting it all up, then dry heaved a few more times after that before finally settling back down onto his sleeping nest with a groan, but looking a little less pale.

“You finished?” Spike asked, stepping up.

Thorax nodded weakly, his eyes closed. “For the moment.”

“I’ll clean out the bucket for you then,” Spike offered, retrieving the bucket to take into the bathroom. Despite the unsightly contents he was certain he’d see, he peered inside to see what the damage was like. He was surprised to see the vomit pooled at the bottom of the bucket wasn’t the sort of vomit Spike was expecting, but instead was a mostly clear, almost syrupy, liquid—though it still had the foul acidic scent one would expect. Spike at first thought it was water Thorax had probably drank, but then the fact that he had just watched a changeling vomit struck him fully, and wondered if this was instead something he should be concerned about. “What is this?”

Thorax let out a soft wheeze before answering. “Breakfast,” he stated simply, keeping his eyes closed.

Spike blinked and peered into the bucket again, realizing what he was actually looking at. “You mean that’s emotion?”

“What’s left of it.”

“…you mean to tell me your body takes emotion and turns it into this liquidy stuff?”

“More or less…look, I can tell you all I know about changeling digestion, just another time, okay?”

“Right…right, sorry.”

Spike cleaned out the bucket and returned it to Thorax, but fortunately the changeling didn’t seem to have a pressing need to use it again. He then tried to keep a conversation going with Thorax, but Thorax was more interested in resting, so Spike permitted him and kept quiet. Regardless, he remained in the room watching the changeling for the remainder of his lunch break, worrying. He figured that at the very least he could be around where Thorax could feed off the dragon’s concern for his health…but wondered if Thorax would be able to keep it down any more than he could the breakfast he had already vomited up.

When he went back downstairs to the shop at the end of his shift, Fly Leaf inquired about how Thorax was doing. Unsure how else to respond, Spike decided to just respond with “he’s coping.”

Fly didn’t seem especially reassured by this. “Well, let me know if he starts getting worse,” she asked as she returned to the task at hoof. “He may need to see a doctor.”

Spike winced and didn’t comment, knowing perfectly well that seeing a doctor wasn’t an option; not only would it give Thorax away as a changeling, thus making all of this a moot point regardless, he wasn’t confident how much the local doctor would be able to help considering Thorax was not a pony. Instead, he told himself it wouldn’t come to that and that Thorax would be able to recover on his own in time if he kept rested. But when the shop closed for the evening and Spike went back upstairs to check on Thorax again, he was surprised to see Thorax was not in his sleeping nest and was nowhere in immediate sight.

“Thorax?” Spike called out immediately, alarm showing in his voice as his eyes quickly scanned the room for his missing friend.

He heard the changeling groan in response from within the attached bathroom, the door open. Spike hurried inside and was alarmed when he found Thorax collapsed on the floor, looking weaker and sicker than before.

“Thorax!” Spike declared and hurried over to help heft his friend up to his hooves. He realized the changeling felt warm in his claws and suspected he had become feverish now too. “What happened?” He then caught sight of the bathtub and saw half-formed mass of sticky green gel plastered to the bottom, large enough to be roughly the same size as Thorax. “What the hay have you been doing in here?”

“Trying…to make a cocoon…” Thorax wheezed weakly before being interrupted by a fit of harsh coughing. His breathing was quite labored.

Spike decided to get him back to his sleeping nest where he could rest properly and get him a glass of water to drink. Thorax accepted the drink gratefully, and though marginal, it seemed to help somewhat. With that done, Spike repeated his earlier questions. “What happened? What were you trying to do?”

“I was trying to make…a special type of cocoon,” Thorax explained weakly, letting his body settle into the blankets that made up his makeshift nest. “A…healing cocoon of sorts…”

“Will it cure you of this cold?” Spike asked urgently.

Thorax shook his head faintly. “No, no…it more would put me into a deep sleep…let my body dedicate all the energy it needs to…to focus on fighting the disease…” He paused to swallow and attempt to clear his throat. “…but I didn’t have enough energy to finish…couldn’t keep myself upright…”

“Maybe I can take over and finish it for you?” Spike offered.

Thorax chuckled, grinning at Spike’s eagerness to help. “Not unless you can secrete the right gels to use to…to form it.”

“What if I helped to prop you up long enough for you to finish it yourself?”

Thorax shook his head and blindly waved one of his forehooves about, motioning to an area in his throat. “I can feel my glands beginning to clog up…I was trying to finish it before that happened, but…I don’t think…I can produce enough gel to complete it now.”

Spike winced and made a series of frustrated noises before figuring out what he wanted to say next. “Then how are you going to get over this cold?” he asked.

“It’s not a cold,” Thorax stated ominously. He closed his eyes but they were squeezed shut in a wince. “I…I didn’t want to admit it before…but there’s no denying it now…it’s mutatum aegritudo…it has to be.”

Spike’s brow furrowed. “Mu…mutatum aegritudo?” he repeated uncertainly.

“A sort of changeling flu.” Thorax chuckled. “On the upside…it’s been proven only changelings can catch it, so you and Miss Fly are in no danger of coming down with it…”

This was the least of Spike’s concerns at the moment though. “This is far worse than any cold, isn’t it?” he asked worriedly.

“It…is a bit more…severe…but we have literally nothing we can use to safely ease the symptoms, Spike.”

“Then what do we do?”

“Only thing we can do…let it run its course.”

Spike liked that option even less now given this new development. “You’re going to come out of this just fine, right? No risk of things just…getting really bad?”

“Oh, of course, no chance of that,” Thorax immediately stated with a warm grin.

But Spike caught the only mostly concealed tone of insincerity in Thorax’s voice and felt a chill run down his spine. He’s lying. “Thorax…”

Thorax reached up with one hoof, gently placing it on Spike’s shoulder as he looked the dragon in the eye. “I know it’s hard Spike…but the best thing we can do is let me rest and allow my body its chance to fight this. I can pull through this on my own, I have to.”

Spike frowned, wrapping his claws worriedly around Thorax’s hoof. “That’s a horrible option,” he complained.

Thorax grinned in sympathy. “Yeah, it is…but unfortunately I don’t have anything else I can suggest.”

He then erupted into another fit of coughing and seemed too tired afterwards to keep up the conversation, so Spike let the changeling relax and try to rest. As he sat at the desk and worriedly watched, Thorax was eventually able to fall into a sort of fitful sleep, but it didn’t reassure Spike any. He understood this illness wasn’t something to take lightly. He knew that they had exhausted all other options, but there had to be some way he could help Thorax overcome this before he got much worse.

But what could he do? He wanted to give Thorax some kind of medicine, but knew he only had pony medicines that Thorax was afraid would only make things worse. With Thorax already being in the state he was, that was the very last thing Spike wanted, and he didn’t know any safe ways around that. His next thought, then, was to find somepony who could, or at least could devise some sort of treatment from scratch that could do the trick. He immediately thought of a doctor, but knew he couldn’t go that route either; he’d have to reveal Thorax’s true identity and that would only get them into more trouble. And even if that wasn’t a concern, he wasn’t confident any pony doctor would be willing to treat a changeling unless ordered to by someone of authority…which would again entail Thorax getting revealed as a changeling and at that point it felt it wouldn’t matter anyway.

What he needed was somepony more on the private level…somepony he could trust to keep the secret. Somepony that would have the knowledge needed to be able to help treat Thorax more than he could and in a meaningful manner, but also with enough compassion to overrule any misgivings they might have about treating a changeling. Someone who wouldn’t be willing to let Thorax go untreated, changeling or not. He immediately thought of one pony, but knew that pony’s affiliations meant it would also be a grave danger to him and Thorax at the same time if he guessed wrong. He knew Thorax wouldn’t approve, and normally he certainly wouldn’t either. But he quickly found he could think of no one else he could be confident would be able or willing to help to the degree he needed.

So finally, Spike relented and turned around to face the desk fully. Pulling out a blank piece of parchment, a quill, and a fresh bottle of ink, he dipped the quill into the ink and began to write out what he hoped would be the right words to sway her to his cause.

Dear Fluttershy,

I know this is going to seem completely out of the blue, but I need your help…

Getting Worse

Spike found that once he had started writing the letter to Fluttershy, asking for her help in treating Thorax and his ailment, it proceeded quite rapidly. Of course, he needed to take precautions to ensure that what he wrote wouldn’t be discovered by any pony that wasn’t Fluttershy, but he planned for that. Any pony who did read it other than the intended would only find one seemingly blank piece of parchment and another that basically just greeted Fluttershy, asked for her help but not specify how, specified that it was for a “friend,” and ask she come alone to assist but give no address or location to come to. There wouldn’t even be a visible signature, just a line that read “your friend.” But there was also a line below it that read “Say hi to Pinkie’s friend Inkie for me!” which wouldn’t mean much of anything to most; it would just seem like a polite request to pass along a pleasant greeting from one friend to another.

But as far as Spike knew, Pinkie had no friend named Inkie. It was instead a hidden message that Spike knew only he, Twilight, and her five friends would understand the meaning of.

What had happened was that some time ago, after Pinkie and Rainbow Dash had taken to pranking Twilight by swapping out her ink wells with invisible ink one time too many, Twilight began to aggressively learn every way to detect the invisible ink through magic and other means, until the prank no longer worked on Twilight; she’d catch onto the prank ink too quickly. So, to more or less retaliate, Pinkie took it upon herself to create a new custom blend of invisible ink that Twilight couldn’t detect…and eventually succeeded. The new ink was so successful that despite rigorous testing from Twilight, other than the accompanying and very specific solution from Pinkie that made the ink visible again, the studious mare couldn’t find any way to detect it. Rather than be annoyed by this for a change, Twilight instead saw the new blend of invisible ink could be used for a far greater purpose than mere pranking.

By this time, she and her friends had gotten mixed up in the dangerous happenings of villains threatening Equestria often enough that Twilight thought it wise that, in the event of an emergency and they were for some reason separated, they needed a secure means to communicate that couldn’t be readily detected by foes. Pinkie’s new blend of invisible ink was the answer. At her insistence, she had her five friends, as well as Spike, all memorize the recipe for the new blend of invisible ink and how to make it visible again afterwards. They all agreed upon using the code phrase “say hi to Pinkie’s friend Inkie for me” written on any messages using the new ink to convey to the receiver of the message the ink was present and take steps to make it visible again, a phrase only they knew the significance of.

Thankfully, to date as far as Spike was aware, none of them had ever needed to rely upon this invisible ink…until now when Spike decided to use it to write his letter to Fluttershy. Once the ink was made visible again, it would reveal additional text that explained Spike’s situation in more depth: that it was Thorax who was ill and the state of his condition, a plea to come as soon as she could—immediately if possible—as well as Spike’s signature, to confirm that it was him sending the letter. On the second sheet of parchment that would appear blank to everyone else, revealing the invisible ink would expose additional information on where Spike was in Vanhoover, a simple map guiding Fluttershy to the address of Fly’s shop, what times would be best for her to come so to avoid being seen by Fly, and an empathic plea to tell no one about any of this, especially Twilight. All the information Fluttershy would have to have if she agreed to help, but also all kept hidden enough that he felt confident only Fluttershy would be able to read it when she got it.

Even though there was a fair bit of information he needed to put down in order for Fluttershy to have any reference of what was happening, as well as take the needed precautions to ensure security in case anyone other than Fluttershy saw the letter and its contents, he had it finished that same evening, before Fly Leaf had announced dinner was ready, which just left sending the letter. Though it wasn’t a skill he had needed to use much before now, Spike knew how to use his magical firebreath to send any sort of message to any of Twilight’s friends if ever needed and that certainly included Fluttershy, so he initially wanted to just send it that way as that was the fastest.

But he hadn’t used his firebreath for sending any messages since fleeing the Crystal Empire and Thorax had cast his spell upon Spike to block messages from coming through after realizing Princess Celestia had tried to use it to track him. So not only was Spike uncertain if that spell was still active and if it would permit Spike to send letters out if it was (he couldn’t recall off-hoof how long Thorax had said it would last before wearing off), he wasn’t sure if sending a letter out with his firebreath would only alert parties trying to track him where he was, and he didn’t want that. So to play it safe, he instead hurried out real quick to the Vanhoover post office, catching them right before they closed for the night, and paid to have it sent express to Fluttershy so that it should arrive later that same night. For added security, he permitted the return address required to be printed on it be for a post office box number, adding to the anonymity of who sent it and where, exactly at least, it came from.

He returned to the shop in time for Fly Leaf to announce dinner was ready, and upon checking on Thorax again real quick to make sure the changeling was managing, he joined the earth pony mare for a light dinner. Seeking something that could help Thorax in the meantime, Spike warmed up some of the leftover vegetable stew from the night previous, strained out the solid bits so that he had only a bowl full of broth instead, and took that to Thorax. As Thorax admitted his throat had been “put in quite a state” by his illness, he greedily gulped down the hot broth in hopes it would soothe it. Unfortunately, he only threw it back up a half-hour later, leaving how much it had actually helped the changeling questionable. Thankfully, Thorax noted that he had kept the emotions he had been able to ingest since lunchtime down, so Spike could be assured he was keeping fed, and as Thorax was able to find sleep easily enough that night, Spike found comfort enough to get some sleep himself.

By morning, he found Thorax hadn’t gotten any worse, but his condition hadn’t improved either. As the shop was still open that day, Spike had to leave Thorax on his own in their room while he worked downstairs in the shop. Here he was at least kept busy, especially seeing he had to pull double-duty in Thorax’s absence, but Spike couldn’t help but worry about his friend upstairs, fearing something else might go wrong to him while Spike was downstairs. As a result, he checked in on Thorax as often he could.

Whenever he came back, Fly Leaf made it a point to inquire about how he was doing. Fearing Fly would get concerned enough about Thorax to break what had been the longstanding unspoken rule of not entering their room and catch Thorax undisguised among other things, Spike chose to downplay Thorax’s condition and continue to claim that all Thorax had was a cold, saying he was managing fine, but empathizing that, as it was a supposed cold, Thorax was potentially contagious. Fly never really questioned him on this, but she always did give him this small frown that left Spike wondering if she believed him every time. Soon he grew worried enough that he advised Thorax to play it safe and try and keep his disguise up as often as he could.

Which presented a problem; Thorax no longer could.

“You try maintaining a disguise when your head feels so clogged it’s going to pop,” the changeling weakly but passionately proclaimed at this suggestion through a series of wheezes and coughs.

Spike also noticed that Thorax typically was dozing off and napping, especially when Spike was downstairs working, and knew the changeling couldn’t sleep and maintain a disguise at the same time anyway. So he was left hoping that Fly wouldn’t decide to go and check on Thorax herself and otherwise try and act normal. He found himself worrying more about other things anyway. On top of his fears of Fly getting suspicious or Thorax’s decreasing health, he was soon second-guessing himself on the wisdom of sending a letter to Fluttershy.

It wasn’t that he feared it would be read by the wrong hooves; his precautions were such that should his letter be intercepted for any reason en route, it wouldn’t give the offending pony any solid information. But he still realized all this information was more than enough to get himself caught should Fluttershy opt not to heed his wishes for any reason and tell the others. It seemed hard to envision Fluttershy doing such a thing; she was so self-conscious about offending her friends over things like this that Spike was counting on it urging her into agreeing to privately lend what assistance she could. But he also knew Fluttershy was intelligent, and had no doubt had heard Twilight’s misleading version of his and Throax’s banishment; she may already be biased against him. A greater fear he had was that Fluttershy would simply become too divided and overwhelmed over her choices that she’d choose not to act at all…at least not until Spike feared it would be too late.

But he had already sent the letter; he knew it was out of his claws now, so all he could do was sit, wait, and have faith Fluttershy would make the right decision. Though because of his uncertainty on all of this, Spike chose to not even tell Thorax he had sent the letter. No point in adding to the sick changeling’s misery until he knew more. So Spike awaited further word from Fluttershy very anxiously. He checked in with the post office the morning after he had sent the letter to see if Fluttershy had sent back any sort of response. She had not, which didn’t especially surprise Spike considering how short a time it had been since he had sent it, but he did get the post office’s assurances that the letter was successfully delivered at the requested address during the night. Fluttershy had the letter. It was in her hooves now.

Spike hoped to have some sort of confirmation on the pegasus’s intended course of action by that evening, when Spike went into the post office to check again for any responses. There were none though. Nor were there any signs Fluttershy was coming to Vanhoover as requested. The lack of knowing this left Spike in was almost intolerable, and otherwise marked a troubling end to his distressed day. The only good development that took place on this day was that Fly Leaf managed to score the attention of a notable stationery distributor she had long been trying to strike a deal with, and who had agreed to arrange a meeting over lunch and discuss setting up a contract permitting Fly to sell his wares in her shop. If she succeeded in getting this contract, it would be a boon for her shop and give her a boost against her competition, most notably putting Fly on par with rival Letterpress and her shop, who had already gotten a contract struck with this same distributor a year or so previous.

As this meeting was scheduled for Monday and the weekend proceeding it began tomorrow, this had the upside of meaning that Fly would be busy making preparations for it and thus distracted from the problem of Thorax and his ailment. It was still clear Thorax was not entirely forgotten and she regularly asked Spike for updates on his condition, fretting about the fact he was still ill. But she didn’t have time to put much more focus on that, and was left trusting Spike that he was handling the matter…which Spike naturally promised that he was…although he wasn’t so certain if that would be a ruse he could maintain for much longer.

For that Saturday Thorax still wasn’t showing improvement, and if anything, had gotten weaker still. Fortunately, because it was the weekend and the shop was closed, Spike didn’t have to work and could instead focus his time on keeping Thorax treated. But by this time it was discovered that while Thorax could still maintain eating his usual diet of positive emotions, largely gleaned from Spike, the ill changeling could only eat so much at a time. If he tried to eat his fill, the full stomach would set off Thorax’s nausea and he’d end up throwing it back up shortly after downing it. This meant that Thorax had to more “nibble” at the emotions he could glean, take it in little by little, avoiding upsetting his stomach, but left Spike concerned if Thorax was really getting enough nourishment from it.

Whatever the case, Thorax was left lethargic and with little energy, and as such, he was rarely awake, spending most of his time sleeping. When he was awake, he generally wasn’t in the mood or possessing enough energy for much conversation. This left Spike consciously aware of the fact that he couldn’t rely on Thorax for further input on what he could do to help the changeling recover. If Thorax were to suddenly take a turn for the worse, something Spike was hoping against hope they were in no danger of, Thorax wouldn’t be able to advise Spike on what to do, and Thorax was all Spike had for explanations on what the illness was doing to the changeling’s biology. Spike found himself increasingly hoping for word from Fluttershy on whether or not she was going to help as he requested…but by the end of that day there was still no word from the pegasus mare, nor any sign some would soon be coming…though there was also no sign she had done anything to sell Spike or Thorax out…yet.

The next day found Thorax developing new symptoms from his illness; his chitin began to blister and peel like a bad sunburn would, the light fever that had been coming and going began to increase, and Thorax was so rarely awake now that Spike wasn’t certain if he was actually sleeping, or was more unconscious. In the rare instances Thorax did seem to be at least close to awake, he would do little more than murmur incoherently, and didn’t seem to be aware of Spike. He was also so weak now that Thorax seemed to barely have strength enough to cough, and his breathing had turned into a labored wheeze as a result due to his congestion. More alarming still, Spike also noticed that the area around the base of Thorax’s horn had become inflamed and swollen, and he had no idea what to do about that. It all worried Spike to the point he almost couldn’t stand it. And as he still found there was no word from Fluttershy by that morning, he began to fear that she, for whatever reason, would not be coming. He was increasingly on his own.

The most Spike could do was try and keep Thorax hydrated—not an easy task when the changeling was struggling to keep anything down now—and try to keep him cool and his fever down as much as he could. Otherwise, the only options left to him was try and keep Thorax comfortable, wait, try to think positively, and hope for the best. He wished he could give Thorax something to at least take the edge of the illness off and ease some of these symptoms…at the very least get his fever to break.

But Spike knew the only things he had were the pony medicines he knew he had no idea would even work on a changeling or could instead react badly and make things worse for Thorax, and with him being in the poor condition he already was…Spike couldn’t bear to think of the consequences. He was still downplaying all of this to Fly, but he was increasingly starting to believe Fly wasn’t buying it anymore, and it was only her high respect and trust in both Spike and Thorax that was keeping her from getting involved. The moment that changed, Spike knew she’d, with good intentions of course, intervene, either by personally stepping in or calling for a doctor. Either one spelt game over. It left Spike feeling alone and helpless…and he hated it.

Eventually it got to the point that the rain that was still coming down upon Vanhoover outside seemed cheerier than sitting and watching Thorax weakly lie there and be ill, wishing there was more he could do. So finally, after Fly slipped out to go visit a friend that had agreed to help her finalize her pitch for her important luncheon tomorrow afternoon, Spike, against his better judgment, slipped on some rain gear and stepped out himself. He desperately needed something to clear his head and give him the motivation to keep pressing on and not simply cave in from the stress.

After walking about for a bit, listening to the pitter-patter of the rain on the streets and the raincoat he had donned, Spike eventually found himself wandering near the Vanhoover park, and as he gazed at the green block of land, he started reflecting back to the past times he and Thorax had been in the park. When he recalled the first time they had entered the park, he abruptly decided to change course, heading deeper into the park, searching for a specific feature. He found that thanks to the rain, the park was utterly devoid of ponies, and it seemed Spike had it all to himself. The dragon was glad for this privacy as he strolled up to a little cluster of oak trees—the same that had held Thorax’s attention more than two moons earlier when they had first come to Vanhoover…and where they had almost miraculously gotten a copy of the classifieds that had led them to Fly Leaf and her shop.

He recalled what Thorax had explained was the changeling belief about the acorns the oak trees still bore in excess; that the acorns could be a source of knowledge, wisdom, enlightenment, maybe even comfort. Spike had pondered about it frequently afterwards, wondering if there could really be any real truth to it. But today, as he stepped under the small canopy of branches that shielded him some from the pounding rain, he desperately wished that it was; he could use some of all of that.

So, sheepishly and somewhat self-consciously, he stood under the acorn-laden limbs of the trees and stared up at them, trying to decide how to proceed from here. When a couple raindrops slipped through the leafy canopy to pelt him in the face though, he sought if there was any place a bit more shielded from the rain. He quickly saw a damp corner of the cluster of trees where they were grouped together the closest in which the rain only seemed to reach when a gust of wind blew the raindrops into the area. As he stepped into this spot, he also saw it was off the common paths ponies would use when trotting through the small grove and as such seemed completely undisturbed…until, to his surprise, he spied a series of familiar notched circular symbols drawn into the damp dirt, looking to be a few days old and not quite washed away by the rain yet. Though he didn’t recognize the word they spelt and thus couldn’t be certain why they had been drawn, he still recognized the changeling letters, and realized only one person could have put them there, and it wasn’t hard to theorize why.

“I see Thorax has been slipping away to visit here in private,” Spike observed aloud, managing a small sad grin as he gazed back up at the tree limbs. He sighed as sat himself down on the wet ground beside the letters drawn in the dirt. “Look…I don’t know if there’s actually something listening to me at the moment, or if I’m just an idiot talking to nothing,” he admitted to acorns hanging above him. “But Thorax clearly believes there’s something special about this place…and at the moment I dearly hope he’s right.”

He let out his breath with a deep shudder. “I guess you’d already know…but Thorax is sick. Very sick. I’m trying to do everything I can for him, but…it’s not enough. And I can’t give him any medicine, or take him to a doctor…I can’t even count on Fly Leaf’s help without revealing ourselves and put ourselves in even more trouble! And I tried sending for someone who could help, but it’s been three days now with no word, and I’m thinking she’s not going to come.” Spike paused to let out a sob, surprised at the suddenness of the tears that were now springing to his eyes. “I just…I feel alone…abandoned…I don’t know what to do or who to turn to…” He peered mournfully up at the tree limbs. “How the hay are we supposed to get out of this one? I need help! I need direction! I just…” he shrugged helplessly. “…I just need to know what to do! And if what Thorax says is true and you acorns really can do something to point the way…then please…” Spike lowered his gaze, his voice dropping into a soft murmur. “…don’t hold back.”

A long moment passed in which the only sound was the noise of the ongoing rain and the faint shuffling of the breeze pushing through the tree limbs. Spike silently sat through it, letting his mind wander, waiting for the guidance he hoped would just miraculously appear. But when it didn’t immediately come, his mind eventually went back to Thorax lying ill in their room, and suddenly felt like, hard as it was to face the reality unfolding there, that was the best place for Spike to be. So, reluctantly, Spike rose, shook the cold rainwater that clung to his rump due to sitting on the wet ground, and sluggishly ambled out from the group of oak trees.

He had gone only a few paces away from the trees when he suddenly realized the green lawn under his feet was aglow from the golden shine of sunlight. Puzzled, he gazed blankly upwards and saw that there was a small break in the rainclouds above him, a pinpoint just big enough to allow the sun shining on the other side to peek through with its warm rays. Spike fleetingly wondered if maybe the break had been left by a weather pony working at maintaining the storm. But whatever caused it, it brought unexpected warmth within the troubled dragon, and Spike found himself making a small smile at the sight. He found he was able to cling to hope yet again. Perhaps things would still work out somehow.

Yet upon returning to the shop it was hard to see how this would happen. Spike found Thorax was showing no signs of improvement still, and seemed to have lost his appetite entirely, emotion or otherwise, making Spike worry if he could even keep the changeling fed in this state. Additionally, when Fly Leaf returned from her visit with her friend, she was heartened greatly by the work she had accomplished on her proposal she would make at the scheduled luncheon tomorrow, but had also freed her to turn her attention back in full on Thorax, expressing concerns for his condition. Upon receiving the same answer that he was “coping” from Spike after inquiring about his condition, Fly pointed out that Spike had said the same several times before and notes that it sounded like he wasn’t actually improving any. She wanted to go and see Thorax herself, but knowing Thorax wasn’t disguised, Spike was able, only just barely, to dissuade her, reminding her that Thorax was potentially contagious.

This was enough to dissuade Fly for the time being. But it didn’t stop her from pointing out that for being someone who had been handling the ill and supposedly contagious Thornton this whole time, Spike had somehow managed to escape coming down with it himself and further alluded that she was beginning to suspect that Spike’s claims of Thorax being contagious to be the lie it was. She also announced that, while she understood that Spike and Thorax wanted to keep this illness a private matter, if Thorax didn’t start to show improvement soon, she intended to overrule Spike and get a doctor involved so Thorax could get some proper treatment. Spike realized that the truth of what was really happening would soon be getting out, whether he liked it or not, unless something in the whole situation changed, and quick.

Such a change had not arisen by that evening, though. Another visit to the post office revealed no news from Fluttershy and confirmed what he had already deduced. He was on his own now. Meanwhile, Thorax only proved to be getting worse still as Spike was dismayed to find that Thorax now couldn’t seem to keep much of anything he ate down for long, food or emotion. This added the fear that Thorax could end up starving himself if this illness continued to go this badly for much longer. It made Spike wonder for the first time, as much as Spike loathed admitting it, if maybe letting Thorax be revealed as the changeling he was would really be the best thing that could happen, as it could very well save Thorax’s life at this point. It was with that troubling thought in mind that Spike went to bed, unable to let himself sleep too deeply so he could keep an alert ear in case Thorax needed something during the night.

For the first several hours of the night though, Thorax seemed to sleep peacefully enough, marred only by the ill and weak changeling’s feeble attempts to cough. Spike took it to be a blessing, figuring that the rest could only help Thorax. Though Spike found this thought didn’t reassure him much at all, he knew it was all the hope he had left that Thorax could do as he claimed and pull through this illness on his own, even without treatment. But a couple hours past midnight came the event that would take even that away.

“GAH!” Thorax suddenly exclaimed, bolting upright into a sitting position in his sleeping nest, completely without warning.

Startled by the unexpected event, Spike awoke and pushed himself up from where he had been sleeping in his usual spot on the window seat. “Thorax?” he asked in a mix of alarm and confusion.

“The letter survives!” Thorax croaked without facing Spike, instead gazing straight ahead with wide, unseeing, eyes.

Spike’s brow furrowed, rubbing sleep out of his eyes quickly as he sat up fully, further confused. “What?”

“The letter survives!” Thorax repeated, but he didn’t react like he was aware Spike was there speaking to him, and continued ranting. “The favor is returned! The needed one returns but never arises!”

“Thorax, what are you talking about?” Spike asked again, growing baffled and upset by Throax’s seemingly random statements as he clambered off the window seat and watching the ill changeling closely.

“I was blind, but now I see!” Thorax continued to utter without answering. “The embers fly up from the flames to bar the path of the confused! Disorder is a boon to the cause! The eventide seeks! Listen everyone, this is sabotage!”

Spike hurried up to the rattled changeling, taking his hoof in his claws and trying to find an explanation for this sudden behavior. “Thorax, you’re not making any sense, what are you—”

“She won’t give up on you even though you give up on her!” Thorax exclaimed, suddenly turning to face Spike and grabbing the dragon’s head with his forehooves, as if it was imperative he know this. “Stars and moons scattered onto violet! The tricks are merely superficial! The bite remains unproven! What a bold move to make!”

“Thorax! Thorax!” Spike repeated to bark, fruitlessly trying to get his attention while growing increasingly frightened as Thorax stared at him with wild eyes. “You’re scaring me! Calm down! Thorax!”

Thorax didn’t seem to listen and pressed on, holding onto Spike in such a way that he was gradually pushing the dragon down to the floor. “Forgiveness comes forever thrice hence! The wild drawing four are doubled! The naughty gives all for good!” The tirade was then brought to a sudden halt as Thorax abruptly burst into a harsh coughing fit. He released Spike and sank weakly back onto his sleeping nest as the fit persisted and the changeling clearly began to have trouble drawing a full breath.

“Oh Celestia, Thorax!” Spike declared in a panic, grabbing an empty glass lying next to Thorax’s nest and running for their room’s attached bathroom to fill it with water. “Just hang in there!”

Thorax’s response was to continue coughing, but by the time Spike came running back with the overfull glass, splashing water about as he went, the coughing fit was already winding down and the changeling was raspingly regaining his breath. “Okay Thorax, get this down your throat, see if that helps with that cough,” Spike requested, dropping down to his knees beside the changeling.

“All animation is black magic,” Thorax had begun to rasp again as Spike brought the glass to Thorax’s chitinous lips. “When gravity falls and earth becomes sky, fear the beast with just one eye.”

“Yes, yes,” Spike pretended to assure, having by this point dismissed what Thorax was saying as addled nonsense brought on by Thorax’s ill state. He began to tip the glass to pour the water into Thorax’s mouth. “Drink up, please!”

“Yroo xrksvi, girzmtov,” Thorax mumbled on before the taste of the water spilling onto his lips seemed to distract him from it and he began to greedily guzzle down the water Spike was giving him. Afterwards, all the energy seemed to drain away from Thorax and he began to relax, letting himself sink into the blankets making up his nest, slowly veering back towards sleep. Yet even then he still mumbled on his rantings, having lapsed back into his native language. “Pretium pendimus luctum est…iterum Vergilius volat…”

“Shh, shh,” Spike cooed soothingly, gently rubbing the changeling’s side to get him to relax all the way back to sleep. “Just relax…go back to sleep Thorax.”

Gradually, Thorax’s eyes began to flutter close again, his murmurings beginning to fade out as he drifted back into his slumber. “…mihi lacrimo non…mihi lacrimo non…” were the last utterings he made before he finally fell quiet, and the next noise he made was the faint wheezy snore he made as he slept.

Spike fell back onto his rump, panting and exhausted from the sudden display of energy, his mind trying to make sense of what just happened. As he gazed at the ill Thorax laying there before him asleep, with bags under his eyes, peeling chitin, and swollen horn, it struck him in full magnitude just how very sick Thorax was…just how deeply in over his head Spike was in trying and treat him himself…and just how very little he could do about it all. It suddenly all became far too much for the little dragon to cope with. Starting to hyperventilate, he suddenly sprang up and fled for the door to the room, tears seeping from his eyes, and once he had flung the door open, hurried instinctively downstairs.

He didn’t know where he was going, or even if he had an intended destination in mind, but his blind flight eventually led him to the couch in Fly’s living room, dark and empty given the late hour, and there he sat himself down and let his emotions surface at last. He was there for some time, with most of it spent weeping in bouts of varying intensity at the helplessness he felt. By the time the hours of the early morning and sunrise arrived though, heralding the new day properly, Spike had run out of tears and simply sat there, staring at the floor. He knew in the back of his head that he should go back to his room…check on Thorax…get ready for the new workday Monday would bring…something productive at least…but he couldn’t bring himself to do it. So finally, an outside source intervened.

“Ahem.”

Spike jerked his head up and was startled to see Fly Leaf standing soberly in the doorway to the living room. Her vermillion-colored mane was presently in a mussy bedhead state and she wore a lavender bathrobe about her middle, suggesting she had just gotten up and revealing the early hour in the morning. Her gaze was soft yet unrevealing…except for this knowing glint in them that left a knot in Spike’s stomach. Spike sat up straighter under that gaze, realizing that he probably looked in quite a state himself, and more importantly realized, as he rubbed at his eyes to clear any lingering gunk his crying may had left, that he was not wearing his glasses…or any other part of his customary disguise. It made him realize that this was quite possibly the first time Fly had clearly seen him without it all.

If that was significant to Fly in any way though, she made no comment on it. “You’re up unusually early,” she noted aloud after a moment of silence.

Spike thought about how to respond for a moment before shrugging half-heartedly. “Couldn’t sleep,” he offered for an explanation.

Fly didn’t respond right away to this. But after a moment, she slowly walked over to the couch and gently sat herself down beside Spike. “How’s Thornton?” she asked.

Spike avoided looking at her, keeping his eyes gazing at anything other than her. He swallowed the lump he felt forming in his throat. “Coping,” he replied softly.

There was a momentary pause, and then he felt Fly’s hoof gently drape itself over his back and Spike closed his eyes, already knowing what Fly was going to softly speak next.

“Spark…tell me the truth, please.”

Spike squeezed his closed eyes tighter, trying to hold back the hot tears he felt returning, and let himself tip over to lean against Fly’s warm body. Fly’s hoof wrapped tighter around him, pulling him close for a comforting hug.

“He’s been getting worse…hasn’t he?” Fly asked next, still maintaining her even and soft tone.

Spike felt the knot in his throat tighten. Not knowing how to reply, he hesitated to respond altogether, leaving Fly to again speak next.

“Let me send for a doctor then,” she coaxed. “Get him the treatment he needs.”

Spike still hesitated. He knew deep down he was only delaying the inevitable. He knew that Thorax needed the help, no matter what form it came in now, and knew it was help he himself could no longer provide. Delaying, if anything, was only going to make things worse for everyone. But the determined part of him still didn’t want to give up and surrender to it just yet, not ready to admit defeat, and he couldn’t bring himself to agree to Fly’s request.

“Just give him one more day Fly,” he pleaded softly. “Please.”

He felt Fly shift suddenly, and gently, she took him and turned his head so he was looking her in the eye finally. “Spark,” she began. “I wish you’d tell me why it is so important that I hold off on that. But I need you to know that both you and Thornton are my employees, my tenants, and my friends. I’m accountable and responsible for both of your well-being, and as such, I will personally walk myself off to Tartarus before I willingly allow harm to come to either of you while you’re staying under my roof.”

Spike was touched by her words, but was undeterred. “Please, Fly,” he again pleaded with sad, still, eyes. Pleading was all he had left; he had otherwise surrendered completely and was all but motionless in her hooves. He knew he was at her mercy now.

And knowing this herself, he could see the gears turning behind her eyes as Fly inwardly debated Spike’s appeals. “One day,” she finally relented despite it clearly being against her better judgment, and with that Spike felt the tension start to drain out of him again. “But…if Thornton has shown no signs of improving by this evening, I will be taking him to a doctor, or sending for one to come here, or whatever I need to do to get him the help he needs. Do we have an understanding?”

“Yes,” Spike replied limply, who had already started the metaphorical clock in his head ticking.

Fly pulled him close again. “I don’t want to be an enemy to you Spark,” she said. “I’m only trying to help…you understand that, right?”

“Yes,” Spike said again, as he let himself lifelessly get pressed against Fly’s side. “I know that. It’s just…” For a fleeting moment Spike nearly told all to his employer, feeling the whole story resting heavily on the tip of his tongue. How easy it would be to confess everything. To get that weight off his shoulders at last. But his nerve failed him at the last moment and he held his tongue. “…it’s complicated.”

He felt Fly shake her head in dissatisfaction. “One of these days you need to trust me,” she said. “Both you and Thornton. I’d like to think I could help you two more than either of you let yourselves consider.”

“One day, Fly,” Spike reminded gently. “One more day.”

Fly took a deep breath and let it out again. She nodded her head. “Well then,” she said, pulling away and standing up suddenly, all business again. “The day isn’t going to wait for us two sourpusses.” She turned to exit the living room. “Get dressed. I’ll get breakfast ready. What would you like? Oatmeal?”

Spike numbly stood up. As ordinary as it was, oatmeal suddenly sounded very good. “Oatmeal’s fine.”

And indeed, it was perhaps the best bowl of oatmeal he had ever eaten.

He proceeded to go through the day feeling like he was in a daze, conscious of the fact that by this evening, his way of life in Vanhoover was going to end. He didn’t see a way around it. Knew no way to delay it any longer. He knew that without outside help, Thorax wasn’t going to get better on his own. In fact, he realized that, in the state Thorax was in, it was conceivable that it was impossible for him to recover on his own now unless he got treatment. So when he would be forced to admit as such to Fly this evening, she’d call for the doctor, who’d of course see immediately that Thorax was a changeling, and then it’d all come out for all to see or hear.

In a way, Spike felt ready for it to end. At the very least, he could take heart in the fact that Thorax would still get the treatment he needed; Equestrian law demanded that even enemy prisoners receive any medical attention or treatments they needed to keep healthy, despite personal feelings on the matter. Not even the princesses themselves were exempt from that law; purportedly, Celestia herself had seen to that for reasons known only to her…though Twilight had long suspected the Nightmare Moon incident had something to do with it.

Twilight…the thought of her embroiled a tightly contained fury in Spike like no other, now more than ever. He could just picture her dropping everything the moment she got word he and Thorax were in Vanhoover and would no doubt head straight here to personally haul Spike off, away from the changeling he had befriended and she had alienated. She probably planned to give him the scolding of his life for supporting Thorax like he had. But Spike had already decided that, when the moment came, he wasn’t going to let her have that. The moment she walked in through his door he was going to give her Tartarus for what she had done to him.

But for now, the day mundanely wore on. Dressed and having taken position behind the cash register in Thorax’s absence, Spike stood and worked in the shop as he watched the usual Monday patrons come and go. He did so almost vacantly, and perhaps that wasn’t far from the truth. His mind felt like it was miles away, but he couldn’t lure it back to the here and now. Nor did he want to. Eventually noon drew near, and with it came Fly’s important luncheon with the distributor. Dressed up more than usual in a professional business suit and her saddlebags packed with all the needed paperwork for her pitch she hoped would win her shop the distributor’s business, she made preparations to leave, turning operations of the shop solely onto Spike.

“Don’t worry about maintaining the stock for now,” she said, fretting with her things as she moved for the front door, turned so to face Spike standing at the front desk. “Just focus on helping the customers until I get back and help them one by one as quickly as you can. If any of them get impatient about that, apologize, explain you’re working as fast as you can to help everypony, and ask they continue to be patient. Think you can handle that?”

“Yes,” Spike responded with a nod. He motioned at the front door with his head. “Best of luck with your meeting, Fly.”

“Okay,” Fly said and checked to make sure she had everything one last time. She turned back to Spike and addressed one last subject. “How’s Thornton?”

Spike didn’t respond, and lowered his gaze instead. He had checked on Thorax himself just some minutes earlier. There had been no change in his condition; he was no worse than before thankfully, but he wasn’t showing any improvement either, and for the moment was simply resting. He hadn’t woken once that Spike had seen since his strange outburst during the night, nor had he eaten.

Fly sighed, accurately guessing Spike’s unspoken words. “I’m genuinely worried about him, Spark,” she stressed with grave concern.

Spike knew she was and didn’t blame her, but he remained unswayed. “The day’s not over yet, Fly,” he reminded. He didn’t know why, but he felt it was important he stand his ground on this and get fully through this day as they had agreed.

Fly, fortunately, seemed to approve. “All right then,” she said. “But if that for any reason changes…you know where to find me. The Dandelion Café on Crescent Street.”

“I know.” Spike managed a grin and waved for her get going. “Now get going Fly, or you’re going to be late.”

“Right, right, right,” Fly muttered to herself and with one final nod to Spike, she slipped out of the shop, leaving Spike to keep the shop running.

Blissfully, it proved to be a slow day today. There was no clear reason why. The rain was finally letting up today, having gone from a near continuous downpour to a series of sporadic sprinklings, and the mass of clouds hanging over the city was becoming more and more broken, permitting the cheery light of the sun to finally shine down on the soaked city, welcomed by all. Spike especially liked it as it streamed through the shop’s front window. The sight gave him a sense of peace for what was otherwise proving to be an emotionally tumultuous day. Again, he couldn’t help but think that perhaps there was still something good to hope for from all of this.

It was a very small hope though…and the realist in Spike told himself to ignore it. Reality would soon be crashing down on him, if it hadn’t begun already. So he made himself focus on running the shop and helping the customers, dredging up the best cheery persona he could with the circumstances. The minutes passed by slowly. He realized at some point that the usual lunch rush hadn’t arrived like it normally did, but he found he couldn’t care. Instead, finding himself in an empty shop for the moment, he stood at the front desk, head propped up with one elbow, took a pencil and idly doodled on a scrap of paper as he let his thoughts wander.

Finally, he heard the shop door open and close, announcing the arrival of a new customer. He set down the pencil and proceeded to look up at the newcomer. “Welcome to Fly Leaf’s Books and Stationery, how can I…”

He trailed off as his eyes locked onto the pony standing before him. There was very little different about her, yet Spike was aware of how fuzzy his last memory of her had gotten, and it seemed like he was looking at her completely anew. He noticed she bore her saddlebags on her back, one filled with her usual kits of medicinal supplies, the other, books on treatments for all sorts of creatures. She stood with her usual tepidness, and upon seeing Spike look up at her, habitually ducked her head down, hiding her face behind her long pink mane. The familiar action brought a slow grin to Spike’s face.

Stunned, he straightened up and lifted his head off the arm he had been propping it up with, letting said arm gradually fall onto the desk before him. “Fluttershy,” he breathed in awe.

Fluttershy made a timid grin. “Um…hello Spike.”

Author's Note

I had you going for a moment there though, didn't I? :ajsmug:

Obviously, notably longer chapter than usual today. The next couple of chapters will be of similar lengths.

The Banishment

For a long moment, neither Spike nor Fluttershy spoke, and just stood there regarding each other, unsure how to proceed.

Spike started to feel a surge of relieved emotions gurgle up within him that he knew was only going to lead to him breaking down in tears then and there, so to save face, he inwardly worked to keep the urge down. “I was starting to think you weren’t coming,” he instead admitted softly.

Fluttershy looked alarmed at this. “Oh, I’m sorry!” she declared apologetically, the expression genuine. “I tried to get here as fast as I could, but I couldn’t get train tickets to Vanhoover until first thing this morning, and I needed the time to read up on what sort of treatments I might need to do first anyway.” She motioned to the books tucked into her saddlebag. “…I’ve really only have experience giving first aide to my animal friends, so this is my first time treating a…well…someone like…” she paused, unsure how to proceed.

“Thorax, his name is Thorax,” Spike said so to provided the flustered mare the correct name and he grinned faintly. “And you’d still know more than I would.” He stepped out from behind the front desk, regarding the yellow pegasus for a moment, realizing just how long it had been since he had seen her last. “It’s good to see you again, Fluttershy.”

Fluttershy made a small grin too. “It’s good to see you again too, Spike,” she said. She then added, “We all miss you.”

Spike simply nodded at this, but it also reminded him of the situation he still faced. “Who all knows you’re here?” he asked, turning serious.

“Um, let’s see…” Fluttershy began, rubbing her chin with her hoof as she gathered the list in her head. “There’s Angel Bunny, Elizabeak, the birds Constance and Hummingway, Mr. Mousey, Oscar the otter, Harry—he’s a bear—and uh…”

“No, no,” Spike interrupted. “I meant who all knows you’re here who’s not also a woodland critter?”

“Oh, um…” Fluttershy pause to think again. “…well, I told Rarity I was going to Vanhoover because she noticed I was packing, but I didn’t tell her why or where specifically in Vanhoover, and she didn’t ask so… that’s really all.” She paused again. “…I thought about asking Zecora for some advice before I left, but then I thought I’d better not.” She regarded Spike meaningfully. “You did make it very clear in your letter that you wanted this all kept secret.”

Spike grinned again, and nodded. “Thank you for your discretion, Fluttershy,” he said, convinced she had heeded his requests. He suddenly became aware of how visible they were standing in the shop like this and was suddenly glad there were no customers in the shop at that moment…but that could change at any moment. Further, a glance at the clock showed that Fly Leaf’s meeting was expected to be over in another mere half hour. “We’d better get you upstairs then,” he said, turning for the stairs and motioning for Fluttershy to follow. “Fly Leaf will be back soon.”

“Fly Leaf?”

“My boss.”

“Ah.” Fluttershy was silent for a second as they crossed the shop to the base of the stairs. “…I assume she doesn’t know?”

“No.” Spike paused mounting the stairs to look back at the pegasus. “And I’d prefer to keep it that way for now.”

Fluttershy nodded in understanding. “Okay,” she said. She didn’t question or press the matter further. She simply agreed to respect his request. Spike couldn’t help but grin a little at it. Bless you, Fluttershy. They resumed heading up the stairs. Fluttershy was idly looking around in her trademark timid but curious manner. “So, um, this is where you’ve been staying?”

“Yeah.”

“…it certainly seems nice enough.”

Spike couldn’t help but grin again, glancing around himself as they neared the third floor landing. “Yeah, Thorax and I were very lucky to find it,” he admitted. Shortly thereafter they arrived at the closed door to his and Thorax’s room. “He’s in here,” he told Fluttershy, going to open the door. He then paused and glanced back at the yellow mare. “…you ready?”

Fluttershy bit her lip briefly, but nodded.

Spike realized though that the sight of the changeling beyond might startle the easily frightened mare. “…he’s not disguised,” he warned.

Again, Fluttershy simply nodded. “Okay,” she said normally, but Spike still noticed her subtly bracing herself.

Assured that she was as ready as she was ever going to be though, Spike nodded too, and unlatched the door, slowly pushing it open. Fluttershy’s head leaned to one side as the door gradually swung open, following it as she worked to get her first peek at the changeling that had brought her here. As Thorax was still lying on his sleeping nest just to one side of straight across the room from the door, it wasn’t long before she spied him. She instantly gasped, one hoof rising to her mouth, which Spike initially took to be a reaction of fear. But instead, Fluttershy immediately surged forward to the ill changeling, concern clearly etched all over her face.

“Oh my goodness!” she declared in alarm as she reached Thorax and began looking the virtually unconscious changeling over. “You poor thing, you look just awful!” She glanced back at Spike, distressed by Thorax’s pitiful state. “How long has he been like this?”

Spike let out his breath at Fluttershy’s display of concern instead of fear or revulsion like he dreaded and immediately shared it, letting his own concern surface onto his features. “Too long,” he admitted gravely, mostly closing the door and moving to join her, “Since about Thursday evening.”

Fluttershy’s brow wrinkled as she became more concerned, her hoof now feeling Thorax’s forehead. “He’s burning up,” she noted seriously and turned to begin pulling her saddlebags off her back. “What medication has he taken?”

“None,” Spike admitted.

Fluttershy stopped to stare at him in wide-eyed surprise. “None?”

Spike shrugged helplessly, that dreading feeling of powerlessness beginning to fill his belly again. “…we couldn’t be sure what medicines would work on Thorax…or if any of them would react negatively to his biology…so Thorax ruled early on it would be better to go without.”

Fluttershy tutted in disapproval of this as she set down her saddlebags down next to Thorax’s makeshift nest of blankets, beginning sorting through the supplies she had brought. “I’ve got something that should help with that at any rate,” she said as she began to multitask. “But first we need to be trying to get his fever down. Spike, get me an open container full of cool water. Not cold. Cool.”

Spike nodded and quickly grabbed the bucket Thorax had been using to vomit in, ensured it was properly cleaned out (fortunately, Thorax hadn’t needed to use it that morning), then filled it with water at what he hoped was the desired temperature Fluttershy wanted; just shy of lukewarm. He brought it back to Fluttershy who then pulled out a cloth rag, soaked it in the water, and then pressed it over Thorax’s brow. She did this for a few minutes, refreshing the rag at regular intervals, while she finished assessing the ill changeling’s symptoms. Upon finishing, she then pulled out a small kit from her saddlebags and, as Spike squeamishly watched, withdrew a small needle that she then used to prick Thorax on the foreleg then dabbed a small strip of colored paper in the bead of red blood this drew. Afterwards, she studied the small strip, watching as the colors gradually changed shades, reacting to Thorax’s blood. Spike realized it was some sort of simple blood test she was conducting.

The results were heartening enough that Fluttershy smiled at them. “Good news,” she told Spike as she withdrew a couple bottles of medicine from her saddlebags. “It should be safe for Thorax to take most of the usual medications we could give him for an illness like this. The only medicine we should avoid giving him should be any sulfa-based drugs, which I don’t even have on hoof anyway.”

“…ah,” Spike said, not sure he understood the full significance of this, but he understood enough to get he could’ve given Thorax at least a pain reliever or something well before now without danger and was kicking himself for not doing as such regardless of Thorax’s worries.

Fluttershy then gently proceeded to get some medication down Thorax’s throat. When this spurred the changeling to feebly cough afterwards, the pegasus turned her attention to addressing the severe respiratory congestion plaguing him. “Spike, is there a way we could bring a pot of water to boil up here?” she asked.

“Boiling water?” Spike repeated, uncertain he understood her intentions. “Why, are you planning to make soup?”

“No, no, I’m more interested in the steam,” Fluttershy explained, but seeing Spike wasn’t following still, she settled to reassure him instead. “It’ll help, promise.”

Spike thought for a moment. “Well, we’ve got a magic-powered heating plate and a camping cook set you could use…” he said slowly, turning to the wardrobe where they kept it so to pull it out.

“That’d be perfect!” Fluttershy declared, pleased.

Soon they had the heating plate set up beside Thorax’s sleeping nest with a black metal cooking pot full of water atop it. Once it came to a boil and clouds of steam began to billow up from the little pot, Fluttershy repositioned the sleeping changeling as close as she could to the pot, then gently draped a cloth over his head so to funnel the steam towards him.

“Letting him breathe the steam for a bit should help break up some of that nasty congestion in his nose and chest,” she explained to Spike as she refreshed the rag she had draped over Thorax’s forehead in the bucket of cool water. “It’ll help him to breath a bit better, and help his body recover.” She felt the changeling’s forehead with her hoof again before placing the rag over top it again. She grinned. “I think his fever has gone down a little, so that’s good too. Hopefully the medicine I gave him will help to bring it down further.”

Spike let out a sigh of relief at all of these positive results. But then he heard the front door down in the shop open and close, announcing the arrival of a customer and he remembered he had left the shop both open and unattended. “Look, I need to go downstairs and run the shop. You okay staying up here in the meantime?”

Fluttershy nodded. “I’ll keep an eye on him, Spike,” she assured. “And, um, I’ll be sure to keep myself unnoticed too.”

Spike nodded, grinning again at Fluttershy’s unquestioning kindness. “I’ll be back up here when I can,” he promised and headed back downstairs.

Fortunately, he had missed little while he had been upstairs with Fluttershy as it seemed the customer who arrived was the first to enter after the yellow pegasus’s arrival, a polite stallion who stopped to look at the shop’s selection of books. His arrival was soon followed by several more customers thereafter as the lunchtime rush Spike had idly noted was late to begin earlier finally started to pick up. It was almost as if the universe had been holding off on sending these customers Spike’s way out of respect, until after he had gotten Fluttershy set up treating Thorax. Regardless of whether or not that was actually true or just a very lucky coincidence, Spike inwardly sent out a silence thanks…just in case.

Not long thereafter Fly Leaf returned from her luncheon, looking calm but relieved it was over. Seeing that the shop was still operating normally, she went up to the front desk to check things over with Spike, who was pleased to report that nothing really major had taken place in the shop in his employer’s absence.

Satisfied by that, Fly turned her attention to other matters. “How’s Thornton?” she asked.

Spike couldn’t help but smile at this. “He’s actually showing a little improvement now,” he stated optimistically. “He’s still has plenty more recovering to do first before he’s in the clear of course, but…I can’t help but think he’s going to be okay after all, Fly.”

Fly grinned at this news, but she was more careful about not being too presumptuous. “Well, I certainly hope so, but let’s not jump to any conclusions just yet. We’ll have to see if it’s the actual start of a trend,” she stated realistically. “Nonetheless, keep me posted of any other changes, good or bad.”

“Will do,” Spike said, then changed the subject in case Fly wanted to inquire more. “How did your meeting go? Did you get the deal with that distributor?”

At this, Fly smirked, and leaned closer to whisper into Spike’s ear. “Let’s just say Letterpress is going to have to watch out now,” she stated smugly.

“Yes,” Spike quietly cheered, pleased they had succeeded in scoring the contract for the shop.

Fly then went off to put her stuff away and to change out of the business suit she had worn for the meeting. She returned with no suspicions that there was now an extra pony in the building discreetly treating Thorax, making Spike confident that Fluttershy’s presence could be kept concealed still for the time being. After Fly had changed, she came back to take over running the shop. This allowed Spike to go on his lunch break, which he promptly made use of to run back upstairs to check on Thorax and Fluttershy. He arrived to find that Fluttershy had taken the boiling pot of water off the heating pad and set it all aside, and now seemed to be letting Thorax rest while she sat nearby, reviewing the books of treatments she had brought with her. She looked up optimistically when Spike entered.

“He’s still showing improvement,” she reported positively as Spike came over to look Thorax’s sleeping form over himself. “His fever has dropped dramatically, and the steam has helped clear up his congestion quite a bit.” Spike could tell the latter of these easily as Thorax was breathing much easier now. “Right now he’s just resting, though I’ve been trying to keep him drinking water when I can.” She motioned to a glass of water she kept sitting beside her. “I, uh, meant to ask earlier…has he, um…eaten anything recently?”

Spike sighed as he patted his resting friend assuringly with his claws. “Not really,” he admitted. “If he’s eaten any emotions recently, it can’t have been very much.”

This left Fluttershy quiet for a long moment. “…what sort of…um…emotions…does he eat?”

“Positive ones,” Spike said, and sighed. “We need to get him eating more, but this isn’t something you can just force him to do…he has to decide to do it on his own, and first he’d have to get an appetite back.”

“Then he’s certainly not in the clear just yet,” Fluttershy deduced seriously. “He won’t get better if he isn’t getting the proper nourishment.”

Spike was silent for a moment, weighing options as he rubbed his cheek thoughtfully with one set of claws. “When do you need to be back in Ponyville?” he asked the pegasus.

“Oh, um…not any time soon, really,” Fluttershy admitted. She managed a half-grin. “I, uh, tried to arrange things so that if I didn’t get back right away…things would still be okay.” She studied Spike for a moment, and then reached out with one hoof. “If you need me to stay overnight to keep an eye on Thorax, I can do that.”

Spike grinned and patted her hoof. “Thank you, Fluttershy,” he said. He took a deep breath. “Let’s see how Thorax is doing by this evening before we decide that, though.”

Fluttershy nodded, and having nothing else of pressing need to report, she turned back to her books. Spike, meanwhile, walked over to the desk by the door and sat on the stool, turned so he could watch Thorax sleeping. A long moment of awkward silence fell, so after a few moments, Spike finally decided to ask something he had long been wondering about since becoming an outcast.

“How are things in Ponyville?” he asked politely and genuinely curious.

Fluttershy glanced at him. “Oh, good I suppose,” she said. “You know, um, the usual sort of things.”

Spike smirked a little. “Any recent monster attacks nearly leveling the town, then?” he asked teasingly.

“Oh dear no,” Fluttershy assured, but she did have to giggle, catching Spike’s quip. “No, just routine normal things, really. Not unless you want to count the time when Pinkie Pie and Apple Bloom accidentally mixed cake batter with a magic potion that would’ve created a sort of cake monster if Starlight Glimmer hadn’t come along and stopped it short.” She giggled again before continuing. “Actually, it seems all the…uh…interesting things are happening outside of Ponyville lately.”

“Really? Like what?”

“Um, well…some of the other girls and I went up to Yakyakistan with Princess Celestia on a goodwill tour not so long ago…”

Spike’s eyebrows went up. “Yakyakistan, huh?” he said, suddenly extra glad he and Thorax had opted not to head there when they were banished or they might have been discovered during this visit. “How did that go?”

“Um…well, I think.” Fluttershy frowned. “I can never be quite sure with the yaks…”

“Anything else of note happen?”

Fluttershy stopped to think for a moment. “I suppose I should mention that Applejack and I also participated in a friendship mission in Las Pegasus recently.”

Spike laughed. “You? In Las Pegasus?”

“Yes,” Fluttershy shuddered at the memory. “It…could have gone better. But the important thing was that we resolved the friendship problem. In the end.”

“But not one of the better friendship missions though, huh?”

Fluttershy shrugged. “I couldn’t say, really. That’s more Twilight’s area of expertise than mine, and the map has always seemed like it knew what it was doing in the past, no matter how challenging the circumstances are…though I suppose the map has occasionally been behaving a little…oddly…ever since it…um…”

“Got broken by Starlight’s little time travel mess?” Spike offered knowingly. “I thought Twilight and Starlight got that fixed though.” He thought about it for a second longer then shrugged. “Maybe they missed something.” He turned back to Fluttershy. “So what’s Twilight doing to fix it?”

“Well, I don’t think she is currently. She, um, she’s been busy with…other things.”

Spike frowned, his brow furrowing. It didn’t seem like Twilight to put off something like that, not unless it was something that was several orders of magnitude larger in concern than a possibly broken Cutie Map. “What sort of other things could be more important than that?”

Fluttershy hesitated. “Um…well…”

“Wait a minute, wait a minute…” Spike interrupted, suddenly seeing a pattern in all of this. “…back to Pinkie and Apple Bloom and the cake monster…you said it was Starlight who stopped that?”

“Um, yes…with a spell that reversed the effects that made it.”

“No offense to Starlight, but why didn’t Twilight do it? That’s usually her forte.”

“Uh, well…Twilight was busy elsewhere that particular day and Starlight wasn’t…but um…”

“And that trip to Yakyakistan…let me guess, Twilight didn’t go on that either, did she? Too busy with something else then as well?”

Fluttershy winced. “Um…”

She glanced briefly at Thorax. Spike followed her gaze and it suddenly clicked. “…she’s been busy hunting for me and Thorax, hasn’t she?” he asked darkly.

Fluttershy bit her lip for a long moment. “She misses you deeply, Spike,” she attempted to explain.

Spike snorted loudly. “Not enough to prevent all of this,” he pointed out, crossly motioning to their surroundings.

“Spike, in her defense, she thinks you’re in grave danger,” Fluttershy explained in a placating tone. She motioned to their surroundings too. “We all have. None of us stopped to think you might be at…well…someplace like this.”

“That’s because Twilight still thinks Thorax is a threat,” Spike reasoned and glared ominously at Fluttershy. “And she convinced the rest of you of that too, didn’t she?”

Fluttershy looked sadly at the floor, ashamed. “…we didn’t have any reason to disbelieve her…but now…” she shifted her hoof awkwardly on the wooden floor. “…I don’t know what to think now, Spike.” She gazed back up at the dragon again with sad eyes. “…it’s clear to me now that…things aren’t as I’d thought…if that helps.” It didn’t seem too, because Spike merely rolled his eyes, disappointed, and turned himself away from Fluttershy. “…maybe you should tell me your side of the story…so to, um…set the record straight.”

Spike didn’t respond for a long moment, long enough that Fluttershy started to think that perhaps he wasn’t going to respond. Somewhat upset by that, she paused to check on Thorax again before turning back to her books, refocusing her attention back on them. But then Spike suddenly spoke again.

“Everyone acts like it was me who betrayed them, Fluttershy…but it was really more them betraying me.”

Fluttershy glanced up at Spike again, surprised at the sudden comment. Spike hadn’t turned to face her again, but his face had taken on a faraway look. “What happened, Spike?” she prompted gently. “Why did you do it?”

Spike closed his eyes slowly and took a deep breath. “You already know why we were up in the Crystal Empire in the first place,” he began to solemnly relate. “Twilight and I were visiting Princess Cadance, Shining Armor, and Flurry Heart, and Starlight was tagging along to see Sunburst. We were expecting things to be going as usual there. I was even taking steps to arrive in disguise, so I wouldn’t get mobbed by the crystal ponies fawning over Spike the Brave and Glorious and mess up what was supposed to be a private visit.” He frowned at the memory. It seemed so odd now, after spending so much time avoiding the spotlight now, to think he had ever held such fame. “But when we got there, the streets were abandoned, and the crystal ponies frightened and hiding. Something was clearly wrong. It wasn’t until we arrived at the castle that we figured out what. A changeling had been spotted nearby, and given how things had gone last time we encountered the changelings, Cadance and Shining didn’t want to take any chances. They feared the changelings were either plotting another invasion, or possibly, plotting to kidnap Flurry Heart because of all the love her birth and Crystalling had been generating.” He shook his head. “But I’m sure Twilight told you all this already. The point is that thanks to my…past actions in the Crystal Empire, the guards asked if I could help hunt for the changeling, thinking I’d provide extra insight they could use, being their hero and all, and Twilight and Shining kindly agreed to let me go with them on a patrol.” He paused suddenly, a heavy thought occurring to him. “If they hadn’t…this all probably would’ve played out very differently and we probably wouldn’t be here now, talking about it.”

Fluttershy glanced at the sleeping Thorax. “That was when you found Thorax, wasn’t it?”

Spike nodded. “Once me and the guards had gotten out into the frozen wastes a good distance, I…I tried to make like I knew what I was doing and split the guards into groups to go off and search for the changeling, but forgot to include myself into a group and ended up getting left behind on my own. In trying to do some searching on my own…well…I guess I succeeded, because I accidentally tumbled into this hidden cave in the ice and snow and found Thorax hiding down there.” Spike chuckled faintly at the memory. “He startled me so much I started to tumble into this nearby chasm…” he gazed at his sleeping friend. “…but Thorax saved me.”

Fluttershy blinked in surprise. “He saved you?” she repeated softly.

Spike nodded. “It was then that I realized Thorax couldn’t be like the other changelings, otherwise why would he do that?” he reasoned. “It only took some quick talking to confirm that. Thorax was being genuine, and he meant no harm.” He gazed forlornly at Fluttershy. “He was just looking for a friend, Fluttershy. He saw ponies doing it, he saw you and the other girls doing it, and realized that was something changelings didn’t have.” He hung his head. “He left his hive trying to find such friends in Equestria after he failed to do so in the changeling hive…but everypony was immediately skittish and not only had he wandered all the way up north with no success, he had also been getting few positive emotions to sustain him. Fluttershy, he was on the verge of starving when I found him.”

Fluttershy looked conflicted, gazing back at Thorax again for a moment. “Didn’t you tell Twilight all of this?” she asked.

“Of course I did. I told them all this and more, but they refused to listen, waving it all away as some deception or lie.” Spike shook his head. “But I’m getting ahead of myself. First, after meeting Thorax, I tried to go back to the Crystal Empire on my own and convince some others that maybe the changeling could be good.” He snorted. “That went nowhere fast. The crystal guards all just thought I was making some sort of elaborate joke, and Shining made it clear then that he didn’t approve…hay, he even went as far as to say then that there was no such thing as a nice changeling.” Spike glowered for a moment. “Lot he knew. Anyway, it was clear pretty quick that wasn’t working, so I aborted that plan, and Thorax and I…we tried something else. He disguised himself as a crystal pony we dubbed Crystal Hoof, and after we were successful in passing him off as such to Twilight, we went about the city introducing the disguised Thorax to every pony we could. The plan was to try and get Crystal Hoof plenty of friends, and then if we could show them that Crystal Hoof the pony and Thorax the changeling were one and the same, they’d see Thorax could be trusted, and then, hopefully, they wouldn’t care if he was a changeling or not.”

Fluttershy mulled over this. “It seemed like a good plan,” she admitted.

But Spike shook his head. “It didn’t work, though. The crystal ponies…bless them, they’re so eternally friendly…but they’re also so quick to scare. And we didn’t count on Cadance and Shining hearing about Crystal Hoof and wanting to meet him, so we got pulled into their presence sooner than I expected and…while we were there in their company…Thorax got overwhelmed by all the love surrounding Flurry Heart and lost control of his disguise in front of everypony, and the reaction was…not good.” He hung his head again. “I imagine Twilight told you all about that too.”

Fluttershy nodded. She bit her lip. “Um…” she began with clear hesitation. “…Twilight also noted that when the changeling—Thorax—was chased off…um…you didn’t do anything to follow or to…well…stop it.” She waited for Spike to comment, but when the dragon, having turned ashamed, said nothing, she continued. “She reasoned that if you were really…um…so determined to side with the changeling as you had claimed…why didn’t you support the changeling then?”

Spike sighed heavily. “…I let my pride get the better of me, Fluttershy,” he admitted, feeling deeply ashamed. “I was an idiot to let it dictate my actions like that too…but I did…for fear of the consequences that might fall on me if I did.” He twiddled his claws awkwardly. “Back when Shining told me there was no such thing as a nice changeling…I’m not going to lie, Fluttershy, the…stern way he addressed that whole matter spooked me…and when I saw everything falling apart in that moment and everypony still treating Thorax as just the enemy they thought him to be, despite having gotten to know him as Crystal Hoof, I feared I was only going to invite that wrath onto myself if I tried…so I chickened out trying to protect myself.” He made a shuddering inhale, revealing he was close to tears. “And I immediately regretted it when I saw that look of betrayal on Thorax’s face when he realized what I was doing…right before he was chased out the door. I almost let him get captured doing that too, and who knows what might have happened to him if he had, but he managed to escape regardless.” His brow furrowed as he put on a determined expression. “And I quickly vowed I wasn’t going to let my foolish pride stand in the way of that again, and set out to find him so to set things straight.”

“But, um, Spike,” Fluttershy interjected. “That’s what first brought on Twilight’s argument against all of that. Starlight even agreed with her on this. You didn’t support Thorax in that moment, nor did you show any sign you intended to…until after you had gone out on your own, found the changeling, and then brought him back to suddenly about face to…to argue he could be trusted. To Twilight and the others…that sudden shift didn’t seem plausible. She believes you had gone out hunting for the changeling on your own, trying to show off being the hero, and instead the changeling found you, tricked you, and fooled you into believing it was a friend so he could use you as a pawn, and…um…”

“Of course she does!” Spike snapped angrily without warning, shooting a glare at Fluttershy that startled her into silence. “Anything to justify her actions, anything that will let her continue to abuse Thorax as nothing but a foe to be squashed without mercy!” He narrowed his glare levelly at the yellow pegasus. “The only one doing any manipulating here is Twilight, Fluttershy, and I need you to see that.” His tone dropped darkly, realization sinking in. “But you believe her still even now…don’t you?”

Fluttershy, realizing she had spurred the dragon’s fury onto herself, nervously hemmed and hawed for several moments, trying to find the nerve to explain herself. “I just think she has a point that I can’t confirm might be false just yet, Spike!” she whimpered miserably. “But…but…it’s not that I don’t want to believe you Spike, and I…I’m trying…it’s just…it’s just…” she trailed off, beginning to weep.

The sight made Spike’s fury fade, and realizing he was perhaps not being fair, especially after everything Fluttershy had done for him to help Thorax, without question, despite her misgivings, he slipped off the stool and padded over to Fluttershy, giving her an awkward hug to try and calm her down.

“I’m sorry, Fluttershy,” he admitted softly. “This is all probably very confusing for you.” He sighed. “It’s just…I’ve been hurt too in all of this…I can’t just forget that either.”

Fluttershy nodded, silently agreeing, as she worked to reel in her tears.

“Besides Fluttershy,” Spike continued, fighting back his own bitter tears. “What would you have done, if you were in my shoes? Would you have been brave enough to support Thorax so unconditionally like that from the beginning?”

Fluttershy, sniffling now, averted her gaze in shame. “No,” she admitted finally. “No, I wouldn’t. I’m…I’m not even sure I could ever bring myself to show support for him like that…” she glanced at Spike. “…certainly not as long as you have Spike. You’ve…been braver than I ever could.”

Spike grinned slightly, and patted the mare reassuringly. “Don’t sell yourself short, Fluttershy,” he said. “You’ve been pretty brave coming here on your own, despite having clear misgivings yourself. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate that. That must have been a hard choice to make.”

Fluttershy was quiet for a moment. “I admit,” she began slowly. “When I first got your letter…I couldn’t even be sure it was really you who had written it. I couldn’t, um, help but think that it was some sort of changeling trick, luring me into some sort of trap for whatever reason. But you had used Pinkie’s invisible ink, complete with the…uh…code phrase, I guess, letting me know it was there. And I thought…how could anyone but you even know about all of that?” She then gazed at Thorax, still deeply asleep and unaware of the emotional conversation. Spike followed her gaze. “Besides…I thought that if your letter was genuine…then I couldn’t possibly stand to one side and not try and help poor Thorax here recover…changeling or not.”

Spike grinned. “And I can’t thank you enough for that Fluttershy,” he said. “I’m sure Thorax would say the same right now if he were able. We are, in a way, in your debt.”

“Oh no,” Fluttershy said, shaking her head humbly as she and Spike pulled apart finally. “You don’t owe me anything, either of you.” She made a sheepish grin. “I’m just happy to help.”

Spike returned the grin, and the two sat on the floor awkwardly for a few moments. Thorax let out a small snore.

Fluttershy then cleared her throat. “Anyway,” she said, getting back to their original topic. “You were saying earlier? About…about what happened in the Crystal Empire?”

“Oh right,” Spike said simply, and paused to get his mind back on track with his tale. “Um, well, after Thorax had been chased off and I decided I was going to try and defend him no matter what now, I went looking for him. It wasn’t hard; he was right where I had first found him, back in the cave. But um…” Spike grimaced. “…I had nearly shattered his faith in me for that stunt I pulled in the throne room, so…we had to talk it out a little first. Get him convinced again I was on his side and I wanted to help. Thankfully, Thorax was pretty understanding. He knew all of this was hard for me too, and knew he couldn’t expect me to—basically—throw away my reputation for his sake.” Spike grinned bitterly. “That’s pretty much what I did in the end, though. After I convinced Thorax I knew what I was doing, I brought him back to the throne room and we confronted the others, with no disguises or tricks this time, and this time I stood my ground and argued that Thorax could not only be trusted, but he could be a friend, and he was my friend…and they weren’t going to change that.” He chuckled sadly. “Thorax said later that he thought I was pretty convincing…I don’t know about that, but…I had thought we were going to do it too. I went into that throne room thinking for sure I could convince the others Thorax could be trusted, and that he wanted to be an ally and friend, seeking to coexist peacefully with us. I went in there thinking I could make them see Thorax for what he really was…that they would befriend Thorax and accept him as one of their own.”

Fluttershy gazed sadly at him. “They didn’t,” she observed solemnly.

Spike nodded. “And consequences followed,” he agreed. “The very same consequences I had feared would come.” He shook his head sadly. “I was committed this time though, so I stood my ground, kept trying to convince them of the truth, but…” he shook his head. “I don’t know what Twilight’s told you about what followed, but um…when they dragged me off and the arguing began…we quickly weren’t getting anywhere fast.” He shrugged helplessly. “They just…wouldn’t listen to me. They had already convinced themselves, probably well before I got involved, that Thorax would not be trusted, with no exceptions. All they wanted to do at that point was make me agree to their side of things…but I wasn’t going to do that. In fact, I was more just stunned they were being so…blind. I mean, I can understand Cadance and Shining Armor, seeing what they had been put through at the invasion at Canterlot, but…” Again he shook his head, this time in dejection. “…I was really more surprised Twilight of all ponies was refusing to see the truth. I…I was counting on her to side with me at the very least, or at least be willing to give me the benefit of doubt seeing everything we’d been through together but…she wouldn’t. She was just as blind as the rest, if not more so, and was determined to make me see I was wrong and she was right…just like I was determined to make her see that she was wrong, and I was right.” He curled his legs up before him and wrapped his arms around them in a sad hug. “It quickly became a pretty circular argument…and it clearly wasn’t going anywhere.”

Fluttershy looked at Thorax once more. “Was that when you tried to break him out of the dungeon?” she asked simply.

Spike nodded. “Pretty much,” he admitted, not surprised Twilight had explained that. “After an especially…frustrating round of arguments, Shining pulled Twilight aside to talk in private and left me locked and guarded in a room. It had become clear that they were considering banishing Thorax, their thinking that this would force him to go back to the other changelings they thought were hiding out nearby but didn’t actually exist, and that this would thwart whatever they thought the supposed master plan was…but there were no other changelings, and Thorax would’ve been left on his own…and as deprived of nourishment as he was still at the time…he probably wouldn’t have lasted long out there in the frozen wastes.” Spike looked seriously at Fluttershy. “He would’ve died out there on his own, Fluttershy.”

Fluttershy bit her lip, indeed looking very bothered by that revelation, but she otherwise kept quiet to permit Spike to finish relating the tale.

Spike made yet another heavy sigh. “But it was pretty clear by that point in time that I wasn’t making any progress convincing the others of that, and fearing for Thorax’s safety, I decided to take matters into my own claws. So I lured the guard standing outside the door of the room inside, claiming I had seen a mouse, and while keeping him preoccupied with that, snuck out and locked him in. I then sought out Thorax in the dungeons, and yes, I did knock out the guard standing at Thorax’s cell by hitting him over the head with a bucket, which I take no pride in, but…I didn’t see much in the way of alternatives at the moment.” He shrugged. “I was thinking I’d worry about getting Thorax out of there and to somewhere safe to wait, while I kept working to convince everypony else he was safe and could be trusted first…but we got caught and pinned down before we got far in escaping…I probably hadn’t thought it all the way through, and I shouldn’t have done it, but…I didn’t know what else to do. Whatever the case, everything fell apart from there. They locked Thorax back up and me too, fearing what else I might try. Twilight tried again to try and sway me, but…by that point…I’d had enough, and laid down the line. I was siding with Thorax, no matter what happened now. Wherever he went, I intended to follow him…and they weren’t going to stop me…and that still didn’t even make them pause.”

Fluttershy frowned sadly. “According to Starlight, everyone thought you were bluffing.”

“I was,” Spike admitted. “But I didn’t think they’d have the gall to put it to the test either…but they did…they dragged us out to the throne room, and…and…” he trailed off suddenly, getting a faraway look.

“…Spike?” Fluttershy prompted, unsure.

Spike responded by shuddering, feeling a dark sadness welling up within him as recalled what followed…

Their crystal guard escorts had brought Spike and Thorax before Cadance, sitting on the throne, with Shining Armor standing officially beside her. Twilight and Starlight sat to one side in the background, apparently to observe the proceedings. Their guards took position up behind them to wait at the ready, while a long moment of tense silence fell.

Finally Cadance sighed and addressed the pair sitting before her. “It’s with much trepidation that I have to do this,” she began solemnly. “But this has become an increasingly grave matter that’s disrupting the well-being I try to promote as princess and which I can’t permit to continue. It’s time that this be settled however necessary.” She took another deep breath before continuing, focusing her attention on solely Spike. “Spike, your recent actions today are…highly concerning to us. But, considering you’re a long-time friend and ally to the Crystal Empire and the royal family, we strove to keep that in mind in making our decision.”

When she did not immediately continue, Spike, anxious, leaned forward. “And?” he prompted.

Cadance hesitated, looking unsure. She glanced to her side at Shining Armor, who silently nodded, stepping forward.

“Spike, I’m going to ask you a question,” he said to the dragon calmly. “And I want you to think hard about it before you answer.”

“Okay,” Spike said simply, unsure where this was going.

Shining took a deep breath. “If we still rule to cast out the changeling, for whatever reason…” he began slowly and clearly so there could be no confusion, “…will you trust in our ruling, and permit it to be carried out without protest or attempts to resist?”

Spike almost responded immediately, but remembered Shining’s request to think about it first and paused to do so. He glanced at Thorax standing beside him, virtually ignored as if he wasn’t even there in the eyes of the others. Meeting the dragon’s gaze and looking grave, as if Thorax could see something Spike didn’t, the changeling subtly nodded his head, urging Spike to agree. Spike fleetingly thought about it, if only because Thorax supported it, but looking back at the ponies awaiting his response, that thought was quickly chased away. He still had faith this could be resolved peacefully, and with that in mind, he chose the stance he felt in his heart was right.

“No,” Spike answered. “I’m not abandoning Thorax.”

He noticed Thorax bow his head remorsefully out of the corner of his eye, but Spike ignored it to focus on Shining.

Shining, to his credit, showed little outward reaction other than to stiffen slightly, turning more formal and official. “Are you certain?” he asked, after only a brief pause.

“Yes,” Spike stated immediately this time. He was committing himself to this, trusting it would work out.

Shining paused to glance back at the others before continuing though. Behind him however, Cadance had averted her gaze suddenly, as if feeling guilty. Meanwhile the silent Twilight and Starlight also avoided the stallion’s gaze, Twilight bowing her head, obscuring her face, while Starlight looked at her sadly, putting a hoof on her shoulder. Though nothing was said verbally, the body language of the group was apparently message enough to Shining Armor who turned to face Spike and Thorax again.

“Very well then,” he murmured before nodding his head in the direction of Spike’s guards.

The guards immediately sprang forward to restrain Spike. “H-hey!” Spike objected, vainly struggling against their grip.

“We’ll talk more in a moment Spike,” Shining promised sternly before turning to face the patient Thorax, pulling himself into a formal position to proceed with his proclamation. “By the authority of the princess and prince, current rulers of the Crystal Empire and representatives of the royal government of Equestria, and the support of the Princess of Friendship, on charges of conspiracy, impersonation, and aiding and abetting an enemy to the state, without any display of remorse or repentance, you, changeling, are hereby banished from the land of Equestria and all affiliated territories…”

“What?!” Spike shouted in shock, his struggles to escape the guards restraining him redoubling.

“…effective immediately,” Shining continued, ignoring Spike’s outburst, “and will not and cannot be rescinded at any time by any citizen of this land unless the prince and princess of the Crystal Empire deem it to be in the best interests of their subjects to do so, should the nature of the situation or reasons for this ruling change…”

“You can’t DO this!” Spike continued to shout, stunned, hurt, and continuing to struggle while the other guards were already moving to lead Thorax away. “You’re making a mistake! He’s done nothing wrong, and you know it! YOU’RE ALL BETTER THAN THIS!”

“…or by majority ruling of other royal members within the royal government or direct veto presented by the diarchy, high rulers of the state of Equestria and all affiliated territories,” Shining Armor pressed on, raising his voice so to be able to continue to talk over Spike’s yelling. “Any attempt to reenter or otherwise reside within these lands henceforth will be automatically deemed a criminal offense of the highest order, will be treated swiftly and with the full force of the law, and will guarantee stronger punishments to follow in the future. You will henceforth be escorted outside the boundaries of this land under guard where you will be then expected to depart from the area to be left to the wills of realms beyond and unknown. May harmony help you to see the magnitude of your crimes.” Shining then nodded to the guards, who proceeded to either pull the irate dragon to one side or work to lead the silent changeling out of the throne room. Shining proceeded to follow so to supervise.

But Spike wasn’t done protesting this unjust turn of events and locked eyes onto the princess of friendship. “Twilight!” he shouted, grabbing her attention. “Twilight, don’t let them do this, don’t you DARE let them do this!”

Twilight locked eyes with his, having begun to tear up, but she made no immediate move to respond.

“Twilight!” Spike shouted again, anxiously looking at Thorax being pulled through the throne room door before looking pleadingly back at the princess. “Please! You’re the princess of friendship! Thorax is a friend, trust me! After everything we’ve been through, you can’t just stand there and let them do this!”

Twilight closed her eyes and averted her gaze. “I’m sorry Spike,” she said simply and softly.

But her words struck Spike as if it was a cannon that been had fired. Stunned speechless, the dragon found himself going limp as he was dragged to one side to watch as Thorax began to be led around the corner and out of sight. But then his resolve rapidly returned to him. “Then I want to be there!” he declared firmly. “I want to be there when you send him away! At least give me that, all of you!” Seeing the others looking at him and Shining suddenly stopping in the doorway of the throne room, motioning for the guards ahead of him to wait, he pressed on. “Please…no matter what, he is my friend…I owe him this much.”

A moment of silence reigned. Shining turned to Twilight, silently shaking his head and urging her not to agree, and Cadance appeared to be moving to agree with him. But Twilight looked to be genuinely considering the offer, and after a moment of debate, she started forward, approaching Spike and his guards. Starlight started to follow, but one look from Twilight made her hold back.

“Okay Spike,” Twilight agreed as she approached Spike, nodding to the guards to release him as she pulled him closer with one hoof. “But you stay by me, do you understand?”

Spike nodded in agreement. “I just ask in return you play close attention to what it is that you’re doing,” he said as he and Twilight joined the progression, Shining nodding to the guards to continue escorting Thorax out.

To his credit, Thorax was going silently, without protest or struggle and with his head held high, having accepted his fate. Spike thought he was being very brave. For the next several moments though, he gazed back at Shining and Twilight as they went, hoping that at least Twilight would pull through for him and intervene, like she always had. Being a princess, her authority bore considerably more weight than Spike’s. But she never did, instead holding her peace and position at the back of the escort, keeping Spike beside her. And gradually, the realization sank in. The banishment was considered indisputable by all but him. There would be no going back now.

The escorting proceeded in silence. Upon leaving the castle, the exile and his escorts naturally drew the attention of many stunned crystal ponies passing by, stopping to watch the group silently move past in shock and awe. But Spike barely noticed. He barely felt as the crystal roads they walked transformed to cold snow, or the sting of more snowflakes falling upon him as more lightly fell from the sky outside the Crystal Empire in small flurries. He barely reacted when they stopped some distance outside the boundaries of the empire, still visible in the distance, and barely heard Shining Armor as the last words he spoke to Thorax—thrust ahead of them so to urge him to leave—was a word of warning that they would be guarding the border in case he attempted to sneak back inside. He barely watched as Thorax, nodding and giving Spike one last mournful gaze, turned and proceeded to march away from them and the empire, heading off into the unforgiving Frozen North on his own.

But then Spike reached a decision.

“NO!” he hollered, and despite Twilight’s protests, he threw off the hoof she tried to stop him with, dodged the guards that moved to block him, and raced out in front of the group, putting himself between them and Thorax, the latter stopping to watch the events unfolding in shocked awe. “I’m not letting you do this! You can’t banish someone who has done nothing wrong!”

“Spike, get back here!” Twilight cried, starting forward after him, but was stopped by Shining.

“Spike, it’s already done,” the stallion told the dragon standing alone before them. “The changeling has been banished! Accept it!”

“No!” Spike repeated, stomping one foot in the snowy ground. “Somebody has to stand up to protest this, so it might as well be me!”

“Spike, stop this!” Twilight urged, standing beside her brother. “What could you gain from this? It’s already done! He’s been ban—”

“If you banish him, you banish me too!” Spike roared suddenly, interrupting.

This got both Shining and Twilight to pull back in shock, staring at him with wide eyes and momentarily at a loss for words. Even the guards seemed stunned by this, looking between themselves and their commander, wondering if they should intervene.

Twilight was first to recover. “Spike…” she began, again moving forward, but again Shining held her back.

Shining’s expression had morphed into something more apologetic. “You don’t really mean that, do you?” he asked Spike softly.

Spike glanced back at Thorax some feet ahead of him, silently watching, then back at Shining. “Believe me, I wish you hadn’t driven me to do this…but I can’t stand by and just let you banish him alone, Shining,” he said firmly. “I just can’t. And you can try and make me stay here…but I’m going to fight you every step of the way, and I don’t intend to stop. You’re already shattering my faith that you’ll do the right thing, so I wouldn’t be too motivated to trust your judgment right now. And if I really can’t get anyone else to realize this is wrong, and to instead stand up for what’s actually right…then I’m going with him. That’s the way it’s going to have to be.”

“Spike, please,” Twilight pleaded. “Don’t do this.”

“Then stop this,” Spike urged. “Don’t banish Thorax. See him for what he really is…just someone looking desperately for a friend. Otherwise…I am going with him…wherever that may be. And if it’s means getting cast out? Then I’ll do it.”

Shining gazed at the dragon forlornly. “You realize that if you do this,” he reminded, “I would be legally forced to consider you cutting ties to Equestria in favor of the enemy, and would have to extend the banishment onto you too…right?”

Spike nodded. “I do,” he said. “So if any of you really care about friendship, or harmony, or peace, or even just me…now’s your chance to fix it. You should know what you need to do.”

A long moment of silence fell as he then waited to see if they would react. They didn’t, with no further protests given, or any motions made to halt him. So to show that he wasn’t bluffing, he turned and walked towards Thorax, joining the changeling.

Thorax looked troubled and concerned for the dragon. “Spike…” he began to object to the dragon’s actions.

“I made my choice, Thorax,” Spike responded, cutting the changeling short. “Now it’s up to them to make theirs. So let’s go.”

He kept on walking, soon moving past Thorax. For a second he wondered if even Thorax wasn’t going to be willing to let him do this, but soon the changeling silently caught up with him, joining his side as they continued to trudge through the snow. Meanwhile, there were still no efforts from the ponies behind them to stop him. Shooting a glance back, he saw they were just standing there, unmoving, sadly watching him go. Twilight had averted her gaze, and Spike’s mind was suddenly flooded with the burning memory of Twilight refusing Spike’s pleas earlier in the throne room. But she surely wouldn’t do that now, would she? Not when he was putting himself on the line too? They were certainly too close for her to let that happen. He kept expecting her to suddenly come running up to them, ready to rectify the matter.

But no one came. And soon they had traveled so far that the ponies Spike had left behind were long out of sight, the Crystal Empire now appearing to be a mere fraction of its size and far out on the horizon. It was then that the truth hit him, and Spike suddenly stopped, turning to look sorrowfully back.

“They’re not coming,” he murmured aloud to himself sadly. “…are they?”

He barely reacted to anything, hardly noticing his now only ally had stopped and looked back too…until Thorax gently put a hoof on his shoulder, causing the dragon to snap suddenly out of his trance and look up at his fellow exile. The changeling’s eyes were sorrowful, empathizing with Spike’s grief, and looked like there was much he wanted to say, but no doubt seeing this wasn’t the time or place for that just yet, he addressed the more immediate concern. “We should find shelter,” he advised the dragon as cold flurrying snowflakes continued to dance around them.

Spike gazed at him for a moment then nodded his head silently in agreement. Wordlessly, the two then set off, soon falling into the path leading them back to the cave where they had first met without either of them suggesting it as a possible location to head for. It was halfway there when it finally became too much for Spike and he collapsed into tears. Rather than try and press the dragon to keep going, Thorax sympathized, wordlessly scooping him to rest on the changeling’s back to carry the rest of the way to the cave while Spike continued to weep bitterly.

“I’m sorry Spike,” Fluttershy as she stepped forward to give Spike a comforting hug, having broken into tears as he finished the woeful tale. “I’m really, really, sorry…I wish I had been there to help.”

Spike didn’t reply, numbly letting his tears flow. “It was a lie, Fluttershy,” he murmured in dismay instead. “That bond I thought me and Twilight had…clearly it was never real…not like I thought.”

“Spike…” Fluttershy began to object.

“You don’t get it!” Spike snapped, pulling away suddenly. “I thought I could count on Twilight for anything! That she’d always be there to defend me, to protect me! But she wasn’t even willing to save me from banishment! Despite having been practically raised by her and always trusting in her fully up to then…she chose to cast that ALL aside to support them…over me!” He gazed in utter dismay at the troubled Fluttershy. “What sort of pony do you have to be to do something like that?”

As was usual for her, Fluttershy’s reply was a timid one. “One that was confused and didn’t know what was the right way to react,” she responded. “You haven’t seen what all this has done to Twilight, Spike…she’s been just as troubled and distraught as you are now.”

Though tears still streamed from his eyes, Spike’s gaze turned into a dark and unforgiving glower. “Too little, too late.”

Fluttershy bit her lip and lowered her gaze, unable to argue further against Spike’s anger. The conversation rapidly dried up from there. Spike spent the next few moments calming himself down and wiping the tears from his eyes. He had to remove the false glasses to do so, and Fluttershy got a look at his face without them for a change. She was surprised at how much of a difference mere glasses made to Spike’s appearance. With them, he appeared as an older, more mature drake that knew what he was doing. She almost didn’t recognize him when she first saw him when she first arrived. But without them, he was still that small and young baby dragon trying to figure out the world she had always known him to be…only now he had been deeply hurt…and Fluttershy was now starting to realize just how deep it actually was.

Finally, Spike had calmed himself down and had restored his usual demeanor. Fluttershy wondered inwardly how much of it was actually a front. “Anyway,” he said, suddenly aware of the time. “I probably need to be getting back to work downstairs.” He turned for the door. “I’ll…I’ll be back later.”

Fluttershy numbly nodded. She thought about saying something to the affect that she would keep watching over Thorax and treating him accordingly, but wasn’t able to gather her nerve soon enough before Spike exited the room, closing the door behind him. And thus, Fluttershy was on her own in the room, sitting beside the ill and sleeping changeling, and left to silently mull over her troubled thoughts.

Author's Note

From the beginning, I had always intended to be fairly vague about the exact events of Spike and Thorax's banishment for most of the story, preferring to give bit and pieces of the details on the fly as the story progress so to leave it to the reader to piece together what happened. But I also figured that at some point, I was going to have to have Spike or Thorax relate the tale in full in the story, and had long planned for it to happen here in this chapter. I ended up relating much more than I had originally planned though, because over the chapters, it had come to my attention that my leaving the banishment vague had the downside of leaving viewers sketchy of details I had thought were obvious, and it occasionally lead them to make funny assumptions I then had to squash. So some details may seem redundant, but I saw the need that I needed to make it clearer so to thwart further confusion such as that.

It was the ending paragraphs of the banishment flashback that inspired the story's cover art, in case that interests anyone. If not, I know something that will interest you...

Next chapter: Fluttershy relates some details about the Mane 6's side of the story. :raritywink:

The Aftermath

Though Spike tried to not to let himself be, he found himself in a mildly sour mood for most of the afternoon after his chat with Fluttershy upstairs. It wasn’t so much because of the mellow pegasus herself—Spike fully recognized she was only trying to help—it was more just that he had let himself dwell on thoughts, memories, and feelings he had lately been in the habit of trying to keep buried…for good reason. As a result, he was now left feeling angry, upset, and betrayed at almost everything that had brought him to where he was in life presently, and the knowledge that he knew it shouldn’t have been this way. That very thought left him very conflicted, to the point that it felt like it might tear him apart.

The conversation with Fluttershy had also made him realize that his last sight of Twilight, standing there in the snow beside Shining Armor averting her gaze, had become the ultimate memory of Twilight’s betrayal to him. And it stung. Replaying it continuously in his mind, the little dragon still found himself unable to comprehend that such an unthought-of event had actually taken place. But it had. The fact he was here now proved it.

A small part of him longed for peace and closure, but the more predominating pessimist that had been growing within him lately stressed that it couldn’t happen. Not now. The damage was done, and it wasn’t going away. So, when he noticed the dark attitude he was accidentally displaying outwardly made a customer he was helping leery of him, he worked to restore the balance with his usual tactic; entomb it deep within himself and ignore it, at least until a more convenient opportunity arose…which it usually didn’t. As the evening started to roll along though, Spike started to feel calmed down and closer to what had become his usual state of mind.

Otherwise his shift continued onwards fairly normally. Fly Leaf still didn’t seem to have any clue Fluttershy was present in the building, helped by the fact that she had largely kept to the shop in the lower floors since returning from her luncheon. Spike hoped to keep it up, and knowing Fluttershy was habitually a quiet mare, this seemed simple enough. Yet he knew the longer time passed, the more they were likely to press their luck.

For the moment though, Fly’s bigger concern still seemed to be Thorax and his health. She had asked again for an update on his condition with Spike returned from his break and Spike took comfort in the fact that he could report that Thorax was continuing to show signs of improvement. Yet this time, this didn’t seem to comfort Fly much, who revealed she found Thorax’s sudden improvements in health coming along in time for the deadline she had laid down this morning somewhat…convenient.

“Spike, forgive me for this, but I have to ask,” she said quietly and personally as she pulled the dragon to one side to talk. “Thornton is actually improving like you say, and you’re not just telling me what I want to hear…are you?”

Spike was genuinely shocked by the suggestion. “Why in the world would I lie about that, Fly?” he asked. “I care about Thornton’s well-being too much to do something stupid like that.”

Fly sighed but grinned slightly. “I’m sorry, I don’t like implying otherwise,” she explained. “But…let’s not forget that until just this morning…you weren’t being truthful about the actual state of his condition either.”

Spike winced and saw her point, hanging his head. “I guess you would have reason to suspect me as the colt who cried wolf,” he admitted glumly, dismayed in himself that he had harmed Fly’s trust in him that much. He looked back up at Fly Leaf, giving her as genuine and truthful an expression he could manage. “But I promise you…I’m not trying to mislead you. Not now. And anyway…Thornton was starting to reach a point that, if he hadn’t started to improve today…I probably wouldn’t have been able to bring myself to keep hiding the truth from you for fear for his well-being anyway.”

Fly gazed at him seriously for a long moment. Spike was beginning to suspect she would insist he prove it and had was wondering if the charade he and Thorax had been playing with her would end today after all, but then Fly’s gaze softened and she smiled. “All right then,” she said with a nod. “I just wish I knew why either of you wanted to hide this in the first place…I fear you nearly brought serious harm down on poor Thornton doing this that didn’t need to happen.”

Spike sheepishly played with his claws for a moment. “…pride,” he finally admitted simply, knowing there was more truth in that than he’d care to admit.

Fly snorted lightly and shook her head, but all in goodwill. “Like I said before,” she said, patting Spike on the head as she turned to get back to work. “You and Thornton can trust me more than you let yourselves sometimes.”

This did leave Spike thinking about just how much deceiving he and Thornton had been doing to the unknowing Fly Leaf, and he felt bad for just how much they had been lying to her since the beginning…especially after how they had become not just her employees but friends as well. He knew, deep down, she really shouldn’t have any reason to trust them at all…which made him wonder why, after this instance, Fly was putting so much faith in him on the matter. Scarily, he realized she really only had his word that Thorax was even still alive at this point considering how little she had seen of her second employee since he fell ill, and already had cause to doubt Spike’s truthfulness as their conversation had just proved. Why hadn’t she called him out and had taken matters into her own hooves? Why hadn’t she gone over Spike and checked on Thorax herself? Why still give them both such a benefit of the doubt, especially considering Thorax’s health was potentially on the line?

Ultimately, Spike had no answer to these questions, and eventually decided puzzling over it wasn’t going to help anyway. As his friend, Ember the dragon lord, had told them once; “never look a gift horse in the mouth.” Which had led to a lengthy conversation on just why dragons had a saying such as that…but the intended meaning of the saying was what mattered here.

Regardless, the day pressed on, and eventually the business day drew to a close much the same way it had begun, rather slowly and with less business than would be considered normal for a Monday. By the time to close up, there had been so few customers in the shop for the past couple of hours that Spike was able to carry out the usual closing-up tasks he performed every night beforehand, and thus when Fly finally did lock up, he already had all of these tasks largely completed. Thus granted more spare time before dinner than usual, and Fly retreating in back to empty the till from the register and some final accounting work for the night before starting on dinner, Spike chose to make use of this time to head back upstairs and check on Fluttershy and Thorax.

He found the two in largely the same positions as when he had left, with Fluttershy sitting to one side and keeping herself occupied with her textbooks while Thorax kept sleeping in his nest of blankets. However Spike did note that Thorax had clearly changed positions in his sleep since Spike last saw him, which heartened him as it suggested Thorax had gotten more energy to move around a bit more. Also he noted when he entered that Fluttershy glanced at him with a look of barely concealed apprehension and realized his earlier outburst was still as fresh in her mind as it was his.

Spike sighed at this, but opted first to direct his attention to Thorax, stepping closer to look his friend over. “How’s he doing?” he asked.

“Um, still improving,” Fluttershy reported calmly. “His fever’s broken completely now. I’m, uh, thinking that if we can keep him medicated until he’s recovered fully, we should be able to keep it from coming back and for him to get in such a…well…state like he was before.”

Spike noticed that the ominous swelling and inflammation around Thorax’s horn had also been fading, and both developments heartened him and made him increasingly confident Thorax would pull out of this just fine after all. “Has he woken up anytime while I was gone?” he asked.

Fluttershy shook her head. “No, but he has stirred a couple of times, so he might wake soon.” She shrugged. “It depends on how much sleep his body feels it needs still.”

“And he has thrown up anytime while you’ve been up here?” Spike asked, noticing there didn’t seem to be any sign of that having taken place recently.

Again Fluttershy shook her head. “No, he’s kept down everything I’ve given him thus far.”

“Good,” Spike said, letting out a relieved sigh as he sat himself on the floor beside the sleeping nest. “That means he should be able to keep a meal down when he decides he wants one.”

Fluttershy fidgeted uncomfortably at this. “…do you know when he might want to do that?” she asked hesitantly.

Spike shrugged. “When he feels he’s hungry, I suppose. Hopefully he’ll wake up long enough here soon that I can urge him to try eating something before going back to sleep.” He turned to Fluttershy. “In the meantime…we should try and promote a positive emotive atmosphere around him…maybe the smell will spark his appetite.”

Fluttershy blinked. “…smell?” she repeated.

“Yeah, Thorax can smell emotions.”

Fluttershy’s brow wrinkled, puzzled, as she looked at Thorax, then back at Spike. “Really?”

Spike laughed at Fluttershy’s reaction. “That was pretty much how I reacted when I first learned that myself.”

Fluttershy allowed herself a small amused grin in response, but it quickly faded away again and she averted her gaze uncomfortably. A moment of awkward silence fell between the two before Fluttershy finally spoke again. “Look, Spike…I’m sorry if I upset you earlier…”

“No, no, if anything I should apologize for snapping at you like that,” Spike admitted, waving the matter aside. “Despite having little reason to trust me with everything Twilight and the others have told you, you still came to help without question, and I truly can’t tell you how much that means to me, really.” He sighed and curled his knees up against himself, wrapping his tail about his feet to form a ball. “Sometimes it’s just…hard.”

Fluttershy gazed about the room for a moment. “Well…” she began, “…it seems to me you and Thorax have been managing…it seems cozy enough in here.”

Spike gazed about the room he and Thorax had been living in and saw her point. It had begun to look homey and well-lived in. Everything from the once bare bookshelves on the right of the room had been gradually been getting filled up with atlases, books, papers and other knick-knacks, the desk beside them littered with papers with a corkboard plastered with notes hanging above it, to Thorax’s record player standing between the bathroom door and the wardrobe with the neat stack of records sitting beside it gave the room a friendly and comfortable feel. Spike grinned. “We could certainly be doing worse,” he agreed. He uncurled himself a bit. “I guess we have been letting ourselves get settled in here…we hadn’t originally planned to stay in Vanhoover long, but after a while, it just…” he trailed off, unsure how to describe it.

“Became home?” Fluttershy offered.

Spike nodded. “It felt nice to be able to live something like a normal life again,” he said. Then his grin faded slightly. “…even though at times that feeling can only go so deep.”

Fluttershy kept gazing about the room too, thinking. “I really never thought I’d find you here in a place like this,” she admitted softly. “When you didn’t immediately turn up again, we all started to think you had long been taken to the changeling hive as a prisoner…if not worse.” She winced. “We couldn’t even be sure you were still alive.” She averted her gaze again. “Except Twilight…she seems convinced still you and the changeli—Thorax—are still somewhere in Equestria.” She made a faint and sad grin. “I guess she’s right.”

Spike gazed at Fluttershy for a long moment then turned to face her. “How did you and the others all find out what had happened?” he asked finally, quietly.

Fluttershy sighed. “Well, obviously because we were still in Ponyville, we didn’t have any idea until we got a letter from Twilight.” She closed her eyes. “It…was very vague and rather jumbled…I think Twilight wrote it while still fresh from…your banishment…and was too emotional to…to write clearly. All it really said was to announce you were to be considered banished on criminal charges and that due to this event, she and Starlight would be staying in the Crystal Empire at least an extra day. Perhaps realizing this was only going to raise more questions, there was a note at the end from Starlight that promised everything would be explained when they got back.” Fluttershy shook her head. “But until then, we were all shocked and confused…we didn’t even know there had been a changeling involved in all of this, and couldn’t understand how this could have happened, how you of all dragons could be banished…for anything. Pinkie and Rainbow even went as far to decide this was all just some kind of elaborate, not-funny prank you, Twilight, and Starlight had devised. Oh, I wish they were right.” She gazed sadly into the distance, remembering. “The moment we saw Twilight’s face when she did return…we all realized it was absolutely true.”

An uncomfortable silence fell for a moment. “What did she tell you?” Spike prompted finally, realizing he needed to know.

“A lot of what you told me,” Fluttershy admitted. “Just…from her point of view. She gathered us all into the castle and explained you had crossed paths with a changeling that had been, um, bothering the empire and had been convinced by it that it wasn’t actually the enemy Twilight thought it to be. She spoke how you had then been led to cause trouble yourself…largely by trying to break the changeling out of prison. When they couldn’t convince you to, well, stop, it was agreed to banish the changeling instead, thinking that it would be best to be, um, rid of him before he could cause more trouble and then refocus on you again…but uh…”

“…I decided to follow Thorax into banishment too,” Spike filled in tonelessly.

Fluttershy nodded, and looked apologetic. “Yes,” she said. “Except Twilight…wasn’t so…calm about it.”

“I’d imagine not.”

“Um…anyway…Twilight then explained that, because of that, Shining Armor and Princess Cadance had agreed it would be best to enforce the banishment on you as well until things were a bit more figured out, fearing the changelings would decide to use you as a, um, pawn in their plans, and…” Fluttershy shifted uncomfortably, noticing Spike was gradually growing annoyed. “I’m sorry Spike…I’m just repeating what Twilight told us.”

“It's not you I’m mad at, Fluttershy,” Spike explained, and motioned for her to continue.

“Well…anyway…” Fluttershy continued uncertainly. “…Twilight then announced that they had tried to search for you by first light the next day…”

“By first light?” Spike repeated, surprised as he straightened. He and Thorax wouldn’t escape the Crystal Empire until that afternoon. He realized they had possibly been closer to getting caught than he thought. “Really? That soon?”

“Well, I heard from Starlight later they had wanted to begin searching that same evening after you were banished,” Fluttershy explained, missing the significance of why Spike was surprised. “But it was already starting to get dark and the frozen wastes aren’t safe to travel at night, and Shining Armor thought it would be better to give…um…to try and give the changeling a false sense of security and a chance to lower its guard first. But as soon as the sun rose in the morning, I was told guards had been sent out to begin sweeping the area around the Crystal Empire…I think they went as far out as a couple miles even.”

Spike thought for a moment, wondering how he and Thorax had managed to escape the search parties without even realizing they were already out there. “They must have started sweeping the area to the south of the empire,” he reasoned aloud to himself. “I guess that makes sense, because they probably figured we’d try to head for Equestria and not further north…but until we got on that train, we had been hiding more to the northwest if I remember the position of that cave correctly…” he glanced up at Fluttershy and realized she wasn’t following along. “Sorry, I’m just realizing me and Thorax cut it closer than we thought.”

“Oh,” Fluttershy said, though she didn’t seem reassured. “Okay. Well, um…at any rate, when you didn’t turn up and they realized you had managed to get…I think it was a train pass…and got on a train and escaped the area, Twilight made plans to begin and try and follow you to…wherever it was you were going, and stage a rescue. She had already been given permission from Princess Celestia, who knew what was happening by this point, to proceed with her support and any resources they needed, and coordinated with Shining Armor and the crystal guard who Twilight said were going to do the searching at her request to begin. We thought you were trying to go northeast at the time, and Twilight had taken charge of searching any potential stopping places along the train tracks in that direction. She then announced she was suspending her other projects so to focus on this, and asked for our cooperation where we could give it…which we all did…though…we still had plenty of questions…it all seemed so…sudden and unexpected.”

“Didn’t Twilight explain her reasons?” Spike asked darkly, surprised Twilight would let her arguments for her actions be so flimsy.

“No,” Fluttershy answered. “…but Starlight Glimmer did.”

Spike, surprised again, refocused his attention on Fluttershy. “Starlight?”

Fluttershy nodded. “Twilight…Twilight was still pretty shaken up by everything, so there was a lot of details she didn’t want to talk about. It left some things a little…confusing, so after she had finished speaking with us and left to get to work, Starlight, seeing we still had questions, privately pulled us aside and tried to fill in the blanks.” She swallowed heavily. “So, uh, it turns out…things hadn’t been going so well in the Crystal Empire when they left. See…according to Starlight…when you left with, um, Thorax here, Shining worried that if they tried to fight you on this, it’d only make them seem like more of an enemy to you, and Twilight, not wanting to make all this worse, agreed, so they let you go…but they also didn’t think you’d be gone long. Like I, uh, said before, they all thought you were bluffing, and that you’d quickly realize, um…” she paused for a moment. “…that you’d realize what you were putting yourself into and come back on your own…that same day they were thinking. When you didn’t, and it started to get dark, Twilight panicked and wanted to go searching for you…but Shining wouldn’t let her due to the dangers of trying to navigate out in the frozen wastes at dark and made her wait until morning, promising they’d get you back then. But…as you know…that didn’t happen. And when they realized you had instead escaped with the changeling on the train, um…” Fluttershy trailed off.

Spike leaned forward slightly. “Fluttershy?” he prompted.

“…Shining and Twilight had a fight,” the yellow pegasus suddenly blurted out. “They disagreed about how they had handled you leaving and who was right and who was wrong and…” She fidgeted uncomfortably. “…Starlight didn’t really go into too much detail, but uh…it sounded to me some…hurtful things…might have been said.” She averted her gaze, ashamed for revealing something so personal without the knowing of the ponies in question.

Spike blinked to himself, and scowled at himself for the pained tug in his heart this brought about. He didn’t particularly want to be sympathizing with either Shining or Twilight right now.

“I think that’s why the crystal guard became the ones to lead the search for you and so few of the other royal guards have gotten involved,” Fluttershy continued. “…I think it’s Shining’s way of trying to make it up to Twilight.”

Spike’s frown deepened. “I’m guessing then that Twilight was the one who probably said the…hurtful things.”

Fluttershy kept her gaze averted, fidgeting with the end of her long pink mane. “She’s really been…shaken up by all of this. She’s…not been herself, Spike.”

Spike bitterly folded his arms. “I sort of got that impression, Fluttershy,” he stated bluntly.

Fluttershy bit her lip and stayed silent for a moment. “It feels like everything’s been falling apart back in Ponyville, Spike,” she said. “I mean…we all mourned in our own ways of course…Rarity was practically inconsolable for days for example…” Spike couldn’t help but wince at this. “…but eventually we all tried to get back into the normal routine…we had to. Life needed to move on. But…we don’t talk about it, but…it feels like a…um…ah…it all feels like we’re…” she stopped, struggling to find the right word. “…we’re only fooling ourselves, I suppose.” She bit her lip. “Twilight’s engrossed herself in finding you…she rarely does anything else anymore…and we all sort of learned there wasn’t much point trying to…to socialize with her right now. She’s…really only interested in finding you right now.” Fluttershy sighed. “She thought she found a lead when she found evidence you had purchased a meal on the train you had been riding, and that was the first time we had evidence you had actually gone south instead of east, and she calculated all the places you could’ve stopped at and had Shining and the crystal guard search for any sign of you or the changeling in all of these places…and then some, to play it safe…or so Twilight claimed.” Fluttershy paused, a thought coming to her. “In fact…now that I think about it…I thought they had spent a good amount of time searching here in Vanhoover too…”

“They did,” Spike assured, remembering the crystal guards that had come to Vanhoover searching for him and Thorax.

Fluttershy looked at him, surprised. “And they didn’t find you?”

Spike shook his head simply. “Managed to keep low and slip by unnoticed…frankly, I’m a little surprised we managed to do it, but don’t tell Thorax that.”

Fluttershy blinked, but opted not to inquire further. “Well…whatever the case…” she continued. “When they weren’t able to find you at any of those places…we began to assume the worst. Even Princess Celestia…I mean of course she still hopes you could be recovered safely, and will listen to anything that suggests you might…but I think even she has reluctantly conceded by now that…it was too late.”

Spike got curious despite himself. “What about Princess Luna?” he asked, noting the night princess had been largely absent in Fluttershy’s tale.

The mare frowned. “Well…I’m not sure, honestly…Princess Luna hasn’t…um…been very upfront about where she stands on all this…but, uh, she also hasn’t done anything to object, oppose, or do anything to stand in the way, so…I can only assume she believes the same as everypony else…especially Celestia…so I think she’s probably also thinking that you’re…” Fluttershy winced and trailed off. “The point is that ponies are starting to think you’re…well…gone forever, Spike.”

“But not Twilight,” Spike repeated, remembering Fluttershy mentioning that earlier.

Fluttershy nodded. “When you didn’t turn up, that only seemed to make her more…determined.” She frowned, and Spike could tell Fluttershy had her misgivings about Twilight’s approach to the matter. He figured it had become of something of an obsession for Twilight…which would be typical of her. “She’s convinced that you’re still here in Equestria somewhere…just waiting for rescue.”

“I don’t need rescuing,” Spike stressed.

Fluttershy chose not to comment on that, and the fact she chose that didn’t escape Spike’s attention. Regardless, she continued on. “You’ve still been doing a good job hiding,” she pointed out. “It’s gotten to the point Twilight even tried turning to Discord for help, and you know how she feels about—”

“Wait, Discord?” Spike repeated, suddenly feeling a flare of fear rise up within him. He had forgotten all about the draconequus and the possible danger he could present to him and Thorax. “Twilight asked Discord to help? Did he? What did he tell her?” Discord was by no means all-knowing of course, but Spike knew the spirit of chaos was somehow often the first to know about things as big as this, and knew that with his powers, it’d be easy for him to find out anything he didn’t know…including where Spike and Thorax were at.

But Fluttershy shook her head. “No, Discord refused to help…no matter how much Twilight, um, pleaded.”

Spike blinked, not expecting this. “Really?” He tilted his head, confused now. “But why would he refuse to help with something like this?” Always the one to cause trouble, despite being theoretically reformed, and always very smug when the ponies had to turn to him for help, he would’ve thought Discord would’ve jumped at the chance.

Fluttershy could only shrug though. “I honestly don’t know. He won’t even tell me why…he just won’t. I guess maybe…he just wants to stay out of it.”

Spike snorted then. “Smart draconequus,” he muttered.

Fluttershy frowned. “Spike…I understand your…frustrations…” she began. “But…while I can’t say who’s…right or wrong in all of this exactly…the more I think about it…the more I think that…maybe…this is just a, uh, big misunderstanding and…”

“A misunderstanding?” Spike repeated and wheeled onto the pegasus. “Fluttershy, if Twilight had her way, Thorax would be dead right now—abandoned, forgotten, and starved to death in the Frozen North, of that I am completely certain! Tell me how that’s a misunderstanding!”

“Is this really about that though?” Fluttershy challenged suddenly, putting on a rare display of determination. “Or this is more about how you’ve taken offense to Twilight’s views and are simply trying to…rebel?”

Spike’s eyes narrowed. “You tell me, Fluttershy.” He motioned to the sleeping Thorax. “If we were to go to Twilight right now and shout “here we are!” how do you think she’d respond?” His anger started to fade away, replaced with an almost heart-wrenching sadness the longer he gazed at the ill changeling. “Do you really think she’d be willing to take us both in now any more than she was willing to then? Can you guarantee me that she wouldn’t just yank me away from Thorax and then do everything in her power to drive Thorax away forever, if not just flat-out attack him?”

Fluttershy gaze sadly at Spike for a long moment, not answering as her own bravado rapidly vanished too. Eventually she realized Spike’s point and averted her gaze when she recognized she really couldn’t promise that…she couldn’t even begin to promise that. “…she blames Thorax for all of this, for taking you away from her,” she admitted finally. “She…she almost certainly wouldn’t want anything to do with him…more now than before, if anything.” She squeezed her eyes shut to hold back her tears, hating that she had to admit that for a pony she saw as a friend.

Spike, fortunately, sympathized, and stepped forward to sit himself before the pegasus, taking her yellow hoof in his claws. “I know what you’re trying to do, Fluttershy,” he said softly. “And I do appreciate it…but this isn’t about me or Twilight. This is about Thorax. You may not believe it still yourself…but I promise you, all he really wants is a better life than what he had been living before…and he thought he’d find it in Equestria. Instead, he’s gotten nothing but threats and poor treatment until he met me…in Equestria, Fluttershy…the land that’s supposed to be about friendship and acceptance, love and tolerance. I did all of this, because he deserves better Fluttershy. He has just as much right to all of that as any pony, but thus far I’m the only one willing to give it to him.” His gaze softened, and again Fluttershy could see past his disguise and see the sad and confused baby dragon behind it. “That’s the reason I did all of this…so I could not only stand for that, help him defend that…but also ensure he stayed safe from those that would do him harm, intentionally or otherwise…I will not permit him coming to harm…and I don’t intend to stop now.”

Fluttershy grinned sadly, and pulled Spike into a hug. “Oh Spike…” she murmured as she did so. “You’re such a good little dragon…maybe better than us all…” Spike could only blink in surprise at this statement. Fluttershy went on. “But…everything this has put you through…and so young…” She pulled away a bit, gazing at him worriedly. “Is it even right to banish someone as young as you?”

Spike’s anger flickered back in his eyes. “It depends on whether you count my age in pony years, or dragon years,” he stated flatly. “You’d have to ask Twilight about that.”

Fluttershy’s grin turned into a worried frown, and she used her hoof to lift Spike’s chin. “I’m just not sure I like what it’s turning you into, Spike,” she concluded finally.

Spike simply gazed at her for a long moment. “I guess that’s just the price I had to pay,” he conceded simply.

Fluttershy was silent for a moment, averting her gaze, but eventually she brought it back on Spike, giving him a hopeful grin. “Look…despite all of that…I just want you to know that no matter what…you still have a friend in me…and I think I can vouch that for the other girls too…Rarity, Rainbow, Pinkie, Applejack…” she stopped short of including Twilight as well, but Spike opted not to comment on it, appreciating the kindness she was displaying more and decided he wanted to bask in it unsoiled for the moment. “…if worse comes to worse…if all this doesn’t…doesn’t work out…you can still count on us, at least.”

Spike managed a small grin, touched by the gesture, even though he wasn’t certain it was really one he could guarantee on given his and Thorax’s predicament. “Thank you, Fluttershy,” he said softly.

It was then that Thorax interrupted it all, the sleeping changeling suddenly snorting and stirring in his sleep. Spike whipped around to look at his friend in time to see the changeling’s tongue begin to flick at the air in his sleep. The motion was very familiar to Spike, and the sight alone heartened him considerably.

Fluttershy was confused though. “…what’s he doing?” she asked softly.

“He’s feeding,” Spike murmured in reply, grinning. He moved to stand by Thorax’s side, patting his friend as he watched the changeling continue to lap at the emotion in the air in sporadic bursts. “Finally, he’s feeding.”

Fluttershy had gone almost still at this though. “He…he is?” she repeated with notable hesitation.

Spike glanced back at her, realizing her concern. “Don’t worry,” he assured her softly. “It doesn’t hurt.”

Fluttershy stared at him for a moment, looking uncertain. “But…”

“Thorax feeds off me all the time,” Spike confessed, interrupting, “Often without me even realizing it. If anything, whatever emotions you’re feeling at a given moment just fade slightly…and he never takes more than he needs.” He grinned. “That was one of the first things Thorax promised me he would never do…be greedy and overfeed. And I believe him.”

Fluttershy still seemed hesitant. “No offense Spike…but…how can you be so sure of that? I mean…even the best of us can give in to weakness if…if tempted.”

Spike merely chuckled. “You don’t know him like I do, Fluttershy,” he said. “I wish you could take the time to do so though…but no, trust me. Thorax couldn’t hurt a fly.” His chuckle turned to a laugh. “One time, a spider got caught in the bathtub, and Thorax was absolutely terrified of it…but he refused to do what others would and just wash it down the drain, or harm it in any way. He wouldn’t go near the darn thing, but he still wanted to help it by insuring it got safely back outside where it belonged. So we had to get Fly Leaf up here to catch it in a cup, because I certainly wasn’t going near that spider either.” He grinned proudly on Thorax’s behalf. “If that isn’t a testament of his docile nature, I don’t know what is.”

Fluttershy shared the grin briefly, but while she wasn’t quite so stiff about it, she still watched Thorax sporadically lap at the air warily, unable but to fear for the worst. Spike didn’t pressure her on it though…even he had needed time to adjust to the idea of being a source of food. As a result though, both fell silent for the next several minutes, opting not to speak further for now. And it was a good thing that they did, because it was during this moment of silence that Fly Leaf came knocking on the room’s door.

“Spark?” she called through the door, unaware still Fluttershy was present. “If I can borrow you from Thornton for a moment, I need your help downstairs in the kitchen, please.”

“Okay!” Spike called back, motioning for Fluttershy to keep quiet. “Just give me a second and I’ll meet you down there, Fly!”

They waiting until they heard Fly walk back downstairs before turning to each other to speak. “I’ll be back,” Spike promised the mare as he turned for the door. “Just stay up here and keep being quiet. Now the shop’s closed and empty, sound is probably going to carry a bit better in this whole building.” He started to leave but then doubled back. “Oh, and I guess you’ve haven’t had much to eat yourself in a little bit, so I’ll see if I can slip some dinner up here for you too.”

“Thank you Spike,” Fluttershy said with a nod, and watched as the dragon departed, before once again turning her attention to Thorax and was left to once again wonder upon the peculiar circumstances she found herself caught in the middle…and to better determine just where exactly she stood in the matter.

Author's Note

Working a late shift tonight, so getting this posted and out a little earlier in the day than usual to compensate. :twilightsmile:

Just One Pony

Spike returned shortly thereafter, having finished dinner and as promised, brought some of the dinner rolls and cheesy macaroni back for Fluttershy. He was in good spirits, reporting that Fly Leaf was going to be downstairs where she couldn’t overhear for another hour or so, had been told of Thorax’s continued improvements, and had agreed to trust his care to Spike still for another day, assuming his improving continued. She would not send for a doctor or attempt to intervene herself on the matter for now, which Fluttershy learned for the first time was something she had been pressing to do. This added a whole new factor for her to consider in the matter, as it made her realize the fact that Fly Leaf had apparently chosen not to do this spoke volumes about how much she personally trusted Spike and Thorax, even though she didn’t know of their true identities.

“So,” Spike said as Fluttershy accepted the plate of leftovers he had brought her and began to eat, his gaze wandering to Thorax’s sleeping form. “How’s he doing? Still improving?”

Fluttershy nodded as she delicately bit into a dinner roll and was well pleased by the taste. Apparently Fly Leaf was a fair cook too. “Yes,” she assured the dragon. “He woke up for a little bit while you were gone, and we…talked.”

Spike perked up at this, and grinned hopefully at Fluttershy. “And?”

Fluttershy bit her lip. “Um…well…” her hesitation quickly made Spike’s grin fade and gradually lower his head as he realized speaking with Thorax hadn’t help to sway her further. Fluttershy winced apologetically. “I’m sorry, Spike.” As she watched as the dragon sadly sat down on the floor, she sighed and came to a conclusion. “But since I told Thorax…I might as well tell you too…I have a reason for that.”

She explained Twilight’s theory about a hive mind playing a factor in all of this. Unlike Thorax, Spike wasn’t especially surprised by this reveal. “Of course Twilight jumped to that conclusion,” he grumbled, glumly propping his head up with his claws as he sat cross-legged on the floor. “For being such a smart pony, she sometimes has an easy time missing what the facts are really telling her to focus on what she thinks should be the more likely outcome.” He rolled his eyes. “No wonder she’s so prone to panic attacks.”

“Look, I don’t know if Twilight is right or not,” Fluttershy said, choosing not to comment on the matter. “But…you have to understand Spike…I can’t just overlook it as a possibility now if there’s still any chance it’s true.”

“But it’s not,” Spike stressed, scowling at her. “Changelings don’t do hive minds anymore.”

“Thorax told me.”

“Then I really shouldn’t have to be telling you any of this, Fluttershy. Twilight’s fears are unfounded. We’re telling you the truth.”

“And I want to believe you Spike, I really, really, do…but…with all of this in mind…how can I ever be certain you really are?”

This made Spike hesitate, realizing he had no guaranteed way of showing it. He clearly hated it, because his scowl twisted into something even more severe. “We are, Fluttershy…you have to believe us. It doesn’t even matter if there was a hive mind, I doubt Thorax would even have the skill to try and connect me to it…when he last linked with me, it was clear he was struggling to control it, so…”

He trailed off as he realized Fluttershy had gone very still and wide-eyed at this, food suddenly forgotten. Gradually the dragon realized why, and his claws involuntarily went to the bow tie still about his neck, the reason such a mental link had happened. “Fluttershy, he’s not controlling my mind.”

“But Spike…if he’s already been in your mind…how can you know if anything is true and real?” she replied warily, clearly alarmed by this reveal.

Spike frowned, troubled by the fact this troubled Fluttershy so much and not knowing how to make it right, to express how and why he was so certain there was no need for alarm. “Didn’t Thorax explain all of this to you already?”

“Not that he’s…linked with your mind once already,” Fluttershy said, then continued monotonously, “It must have slipped his mind.”

Spike winced at the uncharacteristic and distrustful tone Fluttershy’s voice took. “Fluttershy, he only did it as a favor to me just to help me recall a lost memory, and it was very brief and flimsy…I doubt he could’ve done much with that weak of a link or he could do much better if he wanted. And he had my complete permission to do it—he refused to do it if he didn’t. If he wanted to use it to harm me or manipulate me, why would he do all of that?”

“But how do you know he hasn’t just manipulated your thoughts to make you think that’s what happened?” Fluttershy asked, growing more panicked the longer she thought about it, and Spike began to worry he was going to lose her trust completely unless he did something to reassure her.

“You think I didn’t ask him that same thing after that link?” Spike asked, and shook his head. “Look, Fluttershy, I don’t know how else to prove it to you…but I trusted Thorax then, and I trust him still now. He is my friend. He wouldn’t harm me. He would sooner harm himself than do that to me. We are just trying to keep each other safe, and if we can, build better lives for both of ourselves. Above all, I beyond a doubt trust and believe that Thorax has done no such thing to manipulate me, in any way. I believe that with every fiber of my body.” He gazed sadly at Fluttershy. “Why would I be so adamant to make you believe that if it wasn’t true?” He gazed at her for a long moment when she made no move to respond. “Fluttershy, would you really turn us in over something you can’t prove has happened either?”

“Not with all the doubt I sense that she’s putting off, I hope.”

Both Fluttershy and Spike jumped at the sound of the new voice and turned to see Thorax quietly lying on his sleeping nest, awake again. Immediately distracted and excited to see his friend awake, Spike was instantly by his side. “Hey bud,” he said softly, patting the changeling gently while Thorax sleepily stretched, popping his joints. “How are you feeling?”

“Improving,” Thorax responded, grinning at Spike. “And glad I seem to be out of danger for now…though a little frustrated that I can’t sleep better with you two being as loud as you are.”

Spike winced. “Sorry.”

“It’s alright, I understand why. It’s a subject I can forgive you for being passionate on Spike…I would be too.” Thorax glanced over at Fluttershy. “It’s her choice though…and only her choice. We have no more right to force her on it than she does for us.”

Spike frowned, and glanced over at Fluttershy. Fluttershy avoided eye contact. Spike licked his lips to regather his thoughts. “Please Fluttershy,” he said, resuming the discussion. “I’ve already got Twilight turned against me…I don’t want you turned against me either.”

“Oh Spike,” Fluttershy breathed, tearing up. “I’m not turning against you at all! I really wish I could just forget my fears and give you my full support, but…” she looked away, ashamed. “…you know I’m not a brave pony…and how I can be so…wishy-washy. I just…have too many doubts and…and I don’t know what to do about them.”

Spike looked at his claws for a long moment. “Please don’t tell Twilight where we are Fluttershy,” he pleaded. “There must be something we can do to convince you.”

“Nothing that she wouldn’t still be able to question its authenticity over, I’m afraid,” Thorax noted sadly but seriously. “I have been thinking about it since we spoke, Fluttershy…I wish I had something I could at least suggest.”

Fluttershy nodded, appreciating that they were trying. “Maybe I should talk to the other girls about this,” she began to suggest. “Bring up what you’ve told me with them and discuss it some more…maybe with a few more heads involved to think it through…”

“But how the hay are you going to do that without revealing where we are?” Spike asked. “The moment Twilight catches wind that you know anything, she’s going to force you to tell all!”

“You don’t know that!” Fluttershy pointed out. “And anyway, I was thinking of…leaving her out at first, and just speaking with the other girls…Rarity, Applejack, Rainbow Dash, and Pinkie Pie…maybe even Starlight Glimmer. If we can work something out together that we all can agree what to do…then maybe all of us approaching Twilight together can sway her before she does something…reckless.”

“But what if they disagree, decide to go to Twilight themselves, or just let something slip?” Spike asked, fearing the danger of discovery.

“And how can you convince them if you aren’t even convinced yourself?” Thorax added wisely.

Fluttershy frowned, seeing their points and bowed her head. “Would them finding out really be so bad, though?” she asked. “Isn’t that what you'd want to do in the end?”

Spike hesitated. “Well…yeah…but Twilight…”

“Twilight already hates herself for making a mess of this in the first place, and…maybe she doesn’t agree with you still, but…” Fluttershy shook her head. “I really don’t think Twilight would be so foolish as to ignore her friends if we thought we needed to act differently. She wouldn’t turn against all of us too, now would she?”

Spike shook his head, and smiled a meaningless, sad, grin. “I had thought the same thing right before the banishment, Fluttershy,” he stated sadly. “We really shouldn’t underestimate what Twilight could do…or anypony else she might try to inform or rally to help. How would Princess Celestia react if she knew all of this? Cadance? Shining Armor?” Fluttershy moved to respond, but upon failing to form an argument, again avoided his gaze in shame. So Spike turned to Thorax. “Thorax…I know what you’re going to say, but there must be something we can do to show her we’re being honest…”

“You mean…as told from our point of view?” Thorax inquired, raising a tired eyebrow at the dragon.

Spike involuntarily gazed at Thorax’s horn, understanding what Thorax was implying. “Do you think it’d help?” he asked

“No,” Thorax said, shaking his head. “And I couldn’t even if I wanted to, Spike,” He chose that moment to raise his hoof to run at the base of his horn. Even though the ominous swelling that had formed there had all but vanished now, it was clear to Spike the area still ached. “Not when I’m in this condition. I wouldn’t be able to form a stable mental link…or probably any kind of link at all. It’d have to wait until after I’ve recovered more…and that’s assuming I would even have Fluttershy’s permission. I wouldn’t do it without it.”

Fluttershy, listening in to all of this, was at least pleased by Thorax’s courtesy, but she had her issues with Spike’s unspoken suggestion too. “I don’t think it’d help either, Spike,” she said. “Never mind my misgivings about it all…think about how it might look to the others.” She shrugged. “And anyway…I don’t think I could wait long enough for Thorax to get the chance to try it.”

“You said you didn’t need to be back at Ponyville right away,” Spike reminded.

“Not for a couple of days, but it might be as much as another week before Thorax recovers fully, considering just how sick he got,” Fluttershy reasoned. “And anyway, it’s not me I’m thinking about.” She nodded her head at the door to their room, motioning to the mare that was still downstairs, unaware. “Surely your…employer…is going to notice I’m here before then, and ask questions.”

“She has a point, we’re pushing our luck with Fly Leaf enough as it is,” Thorax agreed, and turned to Spike. “Where do we stand on Miss Fly currently?”

Spike fiddled with his claws sheepishly. “She nearly decided to take charge herself and take you to a doctor, and would’ve if Fluttershy hadn’t arrived today and turned things around.” Spike held up his claws, holding his finger and thumb close together to show how near to discovery they had come. “She was this close to figuring out you weren’t a pony…and it all would’ve unraveled from there.”

Thorax then looked back at Fluttershy. “Then we are at least in Fluttershy’s debt,” he noted calmly. He turned sad. “I’m sorry it’s under such circumstances though. If it helps, had I known Spike planned to ask for your help, I would’ve told him not to. It’s not fair of us to get you mixed up in all of this too.”

Fluttershy was starting to tear up again, feeling ashamed she couldn’t provide more support for the two. “I’m just sorry I can’t be of even more help,” she mumbled pitifully, beginning to weep. “This hasn’t been fair for anyone, and I hate that I can’t do more, that I…I just don’t know what to do…I just…don’t…” she trailed off, unable to speak further between her quiet sobbing.

Spike and Thorax sat and watched her sadly, both wishing there was more they could do back for the pegasus mare that had managed to assist them even this much. Spike started to rise, opening his mouth to speak, but Thorax gently reached out with one hoof and stopped him, shaking his head. “Let’s give her a moment,” he advised softly, so not to disturb Fluttershy. “Give her some time to try and sort this all out.” When he saw that Spike seemed dissatisfied with that, he nodded his head in the direction of his record player. “How about you go put on a record for me? You remember which record of Doctor Hooves I’m on now, right?”

Spike nodded and silently went and put on the record in question, starting it to play without protest. As the recorded episode of the radio drama played, Spike sat back and idly listened, appreciating the distraction it provided. Thorax continued to drift in and out of a dozing state, but he attentively listened to the episode regardless, as was expected of him. Fluttershy fell silent as it played, and spent most of it gazing at the floor, fiddling with her hooves. It was unclear if she was either listening, deep in thought, or alternating through both. Nonetheless, she kept her silence.

Most of the way through the first episode on the record, Fly Leaf came upstairs and knocked on the door, calling through the closed door to bid Spike and Thorax a good night as she turned in for the evening. Spike returned the well-wishing by calling back, as did Thorax, though raising his voice so caused it come out raspy. But Fly Leaf was pleased to hear Thorax speak, and stopped to converse with the changeling through the closed door on how he was doing. Thorax simply conveyed that he was improving and that he or Spike would keep her posted. When Fly expressed a desire to slip in to check on him, which would be problematic as he still couldn’t form a disguise as sick as he was, Thorax dissuaded her by stating that he didn’t want to risk Fly catching his illness and that he didn’t really want to stay up and chat anyway, truthfully admitting that he was feeling quite tired. Though Fly expressed doubt about the fact that Thorax was contagious (pointing out that Spike had avoided catching the illness), she agreed Thorax needed to rest and left them be.

After she left, Fluttershy, who had naturally been silent throughout the whole exchange as Fly wasn’t to know she was there, spoke up to reaffirm that Thorax’s sickness wasn’t contagious. Thorax reaffirmed that it wasn’t, and admitted he had only told Fly that it was so to keep her from walking in while he was unable to disguise his changeling body.

“I know it’s a lie,” Thorax added apologetically, and he did appear troubled by it. “I don’t like doing it, especially after everything Miss Fly has done for us. But…it’s either that or risk being caught.”

Fluttershy nodded, understanding. She then fell quiet again, and Thorax and Spike turned their attention back to the playing record, listening as the first episode finished and moved on into the second. She did not speak again until the record finished playing, well after sunset. As Spike rose to remove the record from the turntable, Fluttershy also rose suddenly and went to her saddlebags. Thorax, who had closed his eyes to wearily doze during the final third of the record but was still awake enough to listen, opened an eye to watch the pegasus root through the bags.

“Something the matter?” he asked as he watched.

“Oh, no,” Fluttershy quickly assured simply and proceeded to pull out four medicine bottles, placing them beside Thorax’s sleeping nest. “Just pulling out all the medicine I’ve been giving Thorax for his illness.”

Spike, having put the record away, stepped over, puzzled. “Why?” he asked innocently.

Fluttershy didn’t respond until after she had finished. “So all of this should be enough to keep Thorax’s symptoms under control,” the yellow mare instructed aloud to the two, tapping the tops of the bottles with one hoof. “The instructions are on the sides of the bottles, as well as how often they should be taken and for what symptoms. Do not take any of these medicines more frequently than it says on the bottle. Thorax, you’ve already had all of these doses recently enough that you should be good until morning, and then you will probably need to take all of them again. Stop taking them once the symptoms stop reappearing as they wear off. I think if you keep doing that, you should pull out just fine, considering how much improvement you’ve shown just for today.” She proceeded to lift her saddlebags onto her back, and grinned faintly as she patted the edge of the cloths that made up Thorax’s sleeping nest. “Also, once Thorax has recovered adequately, you’ll want to have all of these cleaned, in case any infections linger within them.”

She then proceeded to strap up her saddlebags in silence while Spike and Thorax numbly watched, beginning to catch on to what Fluttershy intended to do. “You’re leaving,” Thorax noted aloud, his voice coming out a little gravelly.

“And drink plenty of water!” Fluttershy suddenly added as an afterthought, brushing her mane back into position as she straightened, the saddlebags now secure on her back again. “It’ll help clear out the gunk, and keep your voice from sounding so…raspy.”

Spike’s brow furrowed, trying to figure out why Fluttershy had decided so suddenly to depart. “Fluttershy…”

“You don’t need me staying here, Spike,” Fluttershy interrupted, putting a friendly hoof on the dragon’s shoulder. “You two have got this. Just keep getting Thorax the medicine like I instructed, and he’ll be fine. Besides…” she lowered her gaze knowingly. “…for me to stay is only going to risk you two getting caught more…it’ll be better for me to just go now and not trouble you further.”

“You haven’t been any trouble, Fluttershy,” Spike interjected sadly, starting to realize what Fluttershy planned.

“If anything, you have been more help than we could have ever expected, and we owe you a great deal for that,” Thorax added.

Fluttershy, however, shook her head. “You two don’t owe me anything,” she stressed firmly, and she seemed quite adamant about it. She had clearly made up her mind already. “If anything, I owe you two far more than I can give right now…and I apologize for that, but…I…I realize I just don’t have…have it in me to do it.”

Spike lowered his head. “Thank you anyway, Fluttershy,” he said sadly. “For everything…I’m sorry it couldn’t be on better terms.”

Fluttershy stepped forward to hug the sad dragon. “I meant what I said, Spike,” she said softly. “We all miss you dearly…and I think you do too. If, somehow, you find a way to ever come back…”

“I can do that,” Spike promised seriously. “I just hope such a chance will come.”

“I hope someday it does,” Fluttershy said, and pulled away to regard them both again. “You, uh, should know that I’m…I’m not without my misgivings about all of this still…but I’m convinced enough to think that…that you two aren’t going to harm anypony. You’re both being too kind to each other and those around you…if you really meant to do harm…I’d like to think you two wouldn’t be like that still. I’m just not confident other ponies are going to see it the way I do just yet.” She straightened suddenly, putting on a brave face. “But nonetheless, I will not tell anyone I know where you are and how to find you. In fact, as far as anypony is concerned, I know nothing more than I did before I received your letter Spike. In fact, since it hasn’t already come up, I did burn that letter just before I left for Vanhoover, so no one would find it and read what it says, so to keep your secret.”

Spike grinned faintly. “You promise?”

Fluttershy nodded, and began to mime out a familiar motion. “Cross my heart, hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye,” she vowed then grinned herself. “You’re still a good friend Spike…I’d hate to do anything to lose that friendship. And you know what Pinkie says. Breaking a promise is the fastest way to lose a friend.”

“FOREVER!” Pinkie exclaimed loudly, suddenly jolting upright in her bed, her shout causing a thump followed by a shout of warning to quiet down from Mr. Cake downstairs, before flopping back down onto her mattress and was immediately asleep again, like nothing had happened.

Spike’s grin grew at the pegasus’s words. “Bless you, Fluttershy.”

“Are you sure you want to leave now?” Thorax inquired, raising his head as Fluttershy finished preparing to go. “It’s getting late and it’s doubtful there’ll be any trains leaving…I’m sure we can find a way for you to spend the night here so you can leave in the morning.”

“Thank you, but I should probably leave now while Miss Leaf isn’t going to be watching,” Fluttershy reasoned, turning her attention to Thorax as she stepped towards the window seat. “Besides, since I wasn’t sure how long I was going to need to stay here, if at all, I made it a point to know where the nearest hotel is. I can stay there until the morning train comes tomorrow.”

“So that just leaves getting you out of the shop without alerting Fly,” Spike reasoned, and winced to himself. “I could probably get you downstairs just fine, but the front and back doors are going to be locked for the night with those high-security locks of Fly’s, and I never could figure out how to work those things…”

“But I do, I can do it,” Thorax grunted, and started to try and heave himself up onto his hooves weakly.

“No, no, that’s fine, I can slip out another way,” Fluttershy quickly intervened, and fluttered her yellow wings quickly to remind them that she was a pegasus. She carefully stepped up onto the window seat and pulled open the curtains to open the window. “I can just slip out here and fly down into a nearby street.”

“All right then,” Spike said, moving to the window seat himself while Thorax lowered himself back down into his sleeping nest, repositioning himself so he could watch Fluttershy depart. “You travel safely.” He paused as Fluttershy started to timidly step out the open window before speaking again to draw her attention. “And Fluttershy? Seriously…thank you for everything.”

Fluttershy nodded, still grinning. It looked like she was satisfied with what she was able to do and seemed confident this was making the right choice for now. “You too Spike. I’m glad to see you are still all right…and in the company of friends.” This statement made Spike’s own grin double in size. “You take care, okay?” She started forward again then stopped again. “Oh, and Spike? Please don’t be so hard on Twilight…she just doesn’t understand yet what she’s been doing…but I still hope you will have the chance to change that…on your own terms.”

Spike nodded. “Okay,” he said, even though in the back of his head he had doubts it would happen.

Fluttershy fidgeted to herself for a moment. “Well…goodbye then,” she said.

“Goodbye,” Spike and Thorax chorused together, Spike waving with his claws.

Fluttershy returned the motion, then spread her wings and with jump, vaulted herself into the air. She swooped off into the night sky, sailing over and above the next street over, before drifting back down to the ground to slip behind the line of buildings that divided them from her, and then she was gone from sight. Spike leaned on the window sill, staring out into the night a few moments afterwards, Thorax leaned over so he could see as well, but was focusing most of his attention on Spike, watching the dragon’s reaction, sensing his emotions.

“Do you think she’ll keep her promise?” Thorax asked softly.

Spike nodded confidently, not doubting it for a second. “She will…just for all the wrong reasons, maybe.” He pulled his eyes off the night sky and glanced at Thorax. “You ever hear the story of what an ostrich does when faced with danger?”

Thorax gazed at Spike for a long moment. “She’s just one pony, Spike,” he reminded gently. “There’s only so much we can expect her to do, and she’s already done far more than that.”

“Yeah,” Spike sighed, turning back to look out at the night sky. He moved to close the window again. “Let’s just hope she won’t be the last to do so.”

Great Icky Purge

They heard nothing further from Fluttershy, so both were left to assume she was able to return to Ponyville without further event. Spike expected there would be no further contact from Fluttershy too unless either they turned to her for assistance again, or something transpired that caused her to feel it necessary to break the silence. Of the two, Spike preferred the former option, liking the idea that they could count on Fluttershy again if needed, but he also agreed that it would be best they only do so when absolutely necessary and all other options are exhausted first, so to minimize risk of discovery. Thorax also requested that they still be on guard for at least the next following week and ready to flee the Vanhoover area should Fluttershy give them away, either intentionally or otherwise, as a precaution. As the days passed and they saw no signs of any danger of that though, it was clear Fluttershy meant it when she would keep what she knew about them secret for now.

Nonetheless, the whole encounter and how close they had come to getting caught brought back up the subject of whether or not it was really wise for them to remain in Vanhoover any longer.

“I know you like it here in Vanhoover Thorax,” Spike assured his friend as he sat beside the changeling’s sleeping nest. “I do too, and I don’t really want to leave any more than you probably do…but while I trust Fluttershy with my life, the fact she knows our secret now has added to the chances of us getting discovered…so I can’t help but wonder if we might be better off moving on to another location regardless, just to play it safe. That way, if Fluttershy somehow lets it slip where we are, we aren’t in danger of getting discovered. And you’re the one who’s on guard and ready for her to let something slip, not me.”

Thorax nodded along with Spike’s reasoning while he sipped from a glass of water and cleared the lingering congestion from his throat. “I see your reasoning Spike,” he said and sighed. “And frankly, you’re probably right. It’s just…I guess I’ve let myself become attached to living here, and maybe that wasn’t a smart thing to do considering we weren’t planning to stay long term in the first place, but…” he shook his head, scratching at the peeling chitin on his neck. “Assuming we did leave…where would we go? What would we tell Fly Leaf? What would we do once there?”

Spike thought about it for a second. “I guess we could go wherever we like,” he admitted, “wherever we can find work or funds to continue to be able to support ourselves at least.” He shrugged. “We’d have to look into it, I suppose. As for Fly Leaf…we told her when we took the job that we didn’t plan to stay long term…she’s already waiting for us to decide to up and leave…all we need to tell her is that we’re doing so now. Knowing her, she’d probably help us move out.”

Thorax frowned. “I’d just hate to leave her high and dry after she’s come to rely on us so much,” he said. He sighed. “And we’d still only be able to tell her so much, wouldn’t we? Could we even tell her where we’d be going, wherever that is?”

Spike frowned and realized his point. “Probably not,” he reasoned. “Otherwise, if someone did figure out we had been in Vanhoover, then they could just use Fly Leaf to get redirected to us. We’d be better off hiding that from her, and if she presses, give her some false location.”

Thorax immediately shook his head at this though. “No,” he stressed. “We’re already lying enough to that poor mare, I don’t want to add one more to it, not after everything she’s done for the both of us.”

Spike winced, and secretly shared Thorax’s revulsion to the matter. Both of them had become much more consciously aware about how much they had been lying to Fly Leaf after recent events, and both had been feeling especially guilty about it, especially as Fly Leaf continued to show both complete trust and aid for them. But he didn’t see a way around it. “Look, let’s just…be thinking about it for the next few days,” he urged. “And then we can sit back down and decide if we’re actually going to stay or move on. Okay?”

Thorax frowned, looking like he had already decided on the matter, but he nodded in agreement. “Very well,” he said.

In the meantime, Spike and Thorax worked to settle back into their individual lives and affairs, restoring what was the normal routine for them. Using the medication Fluttershy had left behind as instructed, Thorax continued to improve and recover from his illness at a gradual rate, but still faster than Fluttershy had predicted before she left. By midway through that same week, Thorax had recovered enough that he was more mobile again, capable of keeping on his hooves long enough to wander to and from the bathroom and about their room under his own power. Doing so still tired him out quickly and he still confessed to feeling “awful,” but it still heartened them both to see.

By that same time, the infection in Thorax’s horn had faded enough that he was able to resume basic magic and found he could raise his disguise and be able to maintain it flawlessly for a number of minutes. This was just long enough that Fly Leaf was able to step into the room and visit briefly with her ill employee without risk of her discovering he was actually a changeling and not a unicorn pony. This cheered Fly considerably and set to rest any lingering doubts she seemed to have about Thorax’s health, to the point that she sat down and apologized to both Spike and Thorax for her distrust on the matter.

Thorax wouldn’t hear it, though, and instead took full responsibility for it. “Looking back, you had every right to be concerned Miss Fly, and I deeply apologize for putting you through that,” he told his employer during her visit while he was able to keep himself disguised. “It was me that urged Spark to try and keep my illness to just between him and me and try and keep you out of it, and I admit that I did that out of vanity for my own private affairs…but I shouldn’t have. I very nearly brought serious harm to myself doing so, and I recognize that, as well as the trouble it nearly brought you and Spark…and that was wrong of me to do.”

Fly chose to wave the matter aside then. “It’s all water under the bridge regardless now, so I think we’re all better off moving on,” she said. “Let’s just…agree to not do it again, okay?”

“Agreed,” Spike and Thorax unanimously concurred without argument. Neither of them was eager to put themselves through that more than once.

By that Thursday, Thorax continued to show improvement to the point that Thorax himself decided he was out of the woods when his body began what Spike later came to think of as the “great icky purge.” Back when he was falling ill, Thorax had made mention that the glands he used for creating a cocoon were becoming clogged up, and while Spike hadn’t asked for more details both out of respect for Thorax’s privacy and the well-being of his own stomach, he figured they had remained clogged up during the time Thorax was sick. That changed Thursday when Thorax woke up that morning to discover his glands had both loosened up and were now working to drain out the build-up as well as any lingering infections within.

This occurred through either one of two sets of glands as Spike discovered. One was through what Thorax referred to as his “gel glands,” a pair of glands located in the back of his mouth that could secrete the green gel-like substance so commonly associated with changelings. In normal usage they were for creating cocoons or projectile spitting the gel to serve as impromptu traps or other purposes, completely under Thorax’s control and discretion of course. But in this case however, the glands began draining into Thorax’s mouth whether he wanted them to or not. For Thorax, this was relieving as it was finally draining a pent-up pressure that had been in his head, but for Spike it was notably less pleasant as it meant every time Thorax coughed or sneezed, small globs of icky green goo came flying out of the changeling’s mouth that then needed to be cleaned.

It thus went without saying that this reaffirmed Thorax’s need to cover his mouth when coughing or sneezing, and at first resorted to doing it into tissues that he kept close by. But when even the tissues proved to not being resilient enough to withstand the onslaught, Thorax eventually resorted to using a bucket to catch it instead. Either way, the mere sight of the gel disgusted Spike, so he didn’t really care so long as it meant there was less mess he would have to wipe up. That wasn’t the only problem the excess gel caused though, because inevitably a lot of the gel Thorax was secreting ended up swallowed, and eventually that upset Thorax’s guts enough that he ended up having to make frequent, occasionally urgent, trips to the restroom to sort out the aftermath. Again, unpleasant, but Thorax reasoned it was still good in the end, on the grounds that it was again aiding to clean out any lingering infections in Thorax’s body, though Spike told him upfront that he didn’t care to dwell on how.

The drainage also occurred through a second set of glands that were revealed to be located at the tip of the frog in the underside of each of Thorax’s forehooves, which he referred to as “resin glands.” All changelings had them, but only some of them made significant use of them, namely the structores, or builders, within the hive, as the glands, when properly coaxed, produced a sticky blue-green substance that, upon hardening, formed a chalky solid used for building things in the hive. Because Thorax had never served as a structor, he never had to rely on them too extensively (and was glad for it, because apparently working in such a position forcibly heightened one’s metabolism massively so to keep the glands producing resin continuously and was purportedly stressful as a result), but his still produced resin that regularly needed to be cleaned out (and apparently Thorax had done so privately without Spike’s knowing twice before since meeting the dragon).

But as these glands had also become clogged during Thorax’s illness, the flushing his body was undergoing struck them too, causing them to secrete the resin in regular amounts without his control. Thorax was thankfully able to keep it largely under control by regularly wiping his forehooves with tissues, but nonetheless urged Spike to avoid the discomfort of touching his hooves. And they found Thorax was still inadvertently tracking trace amounts of resin everywhere, as soon a dusty trail of blue-green hoofprints began to fade into view on the floor of their room. All in all then, it meant their room was a rather unpleasant place to be that Thursday for Spike, but nonetheless, Spike shouldered the duty of cleaning up after the ill changeling where needed.

Luckily for him, he quickly learned that a preferred bleach-blended cleaner Fly Leaf used in the shop worked surprisingly well to dissolve both the gel and resin Thorax was leaving, and once dissolved, both were easy enough to wipe away. Upon discovering this, Spike used the same cleaner to finally clear away the failed cocoon Thorax had left in their bathtub that Spike had otherwise been at a loss for figuring out how to clean up, the cleaner breaking down the failed cocoon enough that, upon adding some water, allowed the remains to be washed down the drain without problem. Thorax was surprised the cleaner was so effective on both of these secretions though, as his past experience was that they generally had to be scraped off with some effort. So he took note that the cleaner instead made it easy to clear away both, to the point he admitted he almost wanted to send some kind of anonymous warning back to his hive about it.

“Just imagine what would happen if this cleaner was spilled in my hive,” he said, envisioning the worst. “Use enough of it, and you could feasibly break down the whole hive!”

“Oh yeah, I can just see the pony armies all converging to attack now, armed with nothing but spring cleaning supplies,” Spike joked, who wasn’t too worried about it. If the changelings had gone this long without it being a problem, he expected it wasn’t going to change anytime soon, and pointed out it wasn’t the hive itself that would be seen as a threat to any pony that might learn this tidbit; it was the changelings that lived within it…and they couldn’t be “cleaned away” nearly so easily.

Whatever the case, Thorax’s “purge” went on for most of that day, but thankfully by that evening had begun to wind down as his body began to relax back into a more regular state. And after a good night’s rest that night, Thorax awoke rejuvenated and reenergized, so much so that, despite a few lingering symptoms such as a mild cough and a few remaining aches—both easily treatable with the medicine Fluttershy had left them—he felt recovered enough to try and go back to work, and that morning was disguised and working in the shop as normal. His stamina proved to still be not quite fully restored though, so by the end of the morning shift he had lost enough energy to no longer be able to keep going and had to retire back to his room. But having him in the shop working with the rest of them brought back a sense of normality that made Spike confident for the first time since Thorax fell ill that things were going to be okay again.

It also helped that despite not having quite enough stamina to go through the full work day in the shop, Thorax was still feeling restless after spending most of the past week cooped up in their room and looked for something productive to do. Remembering Fluttershy’s advice to have the cloths and blankets that made up Thorax’s makeshift sleeping nest cleaned then, Thorax set about dismantling the nest and sat most of the afternoon in the bathroom with a washbasin giving the cloths a well-needed cleaning before hanging them to dry. He neglected to plan ahead enough to ensure the cloths would all be dry enough to reform the nest in time for bed that evening though, so upon realizing this, Spike pulled out one of the sleeping bags they had obtained for if and when they left Vanhoover and set that out for Thorax to sleep in…only to watch with amusement as Thorax proceeded to bunch it into a loose shape of his sleeping nest and curl up atop to sleep.

Spike watched him with a wistful grin as he proceeded to set up the window seat as his usual sleeping space himself. “It’s nice to see you’re feeling so much better, Thorax,” he said aloud.

Though he had his eyes closed and ready to drift off to sleep, Thorax grinned. “It’s good to be feeling better,” he observed aloud in return. When Spike didn’t reply but sensed the dragon was still watching him, he opened his eyes slightly to peek at the dragon. “You seem troubled,” he observed, sensing the dragon’s emotions.

Spike sighed and nodded as he heaved himself up onto the window seat. “Just been thinking about what we discussed when Fluttershy left…about whether or not we want to leave Vanhoover.”

Thorax was quiet for a moment. “I still want to stay, Spike,” he said softly. “I know there’s no logical reason to at this point, not when it could put us at risk, but…” he trailed off, looking thoughtful. “…I don’t know how to explain it. I just feel like…this is the place we need to be at…at least for a little longer still.”

Spike was quiet for a long moment, but then to Thorax’s mild surprise, he nodded in agreement. “I feel that too.” He shrugged. “I’m not sure how or why…maybe it was just the sight of seeing you working back in the shop today that heartened me or what…but I feel like that, despite the odds…we’re going to be okay staying here…for a while longer still at least.”

Thorax straightened. “So we’re staying?” he prompted hopefully.

Spike chuckled. “Guess so.”

“Good,” Thorax said, and laid back down for the night. “See you in the morning then.”

Spike watched the changeling wistfully again for a moment, glad to have his friend healthy and around still. “Yeah, you too,” he said before settling in for the night himself.

Author's Note

I always like it when I have a chance to explore details about changeling physiology, if only because I'm curious, and so when I saw the chance to do so here, I took it. Unfortunately, it does have the unintended side effect of coming across as icky...so I surrendered and ran with that approach.

Anyway, contrary to popular belief, it appears Fluttershy is keeping the secret successfully, but I always figured she could. All the mare needs is an excuse to keep quiet and when it comes to keeping quiet, she is--after all--the world champ, you know.

Point being is that we're certainly not at the end of the story yet...but while I still don't have a final chapter count figured out, we are past the halfway point. As such, it may appear that the story will get back into the slice of life aspect of things...but it's either often tainted in tone by "uh-oh, are we going to get caught" moments more than before...or is part of some ulterior motive I have in mind as I work to "set the scene," and actually will be perfectly relevant to the story later. :raritywink:

For now though, enjoy the stages of Thorax recuperating from his illness, the first topic of focus.

Molting

The following Saturday found Thorax recovered even more from his illness and again recharged and eager to do something productive today. As the weather, which had finally stopped raining during the past week but had remained off-and-on gloomy all throughout, was proving to be bright and sunny yet pleasantly cool that day, this didn’t help. Unfortunately, as the shop was not open on weekends and none of them feeling quite confident enough to let Thorax to go out and about town on his own should his still-recovering stamina abruptly give out again like it did the previous day, there was only so much for the changeling to preoccupy himself with. At first he kept himself busy by finishing drying the cloths and blankets for his sleeping nest and then painstakingly reassembling the nest to his tastes, but this didn’t take up nearly as much time as it seemed he had hoped.

So he focused his attention on reading his books or listening to his radio dramas, but surprisingly, the slightly stir-crazy changeling couldn’t keep focused on either of them for long and was eager for something else to do. For him, the only real highlight during the first half of the day was when Fly Leaf returned after going out to run some quick errands with a midnight blue hoodie for Thorax, “for you to wear should you ever get caught in the rain again and absolutely insist you have to walk in it.” Thorax took a quick liking to it, and after Fly had left, spent several minutes in front of the bathroom mirror alternating between his natural changeling form and his Thornton disguise gauging how it looked on him. He concluded it looked good in either form. He also noted that the hoodie had been professionally magicked so to be water-resistant, despite being made out of cotton cloth.

“But why make it only water-resistant when you could go a step further and make it fully waterproof?” Spike inquired when Thorax mentioned this.

“Because then I’d imagine it’d be very hard to wash,” Thorax reasoned, and seemed satisfied enough with that.

He wanted to put the jacket to immediate use, but again as he still had lingering symptoms from his illness, he was advised to stay at the shop so to avoid accidentally overexerting himself. So, still in need of something to do, Spike decided to keep an eye out for some kind of project Thorax could do today while he also went out to run some errands for the two of them. He soon found it when passing a nearby store while between destinations, and as a bonus, would help resolve another problem in the same go. Now that he and Thorax had settled yet again on staying in Vanhoover, this had brought up a problem they had both been off-and-on pondering on; how to safely stash their growing funds.

Once cashed-in, they had been setting aside part of their paychecks for saving ever since beginning to work with Fly Leaf on the understanding that they would likely make heavy use of those funds once they traveled out of Vanhoover to their next destination. So, since they were not doing that for now, this meant their unspent savings were growing bigger and harder to contain, and both were starting to fear trouble would arise unless they found a way to store it in a safer place than what they’d been using currently; in a series of shoeboxes they had been keeping on the top shelf of their wardrobe.

The obvious idea would be to take their savings and put them in an account at the local bank, but found doing so would only raise problems as the bank wouldn’t let them open an account without a great deal of identification information. Obviously they couldn’t use their real identities seeing they were in hiding, and falsified identities would only add to their troubles if discovered, thus both agreed this wasn’t an option they could use. So when Spike saw that the local locksmith was having a significant sale on safes, he bought a medium-sized grey safe with a standard padlock on it. He then took it back to Thorax and challenged the changeling to find some way to magically modify it so to make it even more secure than it already was. Thorax eagerly rose to the challenge and spent most of the rest of the day working on it, cross-referencing with the various magic textbooks he had been gradually collecting during their time in Vanhoover as he worked.

He ended up being very thorough, starting off with taking the time to first dismantle the locking system on the safe entirely (which Spike pointed out voided the included warranty that had come with purchasing the safe, and in turn led to a discussion explaining to Thorax just what a “warranty” was and how it worked), and proceeded to work out a new way to fit it all back together, retooling it mechanically so to make it far harder to crack. This and the fact that Thorax painstakingly cast a variety of security spells on each individual part meant it was now heavily shielded from any attempts to pick the lock. He also cast a number of other magical failsafes to further protect the safe, forming various contingency protections to fall upon should the “frontline protections,” as Thorax phrased it, fail for whatever reason.

Finally, as Thorax began the task of fitting everything back together, he added another series of spells that, when working together, would check the operator’s identity and confirm it was either Spike or Thorax who was attempting to open the safe. Anyone else and the failsafe spells will be triggered, causing the lock and any other mechanisms within the safe to seize up, refusing to unlock unless given a specific counterspell to reset the lock back to its normal state (still locked). This required a specific magical frequency only Thorax would know and would be difficult to just randomly guess. Any attempts to force or break the safe or its lock would result in the same seizing. And this was all on top of the safe’s original padlock mechanism, which Spike had been assured when he bought it that it already had various defenses against lock picking and couldn’t be readily cracked, leaving the contents secure.

So altogether, both of the two outcasts felt that this left it feeling like a very secure place to put their excess funds, as well as anything else they may deem needs the added security in the future. Of course, despite all these protections, there were still ways around all of them. But it was Thorax’s reasoning that all of them working together would still be enough to deter any casual attempts to force the safe to unlock and severely discourage most who might want to try. And no matter what, any successful attempts to pick the lock would almost certainly require a skilled magician to pull it off, necessitating magical talent and training that the average unicorn didn’t generally have, limiting the number of candidates who could even successfully try it. Naturally, Spike knew that Twilight Sparkle would have that sort of skill, but he and Thorax both agreed that if she had gotten as far as trying to force open their safe, that probably would mean she had already discovered them and had them in custody, so whatever became of the safe after that point was pretty much moot.

Above all though, the task kept Thorax preoccupied enough to keep him distracted for the rest of the day and also wore him out enough that he chose to turn in early that evening, demonstrating that he truly wasn’t fully recovered from his illness just yet…but getting close. Spike hoped that full recovery would be coming very soon, if not by tomorrow, or else he would no doubt have to come up with something else to keep the restless changeling occupied, and he was rapidly running out of ideas that would also keep Thorax inside the shop instead of wandering about town where he could still overexert himself. But upon waking up that Sunday morning, they found that Thorax had an entirely new problem; he was feeling extremely itchy all over.

It wasn’t hard to figure out why; Thorax’s chitin was still peeling all over his body thanks to his illness, and was overall dried out and flaking. It was easy to see how that would be itchy for the changeling. It did raise problems though, because even though Thorax was able to hide the peeling chitin behind his usual disguise easily enough—which he now could maintain continuously like before again—it didn’t hide the itch. Thus through most of that day, it wasn’t uncommon to see Thorax frequently scratching one or more particularly troublesome spot on his figure, especially wherever the peeling had become especially bad. Not only was this beginning to drive Thorax up the wall, it also surprisingly caused his disguise to begin to break out into a rash against Thorax’s control.

“It’s because of a subconscious adaptation control in the disguise,” Thorax explained to Spike when the dragon showed confusion about how and why a false and magical illusion could do such a thing. “There’s more for a changeling to maintain in a disguise than the mere shape and features of the body or shape. In order to be fully realistic and prevent the obvious clues that it’s not real, there is an extreme need for the disguise to be fully detailed, to the point that it’d be ridiculous to expect any changeling to be able to give enough conscious thought to maintaining all of them. Things like goosebumps, hair growth, smile lines or even the pupils in your eyes dilating size in reaction to differences in light.” He tapped his hoof over one of his ice-blue eyes he wore as part of his disguise.

Spike blinked and involuntarily looked his own body over, suddenly aware of all the little things it did without him even thinking about it, but would all be obvious telltales that it was a false image if it ever appeared to stop doing them. “I guess that would be a lot of things to try and keep track of,” he admitted.

“Right,” Thorax agreed with a nod. “So the disguise is rigged to react subconsciously to any outward changes to the changeling’s own body, that way we don’t have to remember to recreate all those little details all the time when disguised. For example, if you were to, say, punch me in the face, the disguise will subconsciously change its appearance to adapt accordingly by rendering a bruise or whatever over the struck area without me even needing to think about it. It’ll do that for every little change of state like that.”

“Even rendering the disguise breaking out in a rash when the changeling underneath it is feeling overly itchy,” Spike summarized, catching on with a grin.

“Exactly,” Thorax confirmed.

Fly Leaf, of course, noticed the rashes developing on Thorax and his continued scratching of them, but she didn’t really question it, assuming it was just a lingering final symptom from his illness, instead suggesting he try not to scratch and offering an ointment he could use that might sooth the scratching. Thorax actually did accept and, in private so he could lower his disguise, applied as much of the ointment he could to the peeling and troublesome areas on his body with hope that would relieve the itching. Unfortunately for him, it didn’t seem to work on changeling chitin like it would on pony skin, doing little. And relief didn’t seem to be sight soon either as it persisted on into the evening and poor Thorax was forced trying to go to sleep while still itching all over.

But at last, relief came only about an hour after he and Spike had gone to bed when Thorax suddenly sat up and clambered out of his sleeping nest. “Finally!” he declared as he arose and moved to stand in the middle of the room.

Spike was jolted awake from his exclamation and peered at him with groggy eyes. “What’s up?” he asked through a yawn.

Thorax glanced at him for a moment, looking like he didn’t quite know how to explain. “I suppose you’ve never seen a changeling molt before,” he remarked, merely stating fact.

Spike sat up. “No,” he replied, then confused, repeated, “Molt? You mean like a snake?”

Thorax nodded. “To shed an old layer of dead skin, or in my case chitin, that has either become too damaged, too worn, or too small to keep any longer,” he explained. He tilted his head at Spike. “I had assumed dragons do the same, but I’m surmising from your confusion that they don’t actually.”

Spike shook his head. “Not all at once, at least,” he explained as he rubbed at his tired eyes. “Old scales just fall off whenever needed, and usually no more than one or two at a time. I guess it’d be like a pony and hair, always shedding it, but not usually all at once.”

Thorax frowned. “But…don’t ponies grow and then shed winter coats?”

Spike shrugged. “Never really paid that close attention to be honest. Twilight’s probably given me a lecture on the subject at some point, but that must have been one of those long, weary, and highly technical ones using big words I don’t understand that I tend to tune out.” He shook his head. “That’s not really the same though. That’s all about hair. We’re talking about skin here. And even with the hair, that’s still a gradual process, isn’t it? I mean, it’s not like a pony’s body just decides “oh, winter’s over, time to get rid of this extra hair” and boom, it all falls out just right then and there.”

Thorax laughed. “Well, first of all, it’s chitin, so not technically skin, at least not in the sense you’re thinking of.” He shrugged and grinned whimsically. “But that said, changelings do molt all at once, usually about once every year, exactly when generally depending on when you hatched. I typically molt in the springtime, but thanks to my recent bout of mutatum aegritudo, it’s triggered a new molt ahead of schedule.” He gazed off thinking, distractingly scratching at an itch on his front. “…I wonder if I will still molt at the usual time next spring, or if this will cause a hard reset, and I’ll start molting yearly around this time of year now…”

Meanwhile, Spike had noticed that Thorax’s dark chitin seemed to be peeling and blistering more than usual. “So I’m guessing that’s what you got up to do then,” Spike said, presuming that this molt was imminent.

Thorax nodded. “Yes,” he said. “Sorry to wake you, but it was probably going to wake you up anyway.”

Spike shrugged, still not sure he understood. “So…what?” he asked, unsure how this was going to work. “You’re just going to sit down and peel off the old chitin, or…”

Thorax licked his lips thoughtfully. “It’s a little more…bombastic…than that.” He returned his gaze to Spike. “Really the best way to understand is to see it for yourself.”

Spike adjusted his position so to be more comfortable to watch. “All right, I’m watching,” he announced.

“Well, it might take a moment. I can feel this chitin is ready to come off and my body gearing up for the final phase, but I still have to wait for it to decide to start the final process.”

So they waited, Thorax standing patiently in the middle of the room and Spike sitting on the window seat, tired and waiting. Eventually Spike realized as he watched that Thorax’s chitin was gradually peeling and forming boils more and more right before his eyes, almost as if the changeling’s chitin was trying to bubble right off of him.

“Uh…Thorax?” Spike began, unsure what to make of that.

“Shh,” Thorax shushed, who had closed his eyes, looking like he was concentrating, waiting for the right moment.

Not long after that, Spike noticed the temperature in the room seemed to be getting warmer, and after a moment’s confusion about where it was coming from, he realized Thorax’s body had begun to shimmer faintly with heat.

“Thorax?” Spike asked again, wide awake now as he started to become alarmed.

Thorax didn’t reply this time, his breathing starting to accelerate. Whatever was going to happen, Spike realized it was going to be very soon. He wasn’t disappointed. Flickers of cyan magic started to appear around Thorax’s figure, and then Thorax suddenly inhaled sharply, throwing back his head and arching his back before the changeling suddenly vanished from view in a burst of cyan flames.

“Whoa!” Spike declared, reeling back in surprise.

The burst of flames was at first similar to whenever Thorax activated or deactivated his disguise, but in those instances it was always for less than a second. Here the flames continued to persist well after that, and only grew in intensity until Thorax was nothing more than a very big and very bright ball of flames. Furthermore, the flames, being magical in nature, were typically very cool in temperature in the past, but this time heat bled off the flames in waves that gushed through the room, generating a hot wind that fluttered about Spike. Save for the color, it was all feeling too much like real fire.

“Thorax!” Spike exclaimed in fear, beginning to think that something had gone wrong and Thorax was truly on fire.

But as quickly as it had started, it abruptly ceased, the flames vanishing suddenly as Thorax became visible again, standing in a thin cloud of swirling grey powder and completely unharmed.

“Whoo!” Thorax cried with glee, his chitin now clean and unblemished so that it now shone freshly. Even his gossamer wings sparkled faintly in the sliver of moonlight that was streaming through a crack in the window drapes behind Spike, ruffled by the hot wind the event had fleetingly kicked up. “Now that’s better!” A shudder went down his spine and Thorax shook himself, pleased. “Oh yes, that’s much better,” he gushed as he stretched.

Spike blinked several times as he processed what just happened, watching the cloud of grey powder settle down onto the floor and forming a moderate-sized grey blast pattern on the wooden panels Thorax stood upon. He suddenly realized what he was looking at was the ash from the old layer of Thorax’s chitin; it had been magically burned right off of his body. “That was…” he began, stumbling about his words as he attempted to speak his mind. “That was…”

“Quite a sight, wasn’t it?” Thorax asked, shaking himself once more before turning to face the little dragon.

Spike snorted anxiously, not finding that description appropriate. “It was certainly intense,” he stated, putting his claws to his forehead, trying to calm his beating heart. He looked back at Thorax. “Didn’t that hurt?”

“No, no,” Thorax said, shaking his head amused. “I know, it looks like it should. Trust me, back when I was a nymph that hadn’t molted for the first time yet and was witness to another changeling molting for the first time, I was absolutely terrified that it would hurt. But no! It’s really more…” he looked thoughtful for a moment while rolling his shoulders, “…oddly refreshing.”

Spike slid off the window seat with a thump and approached his friend, getting a closer look. He made a faint grin and shrugged. “Well, at the very least, now you look healthy again,” he observed, motioning to his friend’s new layer of chitin, fresh and healed leaving no previous sign of the illness Thorax had recently been through.

“Well, it still needs to dry out a bit,” Thorax admitted, stopping to look himself over, running one of his holed hooves over his torso.

Spike blinked and poked one claw at the black plating lining the changeling’s shoulder. He knew Thorax’s chitin typically felt firm and resilient yet not altogether hard or inflexible. It was firmer than pony skin certainly, but in many ways it usually felt more like a thick hide, just glossier and smoother. But right now, however, it felt soft and malleable, like it hadn’t set fully yet. He was surprised it still needed to though after all the heat the display of molting had generated. “That’s normal?” he asked.

Thorax nodded with a grin. “Perfectly normal. Give it a half-hour, tops, and it’ll be as good as new.”

Spike grinned back then gazed at the ash that dusted the floor around Thorax, kicking at it idly with one foot. “Meanwhile, your old chitin has managed to get all over the place,” he quipped.

Thorax chuckled sheepishly. “Yeah, there usually is a small bit of clean-up afterwards,” he admitted.

Spike glanced up at him again. “Well, you know where the dustpan and broom is,” he said as he patted the changeling on the shoulder and turned back for his window seat bed.

“Right,” Thorax said with a disinclined nod, and turned to retrieve said cleaning items from where they were stored.

Nonetheless, as he settled down to go back to sleep, Spike couldn’t help but be pleased to note that the changeling still walked off with a notable spring in his step. Clearly, the molting had left Thorax feeling fully recovered again. And by that morning, Thorax still had that bounce, almost as if he had never been sick in the first place, and ready to go to work that morning like everything was normal.

Fly Leaf couldn’t help but be pleased by the sight of it herself as they opened the shop for the morning. “You look like you’re back to your old self, Thornton,” she noted while the disguised changeling finished readying the cash register for the upcoming day’s work.

“I feel back to my old self,” Thorax added proudly, pleased himself by this development himself.

“Well then, nice to have you back,” Fly said with a grin as she finished unlocking the front door and walked past the front desk.

“Good to be back, Miss Fly,” Thorax returned with a contented nod.

Spike watched the exchange from where he was doing some start-of-the-week bookkeeping in a ledger and grinned. “Back to normal, and back where you belong,” he murmured to himself, feeling his chest swell some with joy at the thought.

Author's Note

I thought having Thorax molt at some point would be interesting to explore, especially once I applied some creativity to it, and Thorax's recent illness helped give an excuse.

All in all a rather idle chapter today, but next chapter we'll be back to some more intriguing things. :twilightsmile:

Mental Scape

Thorax smiled as he peered up at the picturesque partly cloudy sky above him. It was a very nice day to be out and about in the streets of Vanhoover, the weather being fair, and the temperature neither too hot nor too cold despite the area having entered the beginning phases of transitioning from late summer into early autumn. Thorax was both looking forward and dreading the completion of that transition, as autumn wasn’t really a season Thorax ever had the chance to appreciably experience back at his hive, due to it both being so far south and in the middle of a barren wastes that it just didn’t manifest itself. The season sounded like it was beautiful from what Spike and Fly Leaf had told him about their experiences of the season, but also like it would be cold, something Thorax knew he’d prefer avoiding despite knowing he was perfectly capable of handling the cold (as demonstrated by the fact that he did go all the way into the Frozen North and back without too much issue).

Therefore he appreciated the continued fair weather as he strolled through the busy streets, out running a small errand, and would continue to do so for however long it would last. It appeared the ponies he passed were of all similar opinions as they strolled about the city in good spirits themselves, and the streets were somewhat more crowded than usual, a testament to others wanting to enjoy the pleasant weather too. It seemed Thorax’s cheery mood was appreciated as well, because it seemed those he passed were all returning the grin that he wore on his face if they happened to make eye contact as they passed the disguised changeling.

Thorax was about to slip past an brilliant azure-colored mare that was for some reason standing out to his attention however when he abruptly stopped dead in his tracks, feeling a unsettling chill run down his spine. Confused, he glanced about at the street around him, seeking an explanation for the sudden and unsettling sensation, but couldn’t see anything immediately amiss. Ponies simply and gently filed around him as he continued to stand there in the middle of the road, unmoving. It all seemed perfectly normal. Yet there was a niggling thought in the back of Thorax’s head saying different…a word of warning that said something, somewhere, was amiss. Very amiss. And the more the Thorax thought about it, the more this impression grew…but he had no idea what it was or where it was coming from and his search for clues seemed to be fruitless.

Nonetheless, he kept looking despite his sudden halting was obstructing traffic, and was just beginning to think that perhaps he needed to backtrack the way he had come for a bit when he felt something small and wet plop onto his head. Surprised, he put one hoof over the wet spot on his head, trying to wipe off whatever it was while also figuring out what it was, but only found it seemed to be a mere drop of water. Frowning, he was just beginning to wonder where it had come from when he felt another drop plunk onto his croup just above his rump. As he turned to look back at it, he felt more drops begin to fall onto him with rapidly increasing frequency as well as catching sight of more falling onto the street surrounding him. Realizing what it was, he turned his head upward and saw a series of rainclouds had rolled in over the city and was beginning to drizzle rain down upon it.

Thorax frowned in puzzlement at the sight, holding out one hoof to catch one of the raindrops. Wasn’t the weather far clearer just a second ago? Where did this storm come from? But those thoughts were quickly chased from mind when he watched with alarm as a raindrop struck his outstretched hoof and, with a flicker of cyan light, immediately washed a hole into his disguise, revealing a small peephole at his changeling anatomy lying underneath. In terror, he realized all the raindrops that fell on him were doing this. He couldn’t begin to explain why, but he quickly saw that even though he could quickly repair the holes in his disguise by continuously refreshing his disguise, at the accelerating rate the rain was falling, it would soon reach the point that the falling rain would create new holes faster than he could repair them and eventually cause the disguise to collapse completely…in complete view of a street full of ponies…and now Thorax couldn’t help but notice that there were also several members of the local guard patrolling the streets, a highly unusual amount in fact, that he had somehow missed before.

Realizing he needed to get out of the rain and to safety as quickly as he could, Thorax turned and ran, pushing past ponies as he anxiously galloped back for the safety of home. All the while the rain continued to fall with growing rapidity so much so that even though Thorax was refreshing his disguise constantly, it had begun to fluctuate into a mass of sparkling cyan as it was constantly bombarded by the strange weather. But finally, the sign of Fly Leaf’s shop came into view, and Thorax burst through the front door just in time to stave off a complete collapse of his disguise. He came to an immediate and skidding halt however when he saw with shock the shop was already filled with a group of royal guards, in the process of arresting a very defiant looking Fly Leaf sitting in the messy middle of a spilled tray of coffee mugs, suggesting Fly had not gone into the cuffs that now adorned her hooves without a fight. The whole group turned to stare at Thorax as the still-disguised (but only just) changeling froze before them, but it was Fly Leaf’s dark expression gazing at him that caught his attention the most.

“Qui valde malum caballionem est?” she uttered firmly but cryptically.

Thorax just stared at her in shock for a moment, but began to back away as the guards all jointly proceeded to converge upon him. He kept doing so until he started to step back out the still-open front door and jolted as he felt the rain pelt against his flank again, once more wearing away at his disguise that was supposed to shield him from discovery. Knowing he couldn’t stay in the shop without being captured though, Thorax decided to take the gamble and spun around and galloped straight back out the door and into the rain…

…and right back into the midst of the changeling invasion of Canterlot, with swarms of his fellow changelings falling down upon the city to attack precisely as he remembered, except now it had taken a startlingly morbid twist as Thorax, no longer disguised, was again scampering to a halt, finding himself before the terrifying sight of Queen Chrysalis. She towered over him, cackling as red blood dripped from the tip of the jagged horn, while Thorax could see the nondescript form of her probable victim lying limp just behind her. Frightened, Thorax immediately started to backpedal away from his former queen as she viciously started to advance upon him. He would’ve kept going if his lack of attention to his new surroundings hadn’t allowed him to miss the blast crater in the street behind him until his back hooves slipped over the edge and Thorax tumbled into it, plummeting down into the bottom of the hole.

Picking himself back up and half-terrified that Queen Chrysalis would be following him, Thorax instead found his surroundings had yet again changed and now he stood in a dark expanse. It was dark enough that he couldn’t be certain of the area’s dimensions, of where the edges started and stopped, but it was light enough that he could see there were numerous figures standing in long rows on either side of him. Their shapes were dark and vague and hard to make out. Thorax could at least see they were quadrupedal and equine-shaped, but he couldn’t tell if they were pony, or changeling, or neither. He could barely make out any identifying traits about any of them at all, in fact.

The only clear trait he could pick out was the fact that their faces were all turned to face the same direction, looking at something far ahead of Thorax with an engrossed intensity that eventually the perplexed changeling thought to follow their gaze. He saw that, straight ahead a hundred or more feet, was a bright and pure light, marred only by the shape of a figure standing before it. Because of the light shining behind the figure, said figure was cast in a complete silhouette, so much so all of the figure’s visible features were in the blackest of shadows. Nonetheless, the outstretched gossamer wings Thorax could pick out were more than enough to identify the figure as a changeling, but he was no mere drone. He bore a tall and towering height similar to that of Queen Chrysalis, but also bore a pair of tall and arching antlers with lightly jagged edges upon his head, such defining traits of what sort of changeling he was that Thorax couldn’t help but ogle a little at him.

He was a king changeling—the rare male changeling leader, so much so it had been many generations since changeling history had been able to take note of one even existing, long enough ago that most of the stories surrounding the last king changeling almost seemed more legend than fact.

He was also moving steadily further away from Thorax.

Bubbling with questions though, Thorax kept his eyes locked on this prestigious figure and started moving towards him, first at a timid walk before stepping up to a trot, then finally a full gallop. Yet no matter how fast or how far Thorax went, the silhouette of the king changeling never seemed to get any closer and, if anything, only seemed to be getting further away still. Thorax couldn’t seem to catch up to him. For a few moments all of Thorax’s attention was on this figure, anxious to try and pursue him, wondering why this esteemed specter of a figure was present at all so much so that he didn’t dare let his focus wander.

But eventually that niggling sensation in the back of his head came back, stronger this time. That sense that something was wrong. That something wasn’t at all right. Thorax frowned and slowed to a stop and began to survey the crowds of shadowy figures that were still standing in rows along either side of him, searching for an explanation. He felt with a growing urgency that it was important, that he had to find the source of this disruption, and quickly, or he would be in far more trouble than he already was. It was a sense of grave danger; that something was trying to intrude upon him…

…that something here—right here—did not belong.

And then his eyes locked upon it. One of the shadowy figures standing in the row to his left, a couple of rows back from where he stood. The figure looked no different from all the rest—just as shadowy and nondescript as the others. Nothing at all stood out about it, at least not visually. But somehow Thorax knew. Somehow he just knew this figure didn’t belong. Something was amiss about it. And as Thorax continued to stare at this particular figure, the figure suddenly seemed to realize Thorax was watching it and became the first figure to turn away from the direction all the others were looking to peer back at Thorax…and immediately go wide-eyed and suddenly dart away from the scene, attempting to flee.

It was all Thorax needed, and he immediately darted after it in pursuit, forgetting about everything else around him and focusing on this one intruder, throwing himself through the row of shadowy figures to try and get at the fleeing stranger. Only the other figures, somehow without moving, all started to seem to crowd closer together, hindering Thorax’s ability to break through. Not willing to let the strange figure get away though, Thorax took to the air, his wings buzzing as he shot straight upwards before letting his training as a hive invader take over and going into a steep dive, accelerating rapidly as he aimed right at the fleeing figure. Within moments it was clear that he would easily overtake the outsider trying to flee on hoof, and Thorax braced himself to tackle the figure. But then his aim started to waver, and before Thorax could figure out what was happening, the world suddenly flipped upside-down, gravity reversed, and Thorax started to spiral out of control while the very fabric of reality warped and tore before his eyes.

With a jolt, Thorax awoke, bolting upright in his sleeping nest.

Heart racing, he surveyed the dark room quickly, seeing that it was very late at night, probably early predawn now, with Spike snoring softly at his usual spot on the window seat, blissfully oblivious. It was all just an intense dream. Nothing was wrong.

And yet, everything was wrong. The sensation in the back of Thorax’s skull was still buzzing in alarm, and now that Thorax was awake he could focus his attention more to it. The perception was warning him that something was wrong, that his very being had been threatened and that he still needed to be on guard or risk it happening again. It wasn’t the only sensation he was aware of too; he also felt mildly violated, like something had tried, but failed, to intrude upon something very deep within his soul, someplace no one but himself should ever try to be. But he also felt jarred, emotively out of balance and pumped full with adrenaline as the faint echoes of thoughts and feelings started to flutter up into view of his conscious mind, thoughts and feelings that were foreign and didn’t belong…

…like he had just pulled out of a mental link with someone else.

Even more alarmed now, Thorax was out of his nest in an instant, his horn alight and ready to defend himself as he immediately began to search the room again, this time both visually and magically, convinced there was an intruder lurking nearby. But the only living thing other than himself in the room was just Spike. Not reassured, Thorax expanded his magical search to scan the whole building, even some of the immediate area around it. But again he only found Spike, as well as Fly Leaf asleep in her own bed across the hall. Literally the only other living things Thorax could sense in range besides himself was a small potted fern Fly Leaf kept on the sill of the kitchen window, and a lone rat scampering through the alley that ran behind the building. Even when Thorax attempted to expand his scan further still, beyond the range for maximum accuracy he could guarantee for the spell, so to include adjacent buildings, even most of the street they were on, Thorax saw nothing amiss. Just other ponies and creatures sleeping the night away; none of them were in any type of position to have recently tried to intrude upon Thorax’s mental scape, and he quickly realized many of them wouldn’t even have the capability anyway.

If he was right about the sort of feat someone had just tried to pull…

No less reassured, Thorax quickly turned to Spike and began to shake him awake. “Spike, wake up!” he coaxed urgently in a harsh whisper, afraid he might be overheard. “We might have a very big problem!”

Spike stirred and grumpily frowned, swatting away Thorax’s hooves and sat up. “What?” he grunted, rubbing at his eyes. “What’s got you all riled up?”

Thorax anxiously looked around the room in case there were any intruders trying to listen in. “Sorry, it’s just…if I’m right about this…”

“Thorax, what’s wrong?” Spike repeated, trying to urge his friend to get to the point.

Thorax locked eyes with Spike again, and suddenly realized he wasn’t sure how to explain it in terms the dragon could understand. “Okay,” he began, endeavoring to try to the best of his abilities. “I had this dream…”

“You woke me up over a dream?” Spike interrupted grumpily. “I thought this was supposed to be important.”

“It is!” Thorax hissed. “I was in the middle of this dream, but then everything starts going awry and I started to sense something was very wrong, that something was there with me who shouldn’t be—” he shook his head and just blurted it out. “Spike, I think someone just tried to force a mental link with me while I was sleeping and without my knowledge or permission.”

Spike blinked at him blankly, but rapidly realization sank in and now he went wide-eyed too. “Who?” he asked in the same harsh whisper as Thorax, as he too was afraid to be overheard.

“That’s just it, I don’t know,” Thorax confessed. “They were there, they were trying, but I think I was instinctively sensing the danger and was trying to block them…when I started to realize what was happening, they fled and pulled out, collapsing whatever of the link they had formed, but…”

“Sounds like they weren’t successful,” Spike reasoned, relieved for this much.

“No, but that’s just the tip of our problems,” Thorax stated. “There’s nobody on our street that I can find that was in any position or capability of trying a stunt like this, and that worries me, because then that tells me whoever was trying this was trying to do it long distance.”

Spike did a double-take. “That can be done?” he asked.

“I didn’t think so, but how else can you explain it?” Thorax said, and he began to pace anxiously. “When I woke up, I could feel all the usual tell-tale sensations as if I had just pulled out of a mental link, but I shouldn’t be feeling that, not while I’m deeply asleep! Someone was trying to break into my mental scape without my permission, but I can’t begin to figure out who.” His pupiless eyes bulged in fear. “I don’t even know who’d even have that sort of capability!”

He would’ve ranted on, but Spike, seeing the changeling was about to dissolve into a panic attack, quickly hopped out of his makeshift bed and hurried over to stop Thorax, hugging him around the torso. “Shh,” he urged, trying to calm his friend down. “Just relax Thorax. Losing your head isn’t going to help sort this out.”

“Okay,” Thorax said, nodding as he attempted to take big, calming, breaths. “Okay, okay, okay…”

Spike waited until Thorax’s breathing had returned to more normal levels before continuing. “Now,” he began, pulling out of the hug to stand before Thorax. “Let’s look at this logically—what can you tell me about this…attempted mind intruder?”

Thorax searched his mind for any useful data he could relate. He was immediately frustrated by how startlingly little he was finding, but he pressed deeper still, and soon he was able to at least deduce some barebones basics. “…whoever it was, they clearly hoped they would go unnoticed and do all of this secretly,” he began to reason. “They were not anticipating me noticing them so easily…that much was obvious as I realized they were there and trying…”

“That’s a start,” Spike prompted with a reassuring nod, and motioned for the changeling to continue. “What else?”

Thorax sighed. “It’s hard to know…I had the sense of awareness to tell they were there, to defend myself against invasions to my mental scape such as this, but…I was so focused on determining the source of it all…” he shook his head, but then promptly paused. “I think they were trying to gain access to my thoughts, and I mean my deep thoughts, beyond the surface of my subconscious that they only seemed to have gotten as far as before I caught onto them…but I can’t be sure for what reasons and what they wanted or were looking for…or even if they were aware of who or what I am…when I discovered them…they seemed…surprised…” He pressed his hooves to his eyes in frustration. “It’s hard to explain…I could just feel that they didn’t expect this to happen.”

“Well, that’s somewhat reassuring at least,” Spike reasoned levelly. “If this guy or whatever seemed unaware you were telepathic and had the ability to fight back, that would suggest they didn’t already know you had that skill.” He thought for a moment, tapping his chin with one claw. “Could this all possibly have just been a random attack? That whoever was trying this had no idea who you were before trying?”

“…maybe,” Thorax relented, realizing this was a distinct possibility.

Spike shrugged. “Then maybe whoever this was realized they were trying to bite off more than they could chew with you and won’t try it again,” he suggested.

“Or they could,” Thorax reasoned back, not comforted.

“Thorax, what could they have possibly been looking for in your mind, anyway?”

Thorax had to consider that for a moment. “Information, I suppose…either that or get deep inside to plant a foreign thought…”

“But you told me once that it was extremely hard to plant such a lie and still be able to have one’s mind believe it to be true.”

“It is.”

“Then searching for information would probably the more likely motive, wouldn’t it?”

Thorax hesitated, but realized Spike was probably right. “It probably would.”

“Then…what information could they even want?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Thorax replied sarcastically. “Maybe just any information that could be used to track you or me down considering we’re both outcasts on the run from the law.”

“Except,” Spike reminded patiently, “you said you were fairly certain they didn’t even realize who you were or what your mental skills are capable of. Shouldn’t that suggest they didn’t have any clue who you were already? Why would they go searching for information like that if they didn’t already know something about who you are?” He paused to look Thorax over, seeing if this was helping reassure him any. “Look, to the best of your knowledge, were they even able to get at any information or anything they shouldn’t have within your mind? Anything that might have given us away?”

Thorax thought about it for a moment. “…no. Nothing definitive, at least.”

Spike sighed. “Then…I think we’re better off assuming this was just a random attack for some bigger scheme by somebody that had selected you at random without realizing what they were getting themselves into, and due to the failure, won’t want to try it again without risking discovery.”

“But how is that any better?” Thorax whined. “That just suggests that, whoever this was, they’ll just turn around and try it on some other poor soul that won’t be able to fight back! I’m not okay with that Spike!”

“I’m not either, but what do you expect us to do about it?” Spike argued. “We can’t go to the police with this, they’ll just ask too many questions, and then we’ll be the ones who are caught, and it’s not like we’ve got any solid evidence anyway! Just a frightened changeling who felt like somebody tried to invade his mind! We don’t even have ideas who this was or where to find them.” His gaze softened, sympathizing. “Look, Thorax, I believe you, but who else would with what little information that we have? And what can we do about it, except stay on guard and hope it doesn’t happen again anyway?”

Thorax sighed. He hated it, but he knew Spike had a point. “You’re right,” he admitted. “I guess there’s not really a lot we could do about it.” He shuddered involuntarily. “It just…unsettles me that someone actually tried to break into my mind…” he gazed seriously at Spike. “And if even your mind isn’t safe…then what is?”

Spike gazed back, still looking sympathizing but not knowing what else he could say despite wishing he did. “You going to be okay?” he asked.

Thorax sighed again. “I hope so,” he replied. “I just don’t know how I’m going get back to sleep tonight.”

Spike clambered back onto the window seat to go back to sleep, but he kept a close eye on Thorax. “Well, I’m just going to be right here, so…if you need anything…”

“I know,” Thorax said, nodding his head. He forced a grin. “I just…need a few moments to…to sort this out and calm down a little.” He lowered his gaze again, but when he had lifted it again, his grin was a bit more sincere. “Hey, thanks…thanks for your reassurances…they do help.”

“Hey, you woke me up in the middle of the night all in a panic about something that may not even be as big a problem as you want to make it out to be,” Spike pointed out as he laid back down and settled down under his covers. “I’ve had plenty of experience dealing with that with Twilight over the years like you wouldn’t believe.”

Thorax laughed, then quietly sat and watched as Spike drifted back to sleep, glad he could count on his friend. Nonetheless, he was still left unsettled and kept reviewing the whole incident again and again in his head after returning to his own sleeping nest. Who would try something like this, let alone have the skill and ability to do it? Was there really even a danger at all? Maybe he did just imagine it all…it was a fairly intense dream, and he knew dreams could be plenty misleading about his perception of reality in the heat of the moment before, making him think one thing had happened when it actually hadn’t…but never had a dream triggered such sensations within his very mental abilities before…surely that meant his fears couldn’t all be unfounded, could they?

Ultimately Thorax had to settle upon the fact that he didn’t know what to think, and agree that Spike had been right. There was little they could do about it. For now, the best Thorax could do was keep on guard, and hope it didn’t happen again.

Author's Note

As usual, I will confirm or deny nothing at this time. :raritywink:

Guizhou Fa

As the next couple of days passed by, Thorax continued to remain on guard for any new attempts of someone attempting to forcibly gain entrance to his mental scape. Despite his lingering fears it would happen again, there were no signs of any renewed attempts of such a feat during that time. This meant either one of two possibilities. One was that Spike was correct, and that whoever it was that had tried to force a mental link with Thorax learned from the experience and chose not to repeat the stunt, probably in fear of getting caught themselves if they did. The other was that the intruder had learned from the experience in other ways, and was still plotting and preparing to try it again…or had already tried it again and this time Thorax had failed to notice. In which case, Thorax couldn’t be sure if even his thoughts were still secure and safe, and if this mental intruder had already gotten vital information that could endanger either him or Spike in any way, and had no idea if he should act accordingly or not, or if doing so would even help at this point.

Waiting and seeing was really the only option he could think of left to him, and he hated it. Nor did it help his growing paranoia on the subject. This then largely brought about him trying to be alert enough to catch any future intrusions to his mental scape at bedtime, but in reality he only seemed to be preventing himself from sleeping as deeply as normal. This wasn’t helped by the fact that Thorax, in these attempts, was continually waking himself up over false alarms in which he thought he sensed the start of an intrusion, but upon closer examination realized it was quite obviously not. Spike, who Thorax woke for the first few of these false alarms, was usually pretty quick to prove as such and soothe Thorax’s fears. That is until after about the fourth or fifth false alarm in which Thorax’s attempts to wake Spike were returned with a death glare to end all death glares from the exhausted dragon. Thorax decided after that point to keep it to himself unless he was absolutely certain there was real cause for alarm.

And no such instance seemed to be coming, to the point that even Thorax started to wonder if his nervousness over the matter was starting to become a little ridiculous too. Regardless, he found he couldn’t calm his nerves about the matter, and remained on edge…especially at night. It got to the point that it was getting hard for him to go to sleep in the first place, nervous as he was. Inevitably he’d succeed, only to be wakened again by a false alarm and struggle getting back to sleep again. After one such false alarm about an hour before sunrise, Thorax found he couldn’t get back to sleep, and instead laid in his sleeping nest, staring at the opposite wall and letting his mind wander. As the sun rose, he watched the first rays of sunlight peek through a crack in the drapes behind Spike’s sleeping form and then slowly inch across the floor, before finally deciding there was no point in denying it; he wasn’t going to get back to sleep now so he might as well get up and get on with the day.

As he was arising earlier in the morning than was normal for either him or Spike, Thorax proceeded to stand up, put on his usual disguise as Thornton, and slip out of the room while being careful not to disturb Spike. Once out of the room, he wasn’t sure what he was going to do next. He was thinking of heading on down into the shop and wandering about, possibly getting a head start on the day’s work that would be following in another hour or so. But as he crossed the hallway towards the stairs, he paused when he heard movement nearby, and glanced further down the hall where Fly Leaf’s room was and saw the door was open and ajar, wide enough that he could see the early morning light from the window within spilling into the hallway. Hearing the faint shuffle of movement again, he realized Fly was already up.

This wasn’t especially unusual; both Spike and Thorax were well aware that Fly was an early riser and was usually up and about well before either of them were, something which had never been a problem for either of them. In fact, Thorax never really thought much about it, but now he wondered just what it was that Fly Leaf got up so early in the morning to do. He assumed preparing breakfast was among them, as usually Fly had a hot meal prepared not long after Spike and Thorax woke up, but it was still early enough that Fly probably wouldn’t be starting that yet, possibly not even for another hour. So if she got up earlier than she needed to even do that…what else was she doing so early in the morning?

Against his better judgment then and his curiosity sparked, Thorax started to inch his way towards the open door of Fly’s room in hopes of finding out. It did occur to him that he shouldn’t be snooping around; Fly didn’t do as such for Spike and Thorax and they had been returning that unspoken favor by giving her the same courtesy and not prying into her own private affairs, not that she seemed to have many. Fly was a very independent mare and seemed to live a routine life by choice. She ran her shop, kept herself fed, occasionally went out to run errands or visit friends, but otherwise she didn’t seem too interested in engaging in many extracurricular activities. With that in mind, Thorax figured he probably wouldn’t find Fly doing anything special at all then.

He paused as he came to stand beside the door, almost in position to take a quick peek. Or I could find her doing something private, he thought to himself. It was, after all, Fly’s personal bedroom. He hadn’t even seen inside it before. For all he knew, he could find her…indecent…at present time, and that wouldn’t do. But he heard her shift positions again and saw the shadow of her hoof briefly fly across what little of the wall inside that Thorax could see from here, suggesting she was up and standing not far from the door. He could also hear her breathing, calm, relaxed, and drawn out. As such, she wasn’t putting off any noteworthy emotions that Thorax could detect other than a sense of peace and focus. It seemed she was concentrating on something, but beyond that Thorax couldn’t deduce much else.

He still hesitated for another moment, thinking he shouldn’t do it, but eventually his curiosity won out and at last Thorax poked his head into the gap of the open door. He wasn’t sure what he was expecting to find Fly Leaf doing, but he was momentarily mystified by what he found. Sitting in the light from her window and directly in front of the modest oak-frame bed, the pumpkin-orange mare sat on the floor slowly twisting her torso and hooves about in a rhythmical, methodical, and almost memorizing manner. There was a deliberate and rather artistic manner to it that showed Fly knew what she was doing—and was well practiced at whatever it was—but Thorax didn’t recognize it, and found himself tilting his head and quietly watching Fly’s mysterious movements for a few moments, studying them. He was soon engrossed to the point that he forgot he was basically spying.

Fortunately, Fly brought him back to reality. “You’re up early, Thornton,” she noted aloud, without once turning her head or eyes to look at him or even at his general direction and instead kept looking straight ahead.

It surprised Thorax, unsure how she managed to notice him then, and he pulled back slightly. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to intrude…” he began to apologize quickly.

“No, no, you’re not intruding,” Fly assured as she continued with her movements without interruption. “I’m not doing anything special. C’mon in if you want.”

Thorax blinked then relented, nudging the door open a bit further and slipping into the room. As it was the first time he had ever been in Fly’s room before, he couldn’t help but take a moment to glance around. In shape, the room was largely similar in shape and structure to his and Spike’s, but was overall shorter in length and lacked the attached bathroom. Against the wall the door and Thorax stood in was a wardrobe to his immediate right, followed by a duo of well-stocked bookcases. The opposite wall bore the slanted ceiling, window, and a window seat identical to the one in his and Spike’s room, but due to the shorter length of the room, the window sat off-center and towards the left of the wall. To the right of the window sat a simple chest of drawers. Fly’s bed was the most central feature, positioned so it sat towards the center of the room but with its headboard still against the far wall. Next to it was a small bed stand with a lamp, alarm clock, and a family picture placed atop it.

At the foot of the bed was an unmarked and inexpensive footlocker with an extra blanket folded neatly on top of it. Across from it against the other wall was another bookcase stand, but this one was much stouter, being wider than it was tall, and was more loosely filled than the other two bookcases in the room. Atop of it was a record player of Fly Leaf’s own, with a smattering of mane and tail care tools lying next to it. Hung on the wall above it were a calendar and an oval-shaped mirror. Fly Leaf happened to be in the gap of space between the footlocker and the bookcase stand, sitting atop a small oval rug colored in bands of alternating shades of tan and turned so her face was reflected back in the mirror hung on the wall, and continued doing the odd movements with her hooves and torso.

Thorax watched her for another second, determining that the movements were probably a series of stretches, but beyond that, he still wasn’t certain what it was. “If I may ask,” he began finally to settle his curiosity, “what is it that you’re doing?”

His employer grinned. “Guizhou fa,” she replied simply.

Thorax arched an eyebrow. “Guizhou fa?” he repeated, uncertain, not recognizing the words, though it sounded like it might be from one of the eastern languages that Thorax knew little about.

Fly confirmed that hunch as she continued to explain. “It’s a martial art originally practiced by the Guizhou ponies from the far east,” she said, still smiling as she continued to move her hooves and body gracefully about. “It’s a passive-aggressive sort of series of meditative and defensive exercises, and when done right can be very calming and relaxing, double as an effective means of self-defense, and is overall good exercise.”

“Oh,” Thorax said, tilting his head again as he continued to watch Fly carry out the exercises without interruption. He frowned at the slow and fluid motions. “How are such motions used for self-defense, though? They seem too…” he trailed off searching for the right word that didn’t also sound unappreciative.

“…sluggish?” Fly offered anyway with a knowing grin before spreading her forehooves out in a wide stretch. “That’s actually part of the point, but these exercises I’m doing at the moment are meant to be more meditative anyway…a warm up, if you will.”

“Meditative,” Thorax repeated distractedly as he continued to watch Fly. The slow and gentle motions did seem like they would be…pensive and relaxing.

“I take it this interests you then,” Fly continued as she grabbed one of her hind hooves with her forehooves, arching her back as she gently stretched.

Thorax nodded. “I know of something loosely similar that was taught back home,” he said. A sort of changeling version of the martial art—if you could call the purely combative training that—was taught to one of his clutchmates who then went on to become one of the queen’s private guard of centurions. “I never learned it myself, though.”

“Hm,” Fly hummed as she switched to stretching her other pair of hooves. “So now if I may ask…why are you up so early, Thornton? Usually I have the whole building to myself at this hour in the morning.”

Thorax frowned and made a noncommittal shrug. “I’ve been having trouble sleeping lately,” he admitted.

“Oh? Any particular reason why?”

Thorax again just shrugged, knowing he couldn’t get into detail about why and chose to sum it up with one phrase. “Just been feeling kind of tense the past few days.” He watched Fly exercise longingly. “Makes me wish I knew a few of those meditative exercises myself…I suppose it could only help me relax at least a little.”

For the first time, Fly paused in the middle of one of the martial art’s motions and turned her head to look at Thorax. “I could teach you a few if you’d like,” she offered suddenly.

Thorax perked up at this, not actually expecting her to offer. “Really?”

“Sure!” She patted the empty spot on the floor beside her. “Have a seat.”

As Thorax sat himself down beside her, Fly appeared to abort her current move with a waving motion of her hooves before resetting at the beginning. From there, she leisurely started off with a few basic moves, coaching Thorax while the disguised changeling attempted to mimic them. It took a few false starts, but gradually Thorax started to catch on to the nature and pattern to the motions. He was quick to notice that the stretches did feel good on his joints, and could see how the exercises would be soothing and meditative.

But just from watching Fly coaching him and her own doing of the motions he could tell there was far more than just that. “You seem to be very practiced at this,” he observed aloud to the earth pony.

Fly nodded, pausing to correct Thorax’s positioning a little. “I started learning guizhou fa when I signed up for a class in my early teens back in Tall Tale,” she explained. “I’ve kept practicing it ever since, especially in the mornings such as this. I’ve found it’s a good way to start your day.”

“I’ll bet,” Thorax chuckled with a grin. He shook himself after completing one stretch that comfortably popped his back. “I’m already starting to feel the benefits.”

Fly grinned herself. “Funnily enough though, that wasn’t why I first started taking the class,” she admitted as they moved on to the next move. “Like I said before, guizhou fa is also a defensive art—something one can use to adequately protect themselves if threatened. I had figured it wouldn’t hurt to have knowledge like that on hoof in case such a need ever arose.”

Thorax glanced at her. “Has it?”

Fly’s grin only grew and she didn’t reply. “It makes me think of an argument my mother and I had over the matter once years ago,” she said instead, nudging Thorax to watch her as she settled into a new move. Thorax worked to imitate it. “Back when I was getting ready to leave my home in Tall Tale to come up here and set up my shop in Vanhoover, my mother was very leery of the idea of me going off on my own unprotected like that.” She chuckled knowingly. “You know how protective parents can be.”

“Uh-huh,” Thorax said, who didn’t really, but didn’t see a need to bring it up either.

“Anyway, she thought I wasn’t going to be able to stay safe against any threats that might come my way in Vanhoover, making it seem like Vanhoover was just crawling with ponies looking for unsuspecting and alone mares to take advantage of. In reality, she just didn’t want to face me moving out yet, so I think she was trying to do everything she could to get me to stay.”

“Uh-huh.”

“But I knew her argument didn’t hold much weight because I was, by then, quite experienced with guizhou fa and reminded her as such. She wasn’t convinced that was going to be enough though and we started arguing over whether or not guizhou fa would really provide enough protection. So finally, to prove that I really could defend myself, I flipped my dad over my head and pinned him.” Seeing the incredulous look Thorax gave her at this, she quickly added, “Onto the soft cushions of our living room couch, of course.” She then shrugged. “My mother wasn’t too happy about that naturally, but she conceded I had proven my point and that settled that.” She grinned mischievously. “Chapbook thought it was all hilarious. It’s become her favorite tale to relate at family reunions. That one time her big sister pinned our dad.”

Thorax laughed, but made an inward note to never get on Fly’s bad side regardless.

Soon Thorax had picked up enough moves to form a small routine, and the two began looping through the routine so to give Thorax additional practice. They were still at it when Spike arose later and, looking for them after getting dressed, found them going through the mystifying moves in near sync.

Spike tilted his head, confused. “What the hay are you two doing?” he asked aloud, alerting the two that he was now standing in the doorway. “Some sort of ballet?”

Fly chuckled. “It’s called guizhou fa,” she responded simply.

“…huh?”

Thorax glanced over at the dragon but was careful not break his concentration. “It’s a martial art, Spark,” he explained simply.

“…you mean like kung fu?”

Thorax blinked, and glanced at Fly for confirmation.

Fly shrugged, showing that there was a noteworthy difference between the two. “Well, same general idea, at least,” she admitted.

“Are you interested in joining us?” Thorax inquired as he and Fly continued on with the routine.

Spike frowned, appearing doubtful. “I don’t know, it doesn’t look like much, honestly,” he admitted. “It seems too…docile.”

Fly snorted at this. “What were you expecting, then?” she asked.

“I don’t know…something epic.” Spike shrugged casually. “I’d be more interested as soon as you two start doing moves where you can epically poleaxe a stallion with ease.”

Fly laughed, but there was a serious tone underlying it. “You mean like punch through walls and fell whole crowds of ninjas or whatever on your own,” she guessed.

“Yeah!” Spike said, nodding in approval.

Thorax winced and persisted with his routine. “I think I’ll just stick with the meditative exercises,” he stated.

“It’d defeat the point of guizhou fa anyway,” Fly explained as she did likewise. “It’s more a…peacekeeping…sort of combat style, with moves that are at most meant to be quick and sudden so to immobilize, stun, or disarm an opponent without giving them time to react and nothing more. It’s supposed to be as minimally violent and damaging as possible. You don’t go looking for fights with guizhou fa, you use it to prevent them from having to start in the first place.”

“Like I said then,” Spike summarized, feeling his point made. “Docile.”

Fly gazed heavenward and shook her head. “Go downstairs and put my big saucepan on to boil, Spark,” she instructed, looking to send the criticizing dragon away. “I’m thinking I’ll make us cream of wheat for breakfast today.”

Spike frowned. “You know I don’t like cream of wheat.”

Fly smirked. “Exactly.”

Spike rolled his eyes and sighed. “Fine, fine, point made,” he groaned and walked off.

Author's Note

There's a couple reasons for this chapter, some I naturally can't reveal just yet, but primarily it came about just wanting to learn a bit more about Fly Leaf, and what she might do in private time. It was also an attempt to get her bonding a bit more with her two employees, and largely by happenstance Thorax happened to be the one of chief focus this time around. I think I succeed on both fronts.

The term "guizhou fa" is a mixture of Chinese words/names to create the name of a fictional martial art (as I didn't want to be restricted by the rules or methods of any real life ones should the need arise). "Guizhou" stems from the name of a real breed of pony that live in a mountainous area of China, and are in turn named after the province they were first bred in. Though I searched, I wasn't able to come up with an actual meaning for the word beyond that. "Fa," however, is a Chinese word that means "law," "way," or "method," and I learned has been used in reference to Chinese martial arts, so it seemed a fitting term to use.

Frequencies

Despite Spike’s criticisms of the practice, Thorax found the meditative moves Fly Leaf had taught him really did do wonders in helping him relax, and was again able to find himself capable of sleeping peacefully at night without incident. And with that peace, began to feel calmer about the idea that perhaps the attempted mental intrusion to his mental scape had been a one-time attempt, and as he had no evidence of a repeat coming, he was finding himself better able to set the matter aside. On the matter of the attempted intrusion, though he still didn’t like not doing more about it, upon thinking it further, he realized Spike was right; until they got more evidence, there was little else they could do about it. And as the days passed, there were still no signs there had been any second attempts on to invade Thorax’s mental scape, or anyone else’s in the area for that matter. It really did seem like that, whatever or whoever it was behind this, it had been a one-time thing. And thanks to the clarity of mind Thorax received from practicing guizhou fa with Fly Leaf, he felt more confident than ever that there had in fact been no further attempts to invade his mental scape, and that he was ready and prepared to catch it should it ever happen again.

But better still, these exercises also helped Thorax feel overall rejuvenated and refreshed in the meantime, making it all that much more of a positive experience. Thus, Thorax began getting up early and joining Fly Leaf practicing guizhou fa every morning, interested in learning more. Fly was happy to have the company, and it quickly became an ongoing ritual between the two from there on. Thorax also found that getting up earlier in the morning also had the benefit of enabling him to better use his time, and quickly saw why Fly had chosen to do it.

It had also left him with a little more free time throughout the day too, and of course, he put it to use.

For example, since he was still greatly enjoying the Sky Trek book series he had been reading, Thorax was quick to use the added time to check out more entries in the series from the library and started making massive progress reading through the lengthy series. Because he was going through them so quickly, he started checking out more than one at once, and soon they became the first books Thorax would check out to outnumber the number of magic books he would also check out from the library in one go. Like everything Thorax read, the changeling read them rapidly and often whenever he found a free moment…but remembering past events he was also careful now to not let himself stay up late reading either, for fear of a repeat. Though occasionally, Spike still had to assist by forcibly removing the book from Thorax in order to get the changeling to snap out of his “reading trance” as the dragon had begun to call it. And though Thorax never wanted to stop reading, he appreciated Spike’s efforts to keep him from getting carried away.

Despite this added reading, Thorax hadn’t forgotten about his favorite radio drama, and it was the one thing the changeling made sure to take time out of every day to listen to. Continuing to buy additional collections of the records in the series to listen to, it was the tradition in the evenings for Thorax to put on a record to listen to while Spike sat nearby at the desk, continuing his toying with writing (trying to bash out a single idea to focus on writing) while they waited for Fly Leaf to call them to dinner. But Thorax would also buy, apparently out of simple curiosity or because it was on sale, other records that often would contain the past year’s top music hits, and would occasionally play these too. Of the records Thorax played, these were the ones Spike generally liked the most whenever he was in the same room to listen. It made him think of his own small but beloved collection of records he had owned up until he and Thorax became banished, although admittedly, his musical tastes were markedly different from the music on Thorax’s records.

So after noting one day that records of interest to Spike were also on sale and weren’t too excessively expensive, Spike decided one day to go and buy a record or two of his own. Once he had done so, he was quick to pull it out to play the first chance he got during his lunch break the following day, and was soon jamming out to the more heavy-toned rock music. He was in the middle of doing so for one particularly enjoyable song when Thorax stepped into their room to begin his own lunch break.

“Thorax!” Spike declared to the surprised changeling entering the room while miming out an air guitar. “Check out the record I got!”

Thorax, however, immediately threw his hooves to his ears and staggered lopsidedly into the room as if thrown off-kilter by the aggressive music. “What in the name of acorns are you playing!?” he shouted louder than he needed to, surprisingly dropping his disguise to reveal his natural changeling form but doing so without first closing the door to the room like he normally did, instead leaving it hanging wide open.

Puzzled by this uncharacteristic behavior, Spike moved to close the door for his friend while watching Thorax continue to trot in a roundabout manner through the room, seemingly unable to walk in a straight line while keeping his hooves over his ears, eyes squinted as if in agony. “This is the sort of music I like,” Spike explained as he followed the changeling, trying to figure out what was wrong. “Is it too loud?”

“It’s too everything!” Thorax shouted unhelpfully, again far louder than he needed as the changeling stumbled towards the record player, but the closer he got to it and the music it played, the more disoriented he seemed to get. “Turn it off!” he requested as he arrived at the player only to veer off to the left at the last moment, apparently without meaning to, and slammed face-first into the wall of the room.

Alarmed, Spike obeyed, hurrying over to the player and lifting the needle off the record, stopping the music immediately. Switching off the turntable, he then hurried to Thorax’s side where the changeling had sat himself on the floor, painfully massaging at his temples with his holed hooves. “What happened, what’s wrong?” he asked with concern.

“I’m not sure,” Thorax admitted, his voice falling back to more normal volumes as he shook off the effects of whatever it was, but his voice was still somewhat louder than it should be, like he was trying to talk over a noise that wasn’t there. “Whatever it was, it had something to do with that music—if you can call it that—you were playing.” He squeezed his eyes shut for a second, digging his hooves into the chitin around his temples while exhaling slowly to calm himself. “Whatever it was, it’s left my head buzzing, and for a second there, I could hardly focus on anything.”

Frowning, Spike glanced back at the innocent record player, realizing this went beyond a mere distaste for rock music, and that something about the music genre apparently bothered his friend’s changeling biology. “Was it hurting your hearing or something?” he hazarded to guess.

“No, no, I think it was more interfering with my praecognoscens nexum nerves…maybe causing some sort of disruption that—”

“Your what?”

Thorax sighed and tapped the base of his curved, pointed, horn where it joined with his forehead as he explained. “It’s a grouping of thaum-sensitive nerves located around here near my horn that are what enables a changeling to forge a link with the mind of another. Now, I’m thinking what might have happened is that your music was somehow aggravating—”

“Basically you think something about the music was causing interference in these nerves-things,” Spike summed up, cutting short what he sensed was going to be a long and technical explanation.

Thorax nodded. “Sort of like static.” He rubbed at his temples again. “And it was the loud kind.”

“But you’ve listened to plenty of other types of music before and not had this problem,” Spike pointed out, trying to puzzle this out. “So what’s different about my music that it’ll cause this problem to even show up?”

“I don’t know,” Thorax admitted. “Something in the audio frequencies, I would guess…I’m more worried if it’s potentially a problem that I could face again without warning, and if so, how can I guard myself against it.”

Spike sat himself down on the floor beside the changeling. “Any way you can figure it out?” he asked, having similar concerns. It wouldn’t do to have this happen again in the presence of witnesses that might discover Thorax was a changeling.

Thorax sighed. “Yes,” he admitted reluctantly. “…but it’s not going to be fun for me.”

Basically, the most Thorax could do was test and experiment with the music and gauge how it responded with his changeling biology. But as he only had himself to serve as a test subject, this basically meant putting himself through the whole reaction again repeatedly while starting and stopping Spike’s record as it was allowed to continue to play, attempting to figure out where the trend lay in what triggered the reaction and what in the music might be that trigger. It was very miserable for Thorax as it obviously wasn’t the very comfortable for him, but he gritted his teeth and bore through it. Spike, meanwhile, assisted by staying around to start and stop the record for Thorax in case Thorax himself couldn’t do it due to being in the throes of another bad reaction. At first he didn’t enjoy it either because it clearly made his friend uncomfortable, but later, after they had got the process refined to a science, Spike started to take some small and quiet amusement in it, if only because Thorax tended to make funny faces whenever the reaction was triggered.

The learning experience proved fruitful by the end of the lunchbreak though, as it revealed the severity of the reaction depended on Thorax’s proximity to the record player, how close or far away he was. And, more revealing still, they found the reaction also wasn’t continuously triggered throughout the whole record, but only seemed to be prone to triggering during certain songs on the record, or even just certain sections of the songs. Both Thorax and Spike noticed that tended to be around the more “hard rock” parts of the record.

“That suggests to me it’s the sound of a specific instrument, or maybe even a combination of instruments that are the trigger for this reaction,” Thorax reasoned, rubbing at his temples again, which naturally had gotten fairly stressed after putting himself through this so repeatedly.

“So…what? Just avoid hard rock concerts, and you’ll be fine?” Spike hazarded to guess with a shrug of his shoulders.

“It’s a start,” Thorax agreed. “But I’d still feel better if I had a better idea just what specifically the frequency that triggers this is, just on the off chance it could pop up in other places too, other than music…unfortunately, that’d require experimenting with the actual physical instruments and the sounds they produce one-on-one…none of which we actually own.”

“Why not just go down to a music store and fiddle with some of the instruments they have on display there?” Spike suggested. “I know a lot of stores will let their customers demo instruments so to interest them in buying them. Just turn them down when they try and sell it to you.”

Thorax rolled his eyes, or at least the next closest equivalent his pupiless blue eyes could manage while undisguised. “Unfortunately, no shop owner is going to let one customer idly demo several instruments, play what would sound like nonsense to them, and then refuse to buy any of them without asking questions, not for a random customer off the street.” He turned to walk for the door. “So unless you actually know a famous enough of an musician skilled in more than one instrument, that a shop owner wouldn’t question over and would more just be glad to have the musician in their shop altogether, and in enough detail that I could devise an accurate disguise for said musician, then there’s not a lot we can do about it.”

But Spike remained by the record player, thinking to the contrary. “Well, actually, now that you mention it…”

So by afternoon the next day, after visiting the library to dredge up some additional information and photographs for Thorax’s reference, even finding by chance an archived record that happened to have a conversational voice sample, Thorax wandered down to a nearby, privately owned but highly reputable music shop, and casually slipped inside in hopes to have his chance to secretly conduct his tests. He went in keeping an eye out for the shop owners, but fortunately he didn’t have to look far; there were few customers in the shop at that exact moment, and both of the shop’s two owners, a pair of stallion twins, were standing behind the front desk discussing a stock order when he entered. They immediately looked up and their eyes went wide, stunned, when they recognized the pony Thorax was currently disguised as, walking in through their front door.

“’Sup homies?” Thorax greeted casually in the voice of the musician he was disguised as, named Vinyl Scratch according to Spike and happened to be native to the Ponyville area when not out on tour. “Just doin’ some window shoppin’, so don’t mind me.”

He then turned and walked to the side opposite of the store from the front desk to casually look at a display of drum heads, the idea being to act like this was a casual visit and that he didn’t actually have an agenda to fill here, letting the shop owners come to him. To add to this image, on top of the disguise Thorax wore his midnight blue hoodie—which happened to fit Vinyl’s image perfectly—and prior to coming to the music shop, he had stopped at Monterey’s and bought a piece of Wensleydale cheese to idly munch on while here.

Thorax actually didn’t like it too much and thought it was a bit too sweet in flavor for his tastes, thinking he should’ve tried the Stilton today, but it just meant he could keep nibbling on it throughout the visit instead of having downed it too soon and spoil the image. The only other thing he wore was a pair of fancy shades that he had bought that was a close equivalent to the pair Vinyl was often wearing in the photos he saw of her. But as the shades made it too dim to see what he was doing, Thorax had them propped up above his disguise’s white unicorn horn, and thought this only added to the casual image he was shooting for. His biggest fear was that he had overdone it and the shop owners would leave him alone, but instead, exactly as he hoped, the shop owners were soon hurrying over, trying to look calm and collected but weren’t really succeeding.

“Hello!” one of the two twins said as he was first to arrive, which seemed to slightly annoy the other. “Vinyl Scratch, right?”

“That’s me,” Thorax replied, turning to face the two stallions and giving them an idle once-over. They both had blond mane and tails, peach-colored bodies, and wore identical black polo-shirts with the store’s logo on them, and being obvious twins, they looked practically identical. Others probably would’ve had a hard time telling them apart, but being a changeling and thus having an eye for the finer details in a pony’s figure, Thorax noticed one of the two was somewhat leaner and there was a slight difference in their respective bone structures around the eyes.

“The DJ-PON3?” the other stallion asked, his eagerness not quite so concealed as his brother’s.

Thorax placed a white hoof to the chest of his disguise, feigning pride. “My reputation precedes me, I see.”

“We’re the shop owners,” the first stallion offered, offering his hoof to shake, which Thorax accepted. “I’m Xylophone.”

“And I’m Metallophone,” the other added, also offering his hoof for a shake. “We’re big fans. You’re such a talent in music, it seems like there’s nothing you couldn’t do.”

Thorax just laughed politely and didn’t comment, but he was inwardly glad the owners were proving to be such fan boys of this mare. It also confirmed what he already knew; Vinyl was primarily a disk jockey by trade, but she also was practiced in a number of other instruments both inside and outside her typical genre, and was often featuring samples from such instruments into her work. It was why Spike suggested her and Thorax agreed to pose as her; because of the range of instruments Vinyl was known to be familiar with, no one would question her asking to demo a wide range of instruments seemingly at random.

“We just wanted to welcome you to our store, and ask if there was anything, anything at all, we could help you find,” Xylophone explained by way of offer.

Thorax made a non-committed shrug. “Just lookin’ at whatcha got, really,” he admitted, turning to idly gaze of the shop on a whole. “Was just passin’ through the area chilling between concerts, lookin’ to kill some time, and there was this groupie for a fellow artist I met awhile back that mentioned this place, so I figured I’d check it out while I’m here.”

“We’re flattered you’d think to do so,” Xylophone continued with an eager nod, and moved closer. “Is there anything in particular you’d be interested in?”

Again, Thorax shrugged. “Y’know, I don’t actually have a pressin’ need for any of this right now, so just kind of anything and everything right now. Anything that might catch my eye, y’know?”

“Well for such an honored guest, you’re welcome to have run of the shop if you want,” Xylophone generously offered. “You see anything you like anywhere in the store, and you’re welcome to give it a look.”

Thorax pretended to consider this. “And I’m good to demo it too if I want, right?” he asked.

Both of the stallions nodded. “Absolutely!” Xylophone said. “We certainly wouldn’t expect you to buy something you hadn’t tried for yourself first.”

“Boys, I was hopin’ ya’d say that,” Thorax responded with a grin.

And he made good on that offer. Bringing out a notebook to take notes in (all in his native changeling language of course, to avoid anybody being able to steal a peek at what he was writing), he proceeded to pull out the various instruments he wanted to experiment with, and proceeded to poke around with them accordingly, trying to simulate the audio frequencies he suspected were responsible for his problem. Because he was disguised so, no one seemed to question him on what he was doing, even though he was really only awkwardly producing random noise instead of music. He even overheard Xylophone quietly comment to his twin that the unusual tones Thorax was producing demonstrated just how much Vinyl was an “audio visionary, to produce such unconventional sounds.” All of which worked perfectly for Thorax and his plans.

There were still minor issues to the ruse, though. At one point, a fellow customer also recognized Thorax’s disguise and hurried over to ask for Vinyl’s autograph. For obvious reasons, Thorax tried to politely wiggle out of it by admitting he didn’t have a pen on hoof…but naturally the customer had one he could borrow. Vaguely recalling seeing a sample of Vinyl’s signature in a promotional picture he had found while researching her for the disguise then, he attempted to make a rough approximate of the signature from memory. Thankfully, that seemed to be good enough for the customer.

Unfortunately, the other minor issue Thorax faced wasn’t so easily resolved; he noticed after a few minutes that Metallophone had taken to ogling his disguise from behind. Naturally feeling embarrassed by that, especially since it was really the rump of another mare that the shop owner was staring at and Thorax knew he had no permission to borrow, so the disguised changeling began making it a point to either remain seated or have himself turned so to be facing Metallophone at all times for the remaining duration of his stay in the shop. He also had a small problem of trying to not pull a face whenever he hit the right note and triggered the negative reaction, as it at least once drew the baffled stare of one nearby customer. But despite these hiccups things went accordingly to plan, and after about a half-hour and calculating out a few final math formulas in his notebook to double check his work, Thorax had the information he was looking for and was packing up to leave.

“Anything interest you, Miss Scratch?” Xylophone asked hopefully as Thorax moved to head for the front door, finishing off the last of the Wensleydale cheese.

Thorax shook his head. “Nothing I have a pressing need to get right now,” he admitted with a hint of regret in his tone so to let Xylophone down easy. “But ya’ve got a nice place here…I’ll definitely keep it on my radar for the future, and maybe pass word on to a few friends that are more often up here in the Vanhoover area than I usually am.”

Xylophone beamed at this news, no doubt already envisioning a massive boon to his and his brother’s business. “That’d be wonderful, thank you!” he declared. “Do come again, though! You’re always welcome.”

Thorax winked at him. “Catch ya on the flip side,” he said as he slipped out the door.

Once he was outside though, he let out a deep breath, relieved that part was over and done with, and quickly trotted off. He headed over to the arcade that was on the next block over and ducked inside the busy little building. After a moment of looking around though, he spied Spike sitting at one game machine located in a quieter corner of the arcade, killing time while waiting for Thorax, and strolled over to him.

“Well, I’m back,” he announced to the dragon as he pulled his notebook back out, flipping to the notes he had taken. “It’s definitely a case of it causing an unintended thaumic feedback in my praecognoscens nexum nerves.”

Spike glanced away from his screen and at the disguised changeling for a second, and smirked. “That’s very interesting to hear, Vinyl Scratch,” he quipped as he looked back at the video game he was playing.

“Huh?” Thorax remarked blankly, then looked down at himself and realized he had acclimated to it so much he forgotten to switch out of his disguise as the DJ pony. “Oh! Uh…” He glanced around to make sure no one was watching then quickly ducked behind Spike’s arcade machine. A brief flash of cyan light later, he stepped back out on the other side of the machine, back in his usual Thornton disguise and looking sheepish. “Well, that’s embarrassing,” he confessed, back to using his normal voice.

“I’ll bet, especially after you whined so much about having to disguise as a mare,” Spike quipped, jabbing at the controls of the video game with his claws as he played.

Thorax blushed. “Hush,” he said.

“How had you had put it when you tried to get out of it…something about wanting to wear a cloak or something to cover up so you could “fudge the anatomy” and get away with it?”

“Hush, I said,” Thorax repeated, but he couldn’t help but grin along with Spike’s light-hearted teasing.

“So…feedback loop sort of deal then?” Spike summarized, not taking his eyes off his game as he got back on topic.

Thorax nodded, watching Spike play. “Basically what happens is that the specific audio frequencies in the rock instruments that commonly play like in your music mixed in with the magical-based distortions their attached sound systems exploited create a sort of magical side-effect. It’s harmless to ponies and probably most other creatures…though I suspect that this might be the real reason birds tend to fly away at the sound of such music when played too loudly…but it happens to have minor adverse effects on parts of changeling biology responsible for our mental abilities.” He tapped the screen of Spike’s game with one hoof suddenly. “Get the thing already, Spike.”

“I know, I know, I’m working on it,” Spike grumbled, struggling with the controls of the game.

“Anyway, as far as I can tell, it doesn’t create any lasting damage, it just severely disorients any changelings within range while it’s playing, but immediately bounce back once it stops, or at least that’s how it’s worked for me,” Thorax continued to explained. “But to play it safe, so long as I stay away from rock concerts and aren’t in the same room every time you play your record, I should be fine.”

“So basically exactly what I had suggested you do yesterday,” Spike summarized as his character in his video game died and the game ended.

“Yes, but now we know that for certain,” Thorax pressed.

Spike turned and smirked teasingly at his friend. “You’re satisfied with that, then?” he asked.

Thorax grinned proudly. “Quite.”

Spike shrugged. “Whatever floats your boat then,” he said, patting Thorax on the leg and heading to leave. “C’mon, we need to start hoofing it back to the shop anyway, or Fly’s going to start wondering what happened to us.”

“Right,” Thorax said with a nod, and followed.

Author's Note

This all probably seems like a purely filler chapter, but in reality the subjects it touches upon will be relevant in a much later chapter, and I needed to address it at some point in the story prior to that. I had wanted to address it attached to a much earlier chapter than this, but plans for the chapter in question changed last minute and I was forced to move the relevant material later into the story. As I didn't have any remaining chapters that would meld well with the subject, I thus had to flesh out the subject a bit more so to make a standalone chapter that you see now.

If it helps, this will probably the last chapter of this sort featuring a sort of "self-enclosed" adventure in it for the remainder of the story. All chapters after this point (unless I'm overlooking one, which is possible as I don't have my notes in front of me right this second, but I doubt it) will tie in to the greater main plot of the story in some shape or form.

In other news, since I figure people might start to ask by this point, no we're not done with the matter of the mysterious "mental intruder" a couple chapters back. Never fear, we will be getting back to that in due time. :raritywink:

At the Wrong Time

The preparations for the transition to autumn in Vanhoover had formally begun according to the weather reports in the paper, but despite a notable decrease in the ambient temperature in the city, the weather outwardly remained fairly calm and unchanged. This didn’t especially surprise Spike, who knew the autumn transition generally wasn’t immediate. Back in Ponyville, autumn normally wouldn’t settle in fully for another moon or more. However, according to Fly Leaf, Vanhoover, being further north, tended to start into autumn sooner than more southern towns like Ponyville due to the climate differences. The weather may be managed by ponies after all, but that didn’t mean the climate wouldn't still vary depending on the region of the world you lived in.

Or so both Spike and Fly Leaf attempted to explain to Thorax, who didn’t seem to understand. To him, the discrepancies all just seemed oddly inefficient. Wouldn’t it make more sense to just have autumn take place universally across the globe regardless of region? He assumed there was a more formal explanation as to why it was done this way that neither Spike nor Fly could give him, and made a mental note to research it further next time he was checking out new books from the library. In the meantime, Thorax decided to appreciate the slow transition to autumn anyway, as it at least meant it bought himself time to brace for it. Going from the colorful descriptions Spike had been giving him, autumn sounded visually beautiful, but being originally native to much farther south than here, Thorax was also dreading the cold that would come with it. His chitinous hide, of course, would provide sufficient insulation to bear it, and he had been wearing his new hoodie jacket every time he went out now, but that didn’t mean the cold was going to be any more enjoyable for him to be in.

Regardless, it wasn’t a bad day to be out and about in the city, and so for his lunchbreak that day, Thorax decided to go out and run a few errands. He was in a pretty good mood as he did so; there had been few problems of note that had arisen as of late. There was still the unresolved matter of the attempted intrusion upon Thorax’s mental scape of course, but there still hadn’t been any new developments on that, or any sign that there had been any second attempts at the deed or that any more were coming. This had been leading Thorax to conclude that, whoever or whatever was behind it, this had been the end of the matter. Of course this didn’t mean that Spike and Thorax weren’t still keeping themselves on guard for it, because they most certainly were; they had agreed it was better safe than sorry. But until it happened, they figured there were other things in life needing their focus more.

In this case though, Thorax was out on a personal and casual errand. He had learned that an old-timey bookstore across town was having a clearance sale, and as he was far enough into the Sky Trek book series and looking into securing copies of the books for himself, he was hoping he might find some copies there, especially from the early days of the series, which would be excellent finds from a collecting perspective. As the book series was just over fifty years old now, the first dozen or so entries in the book series had become increasingly harder and harder to come by over time, at least in their original printings, which Thorax preferred. Obviously, a number of reprints had been run over the years of these early books, but to Thorax the original printings were more desirable. He attributed this to his changeling nature; all changelings know that referring to the physical original wherever possible is the best way to form a disguise, and are trained with that in mind. Besides, Thorax preferred the original, minimalistic, cover art the early versions used that the more crowded and colorful later editions replaced.

Because of the location of the bookstore, Thorax took his usual shortcut through what Spike and Fly Leaf referred to as the “rougher” part of town. Thorax still didn’t quite see why they saw it so though. He granted that this part of town overall seemed a bit more run down, but the ponies he would occasionally meet within seemed nice enough…although admittedly he usually just ran into Ragg and his group of friends when heading through this part of town. As usual, Ragg and the group were approachable enough, cheerily greeting Thorax, asked him to do his usual “trick” running up and down the archway the group always seemed to be hanging around, before parting and letting Thorax go on his way. By this time, Thorax had begrudgingly conceded that Spike was right, and the group was no more than a gang that occasionally got into trouble…but the disguised changeling still preferred to think better of the group.

At any rate, he arrived at the desired bookstore a couple of blocks further on without further event and began skimming through their selection of books. It was indeed an “old-timey” bookstore in the sense that it specialized in selling in primarily old texts first printed decades back, usually with collectors in mind. But it also sold more recently printed books as well, probably so to appeal to more than one demographic of shopper. Because of this, while Thorax wasn’t able to find any copies of the desired early entries in the Sky Trek series that brought him here, he was able to find a copy of a relatively more recent entry in the series that he had actually just finished reading himself a week or so earlier and bought that. He also found a book supposedly detailing changelings themselves, written by a noted pony professor and published almost immediately following the Canterlot invasion. Skimming through it, he found nearly all of the details describing changelings given within were inaccurate to flat-out wrong…to the point Thorax thought it was hilarious, so he bought it too, for the laughs.

Finished at the bookstore then, and the allotted time for his lunchbreak ending soon, Thorax started the trip back for Fly Leaf’s shop, and again took his shortcut through the rough part of town. He expected to find Ragg’s gang in their usual spot and to go through their normal routine like always, and like he had done when passing through here not more than twenty minutes earlier. Instead though, as he approached, he saw the group standing around the archway as usual, but something seemed notably different. It was only as he drew closer that he realized it was because Ragg’s group had been joined by another group of lanky teens like them. Except where Ragg’s group was composed of mostly reddish-colored earth ponies, the new group was almost entirely composed of bluish-colored pegasi. Additionally, the new group all wore some kind of scarf about their necks, while Ragg’s group all wore some kind of hat, except Ragg himself, who today only wore a black t-shirt.

Thorax slowed as he started to approach, feeling puzzled, and noticed there was a clear divide between the two groups, and the mood seemed…tense. He could smell the feelings of apprehension and distrust on the air. Ragg and a burlier teen from the other group—Thorax surmised he was the leader of the pegasi group—were engaged in quiet but flurried conversation. Thorax had come to a stop just a couple feet away from the gathering, beginning to wonder if maybe he shouldn’t be interrupting, when one of the ponies in Ragg’s group spotted the camouflaged changeling and nudged Ragg so to point it out to the teen.

Ragg paused in the conversation and looked in Thorax’s direction. “Thorny!” he greeted in his usual manner, but then gave Thorax an apologetic grin. “Hey listen, you’re probably not going to want to come through this spot right now.”

“Oh, okay, I’ll go around then,” Thorax said, not wanting to cause trouble, and started to turn and leave. He quickly found his path blocked by a couple of ponies from the pegasi group.

“What is this, Ragg?” the pegasus Ragg had been conversing with said darkly. “Who’s the beatnik? I thought we agreed no outsiders for this meet’n’greet.” He shot a glare at Ragg. “Or is he one of yours? Recruiting unicorns now, are we?”

“Leave Thorny out of this, Q-Tip,” Ragg responded in a similar tone to the stallion, apparently by name. “He’s just passin’ through…he didn’t know what was gonna be happenin’ here.”

“Yes, I seem to have arrived at the wrong time,” Thorax offered helpfully, seeing no easy way past the ponies blocking his path and turned to watch the two group leaders and wait for a resolution.

“Shut up, beatnik!” Q-Tip shouted in Thorax’s direction then faced Ragg again. “You know the rules, Ragg, I never thought you’d try and break ‘em, but then again, I guess I ain’t surprised.”

“Really, Q?” Ragg questioned in a challenging tone. “I think you’re just lookin’ for any excuse to cause trouble.” He nodded his head at Thorax. “If you’re so sure I’m tryin’ to sneak a fast one on ya though, then go ahead, check Thorny out.”

“I think I will,” Q-Tip said, and lumbered over to Thorax.

Up close, Thorax couldn’t help but notice that this was indeed a burly pony, the sort one wouldn’t want to get angry, and stood about half a head taller than Thorax. The fact he had a thin scar running down one of his sky blue cheeks didn’t help with the intimidating figure he posed. Nor did the fact that his right wing appeared to be twisted and mangled from some past injury. Thorax wondered briefly if he might be a cripple and unable to fly. At first Q-Tip just stood there and looked Thorax’s disguised form up and down. But then he stepped forward and began to roughly give Thorax a pat-down, although what he was looking for, Thorax could only guess. He then pulled open one of Thorax’s saddlebags and pulled out the Sky Trek book Thorax had bought, and held it up before the changeling skeptically, as if this proved a point.

“Like I said,” Q-Tip said, turning around to face Ragg again, casually tossing the book over his head. “He’s a beatnik.”

“Hey!” Thorax cried out, quickly grabbing the book with his magic before it hit the ground. “That’s in mint condition!” He quickly tucked the book back into the safety of his saddlebag before turning back to look at the ponies surrounding him, all looking in his direction. Thorax decided to use the chance to pose a question. “Also, what’s a beatnik?”

“I said shut up!” Q-Tip shouted suddenly, and whirled onto Ragg. “He may be a beatnik, but I can see why ya’d want him around Ragg. Just what were you tryin’ to pull?”

“If you wanna make something of it Q, then why don’t you already?” Ragg challenged with a scowl. “That’s why you and your lousy gang are really here, ain’t it?”

“Lousy?” Q-Tip roared, and suddenly grabbed Ragg by the collar.

Thorax tensed as he sensed the tensions within both groups spike sharply, and realized suddenly that he had come directly between two rival gangs, one of which apparently looking for a fight. He swallowed. “Look, I think I should just go…” he began, pointing a hoof behind him.

“Thorny, you’re good with that horn of yours, right?” Ragg asked seriously as he glanced at Thorax, who kept surprisingly calm while Q-Tip’s hooves twisted the collar of his shirt.

Thorax looked up at the disguised dark-grey horn upon his brow. “…yes?”

Ragg nodded slightly and faced Q-Tip with a glare again, the burly pegasus merely glaring back, waiting for Ragg to make the first move. “Better use it,” was all Ragg said before abruptly punching Q-Tip in the face with his hoof.

Like a signal had been given, both gangs were suddenly upon each other, trying to bash the other into pulp. Immediately, the training Thorax had been given as an invader back at the hive kicked in, and he lit his horn, spinning around in time to shoot two ponies charging to tackle him with stun spells, and duck as another pony leapt at him, sailing over his head. He rose again and continued firing off stun spells, trying to knock out as many ponies as quickly as he could. He tried to keep it limited to just Q-Tip’s gang, but saw several members from Ragg’s gang blindly charge him too in the heat of the battle and started stunning them as well.

The next couple of moments blurred by quickly, Thorax eagerly trying to keep everypony that charged him stunned and out of hoof’s reach, praying the fight would end soon. He feared at one point he might have to switch to a winged disguise to escape, risking the transition between them getting noticed, but it eventually started to calm down enough as more and more ponies went down in the fight that he thought he might be able to slip away unnoticed soon without resorting to that. But while stunning another pony that was leaping at him, Thorax suddenly saw another blue-green pegasus charging his left side out of the corner of his eye. He proceeded to spin around and aim his horn to fire his spell again, but this time he was a second too slow, and the pegasus slammed hard into Thorax’s side, pushing him a few paces back as they grappled.

Thorax lost his aim briefly, and before he could get it back, the pegasus swatted his hooves and managed to land a blow to Thorax’s horn. Thorax yelped at the jolt of pain this sent through his horn and felt it go numb, briefly unable to cast any more magic of any sort. The attacking pegasus used this moment to shove the stunned changeling against the wall of a neighboring building, pinning him in place while they continued to grapple. Realizing he was cornered and at a disadvantage though, Thorax reacted instinctively like the changeling he was and, permitting his fangs to burst out of his disguise suddenly, he sank his teeth into the pegasus’s shoulder, right where it met with his neck. The pegasus jerked back from the pain, and reacted by blindly punching the left side of Thorax’s head trying to get him to let go, managing to tear a hole in Thorax’s disguise over his face, the disguise being weakened as it was thanks to Thorax’s momentarily numbed horn.

Despite this, Thorax kept his fangs dug into the pony’s flesh, feeling the tickle in the base of the fangs as they pumped subduing venom into the assaulter’s bloodstream. Soon, the pegasus began to go limp as the venom acted, and finally he dropped to the ground, unconscious. Thorax let him drop and just stood there for a second, panting and recollecting his nerves. Pushing off from the side of the building, he looked around and saw the fight had apparently ended. As he surveyed the area, all he saw were ponies crumpled on the ground, unconscious. Believing himself the last one standing then, Thorax let out a whoosh of relief, and beginning to sense feeling in his horn again, he hid his fangs back behind his disguise and began to slowly seal the hole that had torn in his disguise, hiding his exposed changeling face once again. As he did so, he realized he should flee while he could, and turned to gallop off in the direction he had originally been heading for Fly Leaf’s shop.

That was when he saw Ragg was in fact still standing from the fight too, one eye already blackening, standing there and staring at Thorax with wide, wide, eyes.

Thorax’s own eyes widened, and one hoof went to his face in time to feel the hole in his disguise finish sealing itself. It was immediately clear what had happened. He saw, Thorax thought to himself in shock.

Thorax quickly braced himself for the inevitable reaction he thought would follow, debating his options, while inwardly trying to ready another stunning spell to use should he need to, only to find his horn still hadn’t recovered quite enough to form the needed spell. But Ragg did nothing except stand there and continue to stare, clearly too shocked to move. It seemed he didn’t know what to do. Eventually Thorax realized it didn’t matter now anyway; he could hear sirens rapidly converging on the spot they stood. Someone must have gotten word to the police during the fight, and now they were close enough that neither Ragg nor Thorax could hope to escape before they arrived.

So Thorax did the next best thing he could think to do. He brought his hoof to his lips and motioned for Ragg to remain silent, wordlessly conveying to keep what he saw secret. For a split second he wasn’t sure Ragg understood or would obey, but then slowly, ever so slightly, Ragg nodded his head. It was then that a police carriage came skidding to a halt just in front of the scene, the spinning lights on the helmets of the team of ponies pulling it flashing brightly.

“Don’t move!” a police pony ordered as the carriage doors sprang open and a riot team of unicorns stormed out. “Hooves where we can see them!”

Thorax and Ragg both spun around to face them, obediently throwing their forehooves into the air and surrendering. As the officers surrounded the pair of them, moving to cuff them, Thorax was somewhat surprised at the one thought that kept running through his head.

Spike is going to kill me for this.

Author's Note

Thorax may be a pacifist in general nature most of the time, but to me this doesn't mean he's not still capable of defending himself. I also reckon he did get some kind of combat training of some sort if he was brought along for the invasion at Canterlot, even if he was no more than a mere grunt in the ranks.

Ironically, I don't...really have anything to comment about on the rest of the chapter. Tune in next Monday, I guess? :rainbowlaugh:

Precaution

Apparently the police had gotten a report from somepony living up the street from the fight that a brawl was happening and to come investigate, but beyond that, they didn’t seem to know any details about the fight itself, who was on what side, why it had taken place, and who all was involved or not involved. Naturally, Thorax attempted to explain that he was just an innocent bystander who had the misfortune of being in the wrong place at the wrong time, and yes he had been a part of the fight, but only in self-defense, or else he would’ve ended up being among the more beaten up members of the fight. Three of those members, in fact, had to be taken to the hospital for additional treatment, while a number more received treatment on the scene by attending medics that had arrived too. Apparently though, over a third of the group escaped the fight relatively unscathed, as it turned out Thorax had ended up stunning more ponies than he thought he had. So he also tried reasoning to the police that he had probably helped end the fight before even more damage and harm was done to everypony present.

The police were willing to listen, but the fact of the matter was that they didn’t have any idea what had transpired exactly and too many variables that could hinder it, needing time to sort out and confirm what was fictional and what was fact. So as there were too many ponies to keep tabs on there at the scene, all of them were more or less taken into custody and loaded into the police carriages to be taken back to the station, Thorax included. The arrangement, Thorax was told, was likely to be temporary, at least until the police had a better idea what had transpired and what charges needed to be pressed, if any. In the case of Thorax though, even though it still felt like he was being arrested, the police insisted it was a “detainment.” Whatever the case, Thorax decided that the best policy was to simply cooperate and wait it out, hoping a peaceful solution would come his way.

Once at the police station, all of the participants in the fight were filed through the front office one at a time where they were asked to give their names and basic contact information, so to at least determine who was who in the fight for investigative purposes. For some of the group, this included collecting info for basic identification records, like their name, their hoofprints, mugshots, and things such as that. As Thorax was, again, purportedly not being formally arrested and no charges pressed yet, just being kept “on hoof,” the police were not yet obligated to collect most of this information for him, and kept it to just his name (which he gave as Thornton, because so long as he wore his current disguise, that who he was as far as everypony else was concerned). They were going to ask for a magical signature reading with which to identify his magic, but as Thorax was confirmed the only magic user present in the fight, it was deemed unnecessary to get his magical signature just yet, as there weren’t any other magical signatures it could be entangled with. They also made no attempt to put a magic inhibitor ring on his horn, a sign, Thorax felt, that suggested the police were inclined to believe Thorax’s story, they were just being thorough and getting sufficient evidence to confirm it first.

For Thorax, this was all a good thing, as he was very conscious of the fact that the police thought he was merely a unicorn at the moment, but in reality was a wanted changeling in hiding, and his situation would become disastrously worse should they find out. He knew the police would no doubt use what information they had on him to check out his background, a worrying prospect at first glance, but in reality Thorax realized it would only mean they would trace the pony Thornton back no further than Fly Leaf, who knew nothing of his true identity and knew she’d likely back him up. Still, he knew the danger was there, and he did not want to do anything to tempt fate. Therefore, he cooperated as asked, but still preferred to keep what the police learned about him to a minimum as chance permitted, and just what was absolutely necessary for proving his innocence in the fight.

Nonetheless, while Thorax was in that front office, he did take the time to glance over at the overfull bulletin board the police had been hanging their wanted posters on, and sure enough, saw that a copy of the poster for Spike the crystal guard had been handing out during their search for them still hanging on it. Thankfully, the poster had clearly been there for a while and was no longer the center of attention; it was faded, slightly yellowed, and the right eighth of it covered up by a newer wanted poster of a far meaner-looking criminal that made Spike’s much more innocent photo seem innocuous in comparison. All in all, it told Thorax that the search for Spike was no longer a high priority by the Vanhoover police, and had become yesterday’s news in light of no further developments on it; a “cold case” he believed the appropriate term was. Thorax preferred to keep it that way.

After the police had gathered this basic information from each of the participants in the fight, they were all put in cells to wait while the police interviewed each one in turn, gathering testimonies and piecing together the full story of the fight as accurately as possible. As the police station was only equipped with so many cells, a lot of the ponies ended up having to share cells with each other, but Thorax lucked out and got a cell all to himself. He wasn’t told why, but Thorax suspected it may have been an attempt by the police to keep him from coming to harm from other gang members that may not look upon his role in the fight kindly, assuming what he had told the police thus far was true, and of course it was.

He wondered if he was more actually being discreetly taken into protective custody of some sort as a result, and the police just wanted to keep it quiet. If so, the police were doing their part in being approachable at least. Once he was securely inside the cell, the police were actually fairly friendly, explaining what the process was going to be and what Thorax should expect from here. Of note was that because they had “detained” Thorax but not formally arrested him or pressed charges against him, they could only keep him in their custody for twenty-four hours maximum, at which point they would have to charge Thorax with something or they would have to let him go. They also told Thorax that he had the right to send one message via a messenger employed by the station to any pony of his choosing if desired, and Thorax used it to send a message to Fly Leaf and Spike briefly explaining his situation. He was, after all, now late to return from his lunchbreak and figured the two would be beginning to wonder what had happened to him.

Otherwise, Thorax was left to pace, wait, and quietly assess his situation. He took comfort in the fact that the police had thus far been unaware they had a disguised changeling in their custody, but he greatly worried if he’d be able to keep it up the longer this dragged on. It was Ragg he was especially worried about, who Thorax knew was aware he was a changeling now. What little they had managed to silently convey before the police arrived suggested Ragg was willing to try and keep this between only them…but he also knew he had no real guarantee that Ragg wouldn’t tell all. Thorax liked Ragg after all, but he still really didn’t know enough about Ragg to tell if he could be trusted or how he would react in this situation. Unfortunately, with Ragg having been kept largely separate from Thorax during all of this and now being held in a different cell, Thorax could only wait and hope for the best.

He also had worries that something he had overlooked might come up to clue in the police of his real identity regardless of what Ragg did. The leading reason for this was that Thorax’s cell was not guarded in any meaningful way, which he was quick to note. In fact, after he had been put in the cell, he saw fairly little of the police officers in the building, except when they happened to stroll pass his cell, usually on their way to somewhere else. It wasn’t that it was hard to see what Thorax might be doing at any time in the cell of course. It was a relatively empty room with the stereotypical prison bars serving as the means in and out and the only things within it besides himself were two cots positioned with one above the other, a metal bench, a basic sink, and a basic toilet—all of which were bolted to the wall or floor, and none of which could really be used to adequately hide himself or anything else an occupant might not be allowed to have. And the lack of guards could also just mean the police trusted him enough to not believe he needed such guarding, certainly a good thing if true. Nonetheless, the fact the police didn’t seem to be physically keeping an eye on him even as a precaution made him wonder if there was more at play here than was immediately obvious.

It didn’t take Thorax long to find it, either. The prison cells all opened into a long, cinder brick-walled, hallway, with one wall containing the entrances to all of the cells, while the other was a simple solid wall broken only by a doorway leading into the rest of the police station sitting towards the center. But mounted on this wall every few feet, so that each one was positioned directly across from each cell and could be clearly seen no matter where you stood in the cell, was the logo for the Vanhoover Police Force and adorned at the top with what appeared to be a decorative crystal to the untrained eye. It did not fool Thorax though—he quickly determined the jewel was magicked to monitor him.

What he did not know was how it was magicked. As he knew the jewel was neither big enough nor the right shape to serve as a lens for visual recordings like a movie film camera, he could rule that out. This meant it likely was monitoring him either with magic-sensing vision or heat-sensing vision. The distinction was important in Thorax’s case because of how the two sensed cast magic. All magic gave off some degree of heat when active, enough that it would always show in heat-sensing vision. For example, if Thorax were to light his horn and try and use his magic to move something in the cell, heat-sensing vision would detect the heat this would give off. This also meant that it could detect the magic Thorax was using to keep himself disguised as Thornton, but because it would blend in with the rest of Thorax’s natural body heat, it’s heat wouldn’t be distinguishable from it and would go unnoticed by anyone viewing whatever the heat-sensing vision saw.

Magic-sensing vision, however, was a completely different story because it worked by detecting specifically magical energy—ambient or otherwise—within its field of view and then mark it according to its intensity. All ponies naturally gave off some detectable magic, but generally only in small amounts. Because he was disguised though, Thorax would appear as a bright glowing ball of magical energy to magic-sensing vision, and that would be more than enough reason for the police to suspect something. So of course he wished he knew which sensing means the crystal had been set up with, but had no way to confirm it without using his magic to scan it himself, and he worried that would only alert the police that something might be up if he tried. After several minutes of waiting in his cell without event though, Thorax could safely assume two possibilities; that the crystal was indeed heat-sensing in which case he was safe, or that the crystal was in fact magic-sensing, but wasn’t being actively monitored and was instead recording what it detected for later review. Of the two, he naturally preferred the first.

Waiting was the hardest part of all though, because the longer Thorax was left in the cell, the longer he had to wonder about what was happening, and to worry if things weren’t going to work out for him in the end. He wished he had something to distract himself, especially longing for something he could read, but the police offered no reading materials in the cell, and they had confiscated his saddlebags and all within when they took him into custody. They let him keep his midnight blue hoodie, but only because its pockets were already empty and thus had nothing to offer for Thorax to entertain himself with, except play with the zipper. He longed for some sign of progress at the very least.

What he got instead was a slender, bespectacled unicorn stallion wearing white saddlebags marked with a medical cross on it, stepping up to the bars of his cell. “Hello there, how are you doing this afternoon?” he asked as he magically floated a clipboard of papers up to his face, reviewing the information printed upon them.

Thorax pondered on how to reply as he strolled up the prison bars dividing them. “I suppose all things considered, it could be worse,” he conceded.

The stallion laughed. “Well, I’m just the police physician and lab tech here at the station,” he explained. “I’ve been asked to go around and do drug tests on everypony brought in from that gang tussle earlier today so to confirm none of you were under the influence or anything like that. You know—just as a precaution.”

“Oh, okay,” Thorax replied, nodding his head. Seemed sensible enough.

“Of course, it’s all voluntary,” the physician went on to explain. “We can’t make you participate in the test, especially if we can’t actually charge any of you of anything yet.”

“No, no, that’s fine, I’m happy to participate,” Thorax agreed readily, knowing he was on no drugs to speak of and saw that proving that to the police could only help his case. “I don’t have anything to hide about drugs.”

“Excellent!” the physician said happily. And then he levitated a small plastic container out of his saddlebags and over to Thorax.

Thorax accepted it into his hoof and stared at it blankly, not understanding. “Um…”

“I will need a urine sample to conduct the test,” the physician explained, seeing Thorax’s confusion.

Thorax blinked, looked up at the unicorn patiently waiting, then back at the container in his hoof again. “…Ah,” he remarked hesitantly, not expecting this. Truthfully, he had figured it would just be a quick magical scan of the blood coursing through his veins; nothing detailed enough that would risk giving him away as a changeling, he knew. It’s what would be done back in the hive at least, although the need for any equivalent of a drug test was typically rare there. But then he realized that probably could still be faked by a determined enough of a pony, so it made unfortunate sense the police would choose not to rely on such a thing.

The physician noted Thorax’s sudden hesitation. “Is there a problem?” he inquired innocently.

“No, no problem,” Thorax quickly replied, but in reality he had two big problems with providing a urine sample for testing. One, he wasn’t sure if there would be any notable chemical differences between his changeling urine to that of a pony’s, and if such a difference could be detected and give him away as a changeling. But the other problem was far more pressing; he couldn’t give any samples while he was still disguised. He would have to drop the disguise in order to do so…and obviously he wasn’t keen to do so while within a prison cell where he could be easily observed. “…could I maybe have some privacy?”

The physician furrowed his brow and thought about it. He didn’t seem certain. “I’ll ask,” he assured, taking back the container with his telekinesis and trotting off. He was back with an answer only a few minutes later. “Unfortunately, due to past security problems where detainees have used that privacy to try and fake the sample, you cannot be permitted to give the sample in the privacy of a restroom or the such,” he explained apologetically. “But as I can understand it’d feel awkward to do it while watched, I can just stand to one side of your cell while you provide the sample. It’d give you at least some privacy. That is, of course, assuming you still don’t attempt to skew the sample with anything.” The stallion nodded his head at Thorax’s horn.

Thorax glanced up at it himself. “Last thing on my mind, sir,” he replied.

“Well then, that’s the best I can offer you. Are you still willing to participate in the test?”

Thorax paused to think about it. Ideally, now that he knew a bit more about what it’d entail, he’d prefer not to, but knew that would only suggest to the police that he had something to hide. It also struck him that if the police were really so concerned about security problems with the test, then the physician’s offer to stand to one side and not watch seemed oddly generous…but then Thorax remembered the magicked crystal monitoring him, and his eyes involuntarily glanced at it briefly. Clearly, the police expected the crystal to catch any attempts at fudging the sample the physician might miss, and Thorax knew there was nothing he could do to change that.

But despite all of that, Thorax did concede that it was the best he was going to get, and thought that, so long as he was careful, he had a chance to pull it off undetected. “Yes, that can work,” he told the physician.

The physician grinned. “Very well,” he said, and floated the plastic container over to Thorax again. “At your leisure, then.” He then stepped to one side of the prison bars that barred off the cell, turning his back to Thorax so he would not see.

Thorax let out a deep sigh and decided to get this over with, stepping over to the cell’s little toilet while pulling off the lid on the container. There was a small ledge mounted on the inside edge of the toilet bowl that the plastic container sat neatly upon, clearly having been installed for exactly this purpose. Once it was in place, Thorax then took a deep breath and assumed the necessary position to proceed. He waited as a passing police officer walked by his cell, the officer averting his gaze quickly when he noticed what Thorax was prepping to do. Once he had gone by, Thorax listened for the sound of any other hoofsteps of anyone else about to pass by, but heard none. The hallway outside his cell seemed to be open for the moment. So Thorax, knowing this window of time would be short, forced himself to relax and began dropping his disguise.

All changelings had to drop at least a small part of their disguise when answering the call of nature in any form, even the queen herself, for a number of reasons but usually because the anatomy of the current disguise simply wouldn’t line up with the changeling’s actual anatomy as needed. Thorax knew of changelings back at the hive who had learned of ways to do it so they could drop the relevant parts of the disguise only and no more, making it easier to go undetected, but as Thorax was only a lowly invader that had seldom gone far from the hive in disguise, he had never been taught to do it himself, and had never bothered to figure it out after fleeing the hive, as he hadn’t seen a need to. Now he wished he had, and made a mental note to try and teach himself the first chance he got, if and when he ever got out of this current mess. Whatever the case though, it meant that Thorax could only either drop the whole disguise or not at all.

Normally, he would just let the disguise collapse all at once in the usual burst of magical flames, but as he knew that would not only show on the magicked crystal monitoring him all too well but also produce enough light and sound that the physician standing to the side of the cell would probably notice too, he had to do it a bit more gradually so to allow it to go unnoticed. He began by allowing holes to form in the disguise covering his back hooves, then allowed the “holes” to slowly grow, creeping gradually on up his body. By it time it passed his hips, he tried to see if he could pause it there, but he only succeeded in slowing the decay of the disguise slightly. The only way to stop it from collapsing now was to refresh it entirely, restoring it in full.

So instead, since the relevant areas were now undisguised anyway, Thorax decided to quickly take aim and…fill the container accordingly. By the time he had finished, the decaying disguise had reached his face, and Thorax went cross-eyed briefly and warily watching as he saw the flickering line of cyan energy lap over the tip of his snout while he also worked to keep his wings pinned firmly to his back, for fear that they would show up on the magicked crystal monitoring him otherwise. But done now, he quickly worked to restore the crumbling disguise in full and the decaying rapidly reversed, washing back over Thorax’s body until once again it was completely intact. Shaking himself briefly to unwind some of the tension the whole experience had brought upon him, he replaced the lid on the container then scooped it back up into his hoof.

“Here,” he announced simply, handing it back to the physician through the space in the prison bars.

The physician turned and took the container in his magic. To Thorax’s mild embarrassment, he held it up to one eye and swirled the contents, peering inside to check for any abnormalities. Finding no obvious ones though, he grinned and stuck it into his saddlebags for storage. “Thank you,” he said cordially. “We’ll get that tested and let the investigators know the results. Hopefully you should know more then.”

He then walked off. Thorax watched him move on to the next cell containing a member from the fight then turned his eyes to the magicked crystal monitoring him, wondering if it had noticed anything that could cause trouble. After several minutes ticked by with nothing happening and no one coming to investigate Thorax closer, only then did the disguised changeling let himself relax, letting himself practically melt to the floor in relief. He frankly couldn’t believe he had actually pulled that off without giving himself away. But he knew he wasn’t in the clear just yet; there was still the matter of whether or not the drug tests on his urine would reveal anything additional that could give him away as the changeling he was. The rest depended still on what the police ruled on the case, agreed if he really was the innocent bystander he was, and the testimonies the other ponies involved in the fight gave in reference to Thorax.

But there was nothing Thorax could do about it now, except wait and find out.

Author's Note

Sometimes I'm embarrassed by the things my brain will think of and then lead me to write. :unsuresweetie: But at least in this case it does make a degree of sense that a drug test would be something Thorax would have to face during the given situation, and I found the implications and problems that presented to him worth exploring. It also allowed me to elaborate a point on changeling disguises that I had alluded to before in passing.

Otherwise, I admit this chapter doesn't really do a great deal to further progress the matter, but it also does give one a better frame of reference of just what the situation Thorax has found himself is; problematic, but not so much so that there might still be a way out of it...assuming how things go and if they all play in Thorax's favor, of course. And that remains to be seen. :raritywink:

Interrogation

Thorax was left waiting for some minutes longer with nothing to do but pace his cell anxiously. He heard no new developments on the matter and where he stood on it, which was both a blessing and curse, depending on how one spun it. Hearing nothing could be seen as meaning the police likely hadn’t uncovered anything yet that could incriminate Thorax in any way, but it could also mean that he very much wasn’t out of the clear yet. The time ticked by slowly in the meantime, which didn’t help, as it also meant Thorax became bored, with pretty much nothing else he could do but pace and worry about the worse-case scenarios.

It wasn’t until well into the late afternoon that something new transpired, and by then Thorax had begun to wonder what the holdup was. He knew that there just under two dozen participants in the fight including himself that the police intended to interview, but he didn’t think it’d take this long to get through them all. What could they possibly talk about for so long anyway? Just because he was apparently the very last in the list to be interviewed didn’t mean it was fair to keep him waiting. It couldn’t possibly be good on his nerves after all, especially when it all hinged on whether or not he’d be able to walk out of here both a free changeling and, more importantly, undiscovered as a changeling.

But finally a deputy or some kind of low ranking officer came and opened Thorax’s cell door. “C’mon bud, your turn,” he announced simply.

Thorax took a deep breath to brace himself, then trotted out into the hallway, being escorted for the room all the interrogations had been held. He was both dreading and looking forward to it, because no matter whether it ended well or badly, he knew it was likely going to be the turning point for him in this whole unsavory matter. Of course, it didn’t help that Thorax didn’t quite know how to prepare himself for this. Counter-interrogation training was given to a lot of changelings back in the hive of course, training that would be especially useful right about now, but Thorax had never gotten any as he was of such a low rank and wasn’t considered vital enough. The best advice he had ever gotten in the hive was simply: “don’t get caught.” So Thorax did feel a bit like he would be flying blind for this.

He decided he might as well try and probe for some clues though. “Anything I need know in advance?” he asked the deputy as they walked.

“Nope,” the deputy simply answered, and didn’t say a word more. So much for that hope.

Mercifully, the walk to the room was relatively short, so Thorax wasn’t given too much chance to get his nerves riled up any more than they already were, and there was no beating about with it either. Upon arriving at the plain wooden door, the deputy simply opened it and motioned Thorax on inside but did not follow, instead remaining the hallway, closing the door behind him. Thorax was expecting the setting in the interrogation room to be much like what he had read or heard about in books or radio dramas, with the room being small, very dark save for a single, blinding, lamp with a small table and hard seats with no promise of a comfortable time. He was also anticipating the good cop/bad cop routine he had heard so much about in those same sources and was expecting two interrogators at the very least.

Instead, he found only one, a friendly looking middle-aged unicorn stallion, bearing a small paunch around his middle. The room also proved to be reasonably spacious, not claustrophobic at all, and warmly lit. It had a large window allowing for even more light, although it was unsurprisingly barred. The table was also wide and made from a simple but decoratively carved wood—oak, if Thorax had to guess—and the seats were padded. The floor was even carpeted.

“Hello there,” the stallion, with fur a creamy yellow, greeted brightly, looking up from a series of folders and papers set before him on his side of the table. “Mr. Thornton, correct?”

Thorax, gazing about the room, almost didn’t hear. “Huh? Oh, yes sir,” he replied.

It was all so very different from what he had been expecting that Thorax found himself jarred and no longer sure how to proceed. Fortunately, the stallion took it in stride. “Have a seat Mr. Thornton and I’ll try to see if we can’t take up too much more of your time today,” he said, motioning to the empty seat on the other side of the table from him.

Thorax blinked then took the offered seat, gently lowering his rump into it. He was surprised at just how comfortable it all was. It didn’t feel like it should be used for this purpose at all and yet here it was.

The stallion took another moment to pull out all the relevant paperwork and set it out before him, among which Thorax saw was the basic identification record he had filled out when he first arrived at the police station, then set his forehooves on the tabletop between them and turned his full attention to Thorax. “My name is Officer Dandy,” he explained gently. “I’m just going to ask you some simple questions about what happened, okay?”

“Okay sir,” Thorax responded with a nod.

“According to the officers that arrived at the scene, you said you were just an innocent bystander that happened to be caught in the middle of things right as the fight was about to go down, correct?”

“Correct sir.”

“So you were not actually a part of either gang, then.”

“No sir.”

“Some of the gang members in here before you could call you by name, though.”

“Yes sir. I often cross paths with Ragg’s gang when passing through the area, and we’ve chatted.”

“They spoke of you being able to do some sort of parkour trick.”

“Yes sir. They often ask me to do it every time I pass by ever since we first met. It seems to amuse them and it’s never a bother, so I’m happy to do it, and then they let me on through without further problem. They’ve never caused trouble while I was around before today, and I’ve never given them any myself.”

“Peculiar relationship, then.”

“So I’ve been told, sir.”

“So if you aren’t part of either gang, then what were you even doing in the area?”

“Today, sir, I was heading to a bookstore to look for some books I was hoping to buy that is in that general area of town, and I generally pass through that area where they hang out when heading in that direction. When I went through on my way there, everything was fine and normal. It was on my way back that I arrived in time to find Ragg’s gang confronted by the other gang. The fight followed not long thereafter.”

“According to accounts, you were a participant in the fight.”

“Yes sir, but only in self-defense. I tried to only use a stunning spell I know as much as I could.”

“Yes, leading to some of these gang members accounts of the fight unfortunately stopping short at roughly about the same time because of that.” Dandy stopped to peruse his notes briefly again. “Tell me about the build up to the fight. What exactly happened? Who threw the first punch, if you will?”

“I suppose Ragg did sir, but only after getting cornered because it was the leader of the rival gang—I believed they called him Q-Tip—who was threatening everybody.”

“Including you?”

“Yes sir. My arrival may have accelerated things in fact, because that was when the threatening seemed to begin in earnest. Q-Tip didn’t trust me and seemed to believe I was part of some scheme of Ragg’s to catch his gang unaware, but because Ragg knew who I was and why I was there, he denied it. I think Ragg was trying to help ensure I didn’t get dragged into it.”

“Unsuccessfully, of course.”

“Yes sir, but shouldn’t the fact he tried still count for something?”

Dandy chuckled and wrote something down in his notes. “I suppose so,” he conceded as he did this.

Thorax permitted himself a small smile and was beginning to relax. This was all going smoother than he expected it would. Perhaps this wasn’t so bad after all.

“You commented that you tried to only use a stunning spell once the fight broke out,” Dandy continued, moving on. “Am I correct in assuming, then, that you had to resort to other tactics at some point?”

Thorax nodded. “Yes sir. Towards the end of the fight, I got blindsided by one of the rival gang members, so I had to briefly grapple with him physically.”

Dandy looked Thorax over. “But no worse for wear from it, I see.”

“No sir. I was able to use a couple of combative tricks I know.” Thorax dimly recalled that he did use a deflective guizhou fa move Fly Leaf had taught him during one of their morning practices at some point during the fight.

“Any of those tricks involve something venomous?”

Thorax blinked, confused. “Sir?”

“One of the members of the fight we found out cold from what the docs tell me is some kind of venomous bite to his shoulder right about here.” Dandy placed one hoof on his shoulder to demonstrate the location. “In fact, as I understand it, he’s still out cold because of it. Fortunately, he’s not in any danger from the venom and should pull out fine, but the docs can’t identify what sort of venom it is, and we don’t have any idea how he got the bite. It’s almost as if he had gotten bit by a snake, but it’d have to be a dang big snake to have made this kind of bite.”

Thorax suddenly realized Dandy was referring to the stallion he had been forced to bite with his fangs in order to subdue, having almost forgotten all about it. Subconsciously he ran the tip of his tongue over the spots inside his mouth where said fangs would be if they weren’t safely hidden behind his current disguise. “I…don’t know how he could have gotten this bite either, sir.”

“Some of the accounts we’ve gotten from the other fighters suggest you were the last fellow to grapple with this poor guy,” Dandy pointed out, leaning a bit closer.

It was then Thorax suddenly sensed a new emotion poking out from the continuous flow of cheeriness he had been getting off the officer up to now—a small one of suspicion…towards Thorax himself.

Uh-oh.

“I swear I don’t know anything about it sir,” Thorax persisted, forcing himself to stay calm and his voice level. “I really couldn’t tell you where the bite came from either.” When Dandy didn’t immediately respond, Thorax went on, shrugging. “It’s not as if I could have been the one who bit him after all, now could it? I don’t have fangs.” And to demonstrate it, he opened his jaw to show off the interior to the officer, revealing no fangs, as thanks to Thorax’s disguise, they were still neatly tucked away and out of sight from Dandy’s view.

Dandy nonetheless leaned closer to take a look and confirm this for himself, telling Thorax that he was taking this seriously. “Clearly not,” Dandy finally had to agree, settling back into his seat. “And you know nothing about where the venom could have come from? No critter or anything in the area?”

“The only living things I was aware of being present during the fight were the other ponies participating, sir.”

An uncomfortable moment of silence fell, and Thorax found he had to rescind his earlier thought about the interrogation going smoothly.

“All right then,” Dandy concluded, again jotting down something in his notes, but his tone didn’t sound convinced and Thorax couldn’t help but wonder what it was that he was writing. “Beyond that one detail then Mr. Thornton, everyone’s accounts seem to support your version of events, and the drug tests for you came back perfectly clean and without anomaly.” Thorax was inwardly relieved to hear that much and was glad he could at least shrug off worrying about the drug test further. “However, we’ve still got a few more participants in the fight that we’d like to interrogate still…I believe one of them is Mr. Asparagus Stem himself.”

Thorax frowned, unfamiliar with the name. “Asparagus Stem, sir?”

“I believe you called him Ragg earlier.”

Thorax blinked. That’s Ragg’s real name? Asparagus Stem?

“At any rate,” Dandy continued, “We’ll wait until we’ve got all of their stories before we put this to bed. Thank you for your time Mr. Thornton, we’ll keep you informed of any new developments, but just sit tight in the meantime. Deputy Sheepshank?”

The deputy that had escorted Thorax here entered the room, and without another word, Thorax was escorted back out of the interrogation room and back to his cell, where he was left to continue to wait. Thorax had hoped the interrogation would have been the turning point that would have at least told him where things were going to go next in the matter…but now he was left just as unsure if things were going to work out or end badly. By the sound of it, all the evidence was supporting that he was just an innocent bystander in the police’s eyes…but they wanted to know where the venomous bite had come from, and of course the evidence was pointing them in Thorax’s direction because it actually had come from him…but he couldn’t admit that.

Unfortunately, he didn’t think he had dissuaded Dandy from suspecting him much, and that was potentially a problem. Thorax was now regretting having ever bitten that stallion who had attacked him at all, and couldn’t help but wonder what he had been thinking when he had done so. The answer to that was obvious though; he hadn’t been thinking, he had just acted instinctively from the threat, like any living thing would. He just also reacted like a changeling. Regrettably, that wasn’t doing him any favors right now. But worse still was the news that by the sound of it, the police had not yet interrogated Ragg for his side of the story, and he was the one pony present who knew Thorax was really a changeling. Would Ragg keep the secret, or would he tell all?

As usual, Thorax could only wait and find out. He was beginning to really hate waiting.

Meanwhile, Spike was starting to get worries of his own.

“Where the devil has Thornton gotten off to?” he wondered aloud for the umpteenth time, brow furrowed in a mixture of concern and frustration at his coworker’s unexpected absence in the shop. He glared at the shop’s front door while rapping his claws on the front desk, as if trying to will the missing changeling to abruptly step through it.

“I’ve been wondering the same thing,” Fly Leaf agreed, also sounding concerned as she looked up from the shelf she had been restocking and up at the clock. “He should’ve been back from his lunchbreak hours ago…and he’s usually never late to get back from any of his breaks.”

Spike sighed and tore his gaze off the door to look over at the pumpkin orange earth pony. “What do you think happened to him?” he asked aloud.

“I’m hoping he’s just gotten unexpectedly delayed by something innocent, like a cart turnover somewhere or something,” Fly remarked. She then chuckled. “Maybe another water main burst and flooded a city street.”

Spike grinned faintly at the memory of when that last happened, and a quick glance about the store and its general lack of customers at the moment did fit with that instance. At the moment, Spike was only aware of two customers being present in the shop, and both of them were currently up on the second floor, leaving the first floor to Spike and Fly Leaf at the moment. But then again, this also wasn’t especially unusual given the late hour of the day. Business tended to slow way down as evening approached, and the sun had already settled low enough in the sky that the world outside had started to take on a faint golden hue, a shade that would only continue to empathize itself as the hours ticked by. Most Vanhoover ponies were simply beginning to head home for the day now, not running about on errands. And anyway, business was at fairly regular levels of busy earlier that afternoon, around the same time Thorax left on his break.

So Spike finally broached the subject he had been secretly trying to avoid, for fear of the complications it entailed. “What if it’s not?” he asked aloud.

Fly Leaf paused, gaze going vacant as she considered it, then glanced over at Spike for a moment. Finally, she put on a warm grin. “Tell you what Spark,” she said, standing up. “Since business is winding down for the day anyway, if you’re willing to take over restocking these shelves for me, I’ll run out and ask around real quick, see if I can figure out where he’s at.”

Spike grinned, approving of this plan. “All right,” he agreed, leaving the front desk and trotting over to the shelves in question.

“Right then,” Fly remarked in turn and headed for the door. “Hopefully I’ll be back soon with good news, if not with Thornton in tow.” She rolled her eyes in good humor. “You’ll see. He’s probably just gotten into reading a good book and lost track of time.”

She moved to open the door, but was beaten to the punch when a lanky young pegasus opened it first, moving to enter but coming to a halt when he found Fly Leaf inadvertently blocking his path.

“Oh, I’m sorry!” he remarked apologetically, adjusting the saddlebags sitting on his uniformed back. “Are you the shop proprietor, Fly Leaf?”

“I am,” Fly responded matter-of-factly.

“Message for you ma’am,” he said, pulling out the message in question, sealed in a simple white envelope, and a clipboard and quill from his saddlebags. “If you could sign for it here, please.” Fly nodded and accepted the offered quill, beginning to jot down her trademark loopy signature. “Apologies for the delay in getting this to you,” the messenger continued as she did this. “I was regrettably held up at an earlier stop due to an addressing mix-up.”

Fly Leaf glanced up at the messenger in puzzlement as he handed the envelope over to her. “But I wasn’t expecting any messages today,” she noted aloud.

The messenger didn’t reply to this, and instead occupied himself with putting the clipboard away and turning to leave. “Best regards, ma’am,” he bid farewell, tipping his hat politely before slipping back outside onto the street.

Fly Leaf noticed as he left that while the pale blue uniform he wore was the typical uniform most messenger services wore in the area, his still bore the Vanhoover Police Department logo on the shoulder. Growing concerned, Fly immediately began to open the message to read.

“Who’s it from?” Spike asked as he worked at the task he had been given by clearing away some of the old stock into an empty box.

Fly’s brow furrowed as she skimmed the message, not immediately responding. “Thornton,” she finally replied solemnly as she realized what she was reading. “It’s his one message.”

“Huh?” Spike asked as he hefted up the now-full box and started to carry it across the room.

Fly glanced up at him. “Spike, he says he’s been detained by the police—I think he’s been arrested.”

The box immediately dropped out of Spike’s claws and crashed loudly to the floor. “HE’S BEEN WHAT?!”

Author's Note

There goes Spike's evening.

The Possibilities

Evening was beginning to fall by the time any new developments arose on Thorax’s situation, and by then the disguised changeling was becoming rather stir-crazy, unable to keep himself from pacing back and forth in his cell. But at the same time he was bored beyond belief, having exhausted every conceivable activity he could do to occupy himself considering the resources presently given him, which were considerably few. He at least didn’t have any real fears anymore of the magicked crystal that was monitoring him and his cell, having by now been quite satisfied with the assumption that, if the crystal had been capable of detecting anything that would give him away as a changeling, the police would have discovered it by now.

His only real remaining fear then was whether or not he was going to be allowed to go free after all, and that depended on what the police decided in regards to him. Considering they already rightly suspected (though Thorax had no wish to give them any sort of confirmation of it) he was involved with the venomous bite one fight member had received was bad enough. But he also tensely worried about how Ragg’s interview was going to go on the matter, considering that he knew Ragg saw him with his disguise partly down revealing the changeling underneath. Ragg knew he was a changeling, and thus Thorax was aware he could very well be at the gang leader’s mercy if so desired. Ragg had indicated he wouldn’t tell just before the police had arrived to arrest them…but would he actually?

But finally word anticlimactically came in the form of Deputy Sheepshank and Officer Dandy arriving at his cell. “Good news Mr. Thornton, after we collect a photo and some hoofprints for our records, you’re free to go,” Dandy announced as the deputy unlocked and opened the door to Thorax’s cell.

Thorax looked at them blankly, surprised at the sudden simplicity of the announcement. “Really?” he asked as Dandy returned his confiscated saddlebags to him. “Just like that?”

“Just like that,” Dandy assured with a grin, motioning for Thorax to step on out. “We’ve finished interviewing the remaining members of the fight, and their stories all seem to collaborate with yours. Mr. Asparagus Stem was especially adamant of your innocence, that you were just a perfectly ordinary pony caught at the wrong place at the wrong time.”

“You mean Ragg?” Thorax asked as he stepped out of the cell, feeling relief washing over him. Ragg had kept his secret and, judging from Dandy’s choice of words, had even gone as far to cover for him so to further dissuade the police from the truth. I owe you Ragg, he thought to himself. “What about the pony with the bite? Did you figure out who did it?”

Dandy shrugged. “Not definitively, but he’s woken up now and able to give his side of the story. His account is a little hazy on details, but what he was able to tell us still seems to match up with everything you and others have told us and he’s otherwise unharmed, so we’re moving the investigation to other areas,” he explained. Thorax inwardly thought to himself that his venom must have clouded the pony’s memories of the event slightly, just enough to thankfully push attention off of himself it seemed. “We’ll keep digging, but either way, with no evidence to the contrary, we have no reason to detain you further at this time,” Dandy continued as the deputy closed the now empty cell and the three started down the hall. “Though I would recommend that you remain in the area for at least the remainder of the week, in case any new developments come up and we feel the need to bring you in for additional questioning.”

He said it in very polite terms but Thorax caught the true meaning of the message. We’re letting you go for now. But don’t leave town. Thorax hoped his luck would hold and the need for any further questioning wouldn’t ever come up. “Yes sir,” he said.

“But for now I wouldn’t worry,” Dandy pressed on. “At the insistence of the higher-ups, we’re still going to give you a citation for participating in an act that ultimately disturbed the peace, but that will only entail a small thirty bit fine. All things considered, no great deal in comparison to some of the alternatives, am I right?”

“I suppose not, sir,” Thorax responded, who was nonetheless not especially thrilled by the citation and the accompanying fine, but then he did have to concede that this was a far better outcome than he had feared. “How will I need to pay the fine? I don’t have enough bits on hoof to do so now, so…”

“That’s the best part,” Sheepshank piped in cheerily as he led Thorax into a back office, no doubt for the record collecting they spoke of earlier. “It’s already been paid for you.”

Thorax blinked, surprised yet again. “It has?”

“It has,” Dandy confirmed as they all filed into the room. “You have friends that are already here and waiting to pick you up. You can go meet with them once we’re done here.”

Thorax perked up at this. “Really?” he said, already suspecting who.

He had to wait to find out if he was right for a few minutes longer though as the police collected a few final things for their records. They already had Thorax’s contact information, but now that he had formally been given a charge of sorts in the terms of the citation, they wanted to collect a mugshot and hoofprints as mentioned to file for their records. It was a relatively painless process, and Thorax didn’t think much of it; considering it was tied to the alias of Thornton only, it was only a tick on his record so long as Thorax continued to wear the face, and it was relatively minor one at that. He was more interested in who his benefactors and friends the officers had mentioned were, and he was proven right in his suspicions when they finally escorted him into the police station’s front office and found a Fly Leaf and Spike standing there calmly waiting for him.

“Miss Fly, Spark,” Thorax remarked as he stepped towards the pair, leaving the police’s custody at last.

“Thank you for your cooperation Mr. Thornton,” Dandy said in parting as he turned to get back to work, giving a wave with one hoof. “Have a good evening.”

“Yeah, you too,” Thorax replied distractedly and on automatic. He approached his employer and coworker slowly, studying the pair to get a feel on where the two presently stood. Fly simply seemed relieved, and was giving Thorax a warm grin as he approached. Spike’s face, however, was more unreadable, wearing a fairly neutral expression that was made somewhat ominous no thanks to the shadow being cast over most of his face by the fedora Spike typically wore whenever he was out of the shop. Emotionally speaking however, Spike was a flurry of feelings, so much so it was difficult for Thorax to accurately pick out which was the most predominate from the swirling storm within the dragon. Knowing that Spike was taking a risk coming here like he did considering that any policer officer who had seen his wanted poster (ironically posted on the wall not far from where Spike stood, and perhaps for that very reason, Spike seemed quick to avoid eye contact with any passersby) could potentially recognize him though, Thorax guessed he was likely in deep trouble with the dragon. “Um…hello,” he greeted the pair sheepishly.

“Are you okay?” Spike asked immediately. “You haven’t been harmed, have you?”

“No Spark,” Thorax assured calmly, leaning his head down slightly so to look the troubled dragon in the eye.

Spike glanced about cautiously. “So as far as the police is concerned, you’re still just the ordinary innocent pony everybody knows you to be…right?” he asked, which Thorax realized was Spike’s subtle way of discreetly checking Thorax hadn’t needed to give himself away.

“That’s right,” Thorax said, nodding his head and giving his friend a comforting grin.

Spike returned the grin. “Good,” he said. He then slapped Thorax across the face as hard as he could, suddenly furious. “You nearly gave me a HEARTATTACK!” he bellowed, drawing looks of surprise from several of the other ponies in the room. It immediately alarmed Thorax, as he knew Spike shouldn’t be drawing attention to himself here of all places. But before Thorax could even finish recovering from just the slap, Spike rushed forward and grabbed him about the forelegs in what was partly a hug and partly an attempt to half-heartedly continue to beat upon Thorax’s chest. “Don’t you ever do that to me again!”

Thorax numbly put a hoof about Spike, trying to comfort him as he worked to recollect himself from the dragon’s muddled outburst. “Sorry,” was all he could think to say. He looked around warily but noticed everyone’s focus had already gone back to their respective tasks and weren’t paying them any more attention.

Spike made a noise that was partly a laugh and partly a snort of contempt. He pulled away from the changeling suddenly, but Thorax caught sight of the dragon trying to suppress a grin, and couldn’t help but smile again too.

“So,” Fly Leaf remarked to Thorax, amused by all of this. “Had an interesting afternoon then?”

“Yes,” Thorax replied with a sigh.

“Ready to go home?”

Thorax nodded in exasperation. “Hours ago,” he admitted.

So they eagerly walked out of the police station and out into the dimming streets as evening continued to settle upon the city, heading back for the shop. As they went, Thorax was gotten back up to speed on Fly and Spike’s side of the story.

“Your message was late getting to us, so we didn’t get it until relatively late in the afternoon, as business had started to slow for the evening,” Fly Leaf was explaining as they walked. “Once we did and we understood what had happened, we urged the remaining customers out of the store as quickly as we could, closed up early, and hurried on down to the station. Once there, the police explained everything that had happened.”

“Everything?” Thorax repeated, wondering if that actually included as much as he thought.

“Everything,” Spike repeated darkly, folding his arms. Thorax realized he was still very much upset with him and suspected the only reason he wasn’t giving Thorax the berating of his life right now was because Fly Leaf was present and within earshot.

“After we knew what was going on,” Fly continued undeterred, “we set about seeing what we could do to get you freed. We even offered to post bail for your release.”

“Bail?” Thorax repeated, unfamiliar with the term.

“Basically a process where you give the authorities money in exchange for your release from jail until such time a more proper ruling can be made,” Spike explained flatly.

Thorax winced. “How much money are we talking about?” he asked.

“One hundred bits,” Spike replied in the same tone.

Thorax’s wince deepened.

“Fortunately your case was such that we were able to avoid having to do that, thanks to the police deciding to only cite you for disturbing the peace and were otherwise technically only detaining you for questioning,” Fly explained quickly for Thorax’s benefit. “So instead we volunteered to pay the accompanying fine that came with that citation for you, which the police graciously accepted once they confirmed our relation to you.”

Thorax glanced over at Fly. “I’m sorry you had to do that, Miss Fly,” he apologized. “I’ll do everything I can to pay you back as soon as possible.”

“Much appreciated, Thornton,” Fly said. “But at Spike’s insistence, I didn’t pay a bit of it.”

Thorax glanced down at Spike again, and saw the dragon’s eyes had narrowed slightly and he realized the significance of this. “Oh.”

“You owe me,” Spike stated firmly for clarification.

Thorax thought to himself that his funds were technically Spike’s too, and neither of them had ever claimed sole ownership of said funds, preferring instead to share them between them, and therefore thought he technically already had repaid him…but he also thought that now probably wasn’t the time to argue semantics. “I suppose I should thank you for that then,” he said, before continuing on in a more sheepish tone. “Either way, I get how that would make you pretty upset at me, Spike,” he mumbled softly. Spike didn’t reply, so Thorax gazed up at Fly Leaf, silently imploring for help.

But Fly Leaf, still amused by the whole spat between her two employees, only shook her head. “Nope,” she told the disguised changeling. “I’m staying out of it.”

So Thorax turned his attention back to Spike and hazarded an attempt on his own. “Look, I truly am sorry for all of this. I didn’t mean for any of this to happen, really. I’m sorry it made you all worry for my benefit.”

Spike was silent for long moment, but then he sighed. “It’s okay,” he said, his tone finally softening some. “It’s really just how much this all put me on edge, so…I guess it’s left me a little…temperamental.”

“And I think you have every right to be,” Thorax added, thinking this was all only fair considering the stress he put his friends through.

Spike was a little quick to smugly agree to this though. “True,” he said, then jabbed a claw at Thorax. “So don’t think we aren’t still going to talk about it further at the shop.”

And he meant it too. The moment they stepped through the door of the shop and Fly retreated to the kitchen to start working on a late dinner, Spike motioned for Thorax to follow him to their room, marching the changeling on up the stairs.

The moment Spike closed their room’s door behind him, ensuring their privacy, he whipped around onto Thorax. “You BIT someone?”

“I was cornered, momentarily unable to use my magic!” Thorax argued in his defense, letting his disguise drop with a whoosh of magical flames. “I acted on instinct! Trust me, I regret doing it just as much as you do, but it was all just in self-defense!”

“But you nearly got yourself caught doing it!” Spike argued back. “The police were onto you, Thorax, it’s only a stroke of dumb luck that they weren’t able to put two with two with what they had!”

“Well, that, and a good testimony in my defense,” Thorax mumbled, averting his gaze.

Spike put his claws on his hips. “And just what is that supposed to mean?”

Thorax hesitated for a moment, debating how to explain. “…you remember Ragg, right?”

“You mean that gangmember pony who was one of the things that helped get you into this mess?” Spike asked with some contempt. “I knew your associating with him was going to cause trouble.”

“On the contrary,” Thorax interjected, making use of the opportunity. “It seems he’s on our side now, because…well…he was the one who not only helped convince the police that I was innocent, but also that there was nothing special about me, and that I was the ordinary pony I claimed to be.”

“Well, to be fair, as far as he knows, that’s all you really are, so…”

“He knows, Spike.”

This brought Spike up short, and for a moment alarm overshadowed his anger on his features. “He what?” he asked, eyes widening as the implications settled upon his mind. “How?”

Thorax winced, biting his lip. “Well, see…” he began awkwardly. “In the fight, I took a blow to the horn that numbed it and I couldn’t use my magic for a moment, as I explained, and so…during the fight…one pony managed to strike me a hard enough blow that it tore a hole in my disguise and, well, Ragg was the last one other than me still standing by the end of the fight, so…”

Spike’s panic grew. “He knows you’re a changeling?” he declared.

“Well…yes,” Thorax admitted, realizing how that sounded and decided to just admit it. But then he pressed on. “And he chose to defend and keep my secret, regardless.”

Spike was silent for a long moment. “Why?” he asked, looking like he genuinely couldn’t comprehend it.

Thorax didn’t really have an answer either though. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “Maybe Ragg just understands the need for some to have secrets and respects that. Maybe his respect for me is much greater than you would give him credit for. Maybe he has some other reason I can’t think of off hoof. But the fact of the matter Spike is that he covered for me, even when he had little reason or cause to. And I owe him greatly for it. We owe him greatly for it.”

Spike remained silent, going blank as his mind worked to process this. Unable to form a follow-up comment, he walked past Thorax to the window seat and sat himself on it. Thorax turned himself to watch him.

“You know, it does get me thinking,” Thorax continued, heartened by this line of thought. “Maybe the hope of Equestrians accepting me for who I am isn’t so impossible and unlikely as we had first thought.”

Spike glanced up at the changeling, puzzled. “How do you mean?”

“Well, think about it; there are two ponies that know our secret and are actively supporting and defending us, Fluttershy and Ragg. Both really didn’t have any reason to, but they have anyway.”

“You don’t know if Ragg isn’t just going to use this for his own advantage though, like blackmail or something,” Spike argued gently, still not holding the gang leader in high regard.

Thorax rolled his pupiless blue eyes. “You don’t know if he will either,” he reminded, matching Spike’s gentle tone. “I don’t think he will, but that’s because I know Ragg a bit better than you do. Much like how you know Fluttershy better than I do, and thus were better able to trust her to keep our secret than I was.” He stepped closer to the dragon. “But whatever their reasons, they have, and think about the possibilities of that for a second, Spike!” Thorax began to grin. “We were banished because no pony was willing to see me as anything but a foe…but what if that’s not as universal a stance as we’ve been led to believe in Equestria? What if all ponies need is enough of a chance to learn that a changeling can be a friend too?” Spike again turned blank and didn’t immediately answer, so Thorax pressed on. “Look, all I’m saying is that I’m seeing what could be the start of a pattern, that the longer we stay in Vanhoover living as normal a life as we can, the more ponies seem to become more and more accepting of us. If that continues, surely you can see that it suggests that, in time, they can become more accepting of who I am, and that I mean no harm, that we both can be welcomed back into Equestrian society at large. Maybe, they just need time to warm up to the idea of a friendly changeling like me, and realize that, despite having ample opportunity to do it, I’ve done nothing to harm ponies, and am continuing to do nothing…except work to try and earn their trust.”

“Thorax…” Spike began half-heartedly.

But Thorax was on a roll now, enthralled by the possibilities now that he had begun thinking about them. “Spike, one day we might reach the point that we won’t need to be outcasts anymore, that the peaceful solution to all of this we’ve both been longing for is still in reach after all!” he said excitedly, grinning. “At the very least, I’m curious to see how far this will continue, about where this pattern might take us.”

Spike couldn’t help but share the grin a little, but he very much still had his misgivings. “Thorax, let’s not get ahead of ourselves on this,” he pressured. “Two ponies may have been willing to keep our secret, but that’s not necessarily the start of the trend. For all we know, Fluttershy and Ragg are merely the two exceptions to the rule.”

“True,” Thorax conceded. “But shouldn’t we still be trying to promote it on the off chance that it’s not, and that it is a start of a trend of acceptance?”

Spike’s grin grew a little, pleased to see Thorax so eager, with so important a cause to work towards. And as before, he certainly didn’t want to do anything to stand in the way of Thorax and his desires as much as possible. “All right,” he said, straightening. “On the grounds that we still don’t do anything to deliberately reveal our true identities to anyone as much as we can like we’ve been doing and that we still be on guard for it all going awry and trouble arising. Trend or not, it doesn’t mean that we should be reckless about it.”

Thorax nodded. “Agreed,” he said immediately, not opposing this. “Obviously, despite the pattern, it doesn’t mean we should be letting ourselves become complacent and lower our guard. The danger of discovery by the wrong types of ponies certainly still exists, and don’t think I don’t know that still, or that I don’t fear it.”

Spike couldn’t help but let out a brief sigh of relief. “Good to know, Thorax,” he said. “Because I very much still fear what would happen if we’re discovered.”

Thorax nodded seriously. “And of course, I don’t want to do anything that might risk myself or you especially. I owe you that much.” He trotted over and joined Spike sitting on the window seat. “After all, it’s the Equestrian royal family that we have to fear the most…and unfortunately, they are the ones that are in power still.”

Spike hung his head slightly, twiddling his claws. “…yeah,” he said with a depressed sigh.

Thorax nudged him a little in encouragement. “But I’m going to hold out for them too,” he continued. “I have hope that even they could be swayed now, if given time.”

Spike very much did not share in that hope, believing it would never happen now, but he chose to keep that thought to himself. “Guess we’ll have to see.”

They sat there on the window seat for a long moment, processing the discussion and everything that had happened today.

“It’s been a crazy day today,” Thorax remarked aloud finally.

Spike snorted. “It really has.”

“I’m sorry for giving you such a scare with my getting detained briefly by the police,” Thorax apologized again. “I got pretty scared myself a few times during all of that.”

Spike found that his anger for all of that had cooled dramatically during their conversation, and simply shrugged. “It’s okay,” he admitted. “I get you didn’t deliberately get yourself arrested, detained, or whatever, and really, it’s the fact that you were able to walk away with it okay, undiscovered, and with no real charges pressed that’s more important in the end.”

“Yeah,” Thorax agreed.

“You still owe me thirty bits, though.”

“Right…I’ll see what I can do about that when we get our next paycheck.”

Another brief moment passed, but then Spike had another thought.

“You say you owe Ragg now,” he remarked to the changeling aloud. “So how do you plan to pay him back?”

“Hmm,” Thorax hummed, considering the dilemma. “I’ll have to think of something.”

However, as it turned out, Thorax found out a couple days later that he already had returned the favor to Ragg by also giving a favorable testimony for him to the police. This, in accompaniment with other evidence gathered concerning the fight, allowed the police to decide that Ragg and his gang did not instigate the gang fight, and that Ragg had attempted to prevent it. As a result, the police did not press charges for the fight on Ragg and his friends either.

Nonetheless, Ragg and his gang didn’t get off scott-free either; while the police had them in custody, they pinned the gang for minor vandalism charges due to their “tagging” in the past, which the police had been trying to convict the gang of for the past couple of weeks. The penalties were kept light; two days in jail then a two-hundred bit fine and a hundred hours of community service. It was thanks to the latter penalty that Thorax found out about all of this, coming across Ragg and a large part of the gang working to clean a city street as part of their community service, and Ragg was graciously permitted time to speak briefly with the disguised changeling. Thorax felt bad that he got out of the situation without charges when Ragg and the rest didn’t, but Ragg was largely dismissive of it.

“This ain’t your fault, Thorny,” Ragg assured Thorax with a grin, seeming perfectly okay with how events played out. “All this is really more on me and the rest of the guys anyway, and I ain’t surprised the cops pinned it on us when they had the chance. So don’t you go worryin’ yourself for my sake.”

“Still…” Thorax persisted. “…if there’s anything I can do to help…”

“Thorny, as far as I’m concerned, you done did all ya needed already by puttin’ in a good word for me to the police like you did,” Ragg pressed. He shrugged. “You don’t need to sweat about owin’ me anything.”

“But I do owe you,” Thorax insisted, not wanting to just let it go. He glanced around quickly to make sure none of Ragg’s other gang members or the authority supervising the group as they did the community service weren’t listening in. “You covered for me, after all, hiding from the police my…secret.” He tilted his head at the lanky teen. “A friend of mine is wondering why you would do that anyway.”

Ragg chuckled and gently rapped Thorax on the shoulder with one hoof. “Because friends look out for each other, Thorny,” he answered simply. “And we don’t need nothin’ return for it.” He was stopped from speaking further as the supervisor called Ragg to rejoin the group. “Listen, I gotta get back at it. You keep out of trouble, you hear? And keep out of any more fights.” He winked at Thorax as he walked off. “That half-and-half, two-face, look didn’t suit you too much.”

Thorax chuckled, watching as Ragg walked off, before turning and heading off himself, feeling in good spirits.

Author's Note

You know, even I have to admit that, after all that build-up, it feels like a bit of a let down for Thorax to get away free like this, and that the matter was resolved a little too cleanly. I had actually considered several different ways I could possibly change that, but the fact of the matter was that it would either hinder my plans for future chapters greatly, or be of shakey legality, neither of which I wanted. For example, I had originally wanted Thorax to only get out of jail because Spike paid bail for him, so he'd at least have that conflict with Spike having to sort out the mess for him, but upon reading up on how bail works to ensure I was portraying it correctly, I found it brought up a lot of issues, like court appearances, criminal charges, and so on, and I felt it put the two in too much risk of discovery...so much so not even I saw a good way out of it once going that route. Furthermore, I realized that if I didn't want the police to accuse Thorax of being guilty of starting a fight anyway, and they really didn't have evidence to do so either, it didn't make sense for bail to even have to come into the matter in the first place. So I dropped it, and almost went without anything to replace it, until I came up with the citation fee of thirty bits that became something of a replacement.

Basically, what I'm getting at is that for the purposes of what I have planned ahead, the best way to resolve the matter was for Thorax to get away with it like this.

Besides, the point of all this was really more to show a pony like Ragg could not just trust a changeling, but trust a changeling rather blindly and defend that same changeling, and restore at least Thorax's faith that perhaps ponies are more willing and ready to trust changelings that the story has thus far lead everyone to believe. I think I was able to convey that much at least. :twilightsmile:

Convention

“Okay, so now my…guy…thing…”

“Halfling.”

“Right, him…now he’s in this new room, so…what’s in here for him to face now?”

“Looks like an ogre.”

“What? Oh no, oh no, oh no, what do I do?”

“Now keep calm Thorax, and think about what you want to do next to—”

“Attack the ogre!”

“…are you sure?”

“What else am I supposed to do? If I don’t attack quickly, it’ll attack my guy-thing while he’s unprepared!”

“No, no Thorax, it doesn’t work like that…combat is turn-based in this game, so the ogre won’t…”

“Attack the ogre already guy-thing! Oh wait, I roll the dice, right?”

“…right, so to determine if your attack hits, but Thorax—”

“Please be a high number, please be a high number, please be a high number…oh balani.”

“Yeah…that’s definitely going to be a miss. So, uh, I guess roll again to…”

“Attack the ogre again, guy-thing!”

“No, no…Thorax, it’s the ogre’s turn to attack now, I keep telling you…”

“What sort of fight allows the combatants to take turns striking blows at each other?”

“This one does, and you had your turn now, so…”

“I’m attacking again anyway. Please be a high number, please be a high number—”

“Thorax, if you roll that dice, I’m only going to count it towards the hit damage the ogre deals to your character.”

“…Fine. Please be a low number, please be a low number, please be a low number…ab amorem Informis Unius!”

“Uh, yeah, uh…so the ogre dealt you a critical hit and um…”

“How critical?”

“Well…roll again to find out exactly.”

“Always with the rolling in this game…there. Now, how critical?”

Spike looked up at Thorax from across the Ogres & Oubliettes starter playing set laid out between them and set down the guidebook in his claws. “Let me put it this way,” he said, forcing a grin as he steepled his claws together. “…would you like to play again?”

Thorax groaned and let his undisguised head thud heavily against the box they were using as a tabletop, the jolt knocking over a couple pieces in the role-playing game. “Auuugggghhh, I’m horrible at this game!”

“So you’re struggling to wrap your head around it,” Spike said as he moved to reset the pieces. “A lot of beginners struggle on their first go.”

Thorax lifted his head just enough to wearily gaze at Spike. “This is the fifth game you’ve made me play since you got the set.”

“And you still haven’t managed to finish one yet so I’m still considering it your first,” Spike reasoned calmly. “Basically Thorax, I’m going to get you to learn Ogres and Oubliettes somehow, even if it’s the last thing I do.” Finished, he picked up the guidebook again, flipping back to the start. “Now, like I keep telling you, you’re forgetting that combat in this game is turn-based. That means all parties take turns to strike at enemies.”

“How is that realistic?” Thorax asked, straightening suddenly, throwing his hooves out. “No real life combat situation is going to work like that.”

“Thorax, it’s just a game. It’s not supposed to emulate real life.”

“I thought it was. Isn’t that the whole point behind the use-your-imagination aspect of the game? To make it seem as real and immersive to the player as possible?”

“Well…yes and no…it’s…” Spike trailed off in a sigh, running his claws through his green spines for a moment. “Okay, I’ll admit it—you’re struggling to get the point of role-playing games more than I thought…but because Fly’s flat out refused to play the game with me, the only alternative I have is to play the game by myself, and you can’t really do that. And I didn’t spend twenty bits on this starter set just to have it go to waste, so…”

“No, no, I get it,” Thorax said wearily, cradling his head in his holey hooves. “You’re eager to have someone play with you. And I really am trying to learn it Spike, if so to appease that for you…but…” he blew a raspberry in frustration. “I guess I only have so much patience for my own lack of comprehension of this game. Can we take a break and do something else for a little bit now?”

Spike regarded the game spread out before him and sighed heavily, debating to himself. He was spared having to give an answer though when a knock rang on the closed door to their room.

“Hey guys, can I come in for a second?” Fly Leaf called from the other side.

Thorax sat upright again and quickly put on his usual disguise with a flash of cyan flames. As Spike was already in disguise, the dragon having reached the point that he habitually put on the disguise regardless of whether or not he actually needed to, the disguised changeling turned his attention to the door. “Come on in, Miss Fly.”

Fly opened the door and stepped in, quickly surveying what the two were doing, and grinned. “Still playing that role-playing game, huh?” she asked.

“Trying to,” Spike replied with a weary grin. He noticed a sheet of paper in the mare’s hoof and nodded his head at it. “So what’s up?”

“Well,” Fly began with a grin, sitting herself down beside her two employees. “Every year right as the autumn season is about to begin, the city of Vanhoover arranges to have one of those large cruise liner airships moored at the mooring spire of the Martingale Building downtown, and then open up the interior space of the airship to house a promotional convention for businesses both local and abroad to advertise their products, wares, services, or whatever they specialize in to attendees. They call it the Autumn Display Event, and this year’s will be held next week.” She held up the paper in her hoof. “My point with all this though is that I typically sign up for a cheap booth to promote the shop at every year. I was in the middle of filling out the application paperwork here though, when I realized I could register for a bigger booth than normal…if I can count on the extra help to run it.”

“You want us to come with and assist then,” Thorax summarized.

Fly nodded. “Only if you two want to, though,” she continued. “Running the booth is usually not a very glamorous affair, so I’m not going to make either of you come if you don’t want to. This is more me inviting you to come. But…every pony running a booth at the convention does get free passes into the convention, which means you’d both get the chance to look around a little at no cost to you during breaks. There’s also a celebratory dinner and show held in the evening at the end of the event for all the ponies that had set up booths that you could attend too, which makes for a nice reward after a day’s hard work. So what do you two say?”

Thorax and Spike looked at each other, considering the matter briefly.

“Well, I’ve never been on an airship before,” Thorax admitted finally, Spike spying the same sort of gleam in his eye like he had when he got to ride a train for the first time.

Spike, however, had other concerns. “It’s tempting,” he admitted. “But with all the crowds of unfamiliar ponies running around and all, most of them not even from our area…” Spike directed a knowing glance at Thorax, implying the fact that the convention would probably be too public and too filled with outsiders for it to be wise for two in-hiding outcasts to attend. “…I think that’s not really something I want to deal with right now. Besides, after that fiasco with Thornton and the police just recently, I daresay neither of us needs the excitement.”

Thorax looked a little put out by this, but he caught Spike’s concealed point and sighed. “Yeah, I suppose you might have a point there…after that, I don’t really know if I’d want to put myself out in public like that just yet…”

“Besides, that means we could stay here and run the shop while Fly’s at the convention,” Spike suggested. “That way it wouldn’t have to close in the meantime, and you could get business both ways.”

Fly blinked and looked thoughtful at this. “I hadn’t thought of that,” she admitted, and sounded like she wasn’t against that idea. “Still though…your added help at the convention would be wonderful if I can get it, and I’m sure I can do something to make it worth your while. But again, I’m just asking, seeing if you two are interested. Spike’s actually got a pretty good idea leaving you two behind to run the shop, so that definitely an option too.

Thorax didn’t want to make a choice recklessly though. He glanced at Fly Leaf. “How much time do we have to consider it?”

“Preferably, I need to know today,” Fly said. “I need to get this application in as soon as I can before everypony else snatch up the remaining booths that are left in my price range to rent.” She shrugged. “Sorry, I would’ve brought it up sooner, but I’m just so used to going to the convention on my own that I didn’t think I might not have to this year until literally fifteen minutes ago.”

“It’s okay Fly,” Spike said with a reassuring grin.

“What sort of things would there be to see anyway if we did go?” Thorax asked, curious.

Fly glanced at the application form in her hoof. “Well, lots of things, of course. There’ll be plenty of local businesses advertising their wares, but there will also be things from all over this area of Equestria coming to promote upcoming products…publishers, developers, arcade game makers, radio shows…” she grinned suddenly, her hoof tapping one entry in the list apparently included on the form. “Here’s one that might interest Thornton; an officially sponsored Doctor Hooves booth, advertising the release of their next set of episodes on record, a teaser for an upcoming yet-to-air production, and at the end, a signing session for fans with the show’s lead actor…the stallion that plays the titular character himself, it looks like.”

Fly had Thorax’s attention the moment she said the words “Doctor Hooves,” but by the time she finished, his eyes had grown very wide. He turned to look at Spike. “We’re going,” he simply announced to the dragon.

Spike blinked and attempted to object. “But—”

“No, we’re going,” Thorax reiterated, interrupting.

With that, the matter was settled. And a week later, just shy of Spike and Thorax finishing their third moon in Vanhoover, the three arose early in the morning, packed a simple cart in Fly Leaf’s possession with the supplies needed to run their booth, and departed across town for the Martingale Building the airship the convention was to take place on was already docked at. Said building was an older and fairly blockish structure arranged in a roughly “T” shape, but was fairly respected by locals, at one time the tallest in the city before being surpassed by newer creations, and thus considered a historical landmark in the city. Spike was fairly partial to the building’s classic art-deco stylings himself, and Thorax himself had commented on occasion when they walked past the building that he longed to see the inside. They finally had their chance today, as the only practical way up to the airship docked with the tower was through the building itself, and stepped in the massive line of other ponies coming to set up or run booths for the convention that stretched out its doors.

Today however, it was not the building that was the center of everybody’s attention, but that of the airship moored to the elegant spire that jutted from the building’s highest roof, serving as an anchoring point for the craft. Having spent the early years of his life in Canterlot, renowned as a focal point for airship travel, Spike had seen his share of airships in the past, and had even ridden on a small one a couple times in years past, thanks to a friend to Twilight’s family that had often invited them to join him on short cruises about the sky. Nonetheless, this airship bore a presence that deserved immediate respect. Built as a cruise liner normally like Fly Leaf had explained before, the ship’s body bore at least five long and wide decks, not counting it’s quarterdeck that rose a deck or two higher at the aft of the craft. The lighter-than-air balloon that supported it all was even bigger; nearly double in size so to be able to keep the sizeable craft aloft. It was hard not to gaze up at it in awe as it hung there above them. Even ponies that were just passing on the street all tended to stop and gaze up at it for a moment.

It would be some more minutes still before the three could get up to it though. First, they had to wait in line until they could step up to a long table set up in front of the building’s entrance, serving as a makeshift admittance booth. Once there, Fly had to take the time to confirm she was all properly signed for a booth in the convention and everything, as well as sort out some final registration paperwork, which Spike and Thorax both had to sign as well. Then, as they obviously couldn’t take Fly’s cart of supplies up through the building with them, Fly also arranged to have a pegasus on staff for this purpose hitch up to her cart and fly it on up to the airship for her, parking it in the craft’s cargo hold, and this required the filling out of another form so to sort out a free spot for the cart to be parked in said cargo hold.

That done, they were finally free to enter the lobby of the building, only to face yet another line for another registration table, at which (once it was finally their turn) Fly had to again confirm she had properly signed up for everything, and she, Spike and Thorax were all given the appropriate passes to wear into the convention, as well as various papers about the convention rules, the planned schedule for the day, and a sizeable map of where everything would be at. The process took some minutes, during which Spike and Thorax passed the time by taking in the actually very impressively built lobby, making the wait tolerable. Afterwards, they had the option of heading up to the spire where the airship was docked either by one of the elevators or the stairs…all of which had lines of their own. Fly opted for the elevator, reasoning that once they were inside, the ride up to the top would be fairly quick. However, the elevator car was also filled to capacity with ponies once they did get in, leading to Thorax nearly getting a panic attack by how claustrophobic it all was, the changeling in hiding not feeling entirely comfortable having to literally rub elbows with so many others like this.

Overall, it took nearly forty-five minutes before they could finally reach the docking area, but at last they finally did and were able to file one by one (and thus explaining the lines) aboard the airship via a catwalk. Though the catwalk was built onto the building and quite solid, both Fly and Spike proceeded with a degree of caution, intimidated by just how very high up they were, but Thorax showed no such fear and, excited to board an airship for the first time, pranced ahead of the others and was the first of the three to formally step onto the airship. Once there, he continued forward a few steps, then oddly stopped and looked down at his hooves for a moment. By the time Fly and Spike caught up with him just a few seconds later, he had begun to jump up and down repeatedly.

“Thornton?” Fly questioned, raising an eyebrow as she approached.

“I can feel the airship floating underneath my hooves,” Thorax explained simply, jumping up and down a couple more times before resorting to prancing in place a few times as if he was standing on something hot, an eager grin on his face. “It feels weird, but you can’t help but like the sensation, can you?”

However Fly and Spike simply exchanged glances before peering down at their own feet. “Feels as solid as the building we just left to me,” Spike remarked aloud, not understanding what Thorax was talking about.

Fly’s eyes rolled up slightly and became unfocused for a moment as she attempted to concentrate and find the sensation Thorax spoke of. “Yeah, I’m not feeling it either,” she admitted.

Thorax looked both a little surprised and put out by this, going still. “Oh,” he admitted, deciding it was better to drop the subject than press it then. “I guess it’s just me then. Never mind.”

As they proceeded further into the airship, Spike caught up with Thorax. “What was that about?” he asked.

Thorax fidgeted on his hooves for a moment. “It must be a changeling thing,” he reasoned softly so Fly wouldn’t overhear. “But I can sense the airship is in the air…it doesn’t feel solid to me, even if it is docked and motionless, but…in a good way.” He couldn’t help but grin again. “It actually kind of makes me giddy to feel.” He turned puzzled. “I’m not sure why you and Miss Fly can’t sense it.”

Spike shrugged. “Well, hidden though they are at the moment, you are the only one of us who has wings,” he reasoned. “So it wouldn’t surprise me that you would have something to sense it with that we wouldn’t.” He put one set of claws on Thorax. “But to play it safe…let’s keep this to ourselves for now, okay?”

“Okay,” Thorax agreed, and pressed onward, walking normally thereafter. Although whenever he thought nobody was watching, Spike would occasionally catch him giddily prancing in place, enjoying this apparent sensation.

The place where they came aboard the airship happened to be on the bottommost deck of the airship, and luckily on the same deck as the cargo hold where they found Fly’s cart of supplies waiting for them, just a short distance away. Unluckily though, it was increasingly becoming apparent that the cart was being more hindrance than use, as they still couldn’t take it with them on up to the spot where Fly had been registered to set up her booth; some of the intervening corridors were simply a foot too narrow. They finally had to resort to unloading the cart there in the cargo hold and carry themselves what they had brought a little at a time up to the needed location, some four decks above them. It was a long and tedious process, but fortunately the convention wouldn’t formally start and open to the public for another hour, giving them just enough time to get everything moved and set up at their booth. They finished in time for the opening ceremony to begin on the top deck of the ship, where the mayor of Vanhoover—a greying brown stallion with what Spike was certain had to be the biggest mustache in the world—gave a brief speech welcoming everypony. After running through some last minute notes, the rules, and the schedule for the convention, the event formally began, and the trio returned to their booth to open it up for service and anypony that came their way.

Their booth was luckily located along a hallway running along the outer hull of the airship, and was along a major lane of traffic for the convention, making them highly visible to passersby. Additionally, the far wall of the hallway was lined with viewports giving a view outside, which drew further attention from passing patrons…although Thorax wasn’t pleased with the view, complaining that they were on the “wrong side of the airship” and that their view was blocked by the mooring spire of the Martingale Building right outside. Business seemed to be good though, and though the amount of it seemed less than what they would normally see back at the shop, Fly commented it was still more than what she had seen for her booth at past conventions, and reasoned it was because she was able to justify renting the bigger booth thanks to being able to count upon Spike and Thorax’s added support. Indeed, her booth—a series of tables arranged in roughly a square shape around a central table—was one of the notably larger ones in comparison to many of the ones neighboring them.

Other likely factors was the fact that Fly was also using the opportunity to advertise the new products she was now able to sell thanks to her recent contract with the prominent distributor she had recently succeeded in obtaining, and had made it a point to display this as a central feature of her booth. A number of ponies coming to their booth were in fact quite interested in these new products, especially as Fly was able to promote selling them at a competitive price in comparison to her competition. Which was another likely factor to their success—they eventually got word that Fly’s business rival, Letterpress, had opened a booth for her own shop at the convention, but unlike Fly, Letterpress had chosen to not attend so to run it herself and instead left this task up to two bored and lowly employees that very much didn’t want to be there. As such, they lacked any real enthusiasm in promoting their wares, which a couple of ponies noted aloud when they visited Fly’s booth later. One of the regulars at Fly’s shop, Mrs. White, visited both booths, and commented to Fly that this attitude at the rival booth made Letterpress’s shop feel “corporate and unfriendly” in comparison. Fly naturally took all of this as a win for herself in the ongoing rivalry between the two shop owners.

They were busy running the booth continuously for the rest of the morning as the convention proceeded onwards as planned. Finally, as noon drew near and other ponies started turning their attention away from the booth and towards getting lunch, Fly decided Thorax and Spike had earned themselves a break, and permitted them to go off and explore the rest of the convention while she stayed at the booth and handled the lowered lunchtime patrons herself. Thorax, waiting for this chance, jumped at it, and knew exactly where he wanted to go first; the Doctor Hooves booth which had already taken the time to determine was located two decks below them. He dragged Spike along with, and even though the dragon wasn’t especially interested in the booth himself, he permitted himself to come along, reasoning it would be best if they stuck together so they could keep each other out of trouble. As they drew nearer to the booth, they started to see other attendees here to visit the same booth start to appear more and more, always standing out from the rest of the crowd as they were almost always dressed up in some sort of a Doctor Hooves-related cosplay, and soon their numbers were so great both Spike and Thorax couldn’t help but turn and survey the growing crowd of fans as they moved through it.

“Certainly are dedicated, aren’t they?” Spike remarked aloud skeptically, raising an eyebrow while watching two fans argue about how canonical the types of stitching they had used to make their costumes were.

“Yeah,” Thorax agreed, who surprisingly wore a frown. He gazed down at his disguised body, which was currently bare as he had left his now-trademark jacket at Fly’s booth because he had gotten too warm in it. “It’s actually making me feel like I’m a little…underdressed…for this.”

Spike chuckled. “Well, unfortunately, it’s a little late to fix that,” he observed aloud.

Thorax paused to think, rubbing his chin. “Actually, maybe not,” he admitted, and began looking around for the ideal spot to carry out what he was planning.

Soon he had found it, and acting very casually, ducked behind a sizeable booth as they walked past it. Spike saw the faint flicker of a cyan flash, and then Thorax stepped back out and rejoined him from the other side, still disguised as Thornton as usual, but the disguise altered so that he now bore an impressive costume in the image of the radio show’s titular character. Pleased with the results, Thorax shot Spike a smug smirk.

Spike grinned himself, but in a more teasing manner. “Cheater,” he remarked.

“Shush,” Thorax quipped back, grin not dampened in the least as they pressed on.

There was naturally a line at the booth when they arrived, but this didn’t deter Thorax any, and the wait eventually proved worth it for him, as he got to meet with the radio show’s lead actor as he hoped; a rather friendly brown stallion who was clearly the same stallion pictured on the album art for the show’s releases on record just in costume, and who autographed Thorax’s first series album cover that Thorax had brought along for explicitly this purpose. They then were able to listen to a teaser of an upcoming episode that got Thorax all excited to hear the rest when it was scheduled to fully air on the radio in another couple of weeks. They also looked at the newest release of Doctor Hooves episodes on record that the booth was also selling, but even Thorax was forced to admit that he could buy the same album cheaper in stores, and with some unwillingness was able to keep himself from buying here at the convention. All in all, they walked away from the booth with Thorax feeling very pleased with the visit and still in the spirit of it all. He also got some comments of approval for his “costume” which made him want to leave it on and keep wearing it for the remainder of the day, but Spike pointed out to him that Fly had seen him come in without it and would only ask where he had gotten it when she next saw him, so reluctantly Thorax ducked behind another booth to tweak his disguise again, removing the costume.

That done, Thorax didn’t have anywhere else he had a particular desire to visit, and Spike didn’t have anything he especially wanted to visit, so they proceeded to walk around at random, looking for anything that might catch their interest. If and whenever they found something as such, they would stop and look for a few moments. One such booth that briefly caught their eye was one promoting a children’s show, but as Spike regarded the booth critically, he couldn’t help but notice that those visiting it weren’t just foals in the intended age group but also more fully grown ponies clearly of no association with any of the foals present.

“‘The Magic School Carriage?’” Spike remarked aloud as he gazed at the booth with some skepticism.

“Apparently it’s a popular series of children’s books turned into a radio show,” Thorax remarked as he read a description on a nearby sign. “It was designed to teach foals things like science through a sort of educational entertainment format. It seems it’s been off the air for a few years, but now they’ve begun production on new episodes in a sort of “reboot,” I suppose.”

“Which is all fine and good,” Spike assured as he regarded the more adult ponies idly looking through the booth with a sense of fond gladness. “But I just don’t see why it’s appealing to these more grown-up ponies that are clearly not targeted for it.”

“Not anymore at least,” Thorax reasoned, turning to look at Spike. “But it’s been around just long enough that it’s quite possible that some of these adults had grown up with it as foals back when it was still in production before. Now that it’s coming back, they’re feeling a bit of nostalgia for how they had known it back in their day.” He shrugged. “Besides, I suppose it just testifies to how successful it had been. Perhaps what they learned from the show inspired them to go on and do other things as they grew up, maybe even eventually get successful careers out of it.”

Spike snorted at Thorax’s optimistic outlook of it. “Well, even if that’s the case, I’d hate to have my fate in the hooves of somebody influenced by something like that,” he grumbled, turning away.

Thorax merely grinned and rolled his eyes, silently following without further comment.

Later, they came across a small seminar being held, in which the scheduled presenter was going to give a series of “key” tips on how to be a successful writer. As Spike’s own interest and experimentation in writing had continued to persist, now reaching the point that he was interested in committing fully to it, he decided to sit in on the seminar and learn some of these tips. Thorax joined him out of curiosity and so to keep company.

“How are your writing endeavors coming along?” the disguised changeling asked as they got themselves sat down.

“Slow,” Spike admitted, Thorax sensing a small amount of concealed glumness wafting out from the dragon. “I mean, I’ve got plenty of ideas, a couple of which might actually be pretty good…but I haven’t been able to focus on just one, and keep bouncing around between them, and I’m finding that’s not really getting me anywhere.” He shrugged. “Besides, it turns out it’s harder to compile a…clear…picture of the universe a story might be set in than I thought, and working that all out is pretty tedious. Most of what I’ve written thus far is really just pages upon pages of notes for a story I haven’t even begun to think about seriously writing still. It doesn’t help that I really don’t have a lot of past experience doing all of this, and have sort of just trying to figure it out all myself on the fly.” He sighed. “Still…I guess it’s still progress, and every now and then I get something actually story-related jotted down.”

“Hmm,” Thorax hummed to himself as he processed all of this. “Well…if you’d like, I’d be more than happy to read whatever it is you’ve got thus far and give you my thoughts…maybe give you an idea if you’re on the right track.”

Spike immediately shook his head. “No, no,” he said. “None of it is ready yet for somebody to read yet, and I know it. It’d be better if I can get it all a bit closer to completion before I start letting anybody other than me read it.”

Thorax frowned, not certain if he agreed, but decided not to argue, aware he probably knew even less about writing. “If you say so,” he said.

They proceeded to listen as the seminar began, but ultimately they didn’t stay for the whole thing. Thorax ended up finding it incredibly boring to the point that he started to doze off, and Spike had no interest in repeating what had happened the last time Thorax had dozed off while in disguise. Besides, though Spike kept it to himself, he found the presenter’s politely matter-of-factual style of speaking reminded him greatly of Twilight, dredging up mixed feelings he wasn’t prepared to handle at the moment. So they left and continued on with their aimless wanderings. Eventually they came upon what would normally be a sizeable gym on the airship, except the room had been completely cleared and filled instead with displays from various music-related stores throughout the Vanhoover area, most of them using the space to put instruments for sale on display. Among them, Thorax was able to spy Xylophone and Metallophone, the owners of the shop he had entered posing as Vinyl Scratch, and made it a point to steer clear of both of them, Metallophone especially, even though neither of the two ponies recognized him in his disguise as Thornton.

Instead, they wandered around, looking at the instruments. Eventually, Spike spied an elegant looking upright piano among them, and after a moment’s debate, decided to sit himself down before it, popping his knuckles as he refamiliarized himself with the ivory keys.

Thorax moved to stand just behind Spike, watching. “You play?” he asked.

“A little,” Spike admitted as he hesitantly placed his claws on the keys. “Obviously, I haven’t had the chance to do it for a few of moons.” He grinned slyly. “But I betcha you can’t do this.”

He then proceeded to play the concert B-flat major, arpeggio, and chromatic scales in that order, and quite rapidly, all well under thirty seconds. He then smugly turned to Thorax, who regarded the dragon innocently for a moment. Then Thorax repeated the same scales sounding as they had when Spike played them on the piano, but all solely with his mouth and voice.

Spike’s jaw dropped. “How did you do that?” he exclaimed.

Now it was Thorax’s turn to grin. “You forget changelings are creatures of mimicry,” he instructed calmly. “And thus we all basically have perfect pitch from birth, at least once properly trained to use it.”

“Yes, but that all sounded like you had played it on the piano like I just did, not singing the notes aloud with your voice,” Spike said, motioning to the keys of the piano.

“I suppose I should clarify what I mean by perfect pitch; changelings can mimic the sound of any instrument…or at least I’ve never heard of an instrument a changeling couldn’t emulate,” Thorax elaborated. “Basically, changelings are their own instruments. In bygone days, changelings would play whole songs themselves through this type of mimicry, using none of the actual instruments.”

“Huh!” Spike repeated, impressed. “I guess you wouldn’t need orchestras when you’ve got at least one changeling,” he remarked.

“Well, to be fair, in order to mimic the sound perfectly, a changeling can only mimic the sound of one instrument at a time, like what I just did,” Thorax said, and then again demonstrated the skill, repeating the sounds of the scales with his mouth. He frowned afterwards. “It takes practice and training to do it really well that I haven’t had, though,” he admitted, discontent with the quality of his mimicry. “I’ve only got a passing experience and all of that I’ve learned by ear myself. It’s not as perfect as it should be.” He again repeated part of the first scale, and, listening closely, Spike realized what he meant. Thorax’s mimicry of the sounds was slightly tinny and not quite precise, but still easy enough for Spike to miss normally. Thorax then sighed. “I suppose it doesn’t matter, the practice has fallen out of favor anyway,” he concluded.

Spike frowned, noting Thorax’s slightly dejected look. “How do you mean?”

“Well, like I said, a changeling can only emulate one instrument at a time, so, generations ago, it used to be that groups of changelings would get together and form their own orchestra with each changeling standing in for a specific instrument, and perform full songs that way,” Thorax explained whimsically. He sighed again. “But it’s no longer a favored pastime these days, and Queen Chrysalis has actively discouraged it during her reign, speeding the practice’s demise, as she doesn’t see it as a practical use of the hive’s time and resources.” He ran one hoof over the piano keys longingly. “I’d love to see the practice return one day…but I guess it’d be too much to hope for.”

A moment of silence fell between them. Spike, wanting to do something to cheer up his friend, turned back to the piano keys before him, and thought about playing a happy song to improve the mood. After only a moment’s consideration, he then set about playing an old favorite. There were also words to the song, but Spike wasn’t practiced at singing and playing at the same time, and could only at best sporadically hum parts of the melody aloud. He quickly found himself quite engrossed in playing the song that at one point he realized he had lost track of what Thorax was doing, the disguised changeling not in his immediate range of view. But as he reached the halfway point in the song, he heard some shuffling of hooves just behind him and sensed Thorax leaning closer, curious.

Spike grinned to himself as he continued to play, guessing Thorax was wondering how he came to learn how to play. “Before she moved out, Twilight’s mother had always wanted her to learn how to play piano,” he explained aloud to his friend without looking away from the keys. “But when Twilight never got around to it because of her studies, I ended up learning a little bit of it myself. I have to admit that I’ve never been too empathic about it, at least not enough to pursue doing it professionally or learning more than just a few songs myself…but it was a fun past time that I’m finding I had missed doing when I could.”

It was then that a voice that was very much not Thorax spoke right behind him. “Who’s Twilight?”

With a cacophonous jolt that abruptly terminated the song early, Spike whipped around and realized the figure that had been standing just behind him wasn’t Thorax like he thought, but none other than Fly Leaf herself, regarding the dragon curiously. “Fly!” he exclaimed, shocked and ashamed at himself at his lack of caution in relating a tale potentially sensitive to his true identity. “I thought you were Thora—I mean—Thornton!” He glanced around, befuddled. “Where is Thornton?”

“Over there,” Fly responded, pointing her hoof a bit further down the room where Thorax now stood, curiously regarding Crystal Empire-style flugelhorn on display. “He must have wandered off while you weren’t looking.” She shook her head, turning back to Spike. “Sorry Spark, I didn’t mean to startle you at any rate. Things just slowed down at the booth because it’s lunchtime, and I heard there was a booth selling meals elsewhere in the convention that everypony seems to be enjoying. So I was wondering if I could talk you and Thornton into coming back to the booth and watching over it while I go to this booth and get us some lunch, my treat.”

Spike blinked, then, understanding, nodded and jumped down from the piano bench he had sat himself upon. “Sure, that’d be great!” he said, eager for the distraction from the piano and what Fly might have overheard him say while playing it. “Let’s go fetch Thornton and we can be off.”

They both turned to catch up with the disguised changeling, but then Fly repeated her earlier question. “So who’s Twilight?” she asked again, proving she wasn’t going to be so easily distracted from the subject.

Spike bit his lip, debating to himself for a moment. “Just a friend I knew,” he replied vaguely then added. “A former friend at that…I guess we aren’t anything of the such now.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Fly remarked. “If I may ask, what happened?”

Spike sighed. “I don’t really want to talk about it.” He stopped, turning to face Fly. “But to make a very long story short, we basically came to a severe disagreement about things, and eventually I got fed up and…and left.” He shrugged sadly. “And…she let me. Leaving me alone. So that ended that.”

Fly made a small wince. “I’m sorry,” she apologized again truthfully. “No one should have to lose a friend, not like that. I wish for your sake it hadn’t come to that.” She stepped closer now, putting on a warm grin. “But I assume after all that was when you met Thornton, and eventually came here to Vanhoover, so it seems to me it all still worked out okay. Maybe for the better—you and Thornton seem to be doing all right in life now.”

Spike felt the corners of his mouth turn upward in a grin, forced to agree. “Yeah,” he said. He looked up at Fly Leaf. “I guess that’s what matters now, isn’t it?”

Fly’s grin broadened as she patted Spike with her hoof and slipped past him without replying, proceeding on to collect Thornton. Feeling heartened himself, Spike followed without further comment himself. After they had caught up with Thornton and Fly explained her proposal, to which Thornton readily agreed to, Spike and Thornton returned to the booth and continued operating it themselves while Fly collected lunch as agreed. Fly hadn’t been exaggerating when she said that patrons visiting their booth had slacked off with the arrival of lunchtime, leaving it a relatively easy task, but it was starting to pick up again when Fly returned with the lunch she had purchased, which they all shared while they worked to run their booth.

The food did indeed prove to be quite tasty as hoped and even Thorax, normally expected to not partake much of such solid foods given his changeling biology, partook of a fair bit of the lunch, more than either Spike or Fly anticipated. Spike even worried at one point that Thorax might overdo it and make himself sick, undesired flashbacks to the incident with the cherry pie springing to mind, but fortunately Thorax had more than enough self-control this time to prevent much chance of any such event. By the time the food was finished though, the convention was back in full swing and attendees were swarming the hallways of the airship once again.

Business continued to be productive for their booth for the remainder of the day after that, to the point that by that evening, as the convention began to formally draw to a close, Fly Leaf declared it a success, and as things were winding down, it was decided to begin packing up. They stopped halfway after hearing that the promised dinner and show reserved for everypony who had ran a booth at the convention as well as any patrons that had paid for tickets for any remaining available seating in advance was setting up to begin and that all who desired to participate to gather in the airship’s main dining room.

Both Fly and Spike prepped to go, but Thorax, still being quite enthralled with being on the airship, decided he’d rather go and explore the ship more, especially since it was going to be largely empty now that the convention was ending and the other attendees had left. Besides, he had heard that the ship had an observation deck located in her prow that he wanted to visit, hoping to catch the sunset from there. He was also immensely curious about what it would be like to travel in an airship, the idea appealing to him, and confessed he hoped to try and get some ideas about this before they had to go. Fly naturally had no problem with it, and while Spike was a bit more hesitant about Thorax going off on his own in this unfamiliar territory, he figured that, like Thorax, with the airship emptying now, there was far less chance of him getting noticed or caught in trouble, so he relented so long as Thorax agreed to be cautious and avoid doing anything that could get him in trouble, which Thorax readily agreed to.

So they went their separate ways, Thorax off to explore what he could of the airship while Spike and Fly headed to the main dining room and found the seats that had been reserved for them, circled about one of the many round tables that filled the dining room. They shared their table with a few other Vanhoover business owners that had ran booths of their own, one of which happened to be sat next to Fly and the two knew each other already. Soon they were chatting away as they waited for the dinner and show event to begin. For Spike, the seat immediately adjacent to him would’ve been filled by Thorax had he attended and thus was left empty, which he was inwardly thankful for as the next two seats over were occupied by a well-to-do business stallion and his trophy wife, the latter of whom Spike took an immediate disliking to. In fact, most of the ponies at their table seemed to secretly dislike her and her snooty, self-entitled, attitude, but Spike was sitting the closest to her, and was glad he had Thorax’s empty seat providing as a buffer between him and her.

The meal that was served shortly thereafter was an especially fancy one, featuring a pasta dish that Spike couldn’t pronounce the name of but was served with a white sauce and was altogether quite good, along with summer salad, a roll, and a serving of stuffed mushrooms. It proved to be very filling, but as special as the meal was, it proved to not be the highlight of the evening, because only moments after the meal was served, the show and entertainment portion of the event began on the dining room’s attached stage, proceeding while everyone ate. It was a variety show, and thus featured a wide assortment of acts. These included an ensemble jazz band, a lengthy improv comedy act, a brief one-act skit, a moving poetry reading, and a political satire sketch that went as far as poking good fun at all four of Equestria’s currently ruling princesses (which Spike found uproariously hilarious).

Then about halfway through the show, an unsuspecting looking brown stallion with a slate gray mane and light beard came onto the stage, and announced as a hypnotist who would now perform. He cheerily greeted the audience, and said all the usual things you’d expect from a performer, like how it was “great to be here” and that they were all “a wonderful audience.” He then joked about he could guarantee that they would love the show, because, as he was hypnotist, he was confident he could “persuade” them into enjoying the show. They all laughed at the not-so-subtle implications of his little gag, but at the same time, there was something gnawing at Spike about this stallion that he couldn’t quite place.

He continued to watch the stallion, attempting to place it, as the hypnotist went on to explain in brief how hypnotism supposedly worked to his listening audience, but making a number of jokes and wisecracks about it along the way, drawing more laughs. He was overall not being especially serious about it, so much so that Spike wondered at one point if he was actually a hypnotist at all and not just a comedian pretending to be one as part of some act. But eventually he concluded the explanation and was ready to begin.

“Now of course,” he said in a teasing, knowing, voice as he addressed the audience with a grin. “I’ll need to select a volunteer from the audience…preferably someone who doesn’t mind me playing with their free will just a little bit.”

This earned him a few more laughs but soon several ponies in the audience raised their hooves, eagerly hoping to be said volunteer. While the stallion scanned the crowd with more of his comedic exaggeration, there was some eager discussion at Spike’s table if any of them wanted to volunteer. Spike had half a mind to try and volunteer the stuck-up trophy wife himself, but he otherwise stayed out of the conversation, his attention focused still on the hypnotist himself. He wasn’t sure what it was, but something definitely bothered him about the stallion…something that felt like he knew from somewhere before. He was quite confident he had never seen the stallion before in his life, though. And yet…and yet…

His line of thought was all brought to a jarring halt when the stallion suddenly selected his volunteer, pointing his hoof right at Spike. “You there!” he declared finally. “You look like you’ll fit the ticket nicely!” When Spike blankly motioned to himself, uncertain the stallion really was pointing at him, the hypnotist nodded and waved one hoof to urge him forward. “Yes you, the little dragon in the sweater vest and glasses! Come on down!”

The rest of the audience began to cheer Spike on, urging him to proceed too. However Spike’s first instinct was to refuse, fearing his true identity might be discovered if he publically put himself out there for all to see like that, especially if he was going to be hypnotized and might be vulnerable to saying something he shouldn’t aloud for all to hear. But even Fly Leaf sitting beside him started to egg him on.

“Go on Spark, live a little!” she urged, nudging Spike in the side with her elbow. “Don’t worry, I’ve seen these sorts of hypnotist acts before, they’re harmless. It’s all just in good fun!”

Spike still wasn’t entirely convinced, but still inclined to trust in Fly at her word nonetheless, he relented, and among cheers from the other audience members rooting him on, he proceeded up for the stage. The hypnotist watched him approach, a big grin on his face, all of which was completely harmless in intent of course, but despite there was still something about it all that nagged Spike to the point that, by the time he stepped up onto the stage, he began to wonder if this was really a smart idea.

“Welcome, welcome!” the hypnotist greeted eagerly, taking Spike’s claws in his hoof to shake. “Do tell us your name!”

“Spark,” Spike responded automatically, self-consciously adjusting the false glasses he wore to ensure his disguise was fully in place and nervously stood before the whole audience.

“Spark, huh?” the hypnotist repeated with emphasis, which surprised Spike as he wasn’t sure why the stallion chose to do so. “Well, Spark, let’s begin, shall we? If you could take a seat here, I’ll get right to it.”

He motioned to a folding chair that had been set out in the center of the stage. Nervous and getting increasingly more on edge the longer he was there on stage with this bafflingly odd stallion, Spike stepped up to the chair and lowered himself into it, positioned so he could look out at the audience. He was able to pick out Fly Leaf from within the crowd, who cheerily waved in encouragement. Spike sheepishly waved back.

Meanwhile, the stallion pulled out a seemingly ordinary pocket watch, and wrapping its golden chain around one hoof, he dangled it out in front of Spike’s face and started to wave it back and forth. “Now Spark,” the stallion explained as he did this. “Do me a favor and concentrate on the pocket watch closely. Try and read what the time it shows on its face.”

Spike frowned at how cliché it all was, but surrendered and attempted to focus on the watch face as it swung back and forth before his eyes. It was really moving too fast for him to reliably do so, but he kept at it anyway.

“Now, you should be feeling relaxed, unwound, if not tired,” the stallion continued in a looming tone. “Don’t fight it, embrace it. Let it on into your being.”

Spike, however, didn’t feel anything of the such, and started to frown. His feelings that something was amiss in all of this began to mount, and, brow furrowing, started to turn his head to glance questioningly at the stallion. The stallion stopped him with his free hoof, keeping Spike from turning his head.

“When I stomp my hoof twice on the stage floor here,” he continued in his slightly gravely and deep voice. “You will lose all sense of reality, and then the real fun can begin…”

Spike couldn’t help but swallow nervously, severely questioning if this was really a smart idea as the hypnotist moved one hoof to hang ominously over the stage floor. He let it hang there for a long moment, dragging out the suspense. At one point he glanced at the audience and waggled his eyebrows teasingly, drawing laughter from them. Then, as the laughter was only just beginning to die down again, he rapped his hoof twice on the floor of the stage.

The audience suddenly froze mid-laugh.

Shocked, Spike did a double take and gazed out at the audience, frozen and unmoving right in the middle of whatever it was they had been doing at that moment. None of them moved, or even seemed aware of anything now. For a split second Spike wondered if it was all in his head, and that this was what it was like to be hypnotized, but the stallion beside him whisked the pocket watch away, tucking it back into his pocket while taking a couple steps back. “Well, now that we have that sorted,” he mumbled to himself as he did this.

Feeling very confused, Spike looked himself over and saw he still appeared to have complete control over himself and everything he did. Assured of that much, he rose from his seat and gazed at the crowd, still unmoving. “What did you do?” he demanded of the hypnotist.

“Well, I said I was going to hypnotize some ponies, did I not?” the stallion responded with a sly grin. “Don’t worry though, they’re all fine, and will have no memory of any of this once I snap them out of it. Instead they’ll think you were the one hypnotized and the act went on without a hitch so that I made you hop around the stage like a rabbit or something. Haven’t decided yet, but we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.” His grin grew slyer still. “Point is, this gives us some time to chat.”

“Chat?” Spike repeated, spinning around to face the stallion and thinking he had every cause to be alarmed at this point. “About what? Who are you?”

The stallion pulled back as if surprised. “You mean haven’t already figured it out?” he asked, as if offended. “Well then fine, I’ll give you a big hint!” The stallion then abruptly vanished in a flash of light and was replaced with a very different and all-too familiar creature. “How about now? Is this better?”

Spike felt his stomach plummet, eyes going wide as he stared at the towering figure of mismatched anatomy that now stood before him. “Discord,” he breathed in fear.

The draconequus made an exaggerated and elegant bow. “The one and only,” he replied with a smirk.

Author's Note

And here you thought it was just going to be another purely slice of life chapter, didn't you? Nope! CLIFFHANGER ENDING! :trollestia:

This chapter was originally going to be much shorter, focusing on only the dinner and show aspect, but back when I first introduced that Thorax was a fan of Doctor Hooves, a couple readers expressed interest in he and Spike attending a fan convention, and so I fleshed out the chapter to include that. Eventually, it became a small dumping ground for various related ideas I hadn't found spots for elsewhere in the story, and became a very fun chapter to write.

And if it interests anyone, the described Martingale Building of Vanhoover is modeled upon the real life Marine Building in real life Vancouver, except, obviously, with a prominent spire added for mooring an airship to. :twilightsmile:

To the Ends of Reality

Spike regarded Discord in silent fear and for a long moment didn’t know what to do now. What could he do? It was Discord after all. Theoretically, his chaos magic all-but trumped other forms of magic, and as Spike didn’t even have that much, it meant that Spike wouldn’t stand much of a chance trying to resist the draconequus, especially on his own. After all, he had just frozen an entire audience of ponies with casual ease just so they could “talk” apparently…it was hard to even know how to defend one’s self against something like that.

So while Discord watched Spike with a smug grin, waiting for him to make the next move, Spike decided not to fight it for now until he had a better idea the true depth of his situation. “What do you want with me?” he asked aloud, his nervousness showing in his voice.

“I told you, I want to talk!” Discord repeated brightly. “Isn’t that what friends do? Get together and talk, like the chums they are?”

By this point, it had occurred to Spike that Discord hadn’t yet confirmed he actually knew it was him he was talking to and not some other dragon. “How are we friends?” he asked, trying to act innocent and unknowing. “I’m just a normal dragon citizen living in Vanhoover. We’ve certainly never crossed paths before, have we? So—”

“Oh please, spare me the act!” Discord bemoaned with unnecessary exaggeration. He snapped his talons and suddenly Spike’s false glasses flew off his face and onto Discord’s before Spike could even do anything to react. “You may have fooled all of Vanhoover with that silly disguise Spike, but you’re certainly not fooling me!” He gave Spike a critical look through the false eyeglasses he now sported on his nose. “Couldn’t you have at least chosen a better name for yourself? I mean, Spark? How unoriginal.”

Spike frowned, and folded his arms with harrumph. “I thought I’d still try, even if it was a long shot,” he confessed to the draconequus.

“Long shot indeed!” Discord agreed, snapping his fingers and returning Spike’s glasses back to their owner. “And it’s not like it’s even necessary!” He swept one paw out at the frozen audience sat before the stage they were on. “They certainly aren’t going to notice anything. No one on the airship is going to notice thanks to me.”

Spike blinked as he realized what Discord was implying. “You froze everyone that’s on the airship?” he repeated in alarm, realizing this likely included Thorax.

“All except us!” Discord confirmed with a nod. “It wasn’t like it was that hard. It’s mostly just our lovely audience here and the skeleton crew running the ship. The rest of the ship is practically deserted now that your little convention is all wrapping up.” He turned back to Spike with a grin. “That gives us plenty of time to talk, and without any fear of interruption! Or any fear of you getting discovered!”

Spike snorted, angered by Discord’s casual attitude about all of this, as well as his habitual tendency to be vague and not straightforward with his little games. “Why go to all this trouble then?” he demanded. “If you really just wanted to talk, couldn’t you have just asked?”

“Where’s the fun in that?” Discord whined. “I wanted to surprise you! Surprise!”

“And why do you want to talk now?” Spike challenged next, not having the patience for this. “In all this time you could’ve used to seek me out at any time to talk in the space of time we’ve known each other, both before and after your so-called reformation, you have never done so. You’ve barely even acknowledged that I exist! So what changed? What do you really want?”

“What, now that you’ve taken up the life of a banished outcast in hiding, you’re suddenly too good to talk with ol’ Discord?” Discord criticized, putting his hands on his hips. “Hmpf, how much the life of crime changes people these days…”

Spike’s eyes narrowed suspiciously and he felt a cold chill run over him as he realized a frightfully real possibility of why Discord might be here. “Did Twilight send you?” he asked simply.

“Twilight?” Discord crowed, apparently finding the very thought mock-worthy. “HA! She wishes she could get me to tell her where you and your little changeling friend are, but she’s just jealous she hasn’t been able to find hair or hide of you two anywhere herself!” Discord shook his head, starting to pace in a circle around Spike. “No, if anything, I’m trying to get away from her constant nagging on the matter. ‘Oh Discord, go find Spike for me,’ ‘Discord, a good friend would help me find Spike and get him away from the evil changeling,’ ‘Discord, find Spike before I get really mad!’ ‘Do it now, Discord, or else!’” Discord wiggled one claw in his ear. “You know, for a nerdy princess of friendship, she can really shout when she wants to. I don’t know how you managed to put up with her for as long as you did…”

“How did you find me?” Spike asked next, growing concerned if there was some trail he and Thorax had left that Discord followed, and if others could follow it if they found it too.

“Dear Spike, I always knew where you were,” Discord replied sweetly, leaning a little too close to Spike in the process. “Right from the beginning! You could never hide from me. I am the veritable king of hide and seek…though even I have to admit Pinkie Pie comes in a very close second place…”

“If you really knew where I was at this whole time, then why come now?” Spike challenged, suspecting Discord wasn’t being truthful, and if so, what the game he was playing really was. “What changed? And if you really knew before now, why haven’t you led the others right to me, since that’s clearly what they want?”

“I thought you wanted to keep away from them though, Spike!” Discord reasoned as he continued to circle the dragon. “Wasn’t that the whole point of getting yourself banished like you did? I must commend you on that by the way, what a wonderful little mess of chaos you’ve brought about because of that! You just might have more of a talent for chaos than you think, Spike!”

“Answer the question Discord,” Spike pressed, who was now wondering if Discord was deliberately stalling for time. Even though he doubted he could escape Discord, he began discreetly eyeing ways to escape should this all really be some kind of trap. But as he already knew, his options were not especially good, the only reason why he was still here trying to argue this out at all.

“Then the answer is that I just wanted to wait and see, see how things played out!” Discord answered immediately this time at least. “Can you blame me? It’s all playing out a little like a soap opera! Will Spike ever forgive poor Twilight? Will Thorax ever prove he is a friend and not a foe and gain the trust of other ponies? Will we ever find out where Fly Leaf stands in all of this? Will Spike and Thorax ever go to the Dragon Realms already? Actually, I suppose that one’s been more or less answered already, hasn’t it?...”

“Then for the last time, WHAT CHANGED?” Spike roared, fed up with the draconequus’s playing around. “You don’t just do these things without some kind of ulterior motive Discord, you never come just to talk! So what do you really want?”

“I do too come just to talk!” Discord pouted, ignoring Spike’s question, to the dragon’s growing fury. “I do that all the time with Fluttershy! She’s been speaking of you often, by the way! Good things, too! Lamenting that you went missing, wishing you were back in Ponyville and all that…” He leaned closer to Spike, pressing his face into the dragon’s and smirking. “It’s all so…touching.”

Inwardly Spike felt a flare of panic, worried Fluttershy might have told Discord something about how she had secretly visited them when Thorax was sick, and thus was one of the few ponies that actually knew who and where they were…not that it would seem to matter at this point, as clearly Discord knew those same details himself. But Spike determinedly forced himself not to show it, and instead pretended he knew nothing of that. “And just what would Fluttershy know about the matter?”

“You have more friends than you realize, Spike,” Discord said, straightening again and putting on professional look that seemed off on him, the master of chaos. “That’s why I’m here.”

“You’re here because I have friends,” Spike repeated flatly, wishing Discord would get to the point already.

“Well, I know all your other friends,” Discord reasoned, placing his talons to his chest. “So I think it’s only fair I get to know this changeling pal of yours too.” He glanced around the dining hall. “So where is the little bug?”

“You leave Thorax out of this,” Spike growled, wanting to spare Thorax this grief as much as he could.

“You know, I don’t think he’s even in here!” Discord remarked, proceeding to ignore Spike while standing on his tippy-toes and peering over the heads of the frozen audience. “It’s certainly not your pumpkin orange boss there.”

Spike glanced at Fly’s frozen form, stuck obliviously in the middle of a big grin, and realized, even though it should’ve struck him sooner, that Discord already knew all about her…meaning she wasn’t guaranteed to be safe from his torment either if Discord ever got the fancy. “Whatever you want Discord, you focus it only on me,” Spike repeated. “You leave them out of this.”

“Oh fine,” Discord said, throwing his arms down to his sides, stepping up to Spike once more. “If you won’t tell me where he is, we’ll just go to him.

Spike’s eyes widened in alarm. “Discord, don’t—”

But it was too late. With one snap of his claws and a flash of light, they were suddenly teleported from the dining room stage to an entirely different location on the airship. Spike quickly glanced around and realized it had to be the observation deck Thorax had spoken of, for the room came to a point at the center edge, matching the shape of the airship’s prow to form a loose triangle shape, and was lined with large windows that overlooked the city of Vanhoover. It was actually a wonderful view, with the sun just finishing setting on the western horizon, but Spike couldn’t enjoy it at the moment, and was more worried about Discord and what he planned to do to Thorax if he found him.

Fortunately, there were a couple of ponies in the room at that moment, all frozen like the audience they had left in the dining room, and as Thorax was naturally still disguised among them, Discord didn’t seem to immediately know which one was him. “Hmm, let’s see, which one, which one…” he muttered to himself as he strolled about the room, scanning each of the ponies in turn.

Spike’s eyes ran over where Thorax stood to his left, disguised as Thornton and had been calmly standing at one of the windows facing away from the Martingale Building watching the sunset before getting frozen by Discord’s magic. But Spike forced his eyes to move right on past Thorax and onto the other ponies in the room without slowing, determined to do nothing to give away his friend to the draconequus searching for him. Whatever Discord planned, Spike wasn’t going to play along with it.

Unfortunately, he didn’t have to. “I suppose it’d be easier if he wasn’t trying to blend in though, wouldn’t it?” Discord remarked finally, shooting a teasing glance in Spike’s direction before snapping his fingers once more. With a flash of cyan, Thorax’s disguise suddenly dropped, revealing the frozen changeling’s natural form to Spike’s utter alarm. “Ah, there he is!” Discord remarked, and proceeded to stroll up to his target. “The famed changeling that dared to take the young Spike away from the grand Princess of Friendship, Twilight Sparkle!”

Spike immediately moved to put himself between Discord and Thorax. “Put him back the way he was, Discord!” he demanded, barring the draconequus’s path.

Discord simply walked right through Spike like he was a ghost, not even slowing. Spike had to stop and pat himself over urgently, making sure he was all really there and still fully tangible. This gave Discord the chance he needed to walk right up to Thorax and look him over critically.

“Hmm, not much to look at is he?” he remarked aloud, rubbing his chin as he eyed the changeling over. “But then again, these changelings all look alike, y’know?”

“Discord,” Spike said in a warning tone, turning to approach the draconequus. “Leave him alone!”

“Oh hush!” Discord said, snapping his fingers and causing a zipper to seal Spike’s mouth. “You’re almost as bad as Twilight. I’m not doing anything to hurt him.” He then proceeded to poke Thorax up and down his back with one claw. “Wonder how resilient this chitin or whatever he has is…I suppose he’ll need it if caught in the crowd of ponies and unable to disguise himself…” he turned thought for a moment. “Makes me almost want to try it and find out…”

With some fumbling, Spike managed to unzip his lips and charged at Discord, tugging at his goat leg. “Don’t you dare!” he shouted. “You give him back his disguise, right now!”

“It’s not like anyone is going to see him!” Discord argued, playing with Thorax’s wings, waggling them back and forth with his claws. They made squeaky hinge noises as he did this, no doubt thanks to some subtle use of magic from Discord. “Besides, who’s going to stop me?”

“I swear Discord, if you don’t back off from him right now…” Spike snarled, giving Discord’s leg a hard shove in his attempts to stop the draconequus.

This resulted in Discord immediately whirling upon Spike, suddenly menacing. “Or what?” he growled darkly, advancing upon Spike and thrusting his face into Spike’s forcing the dragon to backpedal away. “What? You’ll thrash me? You? You couldn’t even get Twilight Sparkle to listen to you…what really makes you think you could possibly take on the lord and master of chaos himself, eh?”

Furious, Spike responded by punching Discord as hard as he could in the face.

Surprised, but unhurt, Discord reeled back, standing straight. “You hit me!” he declared in surprise, rubbing his cheek. “Twilight never hit me.”

“I’m not Twilight,” Spike replied firmly.

“Indeed not,” Discord agreed, raising his eyebrows approvingly. “You’re much easier to provoke, to fight back.”

“Darn straight!” Spike declared, moving to stand between him and Thorax, throwing his arms out to bar the draconequus from approaching him again. “Maybe I am outmatched by your abilities in every possible way and then some, but Thorax is my friend, and I will not just stand here idly and permit you to walk all over him and do him harm!” He leveled his gaze coldly at Discord. “I will do whatever I can to protect him from the likes of you if I have to…even if it’s a fight I can’t possibly win.”

Discord was quiet for a moment, letting Spike’s words hang in the air between him, before finally grinning. He snapped his fingers, and with another flash of cyan, Thorax’s disguise was restored back to precisely the way it was before, with no one but him and Spike the wiser. “How fortunate for you.” Discord remarked. He snapped his fingers again, and then suddenly he and Spike were back on stage in the dining room, standing before the still-frozen audience. Discord resumed circling Spike again but this time with an air approval. “Congratulations Spike, you’ve passed the test!”

Spike, blinked, confused by this unexpected turn of events. “What test?” he asked, turning to watch Discord circle him.

“Well, that’s what I wanted to talk to you about, but I couldn’t just tell you that you were being tested,” Discord explained with a smirk. “That would’ve spoiled the whole test, told you what you needed to know to pass.”

Spike’s brow furrowed, still not sure he understood. “So what was the test?” he asked cautiously.

“Well, like I said, I had been holding off on doing or saying anything about you two, wanting to wait and see what would happen,” Discord explained patiently as he continued to circle Spike. “But it’s been just shy of three moons and I still hadn’t seen for certain the answers I was looking for.” He leaned closer to Spike as he walked around the dragon, smirking. “There’s far more to friendship, Spike, than merely being in the presence of one another, following them around, and tolerating their company on a regular basis after all…an element that truly shows that you actually care.” He motioned to himself. “Take myself and young Fluttershy, for example. Should danger make the silly mistake of threatening her in any way, I would personally go to the ends of reality itself to protect her from harm…and I wouldn’t let a little thing like insurmountable odds stand in my way, either.”

Spike blinked again, taken aback by this rare and passionate display of self-confession from the draconequus, having never realized Discord actually cared that much for anyone other than himself. But then again, Spike conceded it did make a degree of sense, because out of everyone, Fluttershy was the one to show the most trust in Discord, the one who was willing to stand up and defend him. And then it clicked in Spike’s brain what Discord was getting at. The same could be said about him and Thorax.

“You were testing to see if my friendship with Thorax was actually genuine,” he breathed in realization.

“Yes!” Discord declared eagerly, snapping his claws and making a graduation cap appear on Spike’s head along with a diploma in the dragon’s claws. “He can be taught!” He grinned smugly as Spike proceeded to toss the cap and diploma aside. “And after that little display of yours, I am pleased to announce that your friendship is very real and very strong. I know now you would go to similar lengths to protect that friend, just like I would for my own. And I heartily approve!” He ruffled Spike’s spines in an oddly affectionate manner, and Spike found he couldn’t help but grin a little. Discord then strolled on past Spike, turning to stand to one side of the stage. “I see now that the danger Twilight and the others believe in does not actually exist, and never did. So I will continue to keep your little secret Spike. I won’t breathe a word to Twilight and her friends about any of this, nor to anyone else that might try to mess with that wonderful friendship of you’ve got going, and with a changeling of all things!”

Spike’s grin grew. “You promise?”

“Cross my heart, hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye, as the pink one likes to say,” Discord responded, seriously miming out the Pinkie Promise. “How is it that she puts it…something about breaking it and you’ll lose your friend?”

“FOREVER!” Pinkie suddenly shouted at the top of her lungs from where she stood ringing up the total for Sugercube Corner’s last customer of the day. Behind her, in the middle of moving some empty baking trays as the bakery prepared to close, Mr. Cake stumbled in surprise at Pinkie’s shout and crashed to the floor, sending the pile of baking trays clattering to the floor. Pinkie’s customer simply stared on in wide-eyed shock at all of this as Pinkie, acting like nothing had happened, finished working with the cash register, humming a little tune. “That’ll be three bits!” she told the customer cheerily.

Spike regarded Discord for a long moment. “So you’re saying we’re friends now?” he asked, partly in teasing, knowing that was something Discord didn’t usually like to admit upfront.

Discord merely continued to smirk. He snapped his talons and with another flash, Spike was back in the chair and Discord standing beside him, disguised as the stallion hypnotist once more, as if they had never moved. “It will be an uphill battle that you two face young Spike…but I believe you’re more than up for the task.” He grinned knowingly at Spike, before glancing out at the audience, raising one hoof. “Smile for the audience now.”

He stomped twice yet again and abruptly the audience resumed moving again like nothing had happened, finishing the laugh they had been in the middle of before proceeding to applaud for a finished act that had never taken place.

“Isn’t he wonderful?” Discord declared, playing the part of the hypnotist again while thrusting a hoof at Spike and motioning for the dragon to stand. “Let’s give him a big ol’ applause!” The applause continued eagerly while Spike sheepishly stood, Discord patting him on the back in the process. “Thank you for your time, young volunteer,” he said to Spike, offering his disguised hoof.

Spike grinned as he took the offered hoof and shook it. “Thank you,” he said in reply.

They then parted ways, Discord waving cheerily at the unsuspecting audience as he walked off the stage and was not seen again, while Spike walked almost in a daze back to his seat beside Fly Leaf, none the wiser from the whole event.

“That was a hoot!” she chuckled as Spike sat himself back down. “The way that he made you hop around the stage like a rabbit was just too much!”

Spike chuckled sheepishly, a little embarrassed that was what everyone was going to remember from all of this, but he otherwise didn’t comment, and continued munching on what remained of his dinner, having suddenly worked up an appetite. He sat through the rest of the show without paying too close attention to it, having much to think about. After it ended, they met back up with Thorax, still in disguise and none the wiser as well, and finished packing up their booth into Fly’s cart, filed out of the airship and back down through the Martingale Building, and made the trip back for the shop. It was well after dark by the time they stepped through the front door, and Fly urged them to head right for bed so they could be up bright and early for work tomorrow.

Thorax was in a good mood as they slipped into their room, Spike numbly closing their door behind him. “That airship was a joy to be in,” the changeling remarked aloud as he dropped his disguise in preparation for bed. “Too bad we couldn't have actually flown anywhere in it…but I do hope I get the chance to be in an airship again.”

Spike watched him curiously as Thorax adjusted some of the blankets making up his sleeping nest. “You really don’t remember a thing of it, do you?” he asked aloud, finding this almost odd to perceive.

Thorax glanced at him blankly. “Remember what?”

Spike remained calm and still. “During the show,” he explained simply, without cause for concern. “I was visited by Discord.” Seeing Thorax turn to look at him with concern, he nodded. “Yeah…the personification of chaos himself.”

Thorax was quiet for a moment, processing this. “What did he want?” he asked finally, with caution.

At this, Spike grinned. “I guess to help,” he replied, and proceeded to explain in brief the encounter to Thorax.

By the end, Thorax was tilting his head at Spike, looking both heartened and uncertain by this development. “So…Discord is siding with us now?”

Spike smirked. “More or less.”

“Well that’s good, right? We’ve got quite a powerful ally now!”

“…sort of. Let’s not forget that Discord’s idea of helping is to more or less turn a blind eye to the whole matter and not get involved.”

“But he did promise to cover for us, and not tell anyone where we are…” Thorax smiled optimistically. “…sounds to me that maybe Discord isn’t as bad as I had always thought. I mean, to put it delicately…he does have a bit of a reputation back in the hive…”

“And he’s probably earned every word of it too,” Spike stated confidently, but there was an optimistic grin on his face too. He shrugged. “I just have to admit, I’m still sort of stunned by it all. I never knew Discord had a soft side like this.” He sighed. “I just hope he doesn’t decide to get clever with this and turn it into something for his own amusement…he’s had problems with that in the past.”

Thorax just shrugged, indifferent. “Nobody’s perfect.” He proceeded to settle down into his sleeping nest. “Nonetheless…I think all in all today was a pretty good day.”

Spike chuckled as he proceeded to take off his disguise for bed himself. “And may we have plenty more days like it ahead of us,” he murmured aloud, finding he still had much to think about on the matter.

Author's Note

I originally did not plan for Discord to appear at all in this story. Beyond maybe a verbal reference to him in passing by name, he wasn't to feature in the tale in any form at all. In fact, back in the early chapters of the story, I told one reader asking about Discord precisely as such. But some chapters back, I got the idea for Discord making his sudden appearance here and talking with Spike and found it appealed to me. By that time I already had plans to speculate on where Discord stood on all of this in conversation during Fluttershy's visit, but I figured you readers would rather hear it directly from the draconequs's mouth himself, so I made it happen. Plus, it enabled me to put Discord in a very Q-like sort of scenario, and of course I couldn't pass THAT up.

The problem with Discord though is that, frankly, he's too OP. He literally could just snap his fingers and sort out this whole situation for the better just like that...which sort of spoils the whole story, and that's why I hadn't been planning to include him in the first place. He provided a much too easy way out of the mess that I would have to excuse away somehow if I got him too ingrained in the tale, and past experience has taught me that the best and easiest way to fix that is to just not bring such things into the tale in the first place, and keep it that way. So, with that in mind, you probably won't see much more of Discord after this in this story, for largely those same reasons. I know that might disappoint some, and I can't really blame you...Discord honestly is a fun character. But I hope I make my reasons why clear, and at the very least, I still found way to get him a moment in the spotlight regardless. :twilightsmile:

Training Cruise

While Spike was left dwelling upon Discord’s unexpected show of support following the convention, Thorax however became immensely interested in airships, and following that day at the convention, began spending his free time learning all he could about them. Because his favorite book series Sky Trek prominently featured futuristic airships, and thus Thorax was already familiar with a smattering of the basics, it wasn’t hard for others to see where this interest came from. Nonetheless it began simply enough, with Thorax deciding to check out a reference book on airships in general to read. It apparently whetted his appetite on the subject enough that it quickly led to him eagerly working to learn more, and soon that one book turned into several more all relating details on airships and how they actually work, in as much depth as he actually could. As Spike and Fly Leaf were already used to Thorax binge-studying anything of personal interest to him, they knew what to expect and took it all in stride.

But as the days went by, it soon became apparent that this instance was different in the sense that even books on the subject weren’t quite enough for Thorax. What he really wanted was to actually fly an airship, either personally or just in one, and his greatest lament was that he had spent that whole convention inside an airship that never actually flew anywhere.

“I don’t see why that’s such a big deal though,” Spike admitted one night when the subject finally came up, after Thorax decided to forego what had become his customary nightly record of Doctor Hooves episodes so to focus on his studying on airships. “I mean sure, airships are cool and all, but you’re a changeling, and can already fly all on your own. Why would you even need an airship?”

“It’s not the same,” Thorax argued back. “I can fly only through personal effort and tiring exertion to keep my body weight up, which increases drastically if I were to carry anything with me, adding to that weight. But with an airship, I can fly with the company of friends and just relax and enjoy the cruise while sitting in a beautiful aircraft.”

Spike nodded knowingly to himself. “I’m sure the fact that it’d be the closest you get to actually living Sky Trek helps too,” he added, raising a teasing eyebrow at the changeling.

Thorax rolled his eyes and smirked, but he didn’t deny it. “Maybe a little. But whatever it is, I’d love to have the chance to not just be aboard an airship but actually fly somewhere in one. I don’t even particularly care where or even if it’s actually any place very far. I just want to actually experience it for myself. Is that really so much to ask for?”

It apparently was. Like most major metropolises in Equestria, Vanhoover had a sizeable airship yard located on the outer edges of the city, where all the major airships coming to and going from the city landed or took off from. Spike and Thorax knew this since the early days of their stay in Vanhoover, but neither of them had ever seriously considered doing anything with that option. As an escape route should they ever need to flee the area, it would’ve been too impractical. Not only was airship travel generally pricier, it was difficult to commission transport for an airship quickly on short notice, especially when most of the available airships were privately owned and subject to the individual whims of their respective owners. Airship travel was also more closely regulated and monitored for safety reasons, providing detailed logs of their travels should something go wrong mid-flight, creating more opportunity for the two outcasts to be tracked and caught through that means of travel in such a situation. So it was deemed smarter to travel by train, foot, or other means still.

Later, after it was decided that Spike and Thorax were not leaving the Vanhoover area anytime soon and no need to quickly escape having yet arisen, this offered the opportunity to view any airship travel in a new light, but still neither of them had ever seriously considered it. Not only was there still the price issue to consider, most public-access airship travel was heading off to destinations Spike and Thorax presently had no pressing interest or need heading for, and even with a return flight planned in advance—and usually it was hard to do it any other way—a round trip was expected to take some days altogether, a week at most, and neither Spike or Thorax could presently justify such a lengthy trip for anything but leisure, not when they were supposed to be lying low. And after Thorax’s recent close call with the police, Spike at least was quick to remind his friend of that end goal. And Thorax couldn’t ever really disagree with Spike on that point so he never argued it.

Nonetheless, when Thorax’s interest in airships arose, he started wandering down to the Vanhoover airship yard in his free time and watch from a neighboring small hill the airships landing and taking off within, longing for the chance to ride aboard one of them, wishing he could be given the chance to do so, if only once. He was later glad he made these visits to the airship yard then, because it was while there during one particular visit late one afternoon that he spied just the opportunity he was looking for posted to an announcement board near the yard’s entrance. Excited, he explained what it was when he, Spike, and Fly Leaf had gathered for dinner that same evening.

“An airship training day camp?” Spike repeated as Thorax elaborated.

“Yes,” Thorax confirmed with an eager nod. “A sort of class where they take interested ponies of legal age to crew an airship and spend the day training them on how to fly an airship. According to the bulletin, it’s an in-depth class too, so much so that legally speaking one can safely use it as a beginning course when working towards an airship pilot’s license.”

Spike blinked. “You want an airship pilot’s license?” he asked in surprise, the first he had heard of any such desire.

“Well…” Thorax hemmed and hawed. “…I’d be lying if I said no, but…at the same time, I see that it might not be best for me to commit to such a goal right now.” He exchanged a knowing glance with Spike. “If I was to participate in the day camp though, and I very much would like to, it would at least give me a chance to gauge how much actual interest I would have in possibly continuing one day.”

Fly Leaf had been quiet for most of Thorax’s explanation, thoughtfully munching on one of the black bean tacos she had prepared for dinner that evening, but finally she swallowed and moved to speak. “I’ve heard of this class,” she remarked. “The airship yard hosts it on a regular basis throughout the year outside of the winter season…I believe they had started it with the hopes of encouraging more interest among ponies in airships and learning to fly them, which I had taken to be oddly self-serving for the industry when you think about it.” She grinned. “Either way, I hear they always manage to get a good selection of ponies to participate every time they hold it, and a lot of other places in town have started to doing something similar themselves around the same time, so clearly, if that was their actual intent, it’s been working.”

“Clearly,” Spike agreed, glancing at Thorax, who rolled his eyes innocently.

“As I understand it though, the weather’s too unfavorable for it during the winter season,” Fly Leaf continued to explain. “And with that just around the corner now, this is probably going to be the last time they’ll hold the day camp this year.” She looked to Thorax. “So if you do decide to join in Thornton, it’ll probably be your last chance until springtime next year.”

“Right, which is largely why I’m bringing it up now,” Thorax said, sheepishly tapping his hooves together. “I was…sort of hoping for some input from both of you on this.”

Spike took another bite of his own taco, chewing thoughtfully before replying. “Well…I don’t know, Thornton,” he admitted.

“Look, I get you’ve still got my near-arrest in the back of your head, Spark,” Thorax remarked, focusing his attention on the dragon for a moment. “But I think if there was going to be any more trouble from that, we would’ve heard it by now.” He nudged his friend on the shoulder. “Besides, if you’re that worried, you’re welcome to come with. They said all interested parties welcomed, including earth ponies and unicorns, so I can’t see any reason why they’d turn down a dragon.”

“Well before either of you race into this,” Fly butted in quickly, “I feel I should alert both of you that, from what I’ve heard about this day camp, it’s also got a reputation for being less of a day camp and more of a boot camp.”

Spike blinked in surprise again. “Boot camp?” he asked.

Fly nodded. “Apparently, the instructors are usually ex-airship crew and pilots themselves, and often retirees from the royal guard, so they tend to run the class in a fairly rough and militaristic manner. Not for the weak hearted. It’s turned away a couple of participants from doing more afterwards or so I’ve heard from the occasional connected customer, which is how I know about it at all, really.”

Spike winced. “I’m not sure I’m interested in putting myself through that then,” he remarked aloud.

Thorax however, seemed indifferent and simply shrugged. “I know how to handle that,” he remarked, undeterred. “I’m more interested in the learning experience anyway.”

“Hmm.” Fly thought about it for another moment. “When did you say this day camp is being held, Thornton?”

“Next Tuesday. Which is the second reason I bring it up; if I’m doing this, I’d need your permission to get off work in time to do it.”

“You’re probably going to need someone to help cover for Thornton while he’s at that then,” Spike reasoned a little too quickly, as he saw a way out of having to participate himself. “I’d happily do that.”

“Nah, I’m expecting this next Tuesday isn’t going to be especially busy, so I could handle it myself,” Fly said, shrugging off Spike’s offer. “In fact, why don’t you two both just take that whole day off?”

Both of her employees did a double take in surprise. “Really?” Thorax asked.

“Sure!” Fly said with a grin. “You two have been working with me for about three moons now, and you’ve both been a great help. I think you two have thusly earned the right for a little extra time off to use as you please.”

Thorax grinned himself. “Thank you for that, Miss Fly,” he said in appreciation.

Fly merely winked back, considering the matter settled.

Spike wasn’t quite so settled on the matter himself though. “No offense to Thornton,” he began, motioning apologetically to the disguised changeling. “But…I’m really not that interested in this day camp thing…so I don’t think I need to have the day off too.”

“Oh nonsense,” Fly said dismissively. “Like I said, other places in town are going to be having their own sort of classes usually about the same time, if not the same day. If you’re not interested in Thornton’s airship class, then I’m sure you could go and find one that catches your fancy instead.”

And when asked where to look for such classes, Fly suggested they visit Vanhoover’s city hall, where there was a public access bulletin board that would have announcements for any such upcoming events being held in town. So the following morning, Thorax and Spike put on their usual disguises and paid the building a visit to view this bulletin board, located just inside the front doors. As Fly had predicted, there were a lot of other businesses and places in the city that were holding their own versions of the day camp for their respective fields, and Thorax was able to find a duplicate announcement for the airship training day camp posted on this board too. None of these held any particular interest in Spike though.

Finally though, Thorax saw one that jumped out at him, and with a knowing grin, tapped it with one hoof. “Here you go Spike,” he remarked aloud to his friend. “I know this one will interest you.”

Spike glanced at the advert, eyes darting back and forth behind his false eyeglasses as he skimmed through it, before his eyebrows went up hopefully. “A parkour class?” he remarked aloud wistfully.

Thorax nodded, unable to keep himself from looking a little smug. “I remember you had mentioned before you wanted to learn, but hadn’t gotten the opportunity before now,” he recalled accurately. “And look, it’s being held on the same day, at the same time, as my day camp at the airfield, so it works out perfectly for our schedule.

Spike chuckled, putting his claws on his hips. “I suppose it does,” he conceded. “Bah, all right then, we’ll do it. You go to your airship thing, while I finally will get my chance to try my claws on some parkour.”

With that settled, the two then proceeded to plan and prepare accordingly. Spike still had a few lingering fears, namely in that Thorax getting caught somehow. He recognized this was probably an unfounded fear, given they had managed to avoid getting caught on more than one occasion, but the still-recent scare of Thorax’s brief detainment by the police not so long ago was still on his mind, and he feared any sort of repeats regardless, especially with Thorax being on his own. Thorax however was completely confident that things would work out and that he would be able to avoid detection. He had been living in Vanhoover long enough that he knew how mingle with the ponies without drawing unwanted attention to himself, and reminded Spike that his brief detainment with the police had been due to unusual circumstances that were highly doubtful to be repeated. In so doing, he was able to reassure Spike enough that his dragon friend saw he was being overprotective and relaxed.

Spike did have another, more minor, concern however in the fact that Thorax’s day camp would be handled in a boot camp-like manner as Fly had warned them. It was the sort of environment Spike had no wish to put himself through, and knowing of Thorax’s generally gentle nature, couldn’t picture Thorax would want to do this either. But Thorax continued to be indifferent about the matter, shrugging it off, and finally explained in private that it wouldn’t be any different than the constant berating he got from his superiors on a daily basis back in the changeling hive—so much so that Thorax had grown adjusted to such treatment long ago, and had learned when and when not to take it personally.

So finally the Tuesday in question arrived, and both departed from Fly’s shop together, walking as far as they could in each other’s company before finally having to part ways for their respective destinations; Spike for a gym near the city’s center that had been reserved for the parkour class the dragon was eagerly looking forward to, and Thorax off for the airship yard. Upon arriving and sent to wait with the other participants that had signed up outside the yard’s main office, waiting for their instructor to arrive, Thorax found himself in fairly good spirits and his classmates all bearing a generally similar interest in airship travel as he did. He chatted briefly with a couple of them while they waited.

In all, there were twelve students, most of them pegasi, which made natural sense considering pegasus ponies were the most airborne of the pony tribes. It was for that reason Thorax had considered on his way there switching disguises from his usual unicorn disguise as Thornton for a pegasus variant, granting him the use of his own wings currently concealed by his disguise…but then reasoned he had signed up for the day camp as the unicorn Thornton and decided he had better stick with it for the day camp for consistency’s sake. And at any rate, from the eyes of others he wasn’t the only unicorn there; there were two others also present, as well as two earth ponies. One of the earth ponies, a somewhat smug and well-built mare named Esperia, bragged that she already had past experience on an airship and thus already had a frame of reference for how they worked; taking the day camp was more of a “formality” to finalize her knowledge, but the point was that one did not need to be a pegasus to be involved with airships.

A point further demonstrated when their instructor arrived, ready to begin, and proved to be gruff, stern-looking, griffon getting up in years with a clipboard gripped in one set of talons. “Good morning, I see you all managed to make it here at any rate,” he barked loudly to the group as he regarded them with a very critical eye. “I am your instructor, the poor sap that’s going to have to find some way to get something useful out of you lot, Emeritus Airship Captain Gervas, retired, with honors.”

“You’re retired?” someone in the group repeated innocently but unnecessarily.

“With honors,” Gervas stressed curtly. “I served a longer and more distinguished career serving in first the Griffon Air Forces, then later the Equestrian Air Forces after the Griffon Kingdom ended its airship program, than you all will ever have, and I’ll have you know that I earned every bit of it too, which is far more than any of you can currently claim, and I expect many of you still won’t by the time you all get to my age, but never mind that.” That tirade concluded, he moved on, glancing at the clipboard to do a silent headcount as he spoke. “The desk jockeys that manage the paperwork side of all this keep telling me that it’s supposed to be called a day camp, for reasons I’ve never bothered to pay close attention to because I’ve disputed calling it that from the start. Calling it a day camp makes it sound like it’s all friendships and flowers and Sunday flights for picnics in the park, but flying an airship right is none of these things.” Apparently satisfied with his headcount, he stuck his clipboard in a bag strapped to his back and started to pace back and forth in front of his students, continuing to gauge them with a critical eye. Clearly, the rumors Fly had heard of the day camp being ran like a boot camp weren’t exaggerations. “Flying an airship, takes coordination, calculation, determination, and a hay of a lot of hard work. It is not a cake walk, not something you can just sit back and take it easy on, because one slip up is all it’d take to send you from sitting all high and mighty in your airship to an unsightly stain in the dirt! Because of that, back in my day in the military, learning to fly, operate, and crew an airship was no joking manner. We took it seriously, and we did not tolerate anyone who didn’t. And if there are any of you squabs that are like that, you might as well leave now before I boot you out myself!”

He turned and surveyed the group closely, waiting for someone to do precisely that. However, though several in the group visibly gulped and some looked like they were now wondering just what it was they had gotten themselves into, after a few moments it was clear no one in the group was going to leave. They all seemed as committed as Thorax was, who was unfazed by Gervas’s loud talk; he had faced worse verbal abuse back in the hive on a regular basis. Nonetheless, it was clear Gervas was not a griffon you wanted to be on the wrong side of.

Eventually, once it was clear all twelve of them were sticking around, Gervas folded his forelegs crossly. “Hmpf,” he coarsely grunted. “Well, it appears you all think you’ve actually got the spines needed for this. We’ll have to see about that.” He resumed pacing. “Now because this is basically a mere crash course in basic airship operations, I must concede there’s really only so much I could possibly expect from all of you, and so, lucky for you, you all get it easier than you would if you were learning the way that I did. But don’t think you’re not going to get run ragged doing this. You’re going to earn what you learn here today, and as everypony these days love an added incentive…” he said this in a very sarcastic tone as he pulled out a small golden pin. “…at the end of the day, I’m required to judge and then reward you squabs based on how well you preform. Don’t worry, even if you do awful, I still have a pin with your name on it because that’s what my employers insist upon, but the one who does the best gets this gold one. There’s only the one gold one though, and I have high expectations for anyone who’s going to be worthy of it. If you want it, you will have to work for it, and prove to me you deserve it.” He pocketed the pin again and stopped before the middle of the group to survey them once more. “Any questions before we begin?” One pegasus mare timidly raised her hoof. Gervas nodded his feathered head in her direction. “Speak, Miss Poppy Curls.”

Apparently this was the mare’s actual name, because she briefly did a double take in surprise, clearly wondering how Gervas knew this as he had yet to do anything to confirm who was who in the class, and beyond the list of names on his clipboard, they had given him nothing to inform him. Thorax knew how he did it though; it was a common changeling trick. Study the cutie marks of the ponies and through the process of elimination, put the name with the cutie mark. With proper practice, one could be startlingly accurate in figuring out a pony’s name through this method, especially if you already knew the name and just needed to match a face to it like Gervas did.

Regardless, Poppy Curls got over her surprise quickly and innocently asked her question. “You called us squabs. What’s a squab?”

Gervas replied by simply gazing at her with something that was neither a stare nor glare, and could really only be summed up as a him simply “looking” at her, but it was still intimidating enough that Poppy eventually bit her lip and lowered her hoof again.

Thorax, however, found he couldn’t resist. “It’s an old griffon term for children, hatchlings, foals, youth, etcetera,” he answered for Poppy’s benefit calmly. “It bears a mild derogatory sense, but is not considered that especially offensive. It would be similar to the terms “brat” or “whelp,” and stems from the fact that it originates as a term for a baby pigeon, an animal griffons have historically not viewed in high regard.”

The group all stared at Thorax for a moment. Eyes narrowed, Gervas stepped up so to stand directly in front of the disguised changeling, glaring down at him. “You consider yourself a know-it-all, Mister Thornton?” he asked with some contempt.

“No sir,” Thorax replied, looking back at him with a calm face, not cowed by Gervas’s behavior. He had caught on fairly quickly that the griffon’s mean demeanor was mostly a front; emotionally speaking, Thorax was actually finding him simply more aloof and disinterested in the group, not particularly wanting to be here. “I do not attest to know everything. I just happened to know something about the etymology for the word, and was trying to be helpful.”

Gervas raised an eyebrow. “You know Griffish, then?” he asked in a doubting tone.

Thorax shook his head. “Only a few words sir,” he explained. “But I do know—besides Equestrian—Diamond Dog, Zebra, a portion of Breezie, and I’ve lately been teaching myself Cowhili in my spare time.” He motioned to his horn. “And of course, I know from my magical studies various magician codex languages, namely standard Runic, as well some Ancient Equestrian and Ancient Crystallian where it’s applicable.”

Gervas folded his forelegs again. “So you are a know-it-all,” he concluded.

“No sir,” Thorax repeated, “Just multi-lingual.”

Gervas’s eyes narrowed slightly more. “I’ve got my eyes on you, Mister Thornton,” he growled, before walking off again.

It was then that Thorax realized that perhaps he hadn’t made the greatest of first impressions with the griffon and had already earned his instructor’s ire.

After they had gotten past as what probably counted as a proper introduction in Gervas’s mind, the griffon began to drill into their heads the basic safety protocols that he expected them to follow at all times throughout the training that would follow. During this discussion, he berated most of the rest of class in similar manner to how he did for Thorax at least once, and did so repeatedly for the braggy mare Esperia, whose ego they quickly found clashed with Gervas’s rough attitude. The only pony who seemed to escape this was a pegasus stallion named Valiant who quickly caught on to Gervas’s militaristic manner and began to respond back accordingly, which apparently was more along the lines of what Gervas was expecting as he took it in turn and didn’t criticize Valiant for anything. The rest of the class quickly began to see Valiant as the closest thing to the ‘teacher’s favorite,’ as it were, though there were also mixed feelings on whether that was actually all that noteworthy in Gervas’s case.

Finally, once he seemed satisfied enough that his students understood the safety protocols enough that they weren’t going to do something foolish to get themselves hurt, he took them to a nearby hanger where the airship yard kept a small and worn air yacht for training purposes. It was simply and unimpressively designated “T-1,” though Gervas often referred to her as “old girl.” As airships went, she definitely wasn’t a large one, with her main deck barely big enough to hold all of them as Gervas led them up the gangplank and onto the berthed ship so to give them a brief tour. She barely had a below decks either, which was dedicated almost entirely to the airship’s aging engines, and all of the other ships amenities (such as sleeping cots and a closest of a cooking space) being bunched together into a single room located underneath the ship’s quarterdeck. This included the only toilet onboard, which thankfully still used flush plumbing, but was also positioned in such a way that it was all but fully exposed and offered next to no privacy from the rest of the room. When this was pointed out by Poppy Curls, Gervas merely replied that if anyone had a problem with it, then they had better make sure they go before they take the ship up as that toilet was the only thing they were going to be able to use afterwards…other than, as Gervas frankly put it, “hanging your rump over the side of the ship,” of course.

Nonetheless, Thorax found the little ship charming, and clearly she had a lengthy history that he wished Gervas could take the time to talk about. Perhaps because of this and thus getting caught up in the moment, Thorax again was the one to respond first when, upon concluding the very brief tour, Gervas asked what they knew about the proper terms to use on an airship. At least this time Thorax remembered to raise his hoof and wait to be called upon before speaking…which wasn’t long as he was the only one in the group to do so.

“Any particular terms you’re looking for, sir?” he asked Gervas innocently once the griffon called upon him.

“Surprise me, Mister Thornton,” Gervas merely replied.

So Thorax decided to list all he knew until he either ran out or Gervas stopped him. He was admittedly curious to see which would happen first. “The front of the ship is called the prow, the rear of the ship is called the aft, the right side is called the starboard side, the left side is called the port side, the crewed part of the ship is called the gondola, the balloon that lifts the ship is called the envelope, and the gases that are used to fill it are called lifting gases. In modernity, that lifting gas is usually the mystically-crafted hydrium gas and is non-toxic, but smells faintly of mangos.” As Gervas still hadn’t stopped him yet, he pressed on. “The pressure height is the maximum altitude an airship can rise up to before the pressure within the airship’s envelope becomes greater than the pressure outside of it and begins to burst, often critically, releasing the lifting gas keeping the airship up, though this can be delayed by venting some of the excess gas so to reduce the pressure within the envelope. This can also be used as a means to control the ship’s altitude, although this can also be controlled through the use of ballast, which is simply carried aboard the ship to give it weight. Often tanks of water is used, as water is the easiest and cheapest resource to use for this purpose, but any number of things can be used to generate weight, even ponies in the ship’s crew if absolutely necessary. Likewise, a ballonet is a separate gas cell of external air that is used as a weight and/or pressure against the internal lifting gas and is also used to control the ship’s buoyancy. This is controlled through a series of air scoops and valves, and I saw such controls for this airship around the ship’s wheel—the wheel with which the ship is steered and it and all the other piloting controls serving as the ship’s helm—on the quarterdeck. If the airship is rising, it is said to have positive buoyancy, and conversely, if it is sinking, it is said to have negative buoyancy. If the ship is in perfect balance in the middle in-between the two, it is said to be in equilibrium. The airship is steered through the use of a rudder that controls the directional heading of the airship, and the elevators, which are used to control the airship’s pitch. The airship is said to be “trim” if it is perfectly leveled off in flight. The shape of the airship determines what is called its fineness ratio, in which the higher the ratio, the longer and more slender the airship.” By this point, Thorax was surprised Gervas hadn’t stopped him yet, realized he could continue on for a considerably while longer at this rate, and paused for a moment. “Shall I continue, sir?”

His classmates were staring at him by this point. “You know more?” one of them suddenly called out.

Thorax shrugged, feeling embarrassed but was trying to keep it from showing on his face. “I had been reading up on airships already before I signed up for this day camp,” he explained simply.

Gervas simply looked at Thorax for a long moment. “No one likes a show-off, Mister Thornton,” he said, and did not comment further on the matter, instead moving on to other topics. Thorax again was left with the impression that, even though he had answered as asked, he still wasn’t winning favors with Gervas. This impression wasn’t helped as Gervas then proceeded to teach precisely the same things Thorax had all just related again to the class, simply rephrased into his own words and in slightly greater detail, again in a blunt manner as his way of ensuring it actually stuck in the heads of his students.

Once they had finished with that, Gervas decided it was time for the practical part of the class, and declared they were to tow the airship out of its hanger. He explained that normally a separate ground crew was assigned to do this, but he was of the opinion that the best airship crewmembers were the ones that could perform all of the tasks involved in running an airship, and so he was going to have them do it instead. While he stayed aboard the air yacht to man the controls, give commands, and overall ensure they didn’t “mess it up,” the rest of them were all to take one of the mooring lines that was keeping the airship in place and tow it out of the hanger and into the open airship yard outside in preparation for takeoff.

This seemed simple enough in theory, but in reality was an act that required a great deal of coordination that they all spent the first several minutes squabbling about trying to find some. And for a lighter-than-air craft, which of course already had its envelope properly filled with the needed lifting gas, she felt much heavier and harder to move than expected, requiring a lot of pulling power. A lot of them were tired and sweating already by the time the training ship had cleared the hanger doors, not helped by the fact that their ears were ringing thanks to a small mishap that nearly caused them to slam the side of the airship into the hanger door and had led to a lot of shouting and berating from Gervas as a result. It probably would’ve taken even longer and even more work were it not for Valiant, catching onto the pattern in Gervas’s commands, finally taking de facto charge of the rest of his fellow students, got them organized finally under Gervas’s guidance, and led them for the remainder of the task. This earned Valiant a word of approval from Gervas, the first time the griffon had done so for any of them. Thorax decided Gervas liked Valiant’s yes-pony approach to things, and that the griffon simply wanted a pony that would do as he asked.

So he attempted to put this theory into practice when they then lined up so Gervas could explain what would follow next. While the air yacht sat before them, buoyancy low enough that its hull was still touching the ground, the ex-airship captain clarified that while the little ship could be flown with only a couple or even just one crew member, he was going to treat it as if it were a larger airship requiring a full crew and assign each of them a specific job operating the airship, rotating them to different positions “as I see fit” during the next several hours once they took off on their planned training flight. And it turned out there was no shortage of them, including tasks such as maintaining the integrity of the envelope, maintaining the suspension cables and rigging that kept the envelope tethered to the rest of the airship, tending to the engines, navigating or plotting a course, and of course, piloting the airship, among several others.

It was piloting that Thorax was especially interested in trying, but Gervas first assigned this task to the snooty Esperia and assigned Thorax the duty of manning the radio instead. Disappointed though he was, Thorax took up the task without protest like he had seen Valiant do repeatedly when given instructions by Gervas, hoping this would put him in a bit of a better light with the griffon. Instead, Gervas’s eyes only narrowed more at Thorax’s unquestioning obedience, and Thorax sensed a whiff of dissatisfaction coming from Gervas’s emotions that suggested it hadn’t helped. Regardless, Thorax endeavored to maintain this new approach, thinking that it at least couldn’t make things worse.

Training cruise as it was, they were not going to fly the air yacht especially far from Vanhoover, though they would certainly leave the city. Gervas had a course plotted that would take them in a large but rough circle around the city, heading first down to nearby Tall Tale, veer east over the Unicorn Range, skirt the neighborhood of the Galloping Gorge and the forest that bordered it, circle north until they came over the North Luna Ocean, then swing back south to fly back into Vanhoover. The round trip would take most of the day, but Gervas had flown it so many times before he claimed he didn’t even need a map or compass to fly it anymore, and seemed almost bored by the idea of flying it yet again. However he wouldn’t be doing the actual flying; he would merely supervise the rest of them operating the airship, not intending to intervene unless it was an actual emergency, or “you squabs are about to get us very lost very fast,” which he spoke with a tone of inevitability.

Thorax hoped they could all prove themselves more capable than that as he radioed for clearance from the airship yard’s control tower to take off. The moment he received word back, the rest of his classmates worked in conjunction to get the airship moving. Though they all had individual tasks to perform, raising the airship in the arrangement Gervas had imposed required many of them to work jointly and in rapid succession, all overlapping. Judging from Gervas’s impatience during this part, they did so with far less speed and efficiency than he preferred, but they still successfully got the air yacht into the air and at a decent altitude. Their confidence beginning to come back for most of them then, Esperia then steered them southwards for Tall Tale and the cruise formally began. By airship, a trip from Vanhoover to Tall Tale typically took about a half hour, and for most of it the air yacht all but flew herself. Regardless, Gervas kept them busy with any number of tasks, all of which he claimed were “routinely done” on any airship and wanted them to be well versed in them regardless of how mundane or unnecessary they may seem at that moment in the flight.

Thorax’s task, as he was operating the radio, was to maintain regular radio contact with ground control, first in Vanhoover, then in Tall Tale as it came into range, giving regular updates on their status and progress. Apparently for a training cruise, this was required procedure in the event something should go wrong during the cruise, whether pilot error or otherwise, and was more for safety reasons. Thorax quickly got the impression from the radio operators receiving his messages that, at least for a flight like theirs, it normally wasn’t considered necessary otherwise. Still, Thorax dutifully carried out the task, and it seemed he was doing it satisfactorily enough because he managed to evade Gervas’s ire for a while, the griffon more focused on berating the others for their small mishaps. Esperia especially seemed to chaff on Gervas, the griffon beginning to call her “slow,” as despite the pegasus mare’s initially smug confidence she could pilot the airship, she instead was often a little overwhelmed by the many controls required for steering the craft, occasionally uncertain which control she actually needed to use to keep them on course.

Still, they managed to stay on track as Gervas’s expected, and upon safely arriving above Tall Tale, they turned east for the Unicorn Range. As the flight progressed though, Thorax began to notice that Esperia’s piloting had gradually lowered the air yacht’s altitude until they were eventually far lower than would be normal for a traveling airship such as this. He didn’t seem to be the only one to notice either; a couple of his other classmates seemed to notice and he occasionally heard subdued chatter about it. As they were still maintaining a high enough altitude to avoid any risk of collision with the green country terrain still a fair distance below them though, everybody opted to wait for Gervas to say something about it, expecting the griffon would order it be corrected. As the time went by though, he never did, never once commenting on the matter of the low altitude although certainly by now he was aware of it.

Sensing a growing feeling of expectation in Gervas’s emotions though, Thorax eventually decided that Gervas was waiting for Esperia, being the pilot and thus in charge of maintaining altitude, to realize what had happened and try to fix it herself without being told to. Realizing it was supposed to be a learning experience then, Thorax followed the example of the others and did not comment on it, even though he knew they couldn’t safely maintain this low altitude forever; Esperia was only getting away with it because the terrain was presently flat and level, neatly accommodating the low altitude and offering no dangers. That eventually changed as they neared the mountains of Unicorn Range, mountains that were all tall enough to bar the air yacht’s path if she were to maintain her present altitude and presenting a growing danger as they sailed closer and closer to the mountains.

At first, there wasn’t much concern about it, as they were still far enough away that there was more than ample time to correct this. Yet Esperia made no attempt to do so, and Gervas still made no comment on the matter, apparently still interested in seeing if Esperia would correct their altitude herself, instead busying himself in having some of the ponies involved in maintaining the rigging tethering the airship’s envelope in an upkeep exercise. Steadily though, concern on the craft grew as one particular mountain started to loom closer towards them. Esperia could certainly see this, as Thorax—also stationed on the quarterdeck and sitting not far from where she stood at the ship’s wheel—could sense a growing concern in her emotions, but she still did nothing to raise their altitude. Thorax started to believe the thought to do so hadn’t occurred to her yet, though whether this was out of lack of experience or her usual smug confidence that she knew what she was doing, he could only speculate.

His greater concern was whether Gervas would do anything about it or if he would actually risk the ship and all aboard it, himself included, for the sake of letting Esperia figure it out herself, something Thorax was becoming increasingly sure she would not do in time. Eventually all eyes were turned towards the mountain drawing dangerously close, a number of other ponies on the ship declaring aloud they were too low. Gervas still said nothing for several moments longer, but as Thorax was watching him, saw the griffon’s eyes were alternating between Esperia and the oncoming mountain, keeping close attention to both and growing more and more impatient as he didn’t see what he wanted happen.

Finally Gervas could keep his peace no longer. “Miss Esperia, I have no wish to crash into that mountain ahead of us,” he stated flatly.

“Uh, right, right, give me a moment,” Esperia replied unsteadily, and was finally spurred to action herself.

Only instead of raising their altitude by either adjusting the air yacht’s elevators or buoyancy accordingly, she instead chose to adjust the craft’s present course, steering it towards the space between the mountain and an adjacent peak. This annoyed Thorax somewhat, because he knew what control the ship’s buoyancy was and he could see it right next to the ship’s wheel, to Esperia’s right. It would be very easy to adjust, and Thorax wondered if Esperia simply didn’t know this. At any rate, the change in course moved them around the mountain safely, but it also brought them closer to the jagged edges near the adjacent mountain, the rocky outcroppings reaching very close to the ship, and at this altitude, some of them felt close enough to touch. One brushed extremely near the craft, so much so someone cried out that they were going to crash.

They didn’t, but the danger was real enough that Gervas had enough. “Miss Esperia, raise altitude!” he ordered, starting to turn and urgently approach the acting pilot on the higher quarterdeck from where he stood midway out upon the main deck.

Esperia visibly froze and started to scan the controls in front of her. “Uh, uh,” she uttered in an uncertain panic.

Thorax became confident at that point that Esperia truly didn’t know how to do this, and grew increasingly alarmed himself as he spied another outcropping rock, this time actually just tall enough to reach the airship, and appeared to him that it would certainly collide with the airship’s underbelly in a matter of moments. Fearing for all of their safety and certain Esperia wouldn’t act soon enough, Thorax lunged forward from where he had been sitting at the radio and to Esperia’s side, flipping the needed buoyancy control for her. The airship immediately rose, faster than Thorax intended, so much so that the suddenly climb jolted the craft’s crew. Thorax immediately worked to adjust the buoyancy control more precisely so to slow their ascent while Esperia stared at him with wide eyes, then, almost apologetically, refocused her attention on the ship’s wheel as Gervas arrived on the quarterdeck, looking cross and glaring at both of them.

By then Thorax noticed the outcropping he feared they would collide with was actually further away than he first thought as they passed above it, so had they not rose in altitude in time, they would have passed close, but never actually close enough to come in contact with it. Nonetheless, Thorax felt he acted appropriately to avoid it, and any other potential dangers as they rose to a new height safe from any other possible collisions. Indeed, Esperia, looking slightly spooked by the incident, seemed inwardly thankful, and Thorax sensed secret gratitude that Thorax had acted when she could not.

Gervas, however, thought differently. “Mister Thornton, your position is at the radio, not the helm,” he reminded the disguised changeling and pointed a talon back at the abandoned radio, signaling that Thorax was to return to it and shouldn’t have left it in the first place.

Thorax turned to face him and bowed his head submissively. “I’m sorry sir,” he apologized then continued with an explanation. “But I feared we were going to crash, and no one else was acting soon enough. I only acted to ensure that didn’t happen and we all stayed safe.”

Gervas was unswayed. “Radio,” he repeated firmly, still pointing Thorax back towards his assigned post. “Now.”

Thorax frowned, disapproving of this, but saw arguing further wasn’t going to help. “Yes sir,” he mumbled and trotted back to the radio.

He took some comfort in the fact that Gervas then turned his attention to Esperia and criticized her for not acting herself, accusing her of “thinking two-dimensionally” too much and being overall reckless, risking the craft for as long as she did. It also humbled Esperia greatly as it made her realize that she didn’t know as much about airships as she had thought, and she apologized for her lack of action. Nonetheless, Thorax still felt annoyed about how Gervas had handled the whole situation. He agreed with the griffon in that his position was at his assigned post, and that leaving it to act on the behalf of others on the airship all the time would not help things run smoothly…yet at the same time Thorax thought it would have been negligent of him to have not acted in the sight of the danger he felt there was to both ship and crew at the time. If Gervas had intended to intervene himself then he should have done so far sooner, when it was first apparent Esperia wasn’t going to be able to act. But he withheld his criticisms, supposing that the more important thing was that ultimately no one was harmed.

Once they had leveled out at a higher and more standard altitude, they continued on passing over the Unicorn Range. After they had cleared it and their course had been adjusted so to take them northeast towards the forest that bordered the Galloping Gorge, Gervas decided it was time to rearrange what positions everyone was serving on the air yacht. Not to Thorax’s surprise, Thorax was again passed up for the piloting position at the helm, and was instead sent below decks to tend the engines. He replaced the stallion Valiant, who was to take over piloting next instead. Thorax admired him but didn’t tell the pegasus this, especially after Valiant kindly stopped and gave Thorax a few brief tips on how to upkeep the engines.

Because the air yacht was so small in general size, the engines were largely self-sufficient. Once started, they pretty much ran themselves so long as there was sufficient fuel. Regardless, Thorax’s job wasn’t to just monitor the status of the engines and the fuel supply, but he was also to manually maintain the ship’s throttle from down here. Said throttle could be maintained from the helm like most everything else, but Gervas was having them assume this was not the case “for the experience” and to simulate functions on some, other, larger airships. It meant whoever was serving as acting engineer had to work closely with the above decks to adjust the ship’s throttle and occasionally altitude depending on the type of maneuver (a series of which Gervas then had them all undertake as they continued on their flight), obviously meant to be a lesson in coordination.

Thorax felt his assignment down here was more Gervas’s version of punishment for his actions earlier though, meant to keep Thorax out of the way for the time being. And below decks as he was, where there weren’t any portholes, he couldn’t see much of what was happening outside the ship. He didn’t seem to miss much more than some scenery, though as they arced around to start heading back northwest, he heard Galloping Gorge could be seen. It was still over a mile off, but even from there others said they could make out the impressive crevasse. The fact that Thorax missed it didn’t improve his mood much.

Fortunately, nothing of real event took place while he was tending the engines except for him getting hot and sweaty working around the warm engines and getting grease and oil smeared on his hooves (but fortunately not on his jacket that he had been wearing). As they were cruising over the countryside sitting to the north of Vanhoover, about halfway to the North Luna Ocean, Gervas again rearranged what positions everyone was doing aboard the airship. In so doing, he again passed up Thorax for a chance at piloting, barely acknowledging Thorax’s presence and suggesting the griffon’s opinions of him still hadn’t improved. However, as lunchtime had come and gone and everypony had worked up an appetite, he instead assigned Thorax to work in the kitchen “corner” of the ship’s one room under the quarterdeck and prepare a meal for everyone.

Though still not the task he wanted to do on the airship, Thorax would’ve had no problem doing this. But as he was a changeling that didn’t have much need to cook and eat solid foods like the rest of the crew, he didn’t actually know much about cooking, not even enough to prepare the simple, prepackaged rations Gervas had ensured the airship was stocked with before takeoff. After Thorax delicately explained this without revealing his true nature to the griffon but assured he was still willing to try and muddle through to the best of his abilities, Gervas granted him an assistant and pulled the pegasus mare Poppy Curls off from where she had been assigned maintaining the ship’s envelope, with the instructions that she would help ensure “that what we all get from Mister Thornton here will still be edible.”

Poppy Curls hadn’t been particularly enjoying her previous task, so she was more than happy to assist Thorax with preparing the foods, giving Thorax a crash course on how to operate the equipped toaster oven they would be using to heat up the food. As well as stressing the need that the kitchen area must be kept clean or risk contaminating the food, urging Thorax to wash off the grit he had collected when working with the engines. While they worked, they got to chatting, talking about what they had thought about the supposed “day camp.” Poppy was of the opinion that “day camp” was indeed a poor description for what she more readily called a “class,” and as such, had gone into it all with very different expectations. Nonetheless, despite the experience thus far being much more trying than she had anticipated and that she didn’t particularly care for Gervas either, she felt it still had been a good learning experience and had given her an excellent feel for what it was like to work on an airship.

Thorax found he couldn’t argue with all of that either, and though he was personally beginning to sport something of a grudge for Gervas more than Poppy, he conceded that he too had learned a fair deal about what it was like to work on an airship, the whole reason he had pursued doing the day camp in the first place. And minus his bickering with Gervas and the fact he hadn’t gotten the chance to actually pilot the airship yet, he still had enjoyed the experience. As such he thanked Poppy for helping him to see this and put it into perspective for him. Poppy happily replied that he could consider it a returned favor for what he had done to prevent the airship from potentially crashing earlier in the mountains, which Poppy admitted she admired Thorax slightly for his actions. This left Thorax pleased that the act was appreciated by someone at least.

With Poppy’s help, Thorax was able to successfully prepare the lunch for the group without mishap, resulting in a decent enough of a meal that everyone was able to partake. It was mostly enjoyed, although more than one in the group noted that the meal wasn’t especially flavorful. This was attributed more to the fact that the meal stemmed from a prepackaged ration kit and not from Thorax and Poppy’s cooking though. The more important fact was that it was fully edible, healthy, and filling. Thorax even nibbled a little at the meal, though of course being a changeling, he didn’t need to partake of the meal like the others, and emotions-wise, seemed to be doing pretty well, as he found that even though he hadn’t made any concentrated attempt to feed on any emotions much during the class, his own hunger was remarkably sated.

As they arrived at the North Luna Ocean coastline, beginning a maneuver to swing around in an arc that would start to take them back towards Vanhoover, Gervas decreed he would reshuffle the tasks of everypony aboard one final time, saying it was “your last chance to prove yourselves, so no pressure.” Seeing this would also be his last chance to try piloting the airship himself, Thorax feared Gervas would yet again overlook him for the task in favor of somepony else, and this time decided to try and be more proactive about it.

“Sir, may I ask if I try piloting this time?” he asked the griffon politely when it came to his turn to be reassigned.

Gervas regarded him bluntly for a moment after this request. “You want to pilot, hmm?” he asked, with a tone of skepticism in his voice.

Thorax sensed a flare of concealed marvel within the retired captain though. “Yes sir,” he pressed gently, keeping his expression neutral.

“And just what makes you think you’re suited for such a task?”

Thorax found this a valid question, and for a moment was uncertain how to respond. “I wish to learn it, sir,” he offered in a frank tone after only a beat of hesitation. “I have a genuine interest in attempting it, and if it helps sir, I feel confident that it is a task I can perform satisfactory.”

“Yes, we all got that earlier at the Unicorn Range, when you decided you could fly better than the rest of us and took it upon yourself to demonstrate,” Gervas reprimanded firmly, clearly having not forgotten this instance.

“For the record sir,” Thorax interrupted calmly before Gervas could continue. “while I apologize for enacting a task I had not been assigned without your permission, I was simply doing what I felt was best for the airship and its crew…I meant no malice or ill-intent by it to anyone, and it is not a feat I wish to make a habit of. I do wish to be a good crewmember of any airship though, and it is my belief that sometimes to achieve that, one has to be prepared to step outside the confines of their given tasks.”

Gervas regarded him in silence for a long moment, but it was clear he was considering Thorax’s words. “I will not assign you as pilot Mister Thornton,” he finally told the disguised changeling in a definitive tone that made Thorax’s heart immediately sink. “And I have my reasons for that, but namely I think it would be better suited to give other ponies the chance at that particular task than you.” He tilted his head at Thorax as he watched the apparent unicorn’s face, waiting for a reaction. He seemed disappointed when Thorax was able to keep his outward appearance neutral despite his inward disappointment. “Instead…I think I will assign you as navigator,” the griffon ruled, and turned away. “You wanted a more ambitious task then there you go. Do try to not get us lost, Mister Thornton.”

It wasn’t what Thorax had hoped for, but nonetheless it was still a step in the right direction, as this meant he now worked very closely with steering the ship, giving the information needed by the pilot—this time an intelligent, proactive, but otherwise quiet and electric indigo-colored unicorn stallion named Dark Flare—to maintain course. It was also something Thorax was familiar with already, as it involved a lot of maps and the plotting of courses, something Thorax had light training for back in the hive and had put into practice in depth in his and Spike’s early days staying in Vanhoover, when he spent all that time planning where they might travel next or various escape routes should they ever be caught. This frame of reference helped, because even though Gervas (knowing that he couldn’t expect everypony tasked with this job to immediately learn it and thus provided all the tools and means necessary to make it all but foal-proof) had laid out a very clear course for them to follow, it became harder to maintain it once they were out over the North Luna Ocean, where useful navigating references all but vanished. They never traveled out of sight of the coastline, so if worse came to worse, they could always just follow that, but Gervas was very particular they stay on the course he laid out, which wasn’t quite so straightforward.

It also didn’t help that, save for the coastline that was still far enough away that it was little more than a dark line in the distance, everything else was just level and unbroken seawater as far as the eye could see. And as it all looked alike, it was easy for the air yacht to drift off course without its crew noticing. It didn’t help that there was more wind out over the ocean, powerful enough to tug at the little airship during the remaining stretch of its voyage, making it something of a fight to keep the craft from veering off entirely on its own when caught in the whims of nature. It tried the skills of most everyone aboard the ship so much so it was easy to see why Gervas had saved this leg of the voyage for last; it gave them the chance to all become more familiar and practiced with how sailing an airship worked first.

Fortunately Dark Flare, though a pony of few words, was a dedicated fellow, and upon realizing this was a danger he became resolute in ensuring it did not transpire. He was so determined to the task that he clearly strained himself to avoid it, both in eye, mind, and body. He had his hooves gripped to the ship’s wheel so tightly in attempting to keep the ship perfectly steady that Thorax inwardly worried he was going to cut off the blood circulation to his limbs, and he unintentional grimaced while trying to not miss any variations in the ship’s course so much so that Gervas sarcastically told him at one point that his face would freeze like that.

Thorax liked to think he had helped contribute greatly to their success too, figuring out very quickly what he needed to do to ensure they remained on course, and thus was able to alert Dark Flare every time they began to deviate off the course taking them back to Vanhoover. Working together, the two made a fairly good team and were able to successfully keep any straying to a minimum. It also helped that Gervas demonstrated that he really did know the course by sight, as he would quickly notice any notable deviations through means unclear to the rest and alert them in his usual critical tone without hesitation. With them being out over terrain that was so easy to get turned around over, there was no waiting to see if they would figure out what they need to do themselves this time.

As such, Thorax later thought that he probably should’ve known better to try it, but regardless, he became confident enough in his navigating abilities that he noticed a practical change to make in the course, and did so. “Adjust course by three degrees to the east,” he reported to Dark Flame as he worked with the map laid out on a table before him.

Dark Flame nodded silently and proceeded to make the requested adjustment to the course, but then Gervas blinked and turned to approach them. “Belay that, Mister Dark Flame,” he said as he started to walk across the quarterdeck.

Dark Flame blinked blankly at the griffon, stopping what he was doing in uncertainty. “Sir?” he prompted.

“It means don’t do it,” Gervas explained gruffly, approaching Thorax’s post at the back of the quarterdeck. “Mister Thornton, why are you deviating us from our course?”

Thorax looked up at him. “Technically, sir, I’m not, because we’re still heading for Vanhoover,” he explained simply.

“That’s not my point,” Gervas stressed. “Your proposed course change would take us off the planned course that you are supposed to be following.”

“Yes sir,” Thorax said with an apologetic nod. “I just saw the change would put us on a more direct path to Vanhoover than the planned one, hastening our arrival and…I was just trying to be helpful, sir.”

Gervas had to stop to massage the bridge of his beak for a moment. “As well intentioned as that is, Mister Thornton,” he conceded before explaining. “The point of the course is not to find the best route back home, but to serve as a training exercise to see how well you can stay on that course.” He leaned on the table between him and Thorax, glaring at the disguised changeling. “I don’t think I need to tell you then that you are failing to do that with your little change to our heading.”

Thorax regarded Gervas for a moment while seeing the griffon’s point and that he had yet again not done as the griffon had hoped, only this time he had only himself to blame. “Never mind Dark Flame, keep us on our original heading,” he said to the stallion, attempting to backpedal from his failure to realize the error sooner.

Dark Flame simply nodded and took steps to keep them on the original course. Without making any further comment, Gervas stepped away from Thorax’s post and went back to what he was doing. The griffon’s emotions were a muddle that were hard to sort, but Thorax was still able to pick out a tone of frustration among them, and feared that was the last straw for Gervas on whether or not Thorax would be able to earn any of his favor. Dismayed at this lost chance, Thorax quietly resigned himself to it, instead working to keep them on the course Gervas intended for them.

The remainder of the voyage proceeded on without much more event, and as the sun began to sink back towards the horizon heralding the approaching evening, Vanhoover pulled back into view. Soon the airship was maneuvering to come back in for a landing at the airship yard. Everyone was feeling victorious at this successful completion of the training cruise, and Thorax shared in that feeling of victory…but he still felt somewhat dejected, seeing himself having not performed as well as he felt he may have should. His failure to see that Gervas had laid out their course in such a way deliberately as part of the training especially weighed heavily on his mind, and knew the other times he had butted heads with the griffon during the cruise only added to put him in an unfavorable light. It left him thinking that, as the teacher and leader of the cruise, Thorax should have set his misgivings about Gervas and his methods aside and instead just done as asked or expected of him regardless…and he felt he hadn’t given Gervas the respect due.

So Thorax wasn’t expecting much after they had landed the air yacht and, serving as its ground crew yet again, towed it back into its berth in the hanger before proceeding to gather in a line out in the yard before Gervas, coming full circle to when the day camp had first started that morning.

The retired airship captain had pulled out his clipboard and was regarding his students with a critical eye once again as he gave his concluding remarks on their day. “So you all managed to get us safely out and back again without any injuries of note,” he remarked flatly, like this wasn’t noteworthy. “I’m sure this will please the insurance agents covering all of this. At any rate, I suppose you all did well enough, given the circumstances, some more than others. Some of you…I hope you got something out of this whole experience that will make you learn not to repeat whatever it was you respectively did. I think you all know who you are, so I’ll spare you the embarrassment of calling you out in front of your peers. You’re welcome.”

Thorax sighed to himself, figuring himself to one of the “less successful” Gervas spoke of.

“There is one final matter of business to resolve before I let you all run off though,” Gervas continued, pulling out the gold pin he had shown off at the start of the class. “As you recall, this goes to the one of you I feel preformed the best during the cruise, and as you may also recall, there’s only the one. This is good, because I’d hate to have to figure out more than one of you to pretend you had actually met all of my high expectations. Instead, I have to pick out which ones of you did marginally a little worse than the lucky squab who gets the gold one here, and the rest of you will have pins of your own to receive…all notably more silver in color, and frankly not as impressive as the gold one. Not that I’m saying anything by that.” He totally was and they all knew it, but they had all been around Gervas long enough to know better than to try and point it out. “But first things first, let’s get the big one out of the way.” He held up the pin higher. “I will now name who will be walking out of here with this pinned to their chest.”

He then paused for a moment, probably deliberately to build suspense, but Thorax wished he would just get it over with. He already had a guess that Gervas was going to pick Valiant, the pony Gervas had ridiculed far less than the rest and who the griffon had seemed the most pleased with. But even if not, Thorax knew who it wasn’t, and wished Gervas would just get on with it.

However, Gervas surprised him completely. “Mister Thornton, step forward please.”

Thorax jerked his head up, looking at the griffon in surprise and wondering if he had actually heard that right. “Me, sir?” he asked with shock notably clear in his voice.

Gervas gazed at him wearily. “Your name is Thornton, isn’t it?” he asked.

Thorax stared at him for a second longer, then looked at the rest of the ponies in the group and saw they seemed somewhat surprised too before realizing he really wasn’t imagining this. So he stepped forward towards the griffon as asked, starting to wonder if this was perhaps some sort of trick Gervas was setting him up for.

It wasn’t. Gervas promptly pinned the gold medallion to his midnight blue hoodie that he wore. “Now you’re properly decorated,” the griffon noted aloud after he had done this.

Thorax just stared at it, completely baffled by this, not understanding why Gervas had chosen him to receive this honor after everything that had transpired on the cruise. He looked back at the griffon. “But…”

“You think on your hooves, Mister Thornton,” Gervas explained, seeing Thorax’s confusion. “Anyone can do as they’re told, which is still good, but you thought for yourself, thought of the greater picture, of every action and the resulting consequences that would affect the airship as they happened. If there was something taking place you thought there was cause for concern, you brought it up or took action, and you were not just complacent or unquestioning to my every whit or whim just because I was in command. I may be the more experienced one here, but even I can make mistakes, and sometimes I need calling out. I was especially impressed by your actions to raise our altitude in the Unicorn Range. It was not what you were asked to do of course, and just acting like that is still not proper behavior aboard any airship. But it showed you were thinking of the safety of the airship and its crew, and to you that was more important. You also showed little to no outward malice when I didn’t give you the positions you wanted because I thought you didn’t need the practice already and instead thought it more prudent to broaden your horizons by having you try your hoof at other tasks that any good crewmember of an airship should be familiar with. And you performed them to the best of your abilities, showing you have more to learn, but you’re willing. You’re also an adept navigator; most ponies I teach never stop to think about how the course I have laid out is deliberately inefficient and indirect for the learning experience. But you not only did, you thought to do something about it. What I’m getting at here Mister Thornton is that you have a respect for authority, but not so much that you aren’t willing to think beyond it, that there might be other, better, ways. And that’s a grossly underappreciated trait. There are too many yes-ponies and not enough independent thinkers out there. And you do have both a talent and a clear interest in this field to boot. I realize my teaching style didn’t make that clear to you, but I’m generally tougher on my favorites. At any rate, I personally hope this gruff griffon hasn’t put you off and that it won’t be your last time in an airship because of it.”

Gervas then did something Thorax had never seen him do before; he grinned. Even more surprising, Thorax sensed a flare of pride behind it, and it overall left the changeling both touched and somewhat flabbergasted. “I…I don’t know what to say, sir,” he said, genuinely shocked by this unexpected development.

“That’s even better, I hate it when ponies speechify,” Gervas said, giving Thorax a friendly pat before motioning him to rejoin the group, the brief display of fondness gone as quickly as it had appeared.

Thorax numbly did so, trying to process that he clearly had left more of a mark on Gervas then he first thought while the griffon proceeded to pull out the next award (silver in color as promised) and name the first runner-up. He again surprised Thorax when he named Dark Flare as the recipient of “second place,” citing some of the same traits in Dark Flare as he did in Thorax, but most especially the equally surprised stallion’s determination. And Gervas didn’t stop there, naming Poppy Curls as the next runner-up (absolutely flooring the bashful mare), Gervas describing her skills as “budding still” but still showing “great promise,” urging her to “keep at it” and be more confident in herself; he believed she was more capable than she saw herself as. Valiant, the stallion Thorax had been certain would’ve placed first, instead was named as fourth, Gervas remarking that he liked Valiant’s dedication, but observing he still had “much to learn.”

The remaining pins handed out to the remainder of the class proceeded more mundanely from there, but the whole group was regardless stirred by it all; clearly there was more to Gervas’s character than they had thought. Seeing this, Gervas concluded the day camp by admitting it. “In my long years of service, I’ve found that most only show all of their true talents or strengths if pressured to do so,” he explained seriously in what was perhaps his most stunningly compassionate statement of the day. “That’s why I teach this class the way I do. And I realize that doesn’t make me many friends in the process, but regardless, it still enabled me to learn what I needed about each of you in turn. Despite who got what pins, know that you all did far better than I may have conveyed during all of this, and I hope I haven’t deterred any of you from pressing on in this field in the future. You all have the great potential for it; you just need to step forward and reach for it.”

And with that, they were dismissed, the day camp over. All a little humbled by this unexpected conclusion to the day, the group all started to walk off for their respective destinations, but as they did so, Thorax lingered on the airfield just a few moments longer, watching Gervas walk off for the main offices. Noticing the disguised changeling watching him, Gervas made a casual salute in his direction before proceeding on. Soon, Thorax was the only one remaining, lost in thought as he reflected back on the events of the day in a new light. Eventually though he left too, heading for the spot where he and Spike had agreed to meet up at again at the end of the day. Thorax did not need to wait long, Spike giddily appearing on the scene somewhat abruptly as the dragon vaulted himself gracefully over a nearby wall.

“I take it the parkour class went well then,” Thorax observed with a grin as Spike strolled up to him.

“Well, apparently they only taught the basics,” Spike explained with a grin and obvious bounce in his step. “But that was good enough for me!” With a dexterity that Thorax hadn’t often seen in Spike, the dragon showed off some of these new skills by vaulting himself onto a nearby lamppost and twirling around it so to face his friend again. “How about you, how did the airship flying go?”

Thorax put a hoof over the golden pin on his jacket. “Better than I imagined,” he observed with a faint smile.

As they proceeded back for Fly Leaf’s shop, Spike continued to practice his newfound skills at every opportunity, running, vaulting, and even on occasion flipping himself over a variety of things they passed along the way. He stumbled on occasion as he did so, but far less than expected, proving that Spike had learned lots in his parkour class. He continued to show off the skills once back at the shop, especially after he found he could bypass ponies in the hallway by doing a wall-run maneuver along the wall adjacent to said pony. He especially liked doing this to Fly Leaf, as Fly wasn’t never quite certain how she ought to react to it every time he did it, and would just comically stand there, looking a little blank.

Thorax, meanwhile, was more timid about what he had learned in Gervas’s class, and spoke of it in general, but positive terms. He went to bed that night still lost in thought about what Gervas had told him when he gave Thorax the gold pin. Though he wasn’t sure how it would happen, Thorax decided to rise to Gervas’s expectations, and ensure that the training cruise certainly wasn’t the last time he served on an airship.

Author's Note

So you might be wondering...what does this lengthy chapter about Thorax flying on an airship have to do with anything? Well, never fear; I have my reasons. :raritywink:

I had wanted to touch more on how Spike's parkour class went, and even had originally conceived the chapter so we would jump back and forth between the two classes as they progressed...but unfortunately, I don't know much about parkour in real life myself, and wasn't able to come up with enough information about it in my research in time to feel comfortable in going into any great detail about it. So it ended up being mostly overlooked as a consequence I'm afraid. :fluttershysad:

By contrast though, I found lots of information about airships and how they work...and it probably shows seeing how the chapter ended up lot longer than planned. But I had a lot of fun exploring all of that; I can see why Thorax has gotten so taken with them. :twilightsmile:

Mister Jar Catcher

Whenever Thorax and Spike visited the local game shop, it was usually for differing reasons between them. Spike was usually there to look at the Ogres and Oubliettes merchandise they sold there, and lately, occasionally buying parts of it for the game set he kept trying (and failing) to teach Thorax how to play. Thorax, meanwhile, was usually there to visit the game shop’s attached arcade, fascinated as he was at the cabinet arcade machines and the colorful graphics they were able to display, and often thrilled by the chance to play any of the games. When the arcade introduced a new and state-of-the-art game that caught both Spike and Thorax’s attention though, they eagerly began to visit the arcade in their free time so to play it as often as they could in the days following its induction. It was here that Spike and Thorax were spending some of that free time one Saturday, the two taking turns playing the game and trying to reach the end of the game’s actually quite in-depth storyline before getting a game over. Currently, it was Thorax’s turn to play at the game, and he had already gotten about halfway (or so they estimated, as neither of them had yet to reach the actual end of the game), but he wasn’t doing so well in the game presently, and it seemed another game over would be eminent.

“Augh, this boss fight!” Thorax bemoaned as the cutscene heralding said fight began on the screen. “I hate this boss fight! It’s so hard! But if I can just get past it to the next level where I know where I can get an extra life, I just might have a chance…”

Meanwhile, Spike was watching the cutscene unfold on the screen and chuckled as he listened to the voices. “You know, that character sounds a little bit like you Thorax,” he observed aloud, pointing a claw at the character in question.

Thorax harrumphed at this as the cutscene ended and he focused his attention on playing the following boss fight. “Considering I have the capability of emulating any voice I choose, that’s not saying much, Spike…”

“No, no, I mean your normal voice, without any emulating at all, sounds a lot like the voice of that guy there,” Spike explained. “I mean, just listen to his taunts for a second!”

Thorax did, and hummed to himself. “I suppose there is some similarity…” he admitted.

“Bet you could do a great impression of him without even trying,” Spike reasoned.

Thorax considered it for a second as he continued to play the game. As the boss fight wasn’t going well anyway, he decided to give it a go. “I’ve been looking for you!” he said aloud, repeating lines they had heard the character speak, doing so with increasing volume and passion as he did so. “But that’s impossible! I can’t lose! Your actions will condemn us all! For the future of the world, I will destroy you! Take this! How about this? IT’S NO USE!”

This got Spike howling with laughter, finding the similarity uncanny. It got Thorax caught in the middle of chuckling and lapping at the infectious emotion hanging in the air at the same time, to the point that he forgot to pay attention to what he was doing in the game, resulting in the game over he was trying to avoid.

“Oops, sorry!” Spike apologized, trying to stifle his laughter.

“Nah, it’s okay, I wasn’t doing good anyway,” Thorax replied, shrugging it off and stepping aside to permit the dragon at the controls next. “I guess it’s your turn to have another go at it. Maybe you’ll have better luck.”

Spike pulled out his stash of coins from his pockets and started to sift through them, only to quickly find all the coins he had left were denominations too big for the arcade machine to accept. “I would, but looks like I don’t have any quarter-bits left. You got any?”

Thorax pulled out some his own coins from the pocket of his jacket, shifting through them with his magic. “No, looks like I’m out too,” he admitted. “All I’ve got is a half-bit or bigger…nothing the machine will accept, at least.”

“Then I guess that was our last game for now, until we can go grab some more quarter-bits from our stash back at Fly’s,” Spike reasoned with a shrug. “Oh well, it’s probably for the better anyway. No need to waste all of our money on that one game.” He started for the arcade’s exit. “Well, while we’re here, I’m going to look to see if they’ve released that new edition of the Ogres and Oubliettes player guide yet. You wanna come with?”

Thorax was looking at the clock. “Actually, while I’ve got the moment, I think I’m going to run to the store real quick. Since I still haven’t found the right sort of cheese for my tastes at Monterey’s shop yet, I thought I might try making my own equivalent of changeling cheese. I’ve been reading up on cheese making…it shouldn’t be too hard once I have the right materials.”

Spike paused at the door that divided the arcade from the rest of the game shop. “…What are you going to use for the milk?” he asked hesitantly, knowing what sort of milk the cheese Thorax longed for required.

“The same sort of milk ponies use, of course,” Thorax said, like it was no big deal, and indeed gave Spike an odd look for his hesitation to broach the subject. “It should do well enough as a substitute, and it’s not like I could get my hooves on any of the real milk that I would want to use anyway, right?”

“I should hope not,” Spike muttered under his breath, but then turned to Thorax and grinned. “In that case I have no problem with it. Best of luck, then. Seeing it’ll be lunchtime soon, I’ll probably meet you back at the shop.”

They gave their farewells and then parted ways. The walk to the store was unremarkable for Thorax, and he arrived there without event, finding the store only moderately busy given the hour. Levitating a shopping basket over to himself with his magic as he stepped through the doors, he pulled out a list of supplies he would need from his jacket pocket.

“Let’s see,” he murmured to himself as he proceeded to navigate the store. “I’ll need milk, salt, thermophilic culture, liquid rennet, butter muslin, annatto, cheese wax…” he skimmed through the whole list, worrying slightly. “I hope I’ve got everything I need written down here…since I’m trying to recreate a cheese no pony would be familiar with, I suppose there will be a certain amount of guesswork involved here.” Regardless, he knew from his research that these supplies would at least get him started, so he shrugged. “Well, won’t know until we try, so…let’s start by getting the milk.”

He proceeded to go about the store, gathering the items he would need and placing them in his basket. He had gotten about halfway and was busy consulting his list—not paying too close attention to what was ahead of him—to see what he needed to get next when he proceeded to turn into the next aisle and promptly collided with a unicorn mare heading the other way, busy consulting a shopping list of her own and also not paying close attention to where she was walking. Startled and dazed, the two stumbled backwards from each other, their respective shopping baskets tumbling to the floor and spilling their contents as their magical grips on them vanished. The mare staggered into the store shelving beside her and promptly had to scramble to make sure she didn’t knock anything off onto the floor. Thorax faced a similar problem as he likewise toppled into the shelves on the other side of the aisle, and in the process sent a fragile trio of jars filled with green olives plummeting towards the hard tile floor. Quickly, Thorax lit his horn again and grabbed all three jars with his magic, saving them from getting shattered just centimeters from striking the floor.

“Ooh, nice reflexes!” the mare declared, impressed by Thorax’s use of magic as she proceeded to right herself.

“Thanks,” Thorax said sheepishly as he returned the jars to their proper spots.

“You’re okay, right?” the mare then cautiously asked. “I didn’t hurt you in that collision or anything?”

Thorax felt physically unhurt, but despite that, he still checked himself over quickly to ensure the collision hadn’t created any holes in his disguise. “Yeah…yeah, I think I’m good.” He looked at the mare. “You?”

“Equally unhurt,” the mare replied smugly, but then she promptly turned to their spilled baskets, stooping down worriedly to start picking up the mess. “Hopefully the same can be said about your groceries.”

“Yours too,” Thorax said, joining her as the two began helping each other pick up their items off the floor. “Sorry about that by the way, I should’ve been paying more attention…”

“No, no, it’s my fault, I wasn’t watching where I was going,” the mare assured as she placed the carton of milk Thorax had collected (thankfully unharmed in the tumble) back in his basket.

“That’s no excuse, I still should be alert for precisely this very reason,” Thorax persisted as he handed the mare her fallen jar of peanut butter (also unscathed).

“Hey, stop ruining my attempts to so modestly take the blame here,” the mare quipped with a grin as she handed Thorax his dropped carton of heavy cream.

“Sorry,” Thorax apologized as he stopped to take stock of righted shopping basket, ensuring he had retrieved everything. He then glanced at the mare with a suggestion. “I guess we’d better just agree not to do it again.”

“Sounds like a plan,” the mare agreed as she slipped a box of crackers back into her basket. She gave Thorax an approving grin. “Besides, I’d hate to make an enemy of a fellow magician such as yourself.”

“Oh, you mean with my catching the jars?” Thorax asked, sheepishly pointing one of his disguised hooves back at the shelf they were displayed on. “That was nothing, really…I’m no magician.”

“Well, to tell you a secret, I’m not that special of a magician either,” the mare said, leaning closer to whisper conspiratorially to Thorax. She gave him a sly smirk. “The trick is to hide it with the right presentation so to make it look like you are.”

Thorax gave her a nonplussed look. “That’s sounds like it would require a lot of planning in advance…what I did with those jars was just dumb luck.”

“Which brings us to tip number two,” the mare continued as she scooped up her basket in her magenta aura. She winked at him. “Always take credit for it anyway, even when it is just dumb luck.” The two shared a chuckle briefly before the mare began to scan the aisle floor again. “Anyway…where did that pesky shopping list of mine get off to?”

“I think this must be it over here,” Thorax said, picking up a slip of paper off the tile floor with his magic and levitating it over to the mare.

“Then what’s this?” the mare asked as she picked up another slip of paper lying face down near the shelves. “Is this one yours?”

She started to turn it over in her magic so to read, but knowing it was written entirely in his native changeling language, Thorax quickly but gently took it from her magic before she could get the chance to. “Yeah, yeah it is, thank you,” he said quickly.

“Well, at any rate,” the mare said with a grin and a shrug. “It’s been nice bumping into you…literally.”

Thorax chuckled weakly. “Yeah, sorry again for that, miss.”

“I thought we agreed we were just going to promise to not do it again?”

“Oh yeah…uh…I promise to…always watch where I’m going now?”

The mare laughed in good humor at Thorax’s hurried promise. “Right back ‘atcha,” she said, before walking around him and proceeding on her way. “Toodle-oo!”

“Bye,” Thorax replied, and turned to depart himself. Cheered by the chance encounter, he resumed the task he was originally in the store for and consulted his shopping list, double checking with what was in his shopping basket to see what he had already gotten and needed to get still.

It wasn’t long before he realized that he had two cartons of heavy cream in his basket when he only needed one, and distinctly recalled only grabbing one off the shelf earlier. Pulling out the second carton of cream, he saw it wasn’t even the same brand as the carton he knew he had selected, although it was a similar color. He realized it must have been the mare’s and gotten mixed up and put into Thorax’s basket by mistake after they had bumped into each other. He promptly turned around and backtracked to the spot where he had last seen the mare walking off only to find she was now nowhere in sight within that area of the store. Thorax searched around quickly to be sure, but he could not see her. She had either wandered off to some other part of the moderately-sized store, or had already left entirely.

If she had though, Thorax worried she may have left without realizing she was missing the carton of cream she clearly had intended to buy, and if so, felt responsible. As such, because of this, even when Thorax resumed his own shopping after finding no sign of the mare, he still kept an eye out for her in case he managed to cross paths with her again, hoping he could still return the carton of cream to her before she left the store. As he finished with his own shopping and proceeding to the front of the store to checkout, he was beginning to lose hope he would find her. But at last, he finally spied the azure unicorn standing at the back of the line for one of the checkout lanes, realizing he was finding her just in time.

“Hey!” he called as he galloped towards her. “You! Miss!”

The mare turned, and blinked in surprise as Thorax hurried up to her. “Well!” she declared with a surprised grin, “If it isn’t Mister Jar Catcher!”

“Thornton,” Thorax replied, offering her his alias name, before reaching into his shopping basket and pulling out the second carton of heavy cream. “Here, I think this is yours. It must have gotten mixed up and put into my basket by mistake earlier.”

The mare took it in her magic and glanced into her own basket, eyebrows raised. “Well, what do you know,” she said, confirming she was indeed missing a carton of cream from its contents and proceeded to place the returned carton back where it belonged. “I thought I was missing something from my basket. Thanks.”

“You’re welcome,” Thorax said with a nod, pleased he was able to complete this task as he joined her in line for the checkout. “I was looking all over the store for you, hoping I’d find you again so I could return it.”

“Oh, you really didn’t need to do that,” the mare assured him with the wave of her hoof. “Not for something that really wasn’t that important at least. I only buy it because I like a little bit of cream with my oatmeal in the mornings after all. I could’ve easily just gotten another off the shelf.”

“Well, I guess I saved you the trip back to do that,” Thorax reasoned simply.

“I guess you did,” the mare conceded and put on a pleased expression. “That really was nice of you, actually…I certainly wouldn’t have done that if I was in your horseshoes, but I guess that goes to show what I personally need to improve upon.” She sighed to herself, but was quickly grinned again. “You know, just for doing all of that, I feel like I should make it up to you somehow...”

“Oh no, no, no,” Thorax assured back, waving his hooves. “You don’t need to do that. Just knowing I helped out was reward enough.”

The mare grinned, but relented. “If you insist,” she said. “Still, I don’t want to just let it go unacknowledged. You’re certainly a more humble pony than I am.”

Thorax shrugged nonchalantly. “Everyone has that one thing that they’re good at,” he pointed out. He then tapped a hoof on the mare’s basket. “Speaking of, this must be your own shopping basket isn’t it?”

“Yeah, I travel a bit, so it was just more practical to get one of my own that I could take in and out of all the stores I visit,” the mare replied, glancing down at the basket. “But what does that have to do with things ponies are good at?”

“Well, I notice you seem to have an actually crafty illusion spell on it that makes it appear less filled than it actually is.”

The mare’s eyes widened in surprise and her gaze bounced between her basket and Thorax repeatedly for a moment, flabbergasted. “Now how did you figure that out?” she asked, amused and impressed by the disguised changeling’s observational skills. “No pony has ever noticed that in the whole time I’ve had this thing!”

Thorax allowed himself a smirk. “I have something of an interest and an eye for all types of illusion magic,” he explained simply. Obviously because he was a changeling, for whom illusions were second nature, but she wasn’t to know that. “Basically I just noticed the little discrepancies that give it away. You know, things like conflicting dimensions, weight, depth…”

The mare tilted her head at him, one eyebrow raised as she continued to regard him in surprise. “I’m just stunned you even stopped to think about it,” she admitted. “It takes a trained eye to catch things like that.”

Thorax shrugged. “I guess I have a talent at it then,” he admitted. “At any rate, I’ve always had an interest in illusions and their various applications since I was young.” He pointed again at the unicorn’s basket. “Can’t say I’ve ever seen a content illusion like that one be used in so casual a manner though, so that’s what stood out to me about it. It’s clever, really, so I’d hazard to guess that’s something you’re good at.”

The mare laughed and regarded her basket again. “Well you got me,” she admitted, shaking the basket in her magic a little. “But I admit I use the spell so to kind of…cheat…at looking a little more humble than I actually am. It’s…a habit I probably should break.” She smirked as she glanced back up at Thorax. “It does make it easier to hide all the junk food I buy from the eyes of passing ponies though.”

Thorax smirked back knowingly. “Got a bit of a sweet tooth, huh?”

The mare nodded, turning to face the checkout stand they were gradually approaching as they continued to wait in line. “Among other things. It doesn’t help that I tend to get a bit snacky right before I perform.”

Thorax’s eyebrows went up. “You’re a performer?”

“Yup.” The mare then blinked and turned to face him, looking like she had an idea. “Actually…you said you like seeing illusion magic, right?” When Thorax nodded, she smirked. “You wanna see a whole show featuring nothing but?”

So soon Thorax was racing back for Fly’s shop, needed groceries in tow, but with a few things extra than planned. Fly Leaf looked up from the inventory she was taking on the shop’s stock when Thorax all but burst into the shop, then watched with amusement as he then skidded to a stop so to politely close and latch the door behind him.

“Well, somebody’s excited,” Fly noted aloud with a smirk.

“Miss Fly, where’s Spike?” Thorax asked his employer eagerly, hurrying up to her.

Fly pointed a hoof behind her at the batwing doors leading into the back. “Spark? In the kitchen getting lunch, I think,” she replied. “Why, what’s—?”

“Thank you!” Thorax interrupted and hurried on for the kitchen without stopping to listen further. “Spike!” he called as he did so, flinging open the batwing doors. “Spike!”

He found the dragon sitting at the kitchen table, putting the finishing touches on a tomato sandwich for his lunch, with a tall glass of orange juice sitting beside him. He looked blankly up at the disguised changeling when he sped into the room. “Hey,” he greeted. “What’s got you all riled up? Did you get the stuff you needed for your cheese making thing?”

“Huh?” Thorax said, slowing briefly to glance back at the saddlebags on his back neatly packed with said items. “Oh! Yes, yes I did! But never mind that for now!” He idled up to the table until he was placed directly beside his dragon friend, still bubbling in excitement. “You’ll never guess what happened while I was at the store!”

“Well, I can guess that whatever it was, it certainly wasn’t a bad thing to get you this excited,” Spike remarked, pulling back a little when Thorax leaned a little too close. “What’s going on?”

“Okay, so while I was at the store, I met this mare, and we crashed into each other at one point, but I helped her recollect all her things and such and helped made sure she still had everything in time to leave, and so on, and…”

“The point of all this being?” Spike asked, glancing eagerly at the sandwich he made. “I’ve got lunch waiting on this, bud.”

“Right, right,” Thorax said, chuckling at himself slightly as he cut to the chase. “To repay the favor, she’s given me two free tickets to see her show she’s putting on tonight!” Empathizing this point, he loudly slapped the two tickets he had been given onto the tabletop beside Spike then eagerly turned back to his friend. “Can we go? Please, please, please, please?”

“All right, all right, we can go!” Spike agreed, trying not to laugh at Thorax’s barely contained excitement. “It must be quite a show to get you this riled up for it.” He picked his glass of orange juice to drink from it. “But just what is this show and who is this pony that’s putting it on anyway?”

“It’s a magic show,” Thorax explained, now pulling out a poster advertising it he had also been given and unrolled it for Spike to see, “Featuring spectacular feats of magic! She’s a magician see, calling herself the Great and Powerful Trixie.” He grinned at the poster, enjoying the bright colors and designs it used to promote the show.

That is until Spike’s spit take got orange juice all over it.

Author's Note

So much for Spike enjoying his lunch.

As you might of guessed, it was a bit tricky writing this chapter but still writing it in such a way that the "reveal" wasn't spoiled too soon...which did mean I had to omit certain character traits on our "mystery mare" here, or else it would've been entirely too obvious. :trixieshiftright:

Also made a last minute omission to this chapter; aforementioned "mystery mare" was also going to offer Thorax some bits as repayment for taking the time to return her carton of heavy cream which Thorax politely refuses...but then I decided that wasn't in line with her character as I was giving this chapter it's final edit so I cut it out. You understand. :trixieshiftleft:

Finally, on the subject of the video game Thorax and Spike are playing at the beginning, that's something of an inside joke reference, referring to the (infamous) 2006 Sonic game, "Sonic The Hedgehog," specifically the character of Silver the Hedgehog. When first watching "The Times They're A Changeling," I found Thorax's voice reminded me greatly of Silver's voice, so much so that afterwards I double checked to make sure they weren't the same voice actor just in case. They obviously aren't, but I still think there's enough of a resemblance that I thought Thorax could do an adequate impression of Silver...and I've kind of wanted to see it done ever since, so...this was me calling myself out on it.

So yeah...the game they're playing? Totally the Equestrian version of Sonic 06...assuming it was an arcade game...and, y'know...actually worth playing. :rainbowlaugh:

Highly Unwise

Naturally, the whole story was related to Thorax after that, Spike escorting the changeling up to their room for privacy and explaining all he knew of the mare and magician known as Trixie. To Thorax’s obvious surprise, Spike had encountered the mare a few times before, the first just within the first few moons after he and Twilight Sparkle had first started living in Ponyville, sometime still before Twilight ascended to alicornhood. In that instance, Trixie had arrived in the town to put on a show too, but spent most of it more demonstrating how she was magically “superior” than everypony else, and was basically used as just a chance to brag and show off. While her magical feats were certainly flashy, most weren’t especially impressed by Trixie’s bragging as Spike recalled. But more importantly, Trixie’s bragging was also exaggerated to the point that she claimed she could do far more than she actually could, to the point that Spike personally thought some of it was ridiculous, especially her claims that she had defeated an Ursa Major in single-hoof magical combat. He didn’t hesitate to say so either.

Which, Spike admitted, might be part of the reason why two “especially naïve” colts who had completely believed Trixie to be the real deal, decided to take it upon themselves to lure the next best thing to an Ursa Major, an Ursa Minor, into Ponyville and have Trixie defeat it for their entertainment. Trixie, of course, could no such thing, and probably would’ve left Ponyville to suffer further damage from a cranky Ursa Minor had Twilight not intervened and used her own magic to sort it out. Upstaged by this, this didn’t go over well with Trixie’s ego, and she left cross and humiliated, but ultimately no more humbled leaving Ponyville than she had been arriving.

Thorax was somewhat surprised to hear all of this; during his brief encounter with Trixie, he of course had sensed a strong feeling of personal pride in Trixie’s emotions, supporting the notion of her large ego, but had found that Trixie did a fair job keeping it in check, and acknowledged the limits of her own abilities. In other words, he didn’t really find her as the braggart Spike described. But Spike’s tale wasn’t finished, and he went on to explain that “a year or so” went by in which they saw no hair or hide of Trixie, but apparently word of the fiasco in Ponyville had haunted Trixie long after leaving the town, and found her reputation ruined and financially struggling during that space of time. Blaming Twilight for upstaging her so, Trixie eventually came back to Ponyville, just moons before Twilight became a princess, seeking revenge on Twilight via a magic duel, unfairly aided by a powerful dark magic artifact that increased Trixie’s magical abilities by several fold.

Unfortunately that same artifact, a type of enchanted amulet, also corrupted Trixie the longer she wore it, so upon soundly beating Twilight in the magic duel, she banished Twilight from Ponyville, sealed the town off from the rest of Equestria, and then proceeded to rule harshly over the town as its increasingly tyrannical ruler. Spike and the rest of Ponyville then had to suffer Trixie’s ever-growing darker rulings for the next couple of days while Twilight worked from the outside to somehow find a way back into Ponyville and stop Trixie. It was here that Thorax sensed Spike’s disinclination for Trixie was at its strongest, and it wasn’t hard to see why, but Thorax knew Spike was in no way exaggerating either, because he also sensed a hidden ball of genuine fear hidden deep in Spike’s emotions surrounding the memories, and the dragon confessed that he shuddered to think what dark deeds the amulet may had eventually driven Trixie to do had Twilight not finally found a way to trick Trixie into removing the amulet halting its influence, and restoring things back to normal after that.

Trixie, for her credit, woke up to the realization of her actions, and was genuinely apologetic about her foolishness and what it had nearly driven her to do, which Spike admitted improved his opinions slightly about the mare, especially after she sought forgiveness from Twilight, wanting to make things better, and Twilight had given it. Yet that rift and rivalry still seemed to exist between them, as whenever the subject of Trixie came up again around Twilight, Twilight generally responded with partly concealed distaste in regards to the magician. It was another some years before they saw Trixie again though, but Spike states he still caught occasional wind of Trixie going around Equestria, attempting to rebuild her reputation, though she didn’t seem to be having a great deal of success, now having to overcome word of both the Ursa Minor incident as well as the amulet incident. Starlight Glimmer eventually entering the picture as a new threat, then later as Twilight’s reformed student, ultimately kept them both distracted from the matter of Trixie though.

As it happened though, just a few short moons ago they crossed paths with Trixie once more when the magician passed through Ponyville yet again on a sort of “apology tour” she was undertaking throughout Equestria. Spike wasn’t directly involved in this incident this time, but it was during this visit that Trixie managed to befriend Starlight, leading to friction with Twilight over the matter who, despite an attempt to try and hide it, revealed she still didn’t trust Trixie, and preferred Starlight stay away from her. It didn’t help that Trixie took advantage of the matter to yet again try and one-up Twilight and, according to what Spike was later told, led to a small fight between all ponies involved. They ultimately sorted it out…sort of.

Trixie and Starlight managed to maintain and strengthen their friendship at least, and Spike was personally glad for this, because the two mares did get along surprisingly well. Twilight, meanwhile, endeavored to keep her hooves out of the matter as a show of trust in her student and her ability to make her own decisions. She still didn’t hold Trixie in especially high regard and preferred to not be around her as much as possible, but now Twilight worked to keep it to herself for Starlight’s benefit. From what Spike had seen, Trixie was trying to do the same, though her ego generally led her letting it show a bit more than Twilight did.

But this led to what was Spike’s point behind all of this; last he had seen, though Trixie was still touring throughout Equestria conducting her act, she and Starlight still kept in regular contact via letters, and by now Trixie had certainly heard all about their banishment. She no doubt wasn’t actively keeping an eye out for them, but she was also perhaps the only mare in all of Vanhoover at the moment who stood the strongest chance of seeing through their disguises and selling them out. As such, Spike thought it would be “highly unwise” for him to attend Trixie’s show tonight for fear of Trixie recognizing him, and thought that because of Thorax’s strong association with Spike, it was too risky for Thorax to do so either.

Thorax didn’t particularly like that though. “But…she’s so kindly invited us,” he objected dejectedly, regarding the tickets and now-ruined poster Trixie had given him lying before him. “She gave us free tickets and everything!”

“I know she did, and normally that’d be great,” Spike admitted. “But Thorax, all it’d take is one wrong word slipped to Starlight via Trixie, and then the next thing you know, Twilight’s swooping down on top of us, planning who knows what for us.”

“You don’t know that,” Thorax argued. “Besides, can’t I at least go? Miss Trixie has never met me before in any form before now, and she didn’t suspect me of anything at all while at the store…”

“And we should thank our lucky stars that was the case,” Spike interrupted. “Thorax, Trixie may be an egomaniac, but she’s also intelligent enough to see the pattern with the right clues. And I can’t possibly expect her to keep a secret like this.”

“You make it sound like I plan on giving her my whole life’s story! Spike, I’m just going to see her show she’s so kindly invited me to come see. The most contact I expect to even have with her is to see her from a distance performing on stage. It’s not like we’re going to talk in depth before, during, or after the show. She probably won’t even notice me sitting in the audience because she made it sound like the show was sold out.”

“Then she probably won’t even notice if you’re not there,” Spike pointed out in return. He sighed, rubbing his forehead. “Look, Thorax, it’s not that I’m trying to be mean or anything here. You know I try and not stand in the way of anything you want to do, because you deserve that freedom. But at the same time, I followed you into banishment with the hopes of keeping you safe. And after the last few close calls we’ve had lately…I can’t help but feel like I haven’t been trying hard enough to do that sometimes. And frankly, I just think taking the risk here so to repay a courtesy Trixie has given you just isn’t worth you potentially getting caught.” Spike sheepishly fidgeted with his claws for a moment. “And I don’t know what I’d do if that happened to you Thorax. You’re my best friend…I just want you to stay safe, is all.”

Thorax sighed heavily, feeling guilty now as he sensed the waves of concern Spike was giving off in his emotions. “I’m sorry Spike,” he said. “I really do appreciate everything you’ve done and continue to do on my behalf. It’s just…” he hesitated, looking for the right words. “…after Miss Trixie went to all the trouble to so kindly invite at least me to her show, it seems rude to not attend, regardless of whether she’s actually aware I’m there or not.”

Spike grinned sadly. “And that’s great of you Thorax. You really do have a good heart.” He took a deep breath. “It’s just that in our precarious situation, sometimes it’s just not a good idea to let that good heart dictate your every action. Sometimes logic still needs to be the better action. And I worry that in the case of Trixie, your good heart is only going to lead to trouble around her and her ego.”

“Actually from my meeting with her in the store, I wouldn’t call her that egotistical at all,” Thorax said. He tilted his head at Spike. “I think that everything that’s happened to her up to now has humbled her more than you give her credit for.”

“Be that as it may,” Spike said, folding his arms. “I really do think it’s smarter that neither of us to attend this show, just to be safe, if nothing else.”

Thorax timidly ran his hoof over the floorboards of their room. “…I could go in disguise…you know, some disguise other than Thornton…some pony she wouldn’t know.”

“Why do you even want to go to this show anyway?” Spike asked, curious. “I guarantee you that you can do better magic than whatever Trixie’s using.”

“I’m not that skilled a magician,” Thorax repeated for the second time that day.

“Judging from what I last saw of Trixie’s repertoire of magic, it’d still be better than her skills,” Spike persisted. “Unless Starlight’s been giving her magic lessons without anypony knowing, Trixie isn’t especially skilled with magic. Everything she does is more just trickery and illusions to make them seem like they’re something more advanced than they are.”

“And see, that’s what interests me about it,” Thorax pressed. “Changelings thrive on illusions, we have to. Our very survival depends on them. But where changelings use illusions to survive, Miss Trixie is using illusions just to entertain. And the idea of doing that is, well, frankly alien to me, and I can’t help but be curious to see what clever ways she intends to use illusions I’ve always regarded from a practical point of view in a very casual and non-practical manner.”

Spike chuckled a little at Thorax’s enthusiasm, but his stance on the matter didn’t change. “Thorax, really, if it was anyone else putting on the show…”

“I know, I know,” Thorax finally conceded with a very heavy sigh. “I get it…it’s just…I still don’t have to be happy about it, now do I?”

“I know,” Spike said, not objecting to that much as he picked up the tickets sitting between them, confiscating them and taking them over to stuff in the desk drawer. “Sorry to disappoint you like that. But I really think we’ll both be better off just keeping our distance from Trixie, for our own safety.”

“Yeah,” Thorax responded half-heartedly, letting the matter drop.

But in truth, Thorax still wasn’t satisfied with this outcome. A large part of it was just because he really did think it would be impolite to not make at least some effort to attend the show after Trixie had so politely invited them both to come. He relented in the fact that it probably was unwise for Spike to come in light of learning that Spike and Trixie had met previously without Thorax’s prior knowledge, and had he known that in advance, he would’ve rejected Trixie’s offer of a second ticket (though he supposed he could’ve given it to Fly Leaf). But that didn’t mean Thorax couldn’t come, and it was Thorax alone that Trixie was probably truly inviting anyway. It didn’t help that the way Thorax saw it, there was no danger so long as he kept his disguise up, which Thorax obviously would’ve done anyway. Trixie had no clue the pony she knew as Thornton was in any way related with his and Spike’s banishment unless he said something to clue her in, and Thorax knew he hadn’t. It would be easy to keep it that way too.

He realized the bigger problem was that Spike, despite conveying the sense that he was largely okay with Trixie on a whole, in reality didn’t trust her much at all, and seemed to be operating on the impression she would make no effort to aid them…and would only need one excuse to give them away. And it was a problem because first of all, Thorax knew it was an exaggeration; Trixie was oblivious to the truth and had shown no sign she was even actively looking for the truth. And she had no reason to; she took Thorax to genuinely be the pony he was disguised as, and while Thorax had told her he had a roommate, he had said nothing about Spike beyond that, having not even given her a name or even confirmed he wasn’t a pony. Trixie hadn’t asked either. As far as Thorax could tell—and he did have a minor advantage in that he could sense Trixie’s emotions too—Trixie was being genuine, and was of no harm. Second, he couldn’t help but feel Spike was perhaps being too quick to judge, something that bothered Thorax because it reminded him all too quickly that it was that exact same problem that had gotten them banished in the first place.

So alarmingly, Thorax saw this was leading him to seriously questioning Spike’s judgement for the first time since they had met, because the mare Spike described wasn’t matching up with the mare Thorax had met; Thorax was confident enough that he liked to think that even if Trixie knew everything, she wouldn’t be so quick to sell them out like Spike believed. Yet at the same time Thorax didn’t want to just dismiss Spike’s concerns either. He still trusted Spike, and had followed his judgement in the past despite misgivings, and thus far it hadn’t steered them wrong. Thorax also knew he couldn’t ignore the fact that he had only just met Trixie himself, whereas Spike had interacted with the mare himself on more than one occasion. It left Thorax feeling conflicted as he realized the only solution was to determine who he trusted more in this matter, Spike or Trixie, and the fact he had been brought to this point didn’t sit well with him.

In fact, it bothered him so much that Thorax’s first solution was simply try to not dwell on the matter and instead ignore it for the time being and get on with his day. As Trixie’s show wasn’t to start until eight that evening anyway, he would have time to put off making a decision. But it was also a Saturday, and Fly’s shop wasn’t open for business, and having already run his errands for the day, Thorax found there wasn’t much to do, at least that could take his mind off it. He tried to sit down to try and start making his first batch of cheese like he originally planned, but found he couldn’t concentrate, and fearing it would only led him to make a critical error, abandoned that project for now. He also found he couldn’t concentrate on reading his books, or even listening to his records, regardless of whether it was radio drama or music. The weighty matter on his mind simply wouldn’t be ignored.

It made his stomach churn uneasily too, so much so that when dinner rolled around, Thorax ate even less of the meal Fly Leaf served than he normally would. This was something that naturally didn’t escape Fly’s attention, and perhaps also noticing that Thorax was looking troubled, she waited until Spike had finished and excused himself from the table then brought up the subject.

“Something on your mind, Thornton?” she asked calmly, but with a note of concern in her voice.

Thorax looked up from the meal he had been half-heartedly stirring on his plate but not eating. “Just lost in thought, Miss Fly,” he said.

“You don’t seem to be particularly happy about it, and that’s surprising seeing you ran in this afternoon all excited. What was that about anyway?”

“Oh, that…I, uh, I met a performer at the store who was kind enough to give me tickets to see her show this evening, and I was hoping to go…” Thorax hesitated briefly, knowing he shouldn’t get too detailed about the subject around Fly, but couldn’t bring himself to stop now. “…but Spark thinks it’s better that we don’t.”

Fly wrinkled her snout, surprised and confused. “Why?”

“Well, to make a long story short, he knows this performer and…basically doesn’t hold her in high regard. But…” Thorax trailed off, stopping himself from admitting what was flitting about his mind.

Fly knew what he was getting at though. “…but you don’t agree with him,” she concluded.

Thorax sighed, and nodded. “Please don’t tell Spark I feel that way though,” he said. “He’s my friend, and I’ve always trusted his judgement before…the fact that I’m…I’m…second-guessing him now, after all we’ve been through…it just doesn’t sit well with me.”

“My lips are sealed, Thornton,” Fly assured him, starting to collect their dishes off the table. “And I understand where you’re coming from. Trust in someone is important for any pony. To have to face the prospect of it weakening for any reason, real or imagined, can be hard to deal with.” She carried the collected dishes to the sink. “But I know you and Spark, Thornton. You two are much too good of friends to let something like this dampen that friendship.”

Thorax sighed. “I like to believe you’re right Miss Fly,” he said. He gazed vacantly across the table while Fly worked at the sink behind him. “I don’t know…what do you think I should do?”

Fly finished with the sink and trotted back up to him, placing a reassuring hoof on the shoulder. “Whatever you think would be best, Thornton,” she said. “You’re a good pony, after all. Trust what your heart feels is right.” She then gave him a pat, grinning. “But also don’t let yourself get too worked up over this little thing. Whichever you choose, it’s not like it’s going to end the world because of it.”

Thorax grinned a little seeing her point. “Maybe I should relax a little about it,” he admitted, feeling a little reassured and his stomach settling a little. “Thank you, Miss Fly.”

“Any time,” Fly responded, collecting the remaining dishes on the table to take back to the sink.

The evening wore on, and eight o’clock drew ever closer. Thorax and Spike retreated from their room as they usually did at that hour, Spike focusing on his writing projects, while Thorax sat in his sleeping nest, lost in thought. Fly Leaf, meanwhile, finished cleaning up from dinner then retreated to her desk in the living room downstairs to work on some bookkeeping and accounting work. Bedtime started to draw near, and so Spike and Thorax proceeded to prepare for bed. Spike had slipped into their attached bathroom and proceeded to take a bath. Thorax meanwhile laid in his sleeping nest, mulling about possibly turning in early, hoping sleeping this matter off will help him find the resolving peace he longed for.

But in reality, he couldn’t sleep. The fact that he was still looking at not going to Trixie’s show bothered him too much, feeling like that he’d be letting Trixie down. Confident still that he could go without giving himself or Spike away, he began to wish he could just go to Trixie’s show without Spike knowing about it…and then realized with a start that maybe he could. He turned his head and looked across the room where the writing desk stood, remembering Spike had placed the tickets in the drawer. And with Spike currently in the bathroom with the door closed…

Without even really stopping to think about what it was that he was doing, Thorax rose and cautiously moved to the desk, being careful to not make any noise Spike might hear while he bathed in the bathroom. He cautiously pulled the center and thin writing drawer open and peeked inside. On top of Spike’s stored writing notes were the tickets, lying where they’d be easy to grab. Hearing a splash inside the bathroom, Thorax stole a glance back in its direction to make sure Spike wouldn’t be coming out soon, then quickly levitated one of the tickets out of the drawer and closed it again. He then retrieved his jacket from the wardrobe and put it on, stuffing the ticket into the pocket.

Taking a deep breath and realizing he needed to provide some kind of cover story, Thorax turned to the closed bathroom door and rapped gently on it. “Spike?” he called. “I can’t sleep, so I’m going to go downstairs and help Miss Fly with the bookkeeping.”

He heard Spike shift in the bathwater inside. “You sure?” the dragon called back. “That’s usually my job, and I’m not aware of you ever trying to do bookkeeping before…”

“Well, I figure I ought to learn eventually, so no better time than now, right?” Thorax reasoned quickly. “Anyway, I might be downstairs for a while…no need to keep up waiting for me.”

Spike was quiet for a moment. “All right then,” he finally said cheerfully, to Thorax’s relief as the dragon bought it hook, line, and sinker. “Have a good night!”

“Right, you too,” Thorax called back, and then quickly slipped out of the room.

This just left slipping out of the shop unnoticed then. Preferring to maintain his normal disguise as Thornton, Thorax decided to stick to the ground exits, which just left the shop’s front door or back door. The front door seemed too conspicuous though, so Thorax proceeded to head for the back door. Aware this meant he would have to pass by the entrance to the living room, where it would be easy for Fly Leaf, working inside, to see him, Thorax decided to sneak past the room changeling style, and used his grippers to climb up the wall just inside the kitchen to the ceiling, and then sneak past the living room on his belly upside-down via the ceiling, where he was far less likely to be noticed. As he passed the living room, he found Fly was engrossed in her paperwork anyway, humming softly to the music she had playing on her cabinet radio, and never once looked up from it. Thorax safely slipped past her unnoticed.

Once he was past the living room door and more than halfway down the dark hallway lined with the shop’s stock, Thorax climbed back down from the ceiling and proceeded on for the back door directly ahead of him. This door led onto a covered porch, enclosed with a series of windows and a screen door, running along the length of the back of the building, opening up into the back alley that went behind it, from which Thorax was basically home free in his sneaking out endeavor. But the door dividing him from that porch was locked with the high-security locks Fly Leaf employed.

The locks were very particular about how they operated and were not simple to unlock. They couldn’t just be forced open through magic or physical force, and were complicated enough that even a skilled lock-picker would be working for quite a while to open it. It was also magicked to be protected against most common spells that would unlock it magically. It was so complex that Spike could never figure out how they were supposed to work despite repeatedly trying to learn. Thorax, fortunately, had no such problem, and knew precisely how to open the lock himself. A few moments work later, the lock opened with a light pop, and with a grin, Thorax started to pull the door open, wondering how he should leave things so he could ensure he could get back inside the shop afterwards.

“Sneaking out tonight, are we Thornton?”

Thorax jumped with an involuntary yelp, and instinctively lit his horn as he spun around and found Fly Leaf leaning out the living room door and gazing down the hall at him, her face half-illuminated by the light being cast out the doorway. “Miss Fly!” Thorax declared, and realizing what this all no doubt looked like. “I, uh, that is, um, well, I uh…” His struggles to form some sort of explanation degraded further as Fly, faintly amused by his attempts, raised a questioning eyebrow at him. Thorax then got to wondering how Fly found he was here at all. “H-how did you figure out what I was doing?”

“I know the sound of my locks opening anywhere,” Fly responded with a grin. Thorax blinked, realizing Fly must have good hearing to be able to hear the sound of the door’s lock opening from down the hall in the living room while the radio was playing. “So…whatcha doing, Thornton?”

Thorax winced, rubbing one foreleg against the other sheepishly. “Going to the show,” he finally admitted, deciding lying wouldn’t help him in this case.

“I take it Spark doesn’t know,” Fly surmised.

Thorax shook his head. A moment of silence followed, during which Thorax anxiously wondered what Fly would do about it.

Finally, Fly spoke again, and to Thorax’s surprise, casually shrugged. “All right then,” she said simply. “I’ll cover for you.”

Thorax blinked in disbelief. “You will?”

“Sure! As far as Spark will know, you never went anywhere, and certainly not to any show,” Fly explained with a wink as she strolled up to the back door, pulling it open for Thorax. “So go on, Thornton. I’ll open the back door again for you when you get back.”

Thorax glanced out the open door for a moment, then back at Fly, starting to grin. “I owe you one, Miss Fly,” he said as he started to step out.

“Nah,” Fly said, waving one hoof. “I’m just helping out. Now go have some fun.”

Thorax’s grin grew, and with that, he slipped through the back porch and on out into the night, suddenly feeling more confident of his line of actions than ever before.

Author's Note

I realize that the recap of Trixie's history is probably redundant for all of you already familiar with it, but I thought it necessary from a story-telling point of view, because it provided a means of conveying Spike's own perceptions of Trixie, and naturally it would be those perceptions that would influence Thorax's own views on the matter, him lacking any others to rely on.

That back porch described here has been in my mind since almost day one when devising the layout of Fly's shop, but things kept coming up to prevent me having a good opportunity to describe it in the detail I desired. Glad I finally got the chance to do so, even though it's such a minor detail, all things considered. :rainbowlaugh:

Compelling Argument

As was usually the case at this hour, the streets of Vanhoover were dim and quiet, largely vacant of any other ponies as everyone else had already returned to their homes for the evening, and probably were going to sleep. Feeling his body gradually growing tired, Thorax felt ready to join them, but for the moment found he rather enjoyed the quiet solitude of the cobblestone streets. It actually reminded him of the night he and Spike had first arrived in Vanhoover three moons previous, and was suddenly feeling oddly nostalgic at the memory. Part of him half wanted to divert to visit the old warehouse they had taken shelter in again, curious to see what sort of state it might be in now, if he wasn’t in the company of Trixie.

Trixie on the other hoof, seemed more indifferent about the state of the streets, though Thorax did notice that she tended to navigate the streets a bit more tentatively and sticking close to the disguised changeling, careful to not stumble in the dim streets. Thorax was forced to recall that a pony’s night vision wasn’t quite as sharp as a changeling’s. To him, he could still see it was dark, and the darker areas of the streets they trotted through were harder to see than the areas lit by the passing streetlight or other light source, but he could still pick out clear details in both with ease. For Trixie though, he could only imagine that the dark areas appeared to her as just dark blotches, the details blurred by the lack of light.

“Getting along okay there, Trixie?” he asked so to make sure she was still managing fine.

“Oh of course I am,” Trixie immediately replied with confidence, as if it didn’t need asking. She glanced into a dark alley as they passed it and Thorax sensed a small flare of unease in her emotions as they went past it. “I’m just realizing that at this hour, these streets are a bit…dim…aren’t they?”

“Well, there are the streetlights,” Thorax pointed out, motioning to the golden glow of one as they walked past it.

“Yes, but there’s still dark patches in-between them,” Trixie argued back, motioning to just such a patch that followed the streetlight.

“All right,” Thorax said, and lit his horn, generating a ball of light at its tip. That ball of light then split into two, the second ball swooping around to hover near Trixie’s head, putting them both in a sizeable bubble of white-cyan light. “That better?”

Trixie grinned. “Yes…not that I needed it, of course.”

“Of course,” Thorax said with a nod, pandering to Trixie’s pride.

Trixie tapped at the ball of light with one hoof. It gently pushed away from her touch then slid back into place on its own. “This is a balled light spell, isn’t it?”

“That’s right.”

“Self-sufficient, thaum-wise?”

Thorax nodded. “So long as I keep the spell active, it’ll stay lit,” he confirmed, motioning to his still-lit horn. “It’ll recycle its preexisting supply of magical energy to do it so no, it doesn’t have to keep draining more off of me.”

“Nice,” Trixie said in approval. “I admit, I never could cast the spell and keep it self-sufficient myself. It just fizzles out after about a minute once it uses up too much energy for me to maintain.” She then gave Thorax a smug grin. “But on the upside, it did lead me to adapting the spell into casting a sort of magical firework like the ones you saw at the show.”

“Creativity at its finest,” Thorax said in support, grinning. “You made the best of it.”

“Yeah, but I kinda wish I could cast it properly like you clearly can.” Trixie glanced at Thorax. “Now I know I’ve already said it, but I’m going to say it again; you’re fairly talented at magic.”

“I’m really not,” Thorax persisted modestly.

“Says the pony who had the fast reaction skills to grab three falling jars simultaneously the moment before they hit the ground with his magic,” Trixie began, “who not only was able to work out most of the spells I used in my acts at the show just from watching it once, but then proceeded to give me frankly brilliant advice on how to refine and improve nearly all of them too, and can cast a number of spells even the Great and Powerful Trixie cannot—no easy feat!” Thorax only chuckled at that and didn’t comment. “Seriously though Thornton…is there anything you can’t do?”

Thorax thought for a second. “I can’t teleport.”

“Well, neither can Trixie, so we’re even on that much,” Trixie replied. A beat of silence passed as they turned a corner before Trixie spoke again. “Where did you study magic anyway?” she asked.

“I’m mostly self-taught actually,” Thorax answered simply.

Trixie blinked at this. “Really?” she said, impressed. “Well, that suggests an inherent skill in magic…Starlight Glimmer’s like that too, more self-taught in magic than much else.”

“I’m sure she’s quite a bit more fluent in magic than I am,” Thorax reasoned.

Trixie shrugged. “Starlight’s forte is more in experimental magic anyway, not so much in the illusionary arts like you and me.” She paused. “Actually, I don’t meet many ponies who as versed in illusion as you are.”

“I think you told me that already.”

“I’m just saying that it’s nice to have someone I can actually sit and talk shop with for a change. I’m still surprised you aren’t actually in the performance trade yourself. Hay, I could use skill like yours in my performances.” Trixie then gave Thorax a sly grin. “I don’t suppose you’d be interested in a career change?”

Caught off guard, Thorax stumbled and looked at Trixie in surprise. “Are…you asking me to…join your show?”

Trixie shrugged again. “Thought I’d throw it out there.”

Thorax blinked and went silent for a few moments to mull the idea over. He was surprised by how he was actually a little tempted to do it. But ultimately he shook his head. “I think I’ll stay here in Vanhoover, if that’s okay,” he said gently. “I think I’m…more needed here right now.” Furthermore, he thought of Spike, and knew he couldn’t actually go anywhere without his dragon friend, and he didn’t think Spike would enjoy or be interested in the life of a traveling performer, to say nothing of the fact that doing so would mean revealing their true identities to Trixie.

To her credit though, Trixie didn’t take it hard. “I kind of figured you wouldn’t,” she admitted. “You seem to have your own ideas on where to go in life.”

“I like to think so, at least.” Thorax responded. “But…thanks for offering anyway. Really. If circumstances were different and I didn’t already have obligations here…I admit I’d be willing to seriously consider it.”

“Well, why wouldn’t you?” Trixie reasoned with a smug grin. “Who wouldn’t want the honor of working with the Great and Powerful Trixie?”

Thorax just laughed. Their conversation then moved on to more trivial things, eventually coming back to the Sky Trek books they both read, talking about what appealed to them about the series, and what they hoped it might do next in future, upcoming, entries.

“You know, we’ve seen a number of different types of captains in the series now,” Trixie remarked at one point. “And they’ve all been a variety of different types of pony. A pegasus, a unicorn, an earth pony…even one of those bat-like night ponies at one point. But you know…we haven’t gotten a notable captain who wasn’t a pony, and I just think there’s a lost opportunity in that, you know, so to shake things up.”

Thorax nodded in agreement. “The series is noted for its variety in characters, so the added diversity that would provide certainly wouldn’t hurt.”

“It opens up a whole bunch of possibilities on who it could be too,” Trixie continued. “I’m thinking they could do a griffon captain or something.” She glanced at Thorax. “Who do you think they should have to be a captain at some point?”

Thorax thought for a moment, debating to himself on whether or not he should really answer truthfully. Finally, he opted to anyway. “A changeling.”

This caught Trixie by surprise. “A changeling captain?” she repeated.

“Well, I suppose it doesn’t have to be a captain,” Thorax relented. “In reality, I’d just like to see a changeling crewmember appear in the series in general and be part of the main cast.” Seeing Trixie’s brow furrow as she pondered this, he added, “I mean that’s definitely something they haven’t done before, right?”

“No, I suppose not…” Trixie conceded thoughtfully. “But…how would it work? The Changeling Kingdom is still very much enemies in Sky Trek…”

“Yes, but must they always stay enemies?”

Trixie considered it for a long moment. Finally, she nodded in mildly surprised approval. “No, I suppose not.” This earned her a small approving grin from Thorax, which she returned. “I mean, encouraging peace is the idea in the series…I guess that would include old enemies.” She then sighed. “Too bad we’re still a far cry from such peace here in the real world.”

“Yeah,” Thorax agreed with a sigh of his own, thinking of the poor relations between his race and Equestria. “A far cry indeed.”

“I mean, just look at that changeling Twilight Sparkle’s hunting,” Trixie continued, making Thorax inwardly cringe to hear the uncomfortable subject come up again. “That’s the opposite of peace between ponies and changelings right there.”

“Makes one wish she’d try hunting less and seek good relations more instead,” Thorax mumbled under his breath.

Trixie heard. “To be fair, that changeling did apparently make off with Twilight’s dragon assistant, and according to Starlight, they were close, almost like siblings,” she reminded. “You can’t really just let that slide.”

“Maybe, but does that really mean one can’t still try?” Thorax retorted. “Instead, it sounds to me that what Princess Twilight seeks is…retaliation by force…as much as she can muster.” Despite his better judgement, he felt compelled to ask. “Do you think the changeling deserves that though? Do you think the punishment matches the crime, or is a bit too extreme, even for a changeling?”

Trixie thought about it for a moment. “I don’t know,” she confessed. “I don’t know the whole story.” She glanced at Thorax. “Do you think that?”

Thorax averted his gaze for a moment. “I think that just because it’s a changeling doesn’t mean it doesn’t deserve the same chance at mercy and forgiveness as you or me.” He sighed. “Look, not to bring up a sensitive topic but…you said before you just wanted the chance to change and be forgiven for past deeds…wouldn’t it be fair to offer the same thing to others too, even changelings?”

Trixie thought about it for a long moment. “You really think a changeling would actually take that chance if offered?” she asked.

Thorax hesitated. “I think you wouldn’t ever know unless you try,” he settled.

“Hmm,” Trixie hummed to herself, contemplating upon the problem. “Unfortunately, I don’t know if there are very many ponies who’d be willing to try it. It wasn’t so long ago that they did try to invade the capital of Equestria.” Trixie shuddered. “That was a scary day…I certainly wouldn’t want to do anything to let that happen again.”

“Nor I,” Thorax agreed. “But the invasion of Canterlot was done as a group, following orders from their leader, a sole changeling, and that’s different. What if not all of the individual changelings agreed with it? What if there was one who didn’t want to support the actions of others, who wants to try at peace himself?”

Trixie seemed to only be getting confused though. “What are you trying to say, Thornton?” she asked.

Thorax bit his lip. I’m trying to say that I’M that changeling, he thought to himself. Verbally, though, he said something different. “I just…see a lot of ponies that are willing to doom changelings to lives as hated enemies…just because they’re changelings…and I don’t think that’s right.”

Trixie took on a faraway gaze. “It’s probably not,” she relented.

“So why let it continue? I mean…can’t a changeling change too?”

Trixie was quiet for a moment, mulling what he had said. She sighed herself, dejected. “Look, Thornton, I get what it is you’re trying to say…but I worry it’s an idea that’s still too hard to swallow for some ponies right now. Best we could do is just make do with it for now…sometimes that’s just the best life gives us.”

“It’s not right though,” Thorax pressed. “We can all grow. We can all change. We can all be different and better than we were before…”

“…if only they would let themselves see it.” Trixie remarked, nodding. “No, I still agree with you Thornton.”

Thorax blinked. “Really?”

“Well, you do make a pretty compelling argument,” Trixie replied, giving him a shrewd grin.

The grin Thorax gave back was notably bigger and avid by comparison though, and he maintained it well afterwards too as they continued on with their stroll through the dark streets.

“Why are you so passionate on the subject anyway?” Trixie then asked after some moments of introspection.

Thorax hesitated. “Why aren’t you?” he asked instead.

Trixie thought about it for a moment. “Honestly? Because…I fear what might happen if the changeling causes trouble instead…the sort of damage it could cause.” Thorax snorted and turned his gaze ahead of them. Trixie glanced at him. “You don’t agree?”

“No, it’s not that, it’s just…” Thorax sighed. “I understand that fear. It’s a valid one. It’s just…I don’t want it to be one.”

“Who does?” Trixie remarked. “I mean…fear’s not fun. There are plenty of things Trixie fears that she takes no joy in being afraid of.”

Thorax paused a moment. “Like what?” he finally asked, curious.

Trixie glanced at him for a moment. “Don’t tell anyone,” she began. “But…I might have a fear of heights.”

Thorax glanced at her in surprise. “Really,” he remarked.

Trixie nodded. “It’s not even a reasonable one. I mean, there are some heights I’m totally okay with. Like…looking out the window of a tall building. I’m okay with that, but I’m not okay with things like…standing on the edge of a tall cliff, or looking over the edge of an airship…” she shuddered. “There’s a reason Trixie travels by wagon.”

Thorax pondered the matter for a moment. “Maybe it’s more a fear of falling,” he hazarded to guess. “You’re okay in the tall building because it feels solid to you and you feel safe from falling…but you don’t have that same sense of solidity on a cliff or in an airship.” He shrugged. “At any rate, it doesn’t seem so unreasonable to me. Falling from such a height would be rather unwise.”

Trixie chuckled. “True, and I suppose when you put it like that, it at least does make more sense than a fear of being crushed by a giant wheel…” Trixie admitted. Catching Thorax’s glance of puzzlement, Trixie chuckled. “Okay, so I’ve got an explanation for that one. Way back when I was just a little filly, I was playing with some toys out in front of our house when my dad starts backing his carriage out, not realizing I was out there and potentially in the way. Fortunately, he missed running me over, but only by less than a foot, more than close enough for me to watch the big back wheel of that carriage run over one of my toys, crushing it flat.” She shuddered again. “It was then I realized what would happen to me if I had been in that toy’s place, and it’s scared me silly ever since. For moons after that incident, I wouldn’t even go near any wheel bigger than my hoof. Eventually I learned I was safe so long I was in the right position in relation to the wheel and the direction it was rolling, and that helped me keep a lid on the fear, keep it from getting out of hoof…but even now, the bigger the wheel, the more leery I am around it.”

“Huh,” Thorax remarked. “I suppose I can see your reasoning for that, then. It’s definitely…different though.”

“No joke…all right, so you’ve heard some of Trixie’s fears,” Trixie continued, turning the topic around. “Now it’s your turn Thornton.”

“My turn?”

“Yeah, so we’re both even. What’re some things you’re afraid of?”

Thorax thought for a moment, debating some of things he feared. “Being attacked while submerged in water and helpless to stop it,” he replied finally. Catching Trixie’s incredulous look, he rolled his eyes. “Don’t ask.”

“Ooh-kay,” Trixie said, letting the ensuing question in her mouth drop, unasked.

“I’m trying to get a handle on it, though…so it’s not one of my bigger fears anymore now.”

“What are some of the others then, if I may ask?”

“There’re lots of things that I fear, Trixie.” Thorax stopped to consider some of them. Fear of discovery, fear of harm befalling Spike, fear of being separated from Spike or losing his friendship, fear of losing their employment…most of them revolved around his and Spike being outcasts on the run. One of them was even the fear that Trixie would ultimately betray him and give him away should she learn the truth…but admittedly that fear was growing fainter the longer he associated with Trixie. He glanced at the mare, watching and waiting for him to elaborate, and realized he had come to trust Trixie a great deal in the short space of time they had known each other…he had already entrusted her enough to tell her things he normally wouldn’t to most of anyone else. He wondered briefly what it was about Trixie that set her apart from other ponies, but ultimately decided it wouldn’t hurt to relate one more thing. “I suppose what my greatest fear is…it’s never having made some kind of difference in the world during my lifetime. Something with which to leave my mark…to help make it…” he hesitated, feeling a stir of uneasiness arise within him at the thought. “…better than it is now.”

Trixie went quiet for a very long moment after this. “I have the same fear,” she admitted solemnly.

Thorax glanced at her. “We’ll both just have to make sure it doesn’t happen then,” he stated reassuringly.

Trixie grinned. “Agreed.”

They kept walking, their conversation fading as they were left in deep thought over the matter. A short while later though, they strolled up to the front of Fly Leaf’s shop, dark and locked up for the evening still as expected.

“Here we are,” Thorax stated aloud as they arrived.

Trixie regarded the townhouse building for a moment. “This is where you live?” she asked.

“And work,” Thorax added.

“So you live in the same place you work,” Trixie summarized then chuckled. “Well, I suppose I’m one to talk, seeing I more or less do the same thing. My arrangement’s just more…mobile.”

“But you get to see more of Equestria that way, I would think.”

Trixie grinned smugly. “True, that.”

“Anyway, the front door’s locked up for the night, so I’m going to have to get in through the back,” Thorax explained as he turned for the alleyway that would lead to the back door.

“Ah yes,” Trixie said with a teasing grin, following. “Because you snuck out.”

“Only a little,” Thorax repeated, glancing back at her as they skirted around the building and towards the back porch. “My boss knows, and she’s going to let me back in.”

“Always good to have an accomplice when sneaking out,” Trixie agreed, maintaining her teasing grin.

Thorax twisted his neck back at her so to give her a mocking smirk as he pulled open the porch’s screen door then stepped into the porch to rap on the inner door leading inside. There wasn’t an immediate response, but he could see through the window that the light in the living room down the hall was still on and shadows were moving within, so this suggested Fly Leaf was still up and waiting for him as agreed. Thorax turned back to Trixie, waiting outside the porch and watching him through the open screen door.

“She should be here in just a moment,” Thorax assured. He fidgeted briefly then pressed on. “In the meantime…I guess this is where we part ways.”

“I suppose so,” Trixie replied. She grinned. “It’s too bad. I was starting to enjoy myself.”

“Maybe we can still cross paths with each other on occasion,” Thorax suggested.

“I wouldn’t mind that,” Trixie said, but then turned dejected a little. “Unfortunately, I’m leaving Vanhoover on Monday for the next destination to perform at.”

“Ah yes, the demands of being a traveling performer,” Thorax reasoned with an understanding nod.

“Yeah, it does tend to keep one constantly on the move.”

“Must make it hard to make and keep friends.”

“Well, you learn to get by through other means. Mail and all that, you see. I know a spell for sending mail to and from a continuously moving location, so I get by.”

“Hmm, I think I know the sort of spell you refer to…”

“That doesn’t surprise me at all, considering all the other spells you seem to know.” Trixie then sighed. “Anyway, what’s worse is I don’t expect to be up this way again anytime soon.”

Thorax nodded then strolled back across the porch to the open screen door. “Well then, Trixie,” he said, offering his hoof to her. “It was fun while it lasted.”

Trixie accepted the hoof and happily shook it. “Indeed it was. You take care, Thornton.”

“You too, Trixie,” Thorax replied with another nod of acknowledgement. “You sure you’re going to be okay heading back to your wagon on your own?”

“Yeah, I have my own ways of lighting the way,” she said, lighting her own horn with her magenta magic. She motioned to the ball of light Thorax had cast still hovering near her head. “Though I do wish I could take this with me.”

“Yeah, but unfortunately it doesn’t have that sort of range, it’ll dissipate after you’d get about a block away from me,” Thorax admitted, letting the ball of light zip back to join the original he had been generating on the tip of his horn before ending the spell altogether. “Anyway…travel safe.”

“Will do,” Trixie said with a nod of her own, and turned to go.

Thorax watched her start to go for a moment, inwardly debating. “Trixie,” he suddenly called for her. Trixie stopped and glanced back at him questioningly, waiting for him to continue speaking. Thorax hesitated for a moment, watching her. He was very conscious of the fact that she no doubt thought she knew him well by now but in reality he knew he was otherwise withholding many important things from her, and this weighed more heavily than usual on him. He was thus tempted in that moment to tell her the truth about everything, how he was a changeling in hiding, how he had come here seeking peaceful relations with the ponies of Equestria and so on, the consequences be condemned. But his nerved failed him at the last moment. “Thank you for the invite to the show.”

“Thank you for coming,” Trixie responded. She grinned. “I’m glad you did.”

“So am I,” Thorax said, returning the grin. He sighed. “Anyway…goodbye, then, I guess.”

Trixie shook her head. “Trixie doesn’t like goodbyes,” she stated. “So instead we’ll say…see you around.”

Thorax nodded. “See you around, then.”

Trixie returned the nod then pressed on once again, heading back on down the alleyway and turning the corner. Soon she was out of sight, but Thorax lingered there in the open screen door of the back porch, watching in the direction she had departed in for a long moment, thinking to himself. With another sigh, but a grin still on his face, he then turned his attention back to the inner door only to find that at some point while he had been turned away from it, Fly Leaf had unlocked and opened the door without his noticing and was now standing in the open doorway, watching him with a smug grin.

“And just what sort of time do you call this?” she asked.

Thorax gazed at her blankly for a moment, unsure how to respond. Eventually he leaned out the screen door he still stood in to gaze up at the sky. “Uh, well…judging from the positions of the stars and moon…”

“It was a joke Thornton, c’mon in,” Fly interrupted with a chuckle, motioning him inside.

Thorax stepped inside while Fly closed the door behind him. He gazed about at the dark hallway and listened for any sign of anyone else up and about within besides them. It seemed all was quiet within the shop though. “Spike?” he asked, turning to Fly as she finished with the door and joined him.

Fly grinned, leading the way down the hall. “Never even came downstairs after you left,” she assured. “He’s certainly long asleep by now.”

“Oh,” Thorax said, feeling a little relieved. “Good.”

“So…” Fly continued as she stopped in the living room to put things away. Thorax noticed she had appeared to be reading book on the couch while she waited for Thorax to return from the show. “…was it worth it?”

“Worth it?” Thorax repeated, not sure he followed, lingering in the door of the room.

“The show,” Fly clarified, closing the book she had left on the couch and putting it back its shelf. “Did you enjoy it?”

“Oh! Yes, yes I did,” Thorax assured with a grin.

“I thought so,” Fly remarked with a knowing grin as she reached over to turn off a reading lamp, “considering you had its performer tag along with you.”

Thorax winced as he realized she was referring to Trixie. “Ah, you noticed,” he summarized. “Uh, well, she insisted on coming along…she wanted to make sure I didn’t mugged or anything heading back.”

“Mm-hmm,” Fly hummed in that same knowing tone as she finished turning out the lights in the living room and they both turned to exit the room again.

Thorax frowned, sensing she was trying to imply something, but wasn’t sure what. “I had tried to assure her it wasn’t necessary,” he pressed as he followed Fly into the kitchen.

“And yet, you let her come anyway,” Fly pointed out.

“Well…” Thorax began, trying to explain. “We were talking, so…”

“Is that why you were out so late?” Fly asked as she slipped through the batwing doors leading into the main area of the darkened shop. “I mean, that show ended over an hour prior to now, and it doesn’t take that long to walk back here from there.”

“Uh, well…mostly,” Thorax admitted, continuing to follow his employer.

Fly stopped, turning to face him. She still wore that sly, knowing grin, but Thorax was still at a loss why. “Thornton,” she said gently. “Who stays out so late at night just to talk?”

Thorax gazed at her, still not following. “Apparently me, because that’s what happened,” he assured.

Fly rolled her eyes, catching on that Thorax wasn’t following. “Thornton,” she tried again. “did you enjoy the date?”

“Date?” Thorax repeated, and stopped to briefly review the encounter with Trixie in his mind. “…Trixie didn’t have any dates. In fact, I don’t recall her having any fruits, let alone a date…” he glanced back at Fly again. “…but she did offer me a soda.”

Fly shook her head, amused. “You’re so oblivious, Thornton.”

Thorax blinked. “Oblivious to what?”

“Case in point.”

“…oh.” Thorax still didn’t feel like he understood.

Fly chuckled, increasingly amused by Thorax’s puzzlement. “Surely you to did more than mere light conversation this evening,” she stressed. “One doesn’t just stay out this late long after a show’s performance only to talk.”

Thorax blinked owlishly at her. “But that’s really what we did,” he insisted innocently.

Fly gazed at him for a long moment, still wearing that knowing grin. Thorax wished he knew what it was that she apparently knew though. “A girl’s going to get old waiting for you to connect the dots, Thornton,” Fly quipped.

Thorax’s brow furrowed. “I…don’t see what…dots…there are that I need to connect,” he admitted, hoping this would spur Fly into elaborating. “I didn’t even know there were any of these dots to connect in the first place.”

Fly gazed heavenward, shaking her head again. “Did you at least get her contact information?” she asked, relenting to Thorax’s lack of understanding.

“No,” Thorax admitted simply. “Trixie is a traveler by trade and doesn’t have a stable address to be contacted at. I’m uncertain if she even has contact information to give.” He then paused, stopping to review his and Trixie’s conversation. “…though we did briefly discuss mobile mailing spells…but we never spoke about the actual addresses or spell matrixes needed for contact.”

Fly raised an eyebrow at him, still giving him that knowing grin. Thorax privately wished she’d stop, it was getting too perplexing. “Think that perhaps you missed an opportunity there?” she asked.

Thorax just gazed at her blankly. “Um…”

Fly chuckled in amusement, rolling her eyes again. “Go on, Thornton, go on to bed.”

“Oh, okay,” Thorax said, grateful for the end in the conversation and turned to head upstairs. “Good night, Miss Fly.”

“Yeah, have a good night, Thornton,” Fly replied still chuckling as she lingered downstairs to wrap up a few final things.

Thorax hurried on upstairs before Fly thought it prudent to ask him anymore puzzling questions, still at a loss as to what that was all about. This was pushed from his mind as he arrived at the door to his and Spike’s room though, and he slowed to gently nudge the door open, peeking inside. As promised, Spike was stretched out on the window seat with a blanket pulled over him and appeared to be asleep. Nonetheless, to be certain, Thorax slipped into the room quietly, closing the door behind him, and cautiously stepped up to get a closer look at the sleeping dragon. But sure enough, Spike was quite asleep, and didn’t react to Thorax’s presence in any appreciable way. Satisfied that Spike was still unaware Thorax had snuck out at all, not eager to have to explain himself if that wasn’t the case, Thorax dropped his disguise and settled into his sleeping nest, ready to go to sleep himself after the night’s events.

Reflecting back on them as he drifted off though, he did have to concede that, all in all, it had been a good evening.

Author's Note

Getting this posted a little later in the evening than usual, but at least I have a good reason; I was writing a future chapter and simply lost track of time. :rainbowlaugh:

Contact Information

Of course, it wasn’t lost on Thorax that he had gone behind Spike’s back going to Trixie’s show. Naturally, this thought didn’t sit well with him, believing he held Spike in higher regard than that—after everything Spike had done and sacrificed on his behalf so to ensure his well-being, it did seem to not show appreciation for the dragon very well…ungrateful even. But he attempted to justify it to himself by reasoning that both of them had blown the matter of Trixie’s show out of proportion. Either way, clearly it was no great concern now. Thorax had gone and seen the show and come back without problem and their cover still safe, the more important detail to remember. And the fact that Trixie proved to be looking to confirm he was at the show made him glad he did go, otherwise Trixie might have gone looking for her own answers on why he had failed to show, and that might not have gone nearly as well.

He was also still fully confident he had avoided any unwanted detection and that no one suspected him of being anything more than the pony he presently appeared as. Though he did allow himself to look back and wonder briefly why he had felt it so important to be in attendance for this show then, to feel obligated to go to such lengths to ensure he was at the show. Though it certainly contributed to his motivations, it wasn’t just because he wanted to see the show. It was more than that. But other than meeting Trixie and befriending her, he found he had no clear answer to that thought.

Regardless, Thorax didn’t want to dwell on the matter. He knew he was at least fulfilling an invitation in coming to see the show, and it all worked out in the end. It was just that he wasn’t sure how Spike would react if he found out Thorax had done this, and admittedly he hated facing the idea of the two possibly getting into a fight over what should really not be that big of a problem. Of course, it also occurred to Thorax that trying to hide he had snuck out from the dragon would only create more problems of his own making…so he at least conceded that he hadn’t thought this all the way through when he enacted on this half-baked deception. But seeing he had successfully pulled it off thus far made him hope he could perhaps keep it that way, so he wouldn’t have to face the possibility of explaining himself to the dragon.

Or so Thorax was thinking by the following morning. Up later than had become the norm for him because of seeing Trixie’s show, Thorax slept in a bit that morning, and as such, by the time he was roused by the sunlight steaming in through a gap in the window curtains, he realized he had missed Spike waking up himself. The dragon was already up and was presently in the bathroom, humming a little song to himself as he underwent his morning routine. Thorax could spy a glimpse of him through the open door, standing at the bathroom sink with a towel wrapped about his torso and a rag around his head to hold back his spines, still damp and drying from a morning bath. He appeared to be in the middle of brushing his teeth, which explained why the dragon’s humming was a bit more off-key than usual.

More importantly though, he was distracted, and Thorax thought this might be a good chance to slip away unnoticed. Rising and quickly throwing up his disguise as Thornton, he started to carefully slip past the open bathroom door, tip-toeing towards the closed door leading out of the room. Successfully making it that far, Thorax chanced a glance back at the bathroom, felt satisfied by the sound of Spike’s continued humming that he hadn’t noticed Thorax, and reached for the doorknob.

He then heard Spike spit into the sink in the bathroom. “Morning Thorax,” he called.

Thorax froze, realizing he had been noticed anyway. “Morning Spike,” he called back. “Just heading downstairs, might help Miss Fly with setting up for breakfast.” He proceeded to open the bedroom door.

“So just what kept you up so late last night anyway?” Spike asked next, apparently ignoring Thorax’s comment that he was leaving the room.

Thorax glanced back at the bathroom and noticed Spike had moved to stand in its doorway to watch Thorax, flecks of toothpaste still about his lips as he patiently waited for an answer.

Seeing he wasn’t going to get away without answering, Thorax sought an explanation. “Like I said last night,” he said. “I was helping Miss Fly with the bookkeeping.”

Spike raised an eyebrow at him. “Fly’s never up that far past eleven at night for bookkeeping,” he pointed out. “Not only is that so she doesn’t accidentally mess something up through sleep-deprivation, she doesn’t think it’s so important that it couldn’t wait until morning by that hour anyway.”

Thorax licked his lips, looking for a possible explanation. “Who said we were actually up that late?” he asked. “I mean, I wasn’t closely watching the clock, and you were already asleep…”

“I knew,” Spike assured him with a smirk, “because it gets too quiet up at night without you here, so I can’t help but notice when you’re not there.”

Thorax blinked. “Even when we’re both asleep?”

“Especially then.” Spike’s smirk grew. “You have a small nose-whistle when you sleep, Thorax.”

Thorax involuntarily put one hoof to his nose, not aware of this. At any rate, it was clear that Spike had been more awake during the night than he had realized, and he attempted to come up with an adequate cover. “Well…I suppose Miss Fly did send me out to run a quick errand to grab a couple things before bed, but…”

Spike raised both his eyebrows at him this time. “After eleven o’clock at night?”

Thorax shrugged weakly. “Guess it took longer than I thought.”

“Even Vanhoover’s practically dead at that hour; what could possibly be left to delay you by that time?”

Thorax winced, feeling he was starting to lose what little cover story he had. “Long lines,” he offered lamely.

Spike eyes narrowed doubtingly at this. “Thorax,” he said slowly. “What store is even still open that late at night, anyway?”

Thorax shifted his hooves slightly. “Lots of them.”

Spike frowned. “Name one.”

Thorax’s eyes wandered heavenward. “Uh, well…”

“And just what was it you’d gone out to get at such a late hour anyway?” Spike asked next, not waiting for an answer. It was beginning to be clear that Spike wasn’t buying Thorax’s cover story. “Or are you going to tell me you got mugged and the item stolen before you got back to the shop?”

Thorax sighed wearily. “That’s ridiculous, you know Vanhoover doesn’t have a history of ponies being mugged in the streets like that, especially at that hour,” he pointed out, an absolute truth he knew they both recognized very well. “You’d be in more danger of a mugging in the middle of the day than that late at night around here.” It was actually something Thorax had puzzled about before; were thieves in this area just not night owls? Not even in the rougher parts of town was there much criminal activity at night. Regardless, Thorax waved one hoof to push the subject aside, knowing Spike couldn’t dispute the matter. “So no, I wasn’t mugged, nor was I in any danger of being so. Besides, Trixie was right there to make sure I stayed safe at her insistence, so—”

Realizing his error, Thorax cut himself short, slapping a hoof to his mouth, looking wide-eyed at Spike. Spike however, merely raised an eyebrow at him again, overall looking smug. Dejected and realizing he had given himself away, Thorax then proceeded to take into his hooves the doorframe for the open bedroom door he had sadly never managed to get out of and proceeded to bang his head against it a few times in frustration.

Spike let him do so for a moment. “Did you enjoy the show?” he asked finally, in a perfectly calm tone. Thorax began to believe he had already been suspecting this was the case from the beginning, and was never as “unknowing” as Thorax had thought. It seemed he just wanted to get Thorax to admit it himself before calling it out.

Thorax sighed in defeat and decided he might as well confess all. “Yes, I did,” he admitted, then turned to face the dragon. He was pleased to note that, at the very least, Spike didn’t seem especially angry by all of this. Annoyed, yes, but that was better than what Thorax had feared. “Look, I’m sorry Spike, I shouldn’t have gone behind your back like this. It wasn’t that I didn’t trust you at your word or didn’t want to listen to your advice, and I know that, after everything you’ve done for me, it seems like a poor repayment to you to have disregarded it like I did, it’s just…” Thorax sighed. “…I strongly felt I needed to be at the show.”

“Why?” Spike asked simply.

Thorax shook his head. “I can’t explain it. It didn’t really feel like a mere want or desire, and even I have to admit there was little logic to it…I…” he shrugged. “…just felt I needed to be there. Maybe that was selfish of me in a way…but it just felt like what I had to do. I…I can’t explain it.” He paused to let that sink in then continued as he had a new thought. “And it turns out Trixie was watching out for me being there too, so she would have noticed if I wasn’t there. And I know I said we weren’t going to meet up and chat after the show, but we did, and…”

Spike motioned for him to be silent. “It’s okay Thorax,” he said. “I’m not angry at you. Not really. Well…maybe annoyed.” His eyes narrowed slightly. “Friends don’t keep secrets from each other. Not petty ones like this at least.”

Thorax shifted awkwardly, ashamed. “This all probably does seem petty to you, doesn’t it?” he admitted. He winced to himself. “I guess I didn’t even really try that hard to explain my side of things to you, did I? I just…acted. I…I didn’t really think about it.”

Spike nodded. “No, you didn’t.” But then he sheepishly gazed down at the ground and sighed. “But…looking back, I realize now that I probably wasn’t being totally fair too. You might be right, maybe I was being too overprotective. I guess that incident where you were briefly arrested by the police left me more on edge than I realized and I was scared a repeat could happen, something we couldn’t walk away from so easily this time.” He shook his head. “But I should know better by now, known that you’re perfectly capable of looking after yourself and thinking and judging for yourself what to do. You’re not an idiot Thorax, I shouldn’t treat you like one just because I’m scared that one day it’d go awry.” He motioned to Thorax with one set of claws. “And clearly you managed fine, because you went to Trixie’s show and back completely without incident. I mean, Trixie suspects nothing, right?”

Thorax nodded. “Right,” he confirmed. “If she did, she would’ve said something about it. We actually spoke at length in fact, and I found her rather friendly once you got her going.”

Spike raised an eyebrow at this. “Really?” he said, sounding like he had a hard time picturing that.

Thorax shrugged. “Well, she was for me,” he relented, conceding that he couldn’t confirm this would be the case for everyone.

“And you trust her?”

“Absolutely.”

“Don’t take this the wrong way Thorax…but why?”

Thorax puzzled the question in his head for a moment. “Because she wants the same that I do. Friendship.” He grinned a little. “And anyway…Starlight Glimmer befriended her despite pressure from others…isn’t that kind of the same as you befriending me despite being told not to?”

Spike let out a single chuckle, grinning a little himself. “I see your point.”

Thorax rubbed the back of his head for a moment. “You know…she’s really not that different from us, Spike. She has her own negative image that she’s trying to overcome, and her lack of progress frustrates her at times. She admitted to me that the fact Princess Twilight is still so reluctant to trust her bothers her greatly, as this leaves Princess Twilight too quick to judge her, too easy for her to mistrust Trixie, and overall not showing faith that Trixie could ever be a friend.” Seeing Spike’s gaze gradually turn distant during all of this, Thorax nodded his head, looking at him knowingly. “That wouldn’t happen to remind you of someone we know…would it?”

Spike was still and quiet for a long moment. He did a fair job keeping his face unreadable, but Thorax was still able to sense the guilt that was beginning to well up within him, the dragon realizing Trixie’s situation had eerie parallels to their own. “At any rate,” he finally said, choosing to not acknowledge this, putting on a grin for Thorax’s benefit. “Clearly, I misjudged the situation…and I regret that now. You handled the situation just fine and were right about how it needed to be handled, and I should’ve trusted you to be able to do that more, been more willing to hear you out and not so quick to shut you down. And we’re not in danger because of it, so…unless all that changes between now and then…I’m not going to let myself worry about it further, and just trust you knew what you were doing.”

Thorax grinned a little. “That’s grown up of you to admit, Spike,” he pointed out. He fidgeted briefly with his hooves. “I don’t know if that means I’m completely blameless, though. You’re capable of thinking for yourself too, and I know that. I shouldn’t forget that just because I don’t agree. I mean, your concerns weren’t entirely unfounded, and they still warranted consideration. And I don’t like admitting it, but you still have a point…just because we’ve gotten lucky the past few times doesn’t mean I should be taking unnecessary risks…and Trixie could easily be seen as one. And…I guess I didn’t have the greatest of reasons to go…just a gut feeling that I acted impulsively on. At any rate, I’m still sorry I didn’t put a bit more trust in you myself and kept you more in the loop about what I was doing. You deserved that just as much as I did, but I was too…” he winced, but pressed on, knowing he needed to admit it. “…too selfish to do it.”

Spike chuckled sheepishly. “I’d like to think so,” he agreed. “But speaking of, as friendly as Trixie seems to be to you, she’s still tied closely enough to Twilight and the others that I hope I’m not still being too overprotective in believing that you should probably still be cautious in what you say around her during future interactions for now, just so to be careful to not give her too many details about ourselves that she might then pass on to Starlight and the others, unknowing or otherwise.”

“No, I agree,” Thorax said, who relented in seeing the need for this himself. “However, Trixie is going to be leaving the Vanhoover area on Monday to continue her traveling performances anyway, and she admitted she didn’t expect to be back up in this area soon. So…this is probably the end of the matter.” Inwardly though, he sort of wished that wasn’t so, but he knew he couldn’t help it either way.

Spike nodded. “That’ll make it even easier then,” he said. “Just maintain what we’ve been doing until then, and then we won’t need to worry about it so much afterwards once we’re out of contact with her again.”

“I suppose not,” Thorax relented, though inwardly he sort of wished it didn’t have to be that way. Interacting with Trixie had reminded him how tiring it had gotten lately keeping undercover and how limiting that could be for interacting with others more than in passing. He found himself wishing he didn’t have to stay in hiding like this anymore, and wished life would give him that chance.

“Anyway,” Spike went on, glancing down at the towel he still had wrapped around his torso and moved to step back into the bathroom. “I need to finish getting cleaned up. If you’re still going downstairs Thorax, tell Fly I’ll be down shortly.”

“Will do,” Thorax replied, and at last slipped downstairs.

Their day proceeded on fairly calmly and normally from there, and rather enjoyably, nothing of great notice took place for the remainder of the day. Therefore, they were able to sit back and relax a bit, and with the weight of trying to hide that he had gone to Trixie’s show without Spike’s approval now lightened, Thorax found his mind clearer and better able to enjoy it. By the Monday that followed the next day, however, it was back to work as things proved to be quite busy in the shop.

A major delivery of new autumn—and the winter that would eventually follow—stock that Fly Leaf had been expecting was delivered on the back porch that morning as they were opening the shop, resulting in over a dozen large boxes of items that now had to be placed somewhere. Most of this would need to be stored with the rest of their stockpiled stock until it was time to go out on display, leaving Spike quite occupied in back reorganizing things accordingly to fit and then put it all away. Meanwhile, Fly was busy taking stock of things in the front of the shop, determining where everything was presently, what she could stand to move or take off display entirely for the changing season, where to put the new stuff, and how she wanted it all best arranged. This had her going about the shop checking through the shelves and their contents and planning out what would need to make this all happen. It was slow work, made slower still by the fact that she was getting pulled away from it every now and then to assist customers on demand.

This left Thorax manning the cash register and front desk of the shop as he often did, but as both Fly and Spike were frequently preoccupied with other tasks, this also meant Thorax was more or less running the shop himself. Fortunately, while it wasn’t a slow day per se, it also wasn’t an extremely busy day in the shop, which meant Thorax was able to manage. But every now and then he was put in the situation of having multiple things demanding his attention at once and none of his usual coworkers free to assist in lightening the workload. He was soon looking forward to his upcoming lunchbreak more than usual, anxious for the breather it would provide.

Lucky for him, a gap in the chaos started to form as said break drew near, which meant he was less likely to need to delay taking the break because of other matters needing attention first. Though he knew he wasn’t home free just yet, and he watched the clock closely as it ticked closer to the designated time, hoping nothing would come up between now and then. Still, as customers continued to come and go from the shop without trouble and Thorax still being able to manage the eased workload the gap in activity had generated, it seemed he was safe. Naturally though, something did come up…but it turned out working in Thorax’s favor.

The local postmare had arrived to deliver the usual mail, but this time the mail included a medium sized package for Fly Leaf the postmare needed a signature for. When Thorax drew his employer’s attention to it from where she stood across the room, taking stock of the contents of one set of shelves she intended to rearrange, Fly reasoned it was likely the set of autumn-themed stationary samples she got from one of her stock suppliers, and thought Thorax would be more than okay to sign for it for her.

“You are my employee and just as part of this shop as I am, so in this case, I think your signature is just as good as mine,” she reasoned, busy with what she was doing and not in a good spot to pause.

And as the postmare had no issue with it, Thorax proceeded as instructed, and was in the middle of signing for the package as Thornton (he occasionally wondered if it was actually proper for him to do that, considering Thornton wasn’t his actual name) when he heard the front door of the shop open and close. He glanced up from the form he was signing just enough to confirm a new customer had entered and was now approaching the front desk, moving to stand behind the waiting postmare. “Welcome to Fly Leaf’s Books and Stationery,” he greeted as his eyes went back to the form he was signing. “I’ll be with you in just a moment.” He finished with the form and handed it back to the postmare. After a few parting remarks, the postmare then departed and Thorax turned his attention fully to the newcomer for the first time. “Now, how can I—Trixie!”

Sure enough, the performer stood before him on the other side of the front desk, amused by Thorax’s surprise to see her. She no longer wore the hat and cape like she did during the show and seemed back to the more casual state of mind like how Thorax had first met her at the store, yet that same smug attitude she typically carried was still about her. Thorax could tell she was inwardly pleased to see Thorax again though. Thorax felt the same, but at the same moment of his surprised explanation of Trixie’s name, he saw Fly Leaf look up from what she was doing out of the corner of his eye, and knew Fly would be listening curiously to everything that transpired now.

Trixie, however, seemed either unaware or didn’t care, her focus completely on Thorax. “Hey Mister Jar Catcher,” she said in a teasing tone, but then turned more frank. “I thought I’d pop in to say hello real quick.”

“Oh,” Thorax said. “Hello then.” He caught movement from Fly out of the corner of his eye again and caught her shooting a quick glance at the batwing doors leading into the back. No doubt she was thinking if Spike was still in the back, where he couldn’t see or hear this conversation transpire. He realized Fly didn’t know yet that Spike had found out Thorax had gone to Trixie’s show anyway, but at the same time, he felt he didn’t want Spike involved in this for the moment either. “So, uh, I thought you said you were leaving town today…”

“I am, in fact I was just heading out now,” Trixie said, and pointed out the front window. Sure enough, her wagon could be seen temporarily parked out front. “But I was passing by here, figured you’d be in here working, and, well…” she suddenly turned concerned, realizing something. “I’m not catching you at a bad time, am I?”

“No, no, not at all,” Thorax assured her quickly, and grinned. “I can always spare a moment for the Great and Powerful Trixie after all.”

Trixie gushed for a second under the playful pandering to her ego. “Well, a moment’s unfortunately all I have to spare, because like it or not, I’ve still got a schedule I need to keep,” she explained. “But a moment’s better than nothing to stop and give a few quick sendoffs, and anyway,” her grin turned teasing again. “I wanted to assure you that, yes, I was able to navigate Vanhoover’s streets back to my wagon just fine that evening.”

They both shared a quick laugh at this. Thorax used the moment to chance another quick glance at Fly Leaf and noticed that she had positioned herself as if to appear like she had gone back to work, but Thorax wasn’t fooled; she had moved herself closer and had an ear turned so to listen in. Thorax wasn’t sure to frown in disapproval or blush in embarrassment at this. At any rate, he decided to ignore her so to spare the well-being of his nerves for now.

Trixie then spoke again, bringing his attention back to her. “Anyway,” she said, reaching behind her to pull out a rolled up tube of poster paper sitting on her back. “I remembered you mentioning that your roommate had accidentally ruined the last poster I gave you, so as a parting gift, I thought I’d give you a replacement before I left.”

“Ah!” Thorax said, accepting the rolled up poster. “I’ll have to make sure to keep this one away from any orange juice then.”

“You do that,” Trixie with a chuckle. “I don’t want to have to run all the way back up here again just to get you yet another poster.”

Thorax chuckled too. He sheepishly toyed with the rolled up poster in his hooves for a second. “Well then, thank you for the new poster Trixie,” he said. “And thank you again for the invitation to your wonderful show this past weekend. I really did enjoy it.” He extended a hoof for shaking. “Do have safe travels.”

“I certainly intend to,” Trixie replied, shaking the offered hoof. “And thank you for all of your advice, suggestions, and support. Trixie isn’t going to forget that any time soon in her travels.”

“My pleasure. So where are you heading next, anyway?”

“In the direction of the Smokey Mountains. There’s a little village near there that, according to rumor, is simply starved for a wowing display of awe-inspiring magic.” Trixie proudly put a hoof to her chest. “Naturally, I intend to give them all that and more.”

Thorax smirked knowingly. “Naturally.”

“After that, I intend to keep heading south, in the direction of Canterlot, stopping at points of interest along the way. I’d like to stop at Ponyville too if I can manage it in my busy schedule and visit Starlight Glimmer, but we’ll see where fate takes me.” Trixie then nodded her head apologetically and turned for the door. “Anyway, I really would love to keep talking, but unfortunately, my moment to do so is up and should go. I need to be on my way. Got a lot of ground I want to cover before having to stop for the night.”

Thorax nodded back, understanding. “I won’t delay you then. See you around, Trixie.”

Trixie paused at the door and glanced back at him with a grin. “See you around, Thornton,” she said. “I hope to hear from you again soon.”

“Likewise,” Thorax replied as the mare then slipped out the front door and back out into the busy street.

He watched her hook herself back up to her wagon and start to pull away through the front window, a little sorry she couldn’t stay longer. He then turned his attention to the new poster she had given him and unrolled it, holding it up before him with his hooves. He examined the familiar cheery graphics with a grin then noticed with a bigger grin that Trixie had taken the liberty of signing this one, her signature proudly on display in the bottom corner of the poster. He definitely decided this one he wanted to keep around for as long as he could.

He proceeded to lower the poster again so to start rolling it back up until he could put it away properly in his room, only to notice Fly Leaf had repositioned herself so to stand directly behind the poster, wearing that knowing grin again while tilting her head slightly to one side so to gaze at the back of the poster. “…what?” Thorax prompted, giving her a puzzled look.

Fly merely nodded her head in the direction of the backside of the poster. Still puzzled, Thorax gently flipped it around and realized there was something written on the back too. A quick reading showed that Trixie had jotted down what appeared to be a spell matrix for a mobile mailing spell preset for a specific destination, and some brief instructions on how to use it. Even though Thorax was quick to identify it and the intent behind it clear, he found himself flabbergasted by it anyway. “What’s this, then?” he asked aloud without thinking.

Fly strolled towards him. “I believe it is contact information,” she said as she stepped past the front desk where Thorax sat. She gave him a wink as she passed then proceeded on back to where she had been working taking inventory.

Thorax watched her walk past, confused for a brief second, but then it suddenly and at last clicked what it was she had been trying to imply to him since he returned the night of the show. He felt his heartbeat quicken as a result. “Miss Fly, Trixie and I are just friends,” he quickly assured his employer.

Fly glanced up at him, not appearing the slightest bit deterred by this. “Well then, I suppose there’d be no harm in keeping in touch with a friend now is there?” she reasoned.

Thorax opened his mouth to immediately reply, then stopped and closed it again so to think about it for a moment. “No, I suppose there’s really not,” he conceded finally, permitting himself a small grin.

Fly returned the grin, and gave him yet another wink before returning to her work.

As soon as his lunchbreak formally began not long thereafter, thankfully only slightly delayed, Thorax brought the poster up to his and Spike’s room. After only a moment of surveying both it and the room he stood in, he finally opted to hang it on the wall adjacent to the bathroom door, above his sleeping nest. He was very pleased by how it looked on the wall, but he did start to wonder what Spike would think about it once he noticed the new poster.

He didn’t have to wait long, because it was only a matter of minutes later when Spike abruptly stepped into the room. “Hey Thorax,” he greeted, glancing in the direction of the changeling lying on his sleeping nest and flipping through a book before turning his attention to the papers on their desk. “Just grabbing some story notes I want to work on while I eat lunch downstairs.”

“You’re not interrupting anything anyway,” Thorax assured the dragon as he watched Spike sift through the papers.

Spike then found what he was looking for and turned around, facing Thorax fully for the first time. His eyes darted to Trixie’s poster hung on the wall behind Thorax and took it in for a brief second. Though he sensed a burst of dissatisfaction in the dragon’s emotions, Spike acted nonchalant about it. “Tried your hoof at some redecorating?” he quipped, nodding his head at it.

Thorax glanced up at it. “Trixie dropped by and gave it to me on her way out of Vanhoover,” he explained.

“Ah,” Spike said, nodding his head slowly. “Well, now that she has, I suppose that’s that for her then as far as we’re concerned.”

Thorax gazed at Spike for a second then took a deep breath, knowing he needed to say it. “I’m writing her a letter.”

Spike paused, brow furrowing as he shifted his gaze off the poster and back onto Thorax again. Thorax again sensed the burst of dissatisfaction but also surprise and puzzlement. So to confirm he was serious, he quietly used his magic to pull out the letter he had begun writing to Trixie for Spike to see. Spike glanced at it for a long second.

“I’m assuming you plan for this to be a regular occurrence,” Spike reasoned categorically.

“That depends on whether or not she writes back,” Thorax responded in the same tone. He opted not to say that he fully expected this to be the case though.

Spike stared at the letter Thorax had started for a long moment. Thorax got the strong impression that he did not approve, but at the same time seemed to be trying to keep it to himself for Thorax’s sake. “The same rules apply,” he finally instructed, turning his gaze back on Thorax. “No telling her anything she doesn’t need to know about us, for our own safety.”

“I know,” Thorax assured the dragon.

He fully expected Spike to do something to object further given Spike’s emotive attitude towards the idea, but to Thorax’s surprise, Spike didn’t make comment on it. “Well, enjoy your break while you can, because it looks like it’s going to keep being busy today,” Spike said instead as he turned for the door, ending the discussion without event. “Don’t let Fly Leaf work you too hard while I’m stuck in the back.”

“You know she’ll do no such thing, Spike,” Thorax replied as he watched the dragon step out of the room again. “Enjoy your lunch.”

He continued to stare after Spike even after the dragon had exited and closed the door to the room behind him. He briefly wondered why Spike hadn’t commented further on the matter; he clearly wanted to. Whatever his reasons though, Thorax decided he would leave the subject alone and instead, he pulled out the slip of paper he had transferred the given spell matrix for mobile mailing to (having written the spell matrix down in his native changeling language) so to not lose it and resumed writing what he suspected was going to be the first of many such correspondences with the traveling magician. Until Spike did comment further, Thorax decided he would keep the details of this newfound correspondence as it developed to himself, not because of any malice or distrust towards Spike, but because it felt…private.

But as it happened, that really was the end of it. Spike never did comment again on the matter.

Author's Note

Welcome to the first new chapter after the latest update to the site. And as a result of said site update, how it handles formatting for these chapters has changed. On one side it’s a plus, because now I don’t have to go through and manually add in things like italics or double-spacing around paragraphs when posting new chapters now. But on the other, I can’t help but notice that it’s failing to render the customary indents at the start of paragraphs even when it should for some reason. Not a big thing in the grand scheme of things...but it does bug me. I can’t seem to fix it at the moment though, so until new developments arise, we’ll have to live with it for now.

Anyway, after getting the comments on some of the past Trixie chapters, this chapter changed shape in various minor details, mostly manifested in Spike and Thorax’s discussion about Thorax going to Trixie’s show behind Spike’s back like he did. This was always the plan, but I added a number of details to address certain points because of that reader input. Also because of that same input, I also changed slightly how the chapter was to end; originally, Spike was implied to have noticed the new poster, but for reasons not then revealed, he says nothing about it, and because he doesn’t, Thorax feels justified in not revealing he was going to be writing letters to Trixie as a result, keeping that all secret from Spike. But seeing they had just conversed about keeping such secrets earlier in the chapter, I realized it made it feel too much like they had learned nothing, so I changed it to it’s present state. At least I was still able to retain the unresolved tension between the two over the matter of Trixie, so there will be intrigue there...but we’ll be getting back to that matter at a later date. :raritywink:

Hatching Day

The weeks continued to go by, and before either of them knew it, Spike and Thorax entered their fourth moon staying in Vanhoover. Even though four moons wasn’t a significantly great stretch of time, the two still couldn’t help but take note of it, finding it significant that they had successfully remained in hiding for four moons straight; no easy feat considering the circumstances. Spike was particularly proud by the fact they had settled into living fairly normal lives despite it all, and indeed had come to see living life working in Fly Leaf’s shop in Vanhoover as the new normal. It was getting increasingly hard to see how they could live any other sort of life. They felt part of the city and its populace now, less outcasts on the run and more just two friends getting through life. Spike personally thought this point was very important to cherish, and Thorax could appreciate the dragon’s points on the matter too.

However, Thorax’s attention was more often turned to other, more petty, concerns, as this transition into the fourth moon in Vanhoover also brought autumn properly into the city at long last. The transition between seasons now complete, the leaves were now turning into a spectacular array of colors, and the temperatures cooled dramatically more still, to the point that wearing a jacket when going outside was usually advisable by default for anypony. As Thorax had been promised, it was a very pretty change in scenery that promised to stick around for a good while still before it came time for winter.

Spike admitted to finding the timing of the new season somewhat jarring; he explained that because it was further south, he fully expected that Ponyville was still in the final throes of summer, only just now beginning to seriously prep for autumn and hadn’t undergone the change in scenery yet themselves. This was confirmed to Thorax in Trixie’s letters that she and Thorax had been routinely exchanging since the performer’s departure from Vanhoover, her most recent putting her somewhere well outside the Canterlot area but where she notes that the leaves on the trees were all still “quite green” despite the weather gradually cooling. For Trixie, this was preferred, as she professed herself to be a “summertime mare” who hated the cold weather that came during the other times of the year.

And Thorax found he could relate. As pretty as the autumn season appeared, the cooler weather that coupled with it got tiring for the changeling. It wasn’t so much that he couldn’t handle the cold; his natural chitin doubled as a layer of insulation, and the energy produced from wearing his magical disguise as Thornton offered some additional heat. When either of those weren’t enough for Thorax, he would put on his jacket to wear, adding yet another layer of insulation. So he could manage. The problem though was that having to “just manage” with the cold so continuously eventually started to grate on him, to the point that he began to get frustrated and annoyed by it enough to verbally gripe about it from time to time. He would even occasionally curse the cooler temperatures in his native language without thinking, often with a degree of passion when caught in the moment.

He nearly gave Spike a panic attack at one point when he did this cursing without thinking in the presence of Fly Leaf, who of course overheard. Thankfully, recalling that he was multilingual, Fly didn’t think anything of it—helped by the fact she didn’t recognize the language—and merely asked what language it was Thorax had spoken in. Embarrassed at his own lack of caution though, Thorax instead shrugged it off, neglecting to answer by telling Fly that she was better off not knowing, thus cluing Fly in that whatever he said, it wasn’t considered polite. Shrugging it off then, Fly didn’t pry further, but she did advise Thorax to “try and keep the swearing to himself in the future”…only adding to Thorax’s embarrassment. He was more cautious about cursing the cold after that point, but he still could be heard doing it under his breath from time to time.

It was the only downfall worth mentioning though, as otherwise things were proceeding well for them. Of particular note for Thorax was the continuation at his attempts to create his own changeling cheese substitute, working at making the cheese from scratch himself. After about two weeks of cooking, curdling, forming, and aging (as Thorax himself described the process of making the cheese) Thorax felt he had finished his first attempt at the cheese, having allowed the cheese to age the same amount of time real changeling cheese would, and one time at dinner shared the resulting off-white colored cheese with Spike and Fly Leaf as a special treat, hoping to get their input on it. Thorax personally thought that while the cheese turned out successfully and was the closest in taste to the changeling cheese he desired, he felt it still wasn’t quite there. He attributed the discrepancy to the fact he had no changeling milk to use in making it (a fact Spike was still thankful for), and instead had to make do with the only other milks available to him on the pony market; in this instance he used regular whole cow’s milk. Therefore, when this sampling took place he was already debating trying again, altering the recipe in hopes of getting closer still.

But he changed his mind when the cheese proved to be a hit with Spike and Fly Leaf. Spike in particular was surprised by the taste of the soft and creamy, yet savory, cheese, especially since he had gone into tasting the cheese very skeptically, initially unable to shake his preconceptions about it. But he quickly saw why Thorax was trying so hard to replicate such a flavor, and Fly was quick to agree. Additionally, the cheese was not only agreed to be good, but also unique in flavor; none of them, not even Thorax who knew the most about cheeses, could think of a preexisting type of cheese that quite matched it in flavor or texture. So since Thorax had conceded it wasn’t quite the changeling cheese he was searching for (not that he referred to the desired cheese by that name in Fly’s presence) and knew of no other cheese available to the pony palate it could fall under, he decided that it was probably some unintentional new kind of cheese altogether. Intrigued by this, Spike and Fly Leaf decided to give it a name and soon settled on calling it “Thornton Cheese,” in honor of its creator.

Thornton Cheese continued to prove to be a hit in the group after Fly, in a moment of experimenting during lunch one day, found the cheese went well on a salad. Spurred by this discovery, she also found it was good on a lettuce and tomato sandwich. Spike did some of his own experimenting after hearing this and found the cheese could be used to make a mean grilled cheese sandwich too, which rapidly became his new favorite choice for lunchtime meals. As this popularity led to the first batch of Thornton Cheese running out in short order and both Fly and Spike eager for more, Thorax agreed to make additional batches on demand, ensuring an ongoing supply for them to enjoy.

Business had also been going well for Fly’s shop at this time as well, which was especially encouraging considering that the transition switching from summer-themed stock to autumn-themed stock was initially marred with problems, particularly when Fly ended up receiving far more autumn stock from some of her distributors than originally told to plan for and briefly had no place to put all the extra stock, while stock from another provider was delayed from arriving when expected. This resulted in the switch getting slowed down and Fly’s shop briefly lagging behind in its competition who by then had already switched (a fact rival shop owner Letterpress was quick to vocally note to Fly Leaf when she could). But the problems had been successfully smoothed over after some hard work and now business was back at the desired standards. According to Fly, sales were strong, but at the same time, business wasn’t maxed out to the point that it was overwhelming. Nonetheless, Spike had found that as their workload could change at any given time, he had taken to planning ahead for the next week’s activities so to avoid conflict.

“Any events of note that I need to keep in mind for next week, Thorax?” he asked his changeling friend one evening after work while looking at their calendar.

“Nothing that comes to mind,” Thorax responded aloud without looking up from the airship textbook he was reading in his sleeping nest.

Spike tapped the end of the pencil he held against his chin, regarding the week listed on the calendar, certain he was overlooking something. “You’re positive on that?” he asked to be certain. “I feel like I’m overlooking something…”

Thorax didn’t respond right away. Spike assumed he was thinking about it, but as the changeling hadn’t outwardly reacted otherwise, it was hard to be certain. “Are you perhaps thinking of that late shipment of autumn-themed stock that the distributor had to delay shipping to us?” he suggested finally.

“Ooh!” Spike said, reminded of this and proceeding to jot down the needed note on the calendar. “That’s probably it right there. I don’t have that noted already.” He chuckled in relief. “Luckily, that’s not expected to arrive until the week after next, so that gives me time to prep and figure out where to put that shipment when it finally does arrive.” He gazed at the calendar again. “Is that really everything though? It seems like that leaves next week more…empty than usual.”

“It’s everything that I can think of.”

Spike glanced over at the changeling from where he sat on the window seat. “There must be something happening next week,” he urged.

Thorax turned the page in his book. “Well, I suppose I will formally be a year older this next Thursday if that’s really of any interest,” he commented disinterestedly without looking up from his book.

Spike blinked and continued to gaze at him. “Wait…are you saying that Thursday is your birthday, Thorax?” he asked in surprise.

“My hatching day, yes,” Thorax confirmed in the same tone as before, like it was all no big deal to him.

It was to Spike though. “Thorax!” he cried in surprise at his friend. “Why didn’t you say something? We should totally do something to celebrate that day!”

Thorax glanced up at him with a blank look. “Why?” he asked simply.

Spike was momentarily brought up short, not expecting this. “Well…it’s your birthday,” he reasoned like that was explanation enough. It was for him at least.

“My hatching day,” Thorax corrected patiently. “That was the day I hatched from my egg. Technically speaking, my birthday would be more the day my egg was laid, and we’ve already passed that day.” He frowned, puzzled. “I don’t know why you’d want to celebrate the day my egg was laid anyway…just because the egg was laid doesn’t mean it will successfully hatch or that the resulting offspring is healthy.”

“Oh, stop being technical, you know what I mean!” Spike said with a teasing smirk. “I hatched from an egg too you know, but I refer to it as my birthday anyway because that was still the first day of my life. Isn’t that worth celebrating?”

“Certainly,” Thorax agreed, but then pressed on. “But this wouldn’t be the first day of my life, merely the yearly anniversary of it.”

Spike stared at him blankly. “Isn’t that still worth celebrating?” he asked then realized what might be the problem here. “Don’t changelings celebrate birthdays?”

“Hatching days. And they’re…noted, at least.”

Spike wanted for Thorax to elaborate, but instead the changeling turned back to his textbook. “So…” he prompted finally. “…I’m guessing that means no parties or celebrations or anything like that on a changeling’s birthday, or hatching day, or whatever you want to call it.”

Thorax shrugged. “To changelings, it’s not really a day for frivolous celebrations like that, no,” he confirmed simply. “It’s really more just a day for some self-review. A little introspection back on the past year of a changeling’s life and if they’re still meeting the expected or needed tasks assigned by the hive. At most, the changeling’s closest higher-up will sit down with them to review if they’re doing as required, or if they are in need of reassignment, or more.”

Spike gave Thorax an unimpressed look at this explanation. “So basically changeling birthdays are celebrated by simply giving the changeling a performance review,” he summed up in a flat tone.

Thorax nodded. “I never particularly held the day in much regard myself considering my year’s review of actions was often met with criticism and disappointment. You know, because I was always the oddball changeling in the hive, never meeting the usual changeling expectations. But it has its uses too, so I never could object to it too much…especially now, where I can introspect as I see fit, and not the hive.”

Spike frowned. “Well, that’s no way to celebrate somebody’s birthday.”

“Hatching day.”

“Whatever!” Spike jumped down from the window seat and strolled up this friend. “Look, let’s not do it the changeling way this year and have a little Equestrian-style celebration instead? It’ll be fun!”

Thorax tilted his head at Spike. “What’s wrong with doing some traditional introspection?” he asked. “It makes sense to me. That’s how I’ve always done it. It’s how every changeling does it. It’s really not a big deal either way, though. After all, a newly hatched nymph just means another mouth to feed in a hive that only has so many resources to support itself. I don’t see why we need to blow it out of proportion with a distracting celebration.”

“Boy, you changelings are buzzkills when it comes to birthdays,” Spike said, partly disappointed at the dull and frankly demeaning way of celebrating birthdays and partly amused by the stark contrast of it all. “Do you even know how ponies celebrate birthdays?” he then challenged with a grin, putting his claws on his hips.

Thorax considered the question for a moment. “I’ve heard bits and pieces in passing over the years,” he admitted, “Obviously never actually participated in one before, though.” That alone told Spike a great deal, but Thorax pressed on before he could comment. “Look Spike, I appreciate what you’re trying to do,” he assured the dragon with a sympathetic grin. “But I just don’t think it’s necessary to celebrate something as simple like my hatching day with such…pomp. Now I get you were raised in a culture that doesn’t do it that way, and I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that. But must we really make a big deal out of this just for my sake?”

“Yes,” Spike stated with a brutally honest smirk.

Thorax returned it. “Ha-ha,” he said sarcastically. “My point, Spike, is that no, I don’t think I’m too interested in doing something to celebrate my hatching day, at least not this year. Okay?”

Spike sighed, relenting. “Okay, okay, I won’t keep trying to get you to plan for a birthday celebration, Thorax,” he promised.

“Hey Fly, Thornton’s birthday is this next Thursday,” Spike told Fly Leaf the following morning while she was making breakfast and while Thorax was still busy upstairs, where he wouldn’t overhear. “We should totally surprise him with a party to celebrate!”

Fly looked up from the waffles she was in the middle of making. “Sounds like fun,” she agreed with an approving smile. “What sort of party did you have in mind?”

“Something to show it’s worth it to Thornton, and that it was important enough for us to do for him,” Spike said, having spent the past night considering the matter, “But at the same time, not overwhelming. Thornton seems to not want to make a great big hullabaloo out of this, so we probably shouldn’t go all out.”

“Hmm,” Fly hummed, considering the matter as she pulled a complete waffle off the iron. “Sounds like we’d want to keep it to a private affair then…just him and us. But we can still have a small party, some treats, maybe some simple decorations and the sort…”

Spike nodded in agreement. “That sounds good to me. I think he’d appreciate that.”

“Then that just leaves the matter of gifts,” Fly said, stacking the completed waffles on a plate to serve.

“That’s the other thing I needed to talk to you about,” Spike said, following her as she moved to take the waffles to the table. “I want to get him something special…something that tells him that he’s not just anybody to me, but my best friend, and how much that means to me. Something spectacular to reward him for everything he’s done for all of us that he’ll love to death. The perfect sort of gift, you know?”

“Ambitious,” Fly noted, raising her eyebrows and intrigued. “What sort of gift are you thinking of?”

“And that’s the problem,” Spike said with a sigh. “I’m not sure what gift would be…you know…good enough. I was hoping you’d have some ideas.”

“Well, let’s look at it logically,” Fly said, seating herself at the table and pulling out a spare notecard and pencil that was sitting on the adjacent counter. “You want to get him a gift that will both convey his importance to you, and also be something he’ll actually enjoy and want to have. I completely want to do the same if possible. It’s the only way to give gifts after all.”

Spike chuckled.

“So the first thing to do is to pander to Thornton’s interests,” Fly said, taking up the pencil and gearing up to write. “Let’s name what some of the biggest of those interests are.”

Spike rubbed his chin thoughtfully as he sat down to the table too. “Well, Sky Trek obviously,” he began. “He is interested in expanding his collection of copies of the books…but getting him a book just seems…lame.”

Fly chuckled as she jotted it down on the paper. “It’s still a start,” she reasoned before adding another. “But let’s not forget he also likes Doctor Hooves, and there seems to be a fair bit of merchandise for that…we could see what some of our options there are, see if anything jumps out to us. What else?”

“Girly pop music, apparently. I mean, the things I’ll walk in on him listening to at times…”

“I guess we should also list the obvious one of cheese.”

“Yeah, but it seems kind of moot when he’s taken up trying to make his own cheese, and anyway, of the other cheeses out there we could buy, he still hasn’t decided what ones he likes the most.” Spike tilted his gaze upwards as he continued to think. “That does remind me though, when we’re out running errands, he often likes to stop and watch any street performers he passes…though I’m not sure what sort of gifts we could find relating to that.”

Fly glanced up at him as she continued jotting all of this down in her list. “He’s still experimenting with magic in his free time, isn’t he? Maybe we could get him a notable magic textbook. One of those sorts you can’t just get anywhere, so that it’s not just a book.”

“He’s also shown an interest in cartography and navigation…he at least seems to be pretty good at it, so there could be something there.”

“Helium balloons seem to fascinate him for some odd reason. There was this one occasion where a foal came into the shop with such a balloon, and I swear, Thornton was watching the thing bob around with such fascination the whole time, it was like he was afraid he was going to miss something if he looked away even for just a second.”

“Well I guess everybody has their simple pleasures. He likes popping bubble wrap too, come to think of it.”

“But then who doesn’t?”

“And airships. He loves airships. In fact, we probably should’ve listed that one first.”

“Last but not least, then,” Fly said as she noted it down. She then picked up the list and looked it over for a moment. “It gives us a good frame of reference of what sort of things we need to be looking for, though.” She handed the list over to Spike. “We’ll have to stop there for now, since breakfast is getting cold.” She motioned to the plate of waffles waiting for them to partake in them. “But you and I can be thinking about what sort of gifts we can come up with fitting with any of these categories, keeping our eyes out for anything that might be suitable, and we can meet back up later and discuss what we came up with.”

“It’s a plan then,” Spike said, with a nod in agreement.

“Good,” Fly said, then jerked her head at the door. “Now go fetch Thornton and get him down here so we can have breakfast.”

The day then pressed on as they finished breakfast and they opened up the shop for business. Things were proceeding fairly normally, keeping them at the usual level of busy, but nonetheless, both Spike and Fly were keeping their eyes out for any inspirations for a good birthday gift for Thorax. Spike was expecting that they would meet up again either around dinnertime or sometime later that evening to further discuss the matter. However, instead, the subject came back up that afternoon, after Fly had retreated into the kitchen for her lunchbreak while Spike and Thorax continued to run the shop.

She hadn’t been in there for much longer than half the break at best when she suddenly came sprinting back out, an excited look in her eyes. “Spike!” she practically squealed as she hurried over to where the dragon stood behind the cash register, finishing giving a customer their change (who casually backed away with a leery look as Fly approached). “Quick, where’s Thornton?”

“Upstairs on the second floor,” Spike said, gazing puzzledly at Fly through his glasses. “He’s helping Mrs. White pick out what colors of stationery she wants for her latest craft project. Why?”

“Because I’ve found the perfect gift for us to give him for his birthday,” Fly said eagerly, and she slapped a newspaper she was carrying loudly on the front desk before Spike. “Bam! What do you think of that?”

The paper was turned to the classifieds, and Fly pointed her hoof at a specific entry listed on it. Spike leaned closer to read it for a moment. He then glanced back up at the earth pony with wide eyes. “No way.”

“Yes way,” Fly replied with a grin.

“You’re serious?”

“Of course I am, Spike, or I wouldn’t have left in the middle of my lunch just to show you!”

Spike studied the entry again, his face a mixture between excitement and apprehension. He had misgivings about even daring to think if this could really be pulled off. “Can either of us even afford that?”

“I’m thinking we can, if we both pitch in and pool together our funds for it,” Fly reasoned keenly. “We can make it a gift from the both of us. Somehow I think Thornton wouldn’t mind that at all.”

Spike stared at the entry in the paper for a second longer, rubbing his face as he considered the matter. “Thornton is going to flip when he finds out about this,” he said. He glanced up at Fly with a grin on his face. “It’s perfect.”

Fly grinned herself. “I figured you’d agree.”

Author's Note

"But what is it? WHAT IS IT?!"

-All of you after reading this chapter

The material at the beginning of the chapter is mostly stuff pulled from another chapter that got scrapped that I didn't want to loose, and so I quickly squeezed it into this chapter. Otherwise, I would've gone into much more depth about that Thornton cheese, but, alas, it was not meant to be, I suppose.

It was fun coming up with a list of things that interested Thorax. :pinkiehappy:

Vergilius

Thorax awoke gently, feeling well-rested after what had been a good night’s sleep. Stretching in his sleeping nest, he raised his head and scanned the room. Unsurprisingly, he noted it was about the normal time he awoke these days, in the early morning, not long after sunrise. He could see a sliver of sunlight streaming through the crack in the drapes covering the window of their room. However, he also noticed that the window seat that normally served as Spike’s bed was already vacant. This caught Thorax by surprise; Spike typically was no early morning riser, and was usually still deeply asleep by this time of morning, reluctant to get up for anything short of an emergency or some other unusual circumstance.

Puzzled then, Thorax scanned the room for an explanation, but found the room was vacant of occupants besides himself. He thought that perhaps Spike had risen to use the restroom, but a glance at the restroom’s entrance that sat adjacent to his sleeping nest showed that the door was ajar and open just wide enough to show no one was inside either. Thorax was then forced to conclude that Spike was already up and about elsewhere in the building for some reason despite the early hour. Irregular indeed, but also not entirely a cause for concern; Spike would’ve woken Thorax as well if the reason Spike was up so early was an emergency or urgent.

Thorax therefore assumed that Spike was up early for some innocuous reason and opted not to worry about it for now. Instead, he rose to his hooves, stretched a few more times, stopped to use the restroom himself, and then put on his usual disguise and stepped out into the hallway. He headed for Fly Leaf’s room, the door already ajar, for their usual morning practice of guizhou fa, politely knocking as he approached.

“Miss Fly?” he called. “Are you ready for practice?”

Instead, he got no response. Feeling puzzled again, and not hearing or sensing any sign of anyone’s presence within the room, he nudged the door open more fully with his snout and peeked into the room. Like his own room, he also found it void of occupants, and this Thorax found too curious to ignore. Fly Leaf was remarkably reliable on her schedules in the morning, and she was always already up and in her room, setting up to practice guizhou fa, by this time without fail. Never once had this not been the case since the morning Thorax first discovered this was what she did so early in the morning. This combined with Spike also being not where he normally was by that hour was enough for Thorax to start feeling the nudge of concern in the back of his mind.

But he still reasoned there had to be a perfectly logical and mundane explanation for all of this, and thought that maybe they had both already gone downstairs. Thus he turned to the stairs and wandered down them to the second floor. There he paused and glanced around the spacious area that made up the second floor.

“Spark?” he called as he arrived. “Miss Fly?” But he received no response.

Unlike the building’s other two floors, which were more compartmentalized into individual rooms, the second floor was a large, open space broken only by a series of stout shelves of stationery products arranged in a regular grid pattern across the spacious main room. A quick scan was enough to show it was vacant of any occupants unless there was someone in the smaller side rooms, and there were only three such places on the second floor: a maintenance room for the heating and water in the building, a supply closet full of cleaning supplies, and the second floor bathroom.

As Fly typically used the second floor bathroom in the mornings and evenings for herself, Thorax checked there, thinking that perhaps she was simply delayed within, but he found the room empty. He didn’t really think Spike or Fly would be in the maintenance room or the supply closet, so he skipped checking them for now and proceeded on down to the first floor.

“Miss Fly? Spark?” he called again as he arrived in the first floor’s front room, scanning the room for any sign of them.

He didn’t see them, but this time he got a response to his calls. “We’re in here!” he heard Spike call faintly from back in the kitchen.

Thorax felt some of the tension that had started to coil up within him release, pleased to find his growing worries were unfounded as he made for the batwing doors that divided the front room from the back kitchen. “I assume you’re both back here getting a head start on breakfast, then,” he reasoned aloud as he pushed open one of the two batwing doors, trotting into the room beyond. “But isn’t it still a little early for—?”

“SURPRISE!” Spike and Fly interrupted by shouting the moment he entered and turned to look in their direction, finding them gathered around the kitchen table wearing party hats, with a bundle of colorful balloons tied down to the middle of the table. “HAPPY BIRTHDAY!”

Thorax gazed at them with wide eyes for a moment, then let himself relax, narrowing his eyes slightly as he smirked a little. “Of course,” he mumbled as he let the batwing door still propped open with his hoof swing shut again. He glanced in the direction of Spike, who was wearing a big and impish grin. “I thought we agreed we weren’t going to do a party?” he asked as he strolled up to the table.

“No, I only agreed to not keep trying to urge you into planning the party,” Spike corrected smugly, raising one claw as he made his point. He stuck a party hat on Thorax’s head, snapping the pointed hat onto the cyan mane of the changeling’s disguise. “I didn’t say anything about not going to Fly Leaf and secretly planning to surprise you with a party anyway.”

Thorax rolled his eyes, but found he couldn’t be angry or annoyed. “All right, all right,” he conceded. “We’re doing the party then, I guess.”

Fly chuckled, and motioned for Thorax to sit down. “Don’t worry, Thornton, we’re still keeping it small,” she promised. “But I think I speak for the both of us when I say you’re not going to be disappointed. First, though,” she turned to the counter behind her, “some celebratory breakfast. It’s your favorite!”

She then placed a tray of toast and butter on the table before them. Thorax laughed at the sight of his typical food choice for eating at breakfast, so to keep up appearances. “I suppose it is,” he agreed with a smile, helping himself to a slice.

Fly and Spike both sat down and joined him, helping themselves to slices as well. But as toast alone wasn’t quite filling enough for the two of them, they added on additional foods to the meal for themselves. Spike got the clever idea of spreading some Thornton Cheese between two of the still-warm slices of toast and eating it like a sandwich (an idea Thorax then had to try for himself, even though he had already eaten his customary amount of toast). Fly, meanwhile, sliced open a grapefruit to eat with her toast.

While they ate, Fly and Spike took turns explaining in brief how they came to plan him a birthday party and what they had done to set it up to surprise Thorax without his noticing (which they found wasn’t hard at all; Thorax hadn’t suspected a thing), and that they would be opening the shop up late today so to have the party. Then, with some hefty prompting from Spike, Thorax explained—without revealing that it was due to his changeling background of course—how he had typically celebrated his birthday (Thorax had to keep resisting the urge to correct them that it was technically his “hatching day”) in the past to Fly. Like Spike, Fly found the introspective practices of changelings “insufficient” for celebrating a birthday, and was only all the more glad they had taken the liberty of throwing him a party themselves.

After they had finished breakfast, Fly then pulled out three cupcakes, and placing one bearing a lit candle before Thorax, she and Spike sang “Happy Birthday” to him before urging him to make a wish and blow out the candle. Unfamiliar with this birthday practice, Thorax had to think about his wish for a moment before finally settling upon just wishing to continue to have the company of his friends, glad that he could have them. They then all took a cupcake apiece to eat.

Thorax found he enjoyed the sweet and creamy taste of his cupcake. “This is pretty good,” he remarked aloud in between bites.

“Glad you think so,” Fly said, pleased. “I have to admit, though, just making you one cupcake still seems a bit insufficient. In fact, Spike and I had discussed for a while about whether or not to make you a whole cake instead.”

“I eventually talked her out of it,” Spike offered, and gave Thorax a wink, knowing Thorax could only eat so much solid food in one go. “I didn’t think you’d eat all of it, considering you’re such a picky eater and all.”

“I probably wouldn’t have, so thank you,” Thorax agreed as he finished off his cupcake. Having already eaten more solid food than he normally would for one meal, his stomach was starting to protest slightly, in warning that eating more still wouldn’t be a good idea.

“In retrospect though,” Fly continued with a smirk, “I should’ve just made you my cherry pie. I know you’ll eat that.”

Thorax perked up at this, hopeful. “Did you?”

“No,” Spike answered quickly and firmly, having not forgotten what happened the last time the changeling was permitted to indulge on the pie.

“Balani devoveo,” Thorax cursed under his breath, disappointed.

“Anyway,” Fly pressed on, downing the last of her own cupcake then dusting the crumbs off her hooves. “It’s time now for the best part. We’ve got a present for you, Thornton.”

Thorax glanced up at her in surprise. “Oh!” he declared before proceeding to scan the room for it. “Where is it, then?”

“Now see, that’s the thing,” Spike remarked as he popped the last of his cupcake into his mouth and he and Fly both rose to their feet. “We gotta take you to it.”

Thorax’s brow furrowed slightly as he hesitantly rose to his hooves as well. “…why?” he asked, not understanding.

“You’ll see,” Fly promised, then turned for the entrance to the back hallway. “C’mon out back. I’ve already got my cart waiting.”

“Oh, we need a cart even,” Thorax mumbled with a little apprehension as they all filed out to the back of the shop, where indeed Fly’s cart was parked, waiting for them in the back alley.

His apprehension then grew as Spike clambered onto his back to tie a blindfold over his eyes. “So you don’t see where we’re going and figure out what your gift is and ruin the surprise too soon,” Spike explained, before leading his blindfolded friend into the back of the cart. “Now you’re good to climb aboard.”

Thorax blindly but successfully hopped into the back of the cart while he heard Fly strapping herself up to the harness up front. “You do realize that I don’t need my eyes to do basic navigation, right?” he asked aloud as he found himself a comfortable place to sit. Changelings were more than capable of using their other senses when needed to find their way around, especially in a familiar location like Vanhoover was to Thorax.

Spike was already a step ahead, though. “I thought of that,” he explained as he whisked away a cloth covering Fly’s record player sitting in the back of the cart with them, and set the needle to play.

The moment the hard rock music on Spike’s record reached Thorax’s ears, the disguised changeling clamped both hooves over them and dropped to the bottom of the cart, the assaulting noise disorienting his other senses almost immediately. But understanding Spike’s intentions, Thorax found himself laughing regardless. “Darn you,” he declared through his chuckling, the chuckles returned by Fly and Spike as the cart started moving and they set off.

Fortunately, Spike recalled that when they had first discovered that changelings reacted badly to Spike’s preferred choices of rock music and were experimenting with it, attempting to discern why, they found that the volume of the music determined how much of a negative effect it had on Thorax’s changeling senses. As such, during the ride Spike kept the record player’s volume adjusted so it was just loud enough to keep Thorax disoriented, but not so loud that it was too overbearing for the changeling. After all, he only wanted to keep Thorax from figuring out where they were going, not to cause him undue discomfort.

It also ensured that Thorax was able to keep enough focus so to be able to still maintain his disguise, seeing they were out in public and all. Yet even though Thorax couldn’t see them, he did wonder how his no doubt odd reactions to the music looked to other ponies. He even wondered what Fly’s perceptions of it all were, not knowing what Spike had told her to explain this effect to her. Fly seemed generally unfazed by it all though, as near as Thorax could figure out (he had a hard time even accurately sensing her emotions in this state) since she wasn’t reacting much at all to this. He swore he even heard her casually comment “He really doesn’t like hard rock, does he?” to Spike at one point while waiting at what he presumed to be a stoplight, but it was hard to know for certain over the rock music that was still playing.

Finally, they pulled to a stop at what Thorax presumed was their destination and Spike at last stopped the record. “So, feeling disoriented yet, bud?” he joked to his friend as he and Fly helped him clamber out of the back of the cart again, still blindfolded.

“Only mostly,” Thorax replied, blindly letting them guide him towards wherever they were heading. “I was still able to figure out that we’re on the far north side of Vanhoover…I just don’t know where exactly on that side. The central portion, I would think though.”

There was a moment of silence at this, and Thorax could just picture Fly and Spike exchanging surprised glances quickly, and he permitted himself a smug grin.

“Well, just so long as you don’t know where exactly we’re at just yet, that’s what’s important,” Fly eventually replied before nudging him forward again. “Now c’mon, we’re almost there.”

They led him a few steps over what felt like sidewalk under his hooves before he heard the click of a large door opening, and Thorax realized they were entering a building. He sensed the room they then stepped into was spacious, large, and mostly empty, as he could make out a faint echo to the sound of their steps. Hearing the door then click shut behind them, Thorax was led a few more steps further into the room before they stopped and sat him down on the cement floor.

“All right then,” Fly said as Thorax felt Spike reach up for Thorax’s blindfold. “You ready?”

“As I’ll ever be,” Thorax said, getting increasingly puzzled about just what this gift they were planning to give him was. Whatever it was, he practically didn’t even need to smell the excitement they were both giving off in their emotions; he could hear it in their voices.

Spike then whisked the blindfold off of Thorax, the changeling blinking his disguised eyes a few times to adjust to the light. “SURPRISE!” Fly and Spike both declared, throwing their hooves or claws out before Thorax as they both stood before him, watching him closely so to see his reaction.

Thorax then focused his attention on what lay past them. His eyes then went very wide. He thought for sure that there had to have been some sort of misunderstanding, and that what lay before him couldn’t possibly be his gift. He started to anxiously scan the room for what he thought would be the real gift, only to find there was nothing except for an empty shipping crate sitting almost out of sight behind the central object of the room. Even then, Thorax was just about ready to head over to the shipping crate and look inside it anyway when he caught sight of Spike eagerly glancing between him and the central object and Thorax realized it really was their gift to him. His jaw then began to drop, so shocked he almost forgot to continue maintaining his disguise for a second.

They were standing inside the spacious interior of a hangar at the Vanhoover airship yard, and docked neatly within was a sleek air yacht of about forty feet in length. Her envelope was not filled to capacity at the moment, the balloon slung in the usual restraining slings to keep it in place while the airship itself rested gently on the floor of the hanger, low enough that its stern elevator fins jutting from the tail of the ship touched the ground, but nonetheless she was an impressive sight. Her hull was elongated and curved, the nose coming to a sharp point, the point being emphasized further still by the craft’s bowsprit extending out from the tip of the prow. Clearly the yacht was built for speed. Yet it wasn’t precisely a small ship; though she didn’t have a quarterdeck like some other airships, she did have a sizeable control cabin sitting in the aft section of her topmost desk like a one-level deckhouse, and her girth and depth were overall large enough that she clearly had a number of compartments below deck as well, suggesting that she was likely well-equipped with accommodations for her crew. Appearing to be freshly painted in a sandy beige color with golden trim, she overall struck an awe-inspiring figure.

Flabbergasted, Thorax continued to gape at the craft before him, his jaw limply moving up and down as he attempted to form the right words to convey the thoughts racing through him. “Wha…buh…?”

“Ha, speechless!” Spike crowed, pleased by Thorax’s reaction. “I knew you would be!”

“But…it’s…how did you…?” Thorax continued to stutter, his heart beating faster and faster as he began daring to believe this was actually happening.

“So here’s the story we were told,” Fly said, stepping forward with a grin so to patiently explain. She motioned to the airship with one hoof. “This air yacht was originally owned by a local rich business pony living in Vanhoover, but he’s recently come into possession of a newer and slightly bigger air yacht, and as a result didn’t have enough need to keep this one in his possession any longer. He wanted to see to it that it still got a good home though, so as a courtesy, he donated it here to the Vanhoover airship yards along with a donation of funds to pay for any refurbishing it needed, which the airship yards have already done and handled themselves. But, they’ve since determined that they don’t actually have much use for the craft here at the airship yards and thought it’d be better off back in the hooves of a private owner, and were looking to sell it to a buyer, and fast.”

“As such,” Spike continued, picking up the tale, watching as Thorax numbly started to step closer to the docked airship, “they were selling it for a cheaper price than it would normally go for, and Fly and I were lucky enough to be the first potential buyers to seriously inquire about it. So we pooled together some of our funds to get enough to buy it…” He grinned. “…and now we’re giving it to you, Thornton.”

Thorax had by this point stepped close enough to the airship that he could reach out and touch the hull of the craft, but he still hesitated, scarcely able to believe it was really his. He continued to try and find his voice again long enough to actually speak a coherent sentence. “…this…this is all for real,” he finally managed to get out, his voice unsteady as he still tried to wrap his head around this.

Spike laughed. “Yes, we’re not pulling your leg, Thornton,” he promised. “We know how interested in airships you’ve been lately…so we figured you’d be all for owning one.”

Thorax let out his breath in a long whoosh, feeling pins and needles of excitement all over his body as he continued to stare in awe at the airship before him. He licked his lips briefly. “S-so this airship…she’s…she’s really mine?”

“Yup,” Fly Leaf said, reaching into her saddlebags to pull out a sheaf of legal-looking papers. “We’ve already got all the paperwork sorted out for you and everything. All that’s really left to do to make it final is to have you sign your name on the deed and then it’ll be legitimately yours from here on out, no ifs, ands, or buts.”

Thorax continued to take deep breaths, trying to keep himself calm.

“Of course, you can’t legally fly it yourself just yet,” Spike conceded as he and Fly watched Thorax stand beside the airship. “You’d still have to get an airship pilot’s license first, but I’ve been looking into the steps required for that, and I think you can get one easily enough in short order without running into any problems that would…hinder…things.” He gave Thorax a wink, trying to subtly convey that he found no potential problems to Thorax pursuing the license that would also risk them being discovered too much. “In fact, it looks like you were right, and that training cruise you did as part of that airship flying day camp counts as giving you a head start towards that.”

Thorax wasn’t even looking to see Spike’s wink and missed it completely, but he did resolve to himself then and there to do whatever he needed to get the required license as soon as he could. For now though, in the silence that followed, he gazed up and down the length of the airship with a reverence of one who feared that simply one wrong move would cause it all to vanish. Nothing of the sort had happened though, so finally Thorax gathered enough nerve that he gradually lifted up one hoof and gently reached out to touch the side of the airship’s hull, resting his hoof on the smooth material. It felt glossy. Solid. Real. It was in that moment that it really started to sink in that this airship before him was indeed his to use as he pleased now.

With a sharp inhale, Thorax removed his hoof and pressed both it and his other forehoof to his mouth, feeling his emotions bubble up within him against his control, about to burst forth and overwhelm him. When he finally turned and looked back at Spike and Fly Leaf watching him for the first time since he had approached the craft, they saw that Thorax had tears of joy starting to brim in his eyes. Without warning, he suddenly sprang forward and wrapped the two in a bear hug.

“This…is the greatest thing…anyone has ever, ever…done for me!” he declared in staggered bursts, clearly trying to maintain his composure long enough to say it, so overcome with delight as he was.

It was actually somewhat overpowering for Spike and Fly Leaf. Thorax’s joy even seemed so thick that it was almost as if they could feel it themselves as well. Both were momentarily silent, unsure how to proceed. Fly was especially surprised, as while still good, this wasn’t quite the reaction she was expecting from him. Spike, however, recovered more quickly, and with a touched grin of his own, wrapped one arm around his friend’s neck so to give him a loving pat.

“You deserve it, bud,” he said softly, his own emotions thick in his words. He let Thorax go on trying to get his emotions back in control before, in a more light-hearted and teasing tone, adding, “Glad we went ahead and threw you a party anyway?”

Thorax laughed a loud and real laugh at this and nodded his head. Wiping his eyes and a little more in control of his composure again, he released the two and turned to look back at the airship with an awestruck gaze. He nodded his head at it after a moment, gesturing with one hoof. “So…what’s the name of this air yacht?”

“She doesn’t have one at the moment,” Fly Leaf explained, her own grin returning as she stepped forward and placed a hoof on Thorax’s shoulder. “When the airship yards refurbished her, they decided to strike her original name and leave her available for recommissioning at the buyer’s discretion once purchased. That means you can name her whatever you like, Thornton.”

“Oh,” Thorax said, struck by the possibilities as he gazed at the airship thoughtfully.

He was silent for a moment afterwards, so Fly then added, “You don’t have to come up with a name right this second, of course. You’ll just need to come up with one before you take her out on your first flight with her, so the control towers will have a call sign they can refer to her by.” Thorax kept gazing in deep thought at the airship though, so Fly pressed on still. “But if you like, I’m sure Spike and I can come up with a few suggestions.” She turned her gaze to the airship herself. “Personally, I like the name Aurora.”

“That’s not bad, actually,” Spike agreed, stepping up to stand on the other side of Thorax. “It makes me think of another name to consider: Hyperion.”

“Not bad, not bad,” Fly Leaf remarked, nodding her head, then offered another suggestion. “How about Corona Borealis?”

“Or how about Amity? Oh, oh, or even better! Thornton, you could name it after that airship in all of the Sky Trek books! What’s its name again? Something that starts with an E…”

“Now Spark, I’m sure Thornton will want to use a more original name than that. So how about…say…Orithyia?”

“No offense Fly, but what does that even mean? Why not call it something ponies would actually know? Like…I don’t know…how about Starstruck?”

“Well fine, he could name it after one of the princesses then…Celestia or Luna or…”

“Ha, no. A better name would be…say…actually, I’m drawing a blank…Lilac Sky, maybe?”

“But it’s not painted lilac or have lilacs anywhere on it. You might as well call it the Lavender Spirit or something like that.”

“Fine. Call it…eh…Akron.”

“Or how about Macon?”

“Oh, I know! Call it the Spirit of Adventure! Because, see, that implies that he’s flying for the ad—”

“Vergilius.” Fly and Spike immediately went silent and glanced at Thorax for his sudden declaration. Thorax turned around so to return the gaze at both of them. “Her name is Vergilius.” He said this very definitively, showing it was his final choice.

Spike and Fly exchanged looks. Fly finally shrugged. “All right then,” she concluded. “Vergilius it is.”

They both turned and gazed back at the docked airship for another moment or two.

“You know, I think we’ve all looked at the outside of this yacht long enough,” Spike finally interjected. He nudged Thorax with his elbow. “You ready to take a look at the inside?”

Thorax turned to look at him and nodded his head eagerly. “Yes!”

Spike laughed, and motioned at the gangplank that led up onto the craft’s main deck. “Then after you, my friend.”

Thorax didn’t need any second bidding, and quickly galloped on up the gangplank without further hesitation. Chuckling, Spike and Fly Leaf followed him aboard and together they started to tour the craft. Spike and Fly had already toured the craft before themselves, confirming that the airship was indeed worth purchasing, but even then it was hard not to look around the craft without being impressed. The main deck itself, other than being fairly sleek and refined in design, was fairly routine in shape and design, but Thorax was pleased to see that the main deck had many storage compartments built into it to use as needed. In the aft was a hidden hatch that led down into the newly dubbed Vergilius’s closet of an engine room, which was far smaller than Thorax was expecting considering the last airship engine room he had been in, but he also saw it was because the Vergilius was equipped with far more modern engines that required much less space, and were overall cleaner. Thorax also noticed the engines had been newly refurbished and appeared barely used as of yet.

The deckhouse taking up most of the aft half of the main deck was divided into two simple rooms. The front contained the ship’s helm, the controls for which also seemed to be newly updated or replaced, as well as the ship’s radio, a slew of storage areas, and the hatch leading to steps leading down below. Divided from the front by a door, the back room contained an office-like navigation station with a rear-facing desk for map-reading and course-charting purposes positioned under a pair of wide windows looking out the back of the craft, with storage space for papers, maps, and other relevant equipment lining the walls on either side.

The below decks contained the yacht’s cozy living space, and was informally divided into four major separate cabins, so marked by the doorway hatches that could be used to close off each section. Upon heading down the stairs into one of these cabins located in the aft-middle of the ship, one found two wall-mounted beds (or “berths” as Thorax explained the technical term aboard an airship was) stacked atop each other, but other than the entrance to the stairs, the cabin contained little more than that except storage space in the forms of a closet and various cabinets or drawers. Heading towards the ship’s prow however led to the more sizeable cabin, which contained the ship’s galley and saloon—the ship’s kitchen and sitting/living/dining areas, respectively. It also housed one of the two toilets (or “heads” as Thorax again explained) aboard directly across from the galley in its own little enclosed room for privacy. Beyond that in the ship’s nose was a third cabin which housed two more beds, this time set on either side of the room and angled with the pointed shape of the ship’s nose so that they made a V-shape. At the very back of the ship was a more impressive stateroom, bearing a full queen-sized bed and a private master bathroom in the corner.

Overall, the ship was very comfortable and almost luxurious, with the mahogany wood paneling that lined the interior of the below decks only adding to this appearance. It made Thorax quite convinced towards the end of their tour that this was not a cheap airship, and kept wondering aloud just how much it had cost Fly and Spike to purchase. But they both refused to tell him, reminding him that it was a gift from them to him, and he needn’t worry about the price. However, Thorax did eventually get them to admit that it at least didn’t cost them nearly as much as Thorax expected, explaining to him again that, because the airship yards were looking to sell the ship as quickly as they could, they were selling it at what they estimated would be about half the normal resale price for the ship. This didn’t give Thorax an exact number for the cost of the airship, but it did give him a rough idea, and saw that although it likely still cost a pretty penny, the purchase was apparently a heck of a deal, considering the excellent condition of the ship for the price it cost.

Whatever it cost his two friends to obtain, Thorax was still immensely grateful that he had such friends willing to go to such lengths just to surprise him with a gift for his hatching day celebration, and further, he was overjoyed to possess the airship. He told them as such after their tour and they had sat themselves on the U-shaped seat that wrapped around the small table in the airship’s saloon, and they were in turn ecstatic to continue to hear that Thorax was pleased with the craft.

After that, the subject turned to other, but still related topics, namely discussing what Thorax would still need to do to make use of the airship, primarily in getting his airship pilot’s license (which upon discussing the steps necessary, Thorax agreed with Spike that obtaining the license wouldn’t cause too much trouble and that little in the process involved him risking being discovered and revealed, at least certainly no more than the several other things he had done and gotten away with undiscovered in the past). It also led to Fly Leaf sitting down with Thorax and assisting him with signing the remaining paperwork that would confirm his ownership of the airship. Thorax was more than happy to do so, and signed them all as Thornton as he usually did…although when it came to signing his name on the airship’s deed, he did inwardly lament that he couldn’t sign with his real name, and wished, just this once, he actually could for a change.

As they were wrapping up this process and Thorax signed the last form, Spike strolled up after wandering off for a second, a thick volume in his claws. “Here you go bud,” he said as he plopped the book onto the tabletop beside Thorax. “I found the yacht’s operating manual…figured you’d want to look through it first chance you got.”

“Ooh, I do,” Thorax agreed, finishing signing the last paper and sliding it back over to Fly before pulling the manual closer to him, opening it to read.

Fly, meanwhile, looked through the papers to make sure everything was in order, then took the stack, tapped it on the edge of the table to straighten it, and put the stack back in her saddlebags. “Well, that’s got that sorted out,” she said with a grin. “Congrats, Thornton, once we get these papers back into the hooves of the airship yard staff, you’ll officially be the owner of an airship.”

“I can’t wait,” Thorax remarked with a grin as he glanced up from the book.

“Couldn’t we drop them off at the main office now?” Spike asked as he leaned on the edge of the table, watching the two.

Fly stopped to consider it for a moment. “The right ponies are probably in by now, yes,” she admitted, rising. “So yeah, I could probably do that. Unless you want to do it, Thornton.”

Thorax again glanced up from the book. “If you need me to, I certainly can.”

“I’d think you wouldn’t actually need to, seeing you’ve already signed everything,” Spike reasoned.

“He’s probably right, we were told while we were handling the other paperwork that all we needed to do is turn in the final signatures and that was all,” Fly remarked. “They probably don’t care who actually hands it in so long as everything’s still in order.” She rapped the table with one hoof decisively. “So tell you what, Thornton. You stay here and enjoy the airship. I’ll run and drop off this paperwork real quick. Shouldn’t take long.”

Spike glanced back at Thorax, who was already engrossed into the operator’s manual. “We’ll probably still be right here by then,” he told Fly with a grin.

Fly chuckled and turned to exit the airship, heading back up to the main deck. Spike watched her go, then once she was out of sight, plopped himself into the seat she had vacated across the table from Thornton. “Well, now that she’s gone…”

Thorax wasn’t really listening. “Huh,” he remarked aloud as he read the opening chapter of the manual. “Apparently this craft is a Shenandoah Type-40 Private Air Yacht…capable of a top speed of seventy-five point five knots.”

Spike blinked. “How fast is seventy-five point five knots?”

Thorax glanced up at Spike. “About eighty-seven miles per hour.”

“Ah.” Spike watched Thorax continue to read the manual for a moment. “So anyway…you’re calling it the Vergilius.”

“That’s right.”

“Can’t help but notice that sounds like a changeling name.”

Thorax chuckled. “It is.” He glanced up from the book again. “It’s not too obvious, is it?”

Spike shrugged. “I don’t think so. I was only able to recognize it because of what you’ve taught me of your language, and I’m no expert at it as you know. Since most other ponies haven’t even heard linguae mutationis before, I doubt anyone else is going to make a connection.” He paused, and frowned. “Unless they’re another changeling.”

“Even then, they’ll likely keep their distance,” Thorax reasoned. “Changelings typically don’t interact with each other unless they have to when ‘out in the field’ like this, so to help ensure the security of each other and lessen everyone’s chances of discovery. After all, a lone changeling is less likely to be discovered in comparison to a whole group. And as I’m no doubt considered a known traitor of sorts to the hive by now, I’d imagine they’d especially keep their distance from me.” He returned to his book. “I think I’m safe in reasoning that there’s no harm giving a privately owned airship a changeling name, then.”

“Hey, I don’t have any problem with it,” Spike assured. “I’m just curious what your reasons for picking it are.”

Thorax glanced up from the manual once more. He was silent for a second as he considered how to best respond. “You remember the story I told you, about the collapse of the last changeling hive mind some generations ago?” he began by asking.

Spike nodded. “You said some liberated changelings formed something of a resistance group that helped bring it down.”

Thorax nodded. “The leader of that group was a changeling named Vergilius.”

Spike’s eyebrows went up, beginning to understand why Thorax picked the name. “I take it he’s something of a changeling hero, then?”

“More than that, he later went on to become a prominent king changeling upon the hive mind’s collapse.”

Spike straightened, surprised. “A king changeling?” he repeated. “Can’t say I’ve ever heard of a king changeling before.”

“They’re immensely rare. Vergilius was the last and most recent one known to surviving changeling history, and as I already explained, that was many generations ago.” Thorax pushed aside the manual he was reading and leaned closer to Spike so to explain. “Unlike queen changelings, it isn’t genetic. King changelings aren’t born, they’re made. I suppose they’re actually not unlike what alicorns would be for ponies. They come about only when the changeling in question commits such a powerful and noteworthy deed that he…sort of…magically ascends into a new form we changelings call a king changeling. They are highly respected, to the point that our respect for such a figure is unparalleled in changeling culture. A king changeling is the only kind of changeling who can overrule a queen changeling.”

Spike blinked in surprise again. “No joke?”

“Oh yes, because they have all the same abilities as a queen changeling would, and then some, excepting gender of course. In fact, past history shows that the arrival of one usually signified the king changeling becoming the new and undisputed leader, with the queen changeling becoming subservient to the king changeling in some manner, and that generally depended on the rule and will of the individual king changeling. Again, according to history, most queen changelings would become leading aides or advisors to the king changeling, or even, on occasion,” Thorax hesitated, suddenly feeling awkward, “the king changeling’s…mate.”

Spike pictured something like this happening to Queen Chrysalis and had to laugh. “I bet Chrysalis would hate having that happen to her.”

Thorax chuckled, but nodded seriously. “She probably would, but most likely that would only result in her losing support of her followers and leaving her considered disposed of and cast from the hive.”

“Dang. Where’s a king changeling when you need one these days?” Spike grinned. “I can see why you chose to name your airship after this Vergilius fellow.”

“Well to be fair, it wasn’t only because he went on to become a king changeling. Vergilius wasn’t just a king changeling, he’s perhaps the most famous and prominent of the known king changelings. Not only was he the leading changeling for the resistance that collapsed the last hive mind, he also played a key role in guiding the changeling race into entirely abandoning the hive mind practice henceforth. Because of that, he’s considered the changeling responsible for ushering in the modern era of changeling history and defending changeling freedoms and individuality, which resulted in the creation of many modern hives as a result…at least until Chrysalis’s great-grandmother conquered all of the known hives and brought them all under her control, forming them into the one hive you and I know today.” Thorax timidly tapped his forehooves together. “I decided to name this airship after him because he’s something of a personal hero to me as well. He helped bring about good and great change to my race, helping them for the better…much like what I hope to someday do in seeking friendship and peace with ponies and anyone else I can, so…it seemed fitting.”

Spike grinned. “With all of that in mind, it really does.” Thorax returned the grin, and then, when Spike didn’t immediately comment further, pulled the manual back before him to read. “I hope this airship will help you in bringing about that sort of change you desire one day like its namesake did, Thorax.”

Thorax grinned whimsically. “I hope so too,” he agreed. He turned back to the book. “But for now, in the more immediate short term, it occurs to me the Vergilius could be useful to us in a whole number of ways. Above all, now that we have such immediate access to it, then so long as it’s properly fueled and supplied, we can turn to it as a possible means of escape should we ever have to flee Vanhoover for any reason. In fact, it may very well be our best means of travel in such an instance, because we would have control over where it can go and how it gets there.”

“I agree,” Spike said with a nod, and his grin grew. “One of the other reasons why I decided pitch to in and help get it as a gift for you.”

Thorax glanced up at Spike again. “Then what was the main reason?” he inquired.

“That I wanted to get a birthday gift truly deserving of my greatest friend…and this fit the ticket perfectly.”

Thorax grinned again. “Thank you Spike,” he said softly. “I’m beyond lucky to have you for such a great friend.”

Spike’s grin didn’t change. “Glad to be of service, Thorax.”

Author's Note

So obviously, when I posted the last chapter, I was wondering what sort of guesses readers would make about the gift, secretly hoping, of course, that nobody would successfully guess it. Then the very first person to comment on said chapter got it spot on...followed by most of the rest of you. :facehoof: Oh well.

At least now you know why I had Thorax go through that airship training day camp a couple chapters back. I was very much thinking ahead for this chapter and wanted to get Thorax all prepped for it. :twilightsmile:

Some fun facts: Thorax's name for his airship, "Vergilius," is a Latin family name, keeping with how I've been using Latin as a stand-in for the changeling language. It's exact meaning is unclear now, but the name "Virgil" is derivative of it, and that was the name of the Roman epic poet who wrote the "Aeneid," which is actually just a neat coincidence. I really picked the name just because I liked the sound of it.

The other names Fly and Spike suggest for the airship are all dropped references to other things, mostly relating back to airships again. Here they are in order:

-Aurora and Hyperion are both names of airships appearing in a series of books written by Kenneth Oppel, and while I haven't had a chance to read the third one yet, they are all quite good. If you like adventure stories featuring airships and almost Jules Verne-like fantasy/sci-fi elements, I highly recommend them.

-Corona Borealis is the name of an airship featured in the now sadly inactive MLP ask blog, Under A Paper Moon, and which was a minor source of inspiration for the airships and their inner workings in this story...even though I ended up going in different directions with the mechanics behind them.

-Amity is the apparent planned name of a spaceship to be featured in a still in-progress MLP fanfic called "Star Bound," which is basically an MLP-ified version of the first rebooted Star Trek film. Speaking of, I do hope I don't have to explain what the name starting with E pertaining to Sky Trek that Spike was trying to recall was. :raritywink:

-Orithyia is the name of an airship featured in the fanfic "The Adventuring Type," a very good fic that, in case any relevant people are reading this, is getting a little past due for an update (hint-hint). The exterior of the Vergilius was loosely modeled after my mental envisioning of the Orithyia, though sleeked over a little to make her look more speedy over functional.

-Starstruck is one of the few names that isn't related to an airship, and is in fact just the title of one of my all-time favorite MLP fanfics.

-Celestia and Luna are names of airships in the fanfic "Mares of Tomorrow," which sadly appeared to have fizzled no sooner than it had started. I still keep it in my faves though...you know, just in case.

-Lilac Sky and Lavender Sky are the canon names of airships that have actually appeared in the show.

-Akron and Macon were both names of real life airships that were in the service of the US air force. Ironically, both of them crashed.

-Spirit of Adventure is hopefully a more obvious reference to the airship featured in the Pixar movie "Up."

-Later on in the chapter, when Thorax mentions that the Vergilius is a Shenandoah Type-40 Private Air Yacht, the name "Shenandoah" is in reference to yet another real life US air force airship. This one didn't crash...so much as it broke apart unexpectedly mid-flight. You can start to see at this point why people stopped making these airships. :rainbowlaugh:

Finally, the exterior of the Vergilius is all invented, as is most of the control car, but the interior of the below decks is all modeled upon a various real-life private sailing yachts that I researched so to get a feel for what sort of amenities such a craft would have. They're better equipped than they thought, and though challenging getting all the details I needed, it was fun doing it. Made it wish I actually knew something about sailing...and didn't live in a landlocked part of the world.

Also, world building on king changelings, which stemmed largely from me just trying to figure out why Thorax was the only one to achieve the form in the show. When you think about it, this is sort of the obvious answer.

Ache

After the paperwork confirming Thorax’s ownership of the airship was finalized, Thorax set right to work getting the needed airship pilot’s license in order to fly it. Over the days that then followed, Thorax set aside a lot of his normal activities he undertook in his spare time and instead focused on carrying out the required legal work for the license. With the head start that his training cruise at the airship day camp last moon gave him, it wasn’t long before all that remained for him to secure the final license was completing a certain number of hours of airship flight while supervised by a qualified instructor. He was especially lucky enough that the Vanhoover airship yards were able to arrange for such a session daily (except weekends), and Fly Leaf had in turn granted him enough time off work to do them, helping to speed things along.

These practice cruises of sorts were done in a very small aircraft that Thorax couldn’t quite call an airship or even an air yacht as it only sat four ponies total and no more. Seeing the craft on one occasion, Spike called the craft “a rowboat strung from a hot air balloon,” a description that even Thorax couldn’t quite deny; it was fairly accurate. Nonetheless, it still operated like any other airship and thus was more than enough to give Thorax the flying practice he needed. His qualified instructor was regularly changing to whoever was available at the time of the scheduled session and he rarely got the same instructor twice, but all of them seemed pretty pleased with Thorax’s practicing, noting that he was a “cautious but observant” flyer who learned fast. They were especially pleased that an apparent unicorn was catching on to how it worked so quickly; it seemed unicorns, not generally having much flight experience of any sort, typically struggled to understand the full mechanics of flight on average. Thorax of course didn’t have this problem because under his unicorn disguise he did have wings of his own that he knew very well how to use…but his instructors weren’t to know that.

During this whole process, no pony seemed to be the wiser that the pony named Thornton was more than he claimed, which was good, but Thorax still feared discovery on occasion. It was actually somewhat ironic, him busy worrying about it so much while Spike was perfectly confident they would pull it off without a hitch for a change. It seemed like it was normally the reverse of that. Though perhaps Spike’s confidence rising was to be expected after getting final word that the police had formally ceased investigating the loose ends of the gang fight Thorax had been an unplanned part of, giving them full closure at last.

Thorax found out about this via Ragg—he and his gang having served their time and were back on the streets doing their usual business—and being one of the few aware that Thorax was in reality a changeling in hiding, Ragg especially wanted to tell him about it because the final ruling dealt directly with the gang member they both knew Thorax had bitten but the police couldn’t confirm themselves. Apparently the police had continued to investigate it as promised, searching for answers well after Thorax had been allowed to go free, but were still of the opinion that Thorax could somehow be related. But now they had reached the point that, lacking any evidence to explain it much less tie it back to Thorax or anyone else present for the fight in any meaningful way, the police could only rule it as a dead case.

Instead, in the final report they were forced to assume that the pony in question must have received the venomous bite from somewhere else entirely, and since they couldn’t pinpoint any reliable sources present at the area of the fight, further assumed that the pony had gotten bitten by some unclear creature some time prior to the start of the fight, and that the venom simply had more of a delayed reaction than first thought. As this implied the venom would have taken as long as an hour or more to take effect, Thorax personally found this assumption rather insulting as it implied he had “weak venom”—venom potency was not equal in all changelings, and that occasionally some could only produce far weaker than normal venom (usually due to a trait in which the changeling develops a sort of allergy to its own venom, and its body defensively reacts by greatly reducing the venom output), and this was not considered a flattering thing to have in changeling society.

Regardless, Ragg found it more interesting that Thorax not only managed to bite and knock out a pony in short order with one venomous bite, he got away with it too, evading any credible detection from the police. He jokingly asked if he could get Thorax to bite a few of his rivals for him. Unamused by that suggestion and not eager to add any further risk getting associated with the matter, Thorax immediately decreed that he would do no such thing. When Thorax relayed all of this on to Spike though, Spike was just relieved that he didn’t need to worry about the matter anymore, glad that their luck for evading discovery continued to be going strong. It was getting to the point that Spike even wondered aloud if there was something more behind that continued luck.

“Maybe you should tell those acorns of yours thanks for watching out for us,” he had remarked to Thorax with a grin, but his emotions conveyed a sense of gravity so Thorax wasn’t sure if he was being serious in the request or not. Either way, Thorax regularly visited the little grove of acorns in the park when occasion permitted anyway, and at next chance relayed Spike’s thanks on while doing his usual pondering in the area.

But of greater importance was that, after all of this, Spike then seemed to be in greater spirits overall, more than Thorax had seen him be in a while. Fly Leaf described it as Spike appearing to have “renewed spirit” in life, and an “extra spring in his step.” Thorax at least could deduce that Spike seemed suddenly content with where he was in life, which was interesting to him because he knew Spike never really had been before now. Before, there always seemed to be some longing for his past life before banishment, some continuous worry about discovery, or something else related to both that left the young dragon uneasy. Now, though, he seemed largely at peace and cheery. He was seen working about the shop with a grin on his face and acting more optimistic about things. Also, after three moons of listless dabbling in the matter, Spike was actively and regularly writing all of a sudden with renewed vigor and intent. And when out and about in the streets of Vanhoover, he seemed more prone to greet passing ponies, be more in the center of things, and overall seemed more playful; he often used such excursions as excuses to practice the parkour skills he had recently learned.

What was perhaps most telling of all though was also the most non-peculiar thing Spike did; he began rebuilding the comic collection he had lost when banished. It was something Thorax had known Spike had wanted to do for a while now, as whenever they visited the local comic book shop, Spike would often comment on doing it. But he also always found one reason or another to hold off on it, usually being that a comic book collection wasn’t something they likely would be able to take with them if they suddenly had to flee Vanhoover. This was perfectly logical to Thorax, so when he learned of Spike’s about-face by the dragon bringing in the first of what would be several sporadic purchases in upcoming weeks, he was somewhat surprised.

“What made you finally decide to start rebuilding the collection?” Thorax asked as he watched Spike clear a spot on their bookshelves for the oncoming collection.

Spike simply shrugged. “It just seemed like the right time,” he reasoned, and couldn’t give Thorax much more reason than that.

But after pondering it more himself, Thorax theorized that it had to be that Spike was letting himself believe they were both really going to be staying in Vanhoover for the long term now, that this was perfectly acceptable, and was now ready to start “putting down roots” as it were, settling in and just live life in Vanhoover, beyond a life in hiding. On one side, Thorax was thrilled for this breakthrough in Spike. Though Spike always tried to keep it to himself, he knew Spike still had many dark and bitter feelings about their banishment keeping the dragon glum and in the dark…so Thorax took this to be a sign that Spike was finally beginning to let that go and move on, thinking it could only be the healthy thing for him to do at this point.

On the other side though, Thorax also had his worries about letting Spike getting too comfortable in settling in. Though it had become something of a new home to them, he knew there was still a danger of discovery in Vanhoover, despite their continuous good luck avoiding it, and they should always be prepared for trouble suddenly coming regardless. He worried that letting Spike obtain personal things he couldn’t bring with him should such discovery ever come would only backfire and make Spike doubly bitter in the end.

Then Thorax realized he was one to talk; he had already done the same well before Spike; he had obtained a record player, a small collection of records, was building a collection of Sky Trek books of his own as well as other books, and more still. All things he couldn’t expect to bring with him if they had to suddenly leave either, and Thorax dreaded having to do that. He realized he had already settled and sought to “put down roots” himself, and had been for a while now. Plus he already knew he certainly didn’t want to leave Vanhoover if they could help it, and he was the one who had urged they continue to stay in the first place. But after pondering the matter a bit further, he decided that was okay. He’d rather be settling in than living on edge all the time, missing out on life as a result, and considered that for the better.

However, one Saturday afternoon he found there was one path open to him he had been completely overlooking. On this day, all three of them were doing regular preparatory work for business next week while the shop was closed for the weekend. Spike was upstairs on the second floor setting out new stock while Fly and Thorax were down on the first floor, working on setting up a new series of displays in the front room. It was relatively casual work, so when the mailpony arrived at the shop’s front door, Fly readily paused then and there to collect the offered mail and sort through it.

“Let’s see,” she remarked aloud as she placed the pile of mail on the front desk, moving it into groups depending on type. “Bill, bill, bill, bill…oh hey, a letter from First Edition…bill, bill, bill, fall catalog of products from the stationery supplier, bill, and—oh!”

Fly glanced in Thorax’s direction, where he was still working at setting up the display, and gave him a shrewd look. Thorax gazed back at her blankly for a moment. “What?” he asked.

Fly held out a letter to him. “This one’s for you, Thornton,” she remarked with a smirk.

Beginning to catch on, Thorax rose and joined her at the front desk. Taking the letter into his magic, it only took one glance at the name and return address written on the front to understand who it was from. Eagerly, he opened the envelope and withdrew the letter within to read without delay:

Dear Thornton,

Congrats on the air yacht! You’re very lucky indeed to be blessed with such a thing, and I agree, it’s definitely the best birthday gift ever, period. I certainly can’t claim to have gotten anything even remotely comparable for any of my own birthdays, to the point that I’m honestly a little jealous. I almost want to nag the relevant friends and family about it for my next birthday myself, but as I’m sure you recall, I am perfectly content with sticking with my wagon and just hoofing it to wherever I’m heading. No air yachts are required for this mare.

Speaking of, I am currently traveling between towns at the time of my writing this letter, but as before, still heading ever closer to Canterlot. I should be reaching there within another week at most, but before then I expect to arrive at a small outlying town soon and arrange to perform a show for the inhabitants while I’m there. Given the town’s small size, I don’t expect an especially large turnout, but you never know. Still no excuse to not give them any less of a spectacular show than anywhere else I perform, of course. Let it be known that all of my performances are always at least equal to the last, if not exceeding.

But on the subject of exceeding past performances, I have been working on a few new acts to perform and working out the illusionary magic particulars for each one, and since I haven’t forgotten your truly invaluable advice in the past about improving the quality of my acts, I’d like you to look them over and give any input as you see fit. Attached is a rundown on what I’ve got so far. Please let me know your thoughts when you write back.

Some signs of autumn are starting to appear in the air, but otherwise the weather here is still holding out as quite pleasurable—nothing like the cooler weather you’ve described taking place in Vanhoover now. Frankly, I am quite glad to be here where it’s warmer, even if it’s only slight and won’t last for much longer. I hope for your sake that you’re managing the colder weather just fine though. You’re probably going to be seeing a lot more of it in the moons to come. No offense, but better you than me.

Looking ahead though, after I pass through Canterlot, I intend to head in the direction of Ponyville. Though certainly not my most favorite place in the world, it’s a logical place to stop and resupply regardless and I do have some fans there, believe it or not, who I feel deserve a show too while I’m visiting. Really though, I’d just like to stop by and visit my friend Starlight Glimmer and catch up in person rather than via letter for a change. This, of course, is assuming that Princess Twilight isn’t working the poor mare’s tail off with whatever princessing stuff she always seems to have Starlight doing these days. According to Starlight’s most recent letter to me though, the good princess of friendship is planning to depart on a business trip or some such here soon, so maybe I can time my arrival with that and get a Twilight-free visit in Ponyville for a change. That would be a win and a half right there.

But I digress. Still enjoying your letters. Your gentle thoughts and input on just life in general always bring a bit of cheer to me even on the worse of days, so please do keep that up. I actually find I miss chatting with you in person like we did that night you saw my show. Makes me wish I was in the area to stop in and visit you too here soon but obviously I’m not in any position to do so for now. But it does make for a good argument to hurry back to Vanhoover when my touring points back in that direction and put on another performance there. Typically I tend to stay south for this time of year and I already explained why…but maybe I’ll have to see what I can do to make an exception at soonest convenience this year. We’ll have to make plans for such a get-together when that time comes, and when it does I look forward to that.

Until then though, I hope this finds you more than well. Seeing you’ve got a whole air yacht to play with, it’s hard to see how you wouldn’t be.

Write back soon.

-Trixie Lulamoon

(The Great and Powerful)

Grinning warmly at Trixie’s words, Thorax flipped to the second paper attached to the letter and skimmed through the mentioned proposals so to get an idea of what Trixie was envisioning. He then lowered the letters so to get back to work, only to find that Fly was standing there on the other side of the front desk, watching him with that same shrewd look as before.

“What?” Thorax asked her again, proceeding to stuff the letter back into its envelope.

“You’ve got that silly grin on your face again,” Fly noted aloud in a whimsical tone.

If that was so, it changed when Thorax frowned at her. “What do you mean…silly grin?”

“Oh, you know…that particular kind of silly grin.”

“…you’re going to have to be more specific than that, Miss Fly.”

Fly chose not to elaborate though, instead rolling her eyes in good humor. She watched Thorax carefully put the letter away and set it aside where he wouldn’t forget to take it back upstairs to his room later. “So you and Trixie seem to be getting along nicely,” she remarked at last.

Thorax sighed slightly, turning away from the front desk. “We’re just friends, Miss Fly,” he repeated to his employer, not for the first time. Because she was the one who generally checked the mail, Fly was the one most aware that Thorax had been sending letters to Trixie and getting quick and regular replies back. So every time one of Trixie’s letters arrived, it seemed like Fly had something to comment on the matter despite Thorax’s continued refutations to her particular interpretation of their interactions.

And to Fly’s credit, she wasn’t oblivious to that. “So you keep telling me,” she replied, following Thorax back to the display they had been working on. “And far be it for me to suggest otherwise, clearly.” Thorax’s frowned deepened, catching onto her teasingly sarcastic tone. Seeing this, Fly gave him a playful nudge as they got back to work, reminding him she was just teasing. “Still…I think you should at least be…open-minded to the possibility. I think it’d do you good.” She gave him a warm grin. “Besides, despite what ponies say, there really are only so many fish in the sea.”

Thorax glanced up from the items he was arranging on the display. “Fish in the sea?”

“You know…fish in the sea. Birds in the sky.” She waggled her eyebrows at him. “Mares in Equestria.” Thorax scowled and averted his gaze, uncomfortable. Fly sighed and backed off her approach. “Sorry Thornton, I’m not trying to force you to do anything. That is, of course, all your choice and no one else’s. It’s just…” she set a book that was part of the display down with a thud. “…I can’t help but think you’re not letting yourself even consider what’s going on between you and Trixie, and I think that’s unfair for the both of you.”

“We’re just friends,” Thorax reiterated once more, focusing on setting up the display. But he could sense from Fly’s emotions that she was no more convinced than before.

“Oh really? I don’t think Trixie sees it that way.”

Thorax snorted at this. “Trixie has never once suggested that’s the case. And to be frank, how would you know? You barely even know her.”

“True…but I know she did go to the trouble of making sure you had her contact information right before she left Vanhoover, and she fully wanted you to make use of it.”

“So? That doesn’t really say anything, does it?”

Fly gave him another knowing look, stopping her work to lean on the side of the display. “Thornton…despite what she told you during that visit, this shop is not just along the way for someone leaving the city, especially someone who was heading south from here. She deliberately went out of her way to come here first.”

Thorax paused abruptly with what he was doing, realizing with a start the truthfulness of Fly’s implication. Passing by Fly’s shop really wasn’t the logical path to go along when exiting Vanhoover to head south. Even more, he realized now that while Trixie’s wagon that had been parked outside the shop during her visit it was pointing in completely the wrong direction, suggesting Trixie had approached the shop from the wrong direction to have been “just passing by” on her way out of town.

That wasn’t all Fly had to point out though. “And keep in mind that I was still in the room when Trixie dropped by. I saw the look in her eyes. I also can’t help but notice Trixie has been writing to you with startling regularity and frequency since, and likewise you have never once failed to mail a letter back in response the same day you get one from her.” Fly’s expression softened suddenly as she gently leaned closer, her emotions turning caring and encouraging, as well as a tone of mild concern—worried, no doubt, that Thorax was missing something greater. “And then there’s your silly grin you get whenever I see you reading one of Trixie’s letters. You’re always very eager to get them. And…” Fly gazed in the direction of the staircase leading upstairs where she knew Spike was up on the second floor working. Though it was doubtful that the dragon was in any position to overhear, Fly lowered her voice a little. “…there’s the fact I don’t see you talking about any of these letters with Spark. I’ve kept out of it, in respect for your wishes…but does he still not know about any of this?”

Thorax hesitated. “He knows I send the letters, but no, we don’t talk about the details,” he admitted. He was actually starting to think Spike was deliberately avoiding the subject, and Thorax had to admit he was perfectly content to let it be that way, as he didn’t feel comfortable discussing it with Spike too much, given how Spike generally reacted like he secretly didn’t approve.

Fly tilted her head knowingly. “You know, it does strike me as a bit odd that this is the thing, of all things, you choose to keep quiet about to him.”

Thorax licked his lips and shuffled uncomfortably, feeling guilty, awkward, embarrassed, and annoyed at Fly’s continued pressing on this subject. “I just don’t think Spark would approve,” he mumbled aloud.

“Which is between you and him to resolve, of course…though, I do think keeping secrets from each other is only going to cause trouble for you in the end.” And Thorax knew she had a point with that, causing him to wince a little. Seeing this, Fly got back to the original topic. “Look, maybe I’m getting myself too involved, but in regards to Trixie, all I’m trying to do is to give you a friendly nudge, making you aware of what I feel the two of you are already veering towards.”

Thorax swallowed. Surely that wasn’t actually the case…was it? At any rate, Thorax shook his head, knowing for certain one thing on the matter. “It would never work even if Trixie and I were to go…further,” he said with hesitation, hating to acknowledge it, but deciding it was past time to be upfront with Fly about this much. “It would be…unwise for me to pursue such a thing with anypony right now anyway.”

Fly tilted her head at him. “Why not?” she asked simply and gently, the one question Thorax wished she wouldn’t ask.

Thorax licked his lips again, avoiding eye contact. He could feel his cheeks heating up the further the conversation went on and was certain he was blushing by now. “Because it just wouldn’t,” he replied lamely, knowing he couldn’t tell Fly the real truth. It was too closely tied to things she was not to know about him and Spike.

It didn’t seem to help dissuade Fly any though, and now Thorax could sense more concern growing within her emotions over the matter. This only made Thorax’s own emotions feel that much more conflicted and stirred, leading him to be all that more aware of Fly meaning no ill-will from her questioning and was only trying to help as a friend. Her intentions were good, Thorax knew it, and as such he couldn’t bring himself to deride her for it…but none of that helped. Trying to signal he didn’t want to talk about it further, he turned his full focus back on setting up the display, continually moving things around to get them all in place. Fly made no motion to follow suit though, only continuing to lean on the side of the display, the metaphorical gears turning behind her eyes as she studied Thorax with a mounting gaze of quiet distress.

“Thornton,” she finally spoke, slowly and deliberately. “Why are you really being so resistant to the idea of a relationship with Trixie, or anypony for that matter?”

Thorax kept himself working, pace picking up urgently as he avoided eye contact. “Maybe I’m just not interested in one right now,” he reasoned without meaning.

Fly gazed at him for a beat, her expression or tone not changing. “Are you?”

Thorax’s movements fumbled slightly, finding himself unable to respond. He very much wanted to just say yes and be done with it, but now he was finding he couldn’t bring himself to do so, a knot in his throat appearing every time he tried. Balani devoveo, he thought to himself. I really don’t want to be thinking about this!

Fly kept prompting him though, for it seemed she knew his thoughts on the matter. “If it’s not that, then why, Thornton?”

Finding merely averting his gaze wasn’t enough now, Thorax turned his head away from Fly as he continued to work, even though he was no longer paying too close attention to what he was doing. “Just because,” he repeated again, unable to come up with a better answer.

Fly gazed at him for another beat. “You realize that only suggests you do have a rationale…you just don’t want to admit what it is for some reason.”

“You’re not wrong,” Thorax admitted quietly without elaborating further, wincing inwardly as his two-chambered stomach clenched and churned uneasily, an ache he couldn’t quite account for and didn’t like the feeling of forming in the pit of his chest.

Fly, again, was quiet for a moment, mulling carefully over what she wished to say next. “Thornton, I can see this is making you uncomfortable,” she added. “I know I really shouldn’t be pressing this, but…I’m just concerned. Concerned you’re letting something wonderful pass you by…and I’m just trying to understand why you would want to. What is it that’s wrong that you’re not telling me?”

Thorax slammed the box of rulers he had been moving down suddenly as Fly continued to gaze expectantly at him, waiting for an answer. “It’s because I don’t think Trixie would really like the real me if she ever got to know it!” he snapped, blurting it out suddenly and without thinking. He then shuddered as the ache in his chest grew. He wanted to curse and shout at it, not understanding why it was there and being so persistent in this of all matters. With great restraint, he managed to reel in his emotions, but he still felt his control starting to crumble and that secretly scared him. Changelings don’t lose control of their emotions, not over things like this.

Fly pulled back slightly, surprised by the outburst. “You mean she hasn’t already?” she asked knowingly.

Thorax, panting from the exertion of keeping his emotions in control and from showing, chose not to respond to that. “I think it really wouldn’t be wise for me to be committing to any relationships like that right now, given circumstances,” he explained instead.

“Whatever for?” Fly challenged gently.

Thorax glanced up at her, his eyes beginning to sting with what were about to be tears as he continued to struggle to contain the whirlwind of emotions bottled up within him. “There’s far more going on than you know, Miss Fly,” he impulsively sputtered out, his body shuddering faintly in the process. “More to me than you can ever know.” He knew he was on the verge of revealing too much to Fly but at the moment he didn’t care.

Fly was silent for a moment, gazing at him. “I had already suspected as such,” she admitted simply but seriously. She sighed. “Look, I get it, you and Spike have your secrets, and it’s not my business to pry. I’ve long made it a point to respect that where I can, you know that.” She bit her lip for a second, debating. “But…I really do think…you should be free to pursue such things…far more than you have been the whole four moons you’ve been here…both of you in fact, you and Spark…but you especially, Thornton.”

Thorax suddenly pulled away, squeezing his eyes shut as he fought tears. “I’m sorry Miss Fly, but I can’t do that,” he managed to say. But as the storm that had become his emotions was breaking free against his control, he found he could do little to stop it now, and ashamed and overcome with the ache in his chest, he couldn’t stand remaining there and breaking down before her, so he turned and left, heading into the back of the shop. “Now excuse me, I…I need to use the restroom,” he lied as he went.

Fly turned and watched him go, but she did not follow or object or speak at all. Thorax did feel a flare of shame for her meddling well up within her as he left her proximity though, and that only made Thorax feel even worse still. He hurried on into the back bathroom and locked himself inside, taking a series of deep breaths to try and calm himself before slowly collapsing to the floor when that failed, letting his disguise fall and allowing the well of emotions he didn’t even realize he had been bottling up to release, starting softly before gradually building until they gushed out, then steadily tapering off again as Thorax began to ponder what had just happened.

Initially he was more concerned about getting these pent-up emotions out, and spent some minutes lying there on the bathroom mat doing so, trying to restore his composure fully. Once he had begun to rebuild his self-control though, confusion started to sink in, uncertain why this all had affected him so much. Sitting back up, he turned his gaze to his reflection in the bathroom mirror, staring at the undisguised changeling face that stared back while he mulled upon the matter.

Where had these pent-up emotions come from? And what was it about Fly’s words that had stirred them up so much that caused them to be released in force? What was this inexplicable ache that had appeared in his chest, an ache that didn’t seem to be physical but more internal than that, a feeling that Thorax couldn’t recall having ever experienced before and couldn’t explain or identify? Was it guilt in the awareness he was living a lie that he didn’t like continually in front of a pony he had in many ways come to trust as a friend? Was it worry in that Fly was, knowingly or not, prying into private matters he didn’t want to, or was not prepared to, discuss? Or was it fear, that Fly could actually be right, and that she had real cause for concern for Thorax’s future? And if so, was it concern that Thorax should be sharing? Was he perhaps not as content where he was in life as he once was? Or had he never been content and had only convinced himself he was, and now Fly had made him see the reality?

Whatever the case, as he uncomfortably looked back on Fly words, it started to sink in that she still had one point he had to confess was accurate. He didn’t want to admit it…but there did seem to be something there between him and Trixie. Up to now, he had assumed it was simply a sense of friendship—something Thorax was more than happy to promote, of course. But now that Fly had made him aware of it, he realized this didn’t feel quite the same as some of his other friendships. Not even his strong friendship with Spike felt quite like this…and the implications intimidated Thorax, not sure what to make of this realization, much less decide if it was a good thing or a bad thing.

Part of him stood by what he had told Fly; regardless of where he and Trixie actually stood on things, admitted or not, it would be unwise to pursue something more than friendship with her, for a number of reasons. But one was the painful fact that he knew he hadn’t been fully truthful with Trixie. He had told Trixie nothing about his true identity, so that as far as she knew, he was still just a unicorn stallion named Thornton. However, this lie had already been weighing heavily on him, and now he was even more conscious of just how wrong it felt, increased ten-fold or so it felt at that moment. Yet he knew that for his own safety, it had to stay that way, as much as he hated it.

Still it now occurred to him that while he had kept that matter secret…looking back, he had been startlingly upfront with Trixie about nearly everything else regarding himself, both in person and in their letters. Though he naturally had concealed the precise details so she wouldn’t put two with two, Thorax had even discreetly told her stories about his life back in his hive, and things about his, generally poor, relations with his changeling brethren…though as before he never named them specifically as such to her so she would remain unsuspecting of his true nature. There were a few tales he had related to Trixie that not even Spike would know…which was only all that more startling. He was forced to admit that there was something about Trixie that he trusted, something that made him perfectly comfortable relating things to her that he had habitually kept to himself and not told anyone else, something that set her apart from the rest. But…what? And did that really suggest there was more between them than he cared to admit, as Fly suggested?

It seemed ridiculous to even suggest; he was a changeling, and Trixie was not. They were not even of the same species. It was one thing to ask for her friendship, which was innocuous enough, but…a relationship between a pony and a changeling? It was something Thorax knew plenty of changelings back in his hive would balk at the mere suggestion of. It just wasn’t done among changelings. And in a way Thorax could see why, as just the very idea of an interspecies relationship made him…uncomfortable.

And yet, here he was, actually pondering if it was possible.

He continued to stare at his reflection, studying his changeling face. He asked himself if it would even matter anyway; surely Trixie wouldn’t want to do with anything that looked like this if she knew the truth. He would be so alien to her, and in some ways she was still alien to him as well, her being a member of species he was still regularly reminded to this day that he didn’t understand as well as he thought, even after living among them for all this time.

Though he was looking at the matter like a changeling would; changeling courting didn’t work like it seemed to do with ponies. But then he also hadn’t been expecting to be put in a situation where he would have to; this all was blindsiding him entirely, caught in the middle something much bigger than he ever anticipated being in. When he first met Trixie, he had no idea he could end up in such a situation. He hadn’t taken any of the proper steps to get to this point. In fact, he felt like it was almost all going out of order.

He hadn’t even meant to get to this point, and already he felt like he was messing it up.

Thorax began to wonder just what it was he had gotten himself into, because whatever it was, he was in no way prepared for it. Fly couldn’t actually be right about this, could she? But then that turmoil of emotions would well up deep within Thorax every time, and he was forced to ask the question he couldn’t yet answer: what if she is?

Thorax didn’t know how long he had sat there in the bathroom, caught in this tug of war of indecisiveness and uncertainty, but it certainly had to be a good long while, and however long it actually was, it was a veritable roller coaster of emotions for every moment of it. Finally though, reality chose to snap Thorax back out of his reverie when there was a sudden knocking on the door.

“Hey, you in there, bud?” he heard Spike call from the other side.

“Uh, yeah, yeah I am,” Thorax said, pulling his eyes off of his reflection that he had been staring at for what might have been hours for all he knew. “What’s up?”

“Just checking up on you,” Spike replied. “Fly said you had been in there for a while now, but couldn’t tell me why.” Thorax sensed a flare of mild concern waft from the dragon and through the closed door. “…you okay?”

Thorax turned his gaze back on his reflection for a long moment before replying. “Yeah, yeah I’m fine,” he said, but inwardly, he was thinking, No, I’m NOT fine.

Spike seemed to suspect as such. “You sure?” he asked gently. “Do you need to talk or anything?”

Thorax hesitated. Talking it out with someone else might actually help, but Thorax recoiled at the idea, not wanting to have to face the subject, and instead chose to hide from it again. “No, I’m okay, really,” he assured a second time, restoring his disguise again. “I’ll be out in a moment.”

And sure enough he shortly thereafter stepped out, having buried his conflicting thoughts and emotions on the troubling problem as deep into his psyche as he could. As if nothing had happened, he then got back to work on the project he had left, or at least what was left of it that still remained unfinished, as Fly Leaf had gone ahead and made further progress on it without him. But he did so in something of an uneasy daze, still left uncomfortable by the sudden revelations he had to face today. He sought to bring back the more familiar mentality he had before but was only partly successful, as thoughts on the matter weren’t so easily ignored. He did all he could to push them aside, deciding there were more pressing things to focus on for now.

This included avoiding Fly Leaf as much as he could though, fearing that if he was left alone in her presence for too long, she’d try to bring up the subject again and force Thorax to face what he wasn’t prepared to once more. He tried to ensure he was in a different room from Fly Leaf as much as he could, and when he couldn’t, he strove to ensure that either Spike was in the room with them (knowing that as Spike was unaware of the situation, Fly would avoid bringing it up in his presence without Thorax’s permission) or that Thorax could start the conversation and lead it somewhere far away from the topic as he could, keeping Fly engaged in thinking about other matters. By doing this, he proved successful staying away from Fly entirely for the rest of the day, and they rarely spoke again. Thorax went to bed that night secretly relieved he had managed to avoid the subject coming back up, content for now in procrastinating facing it.

But by the following Sunday morning he realized he wasn’t in the clear yet; if he joined Fly Leaf for guizhou fa practice as they usually did in the mornings, that would be her chance to confront him again. Fearing this, Thorax instead woke up but didn’t arise. Instead, he remained in his sleeping nest, uneasily staring at the far wall as he avoided leaving to join Fly for practice, wondering if the others would let him do so without noticing.

It didn’t seem likely when Spike woke up about an hour later and was surprised to see Thorax was still in the room when he typically wasn’t by this hour. “You’re still in here?” he asked. “Aren’t you and Fly going to practice that guizhou-whatever stuff?”

“Uh, I’m not feeling up to it today,” Thorax lied, avoiding eye contact.

Spike frowned, tilting his head at his changeling friend as he clambered off the window seat that served as his bed and trotted over to him. “Is something wrong?” he asked in concern. “Are you feeling okay?”

Not really, Thorax thought to himself. “I’m fine, Spike,” he assured, giving the dragon a grin. “I just…wasn’t in the mood this morning.”

Spike frowned, not quite convinced, but he opted to take Thorax at his word, not pressing the matter further. “Well, all right then,” he said.

He then proceeded to get dressed in his usual disguise and exited the room, heading downstairs to start the day. Thorax, however, continued to linger alone in their room, starting to dread leaving it now. If Spike was going to question him skipping guizhou fa practice, then Fly Leaf certainly would too and wonder what was up. Other than the truth though, which he didn’t want to confess, he didn’t really have a good excuse why, except repeat what he had told Spike, that he just wasn’t in the mood for it, and he knew Fly wouldn’t be satisfied with that. However he also knew he couldn’t stay up here forever. That would only draw more suspicion to himself from all parties.

So after waiting another half hour, breakfast drawing near and no doubt ready soon, he finally rose, raised his disguise, and hesitantly nudged his way out the door and into the hallway beyond. He started to turn for the staircase, only to find Fly Leaf was mounting the top of the stairs herself, stopping when she saw Thorax. Of course.

“There you are,” Fly remarked aloud when she saw him, pausing between stair steps. “Spike thought you were still up here. You missed practicing guizhou fa with me.”

“Uh, yeah, I, uh, wasn’t in the mood,” Thorax quickly covered and moved to hurry around Fly and start down the staircase. He wished he could do the parkour trick Spike could, and simply divert around Fly by skipping himself off the wall adjacent, slipping past her. “Is breakfast ready?”

Fly, however, gently moved a hoof to bar his path, giving him a troubled look. “Thornton, have you been avoiding me?”

Thorax sighed. And there it was. “Yes,” he admitted, deciding he might as well get it over with.

“Oh Thornton,” she said, how much that bothered her being quite clear. She sat herself down on the top step of the stairs. “Look, can we talk about that for a second?” She patted the stair with one hoof, motioning for Thorax to join her. “I promise to not be too pressuring this time.”

Thorax hesitated, but sensing in Fly’s emotions that she was greatly troubled by all of this too, he sighed and relented. He sat himself down beside her and waited for her to begin.

Fly took a long moment to gather her thoughts first though. “Look, Thornton,” she began, sounding distressed. “I’m sorry if I made you uncomfortable yesterday, when we were talking. That wasn’t at all my intent.”

“I know,” Thorax admitted. He sighed once more. “I guess I was just…woefully unprepared to hear what you had to say.”

“I’m starting to realize that, yes.” Fly fell quiet for a moment. “I’m still apologizing anyway…I should’ve just kept my mouth shut and stayed out of it.”

“No, no,” Thorax assured, not wanting her to take the blame for this, knowing she didn’t mean for any of this to happen. “I know you didn’t mean to. I…maybe I should’ve been more willing to listen.” He felt a shudder run down his back as he felt that pesky and longing ache reappear in his chest. “Maybe it was all something I needed to hear anyway.” He snorted, as the apt meaning of his own words sank in. “It’s not like ignoring it is going to make it go away, at least.”

Fly managed a small grin. “Probably not,” she agreed.

“It’s just something that’s a bit…” Thorax hated his sappy choice of words for this, but he couldn’t think of a better way to put it at the moment. “…close to the heart, not something I’m prepared to openly discuss…and we were getting too close to it yesterday.”

“I understand,” Fly assured. “For the record though, I only brought it up at all because I was just trying to help you…suggesting what I thought might be worthwhile for you to pursue.”

Thorax was quiet for a moment. “I’m happy enough right now, Miss Fly,” he pointed out.

“‘Enough’ being the key word here.” Fly glanced over at him. “Thornton, I was trying to convey that I was concerned you aren’t…thinking in regards of what possibilities might be available to you.”

“I suppose a relationship would be one of them, then,” Thorax conceded flatly.

Fly nudged him gently. “Don’t tell me it’s not something you aren’t interested in pursuing someday.”

Thorax shrugged. “I had always planned to cross that bridge when I came to it.”

“And if you’re at that bridge now?”

Thorax didn’t reply. He wasn’t sure how to.

Fly was quiet for a moment, playing with her hooves. “Thornton, whatever you do, I’d just like you to be happy. I know you well enough now to know you deserve that much. There’s just…more I feel you could be doing about it, a lot you seem to be deliberately ignoring. Trixie is just the latest example…but you seem intent on letting all of these pass you by.”

Thorax snorted half-heartedly. “I’ve taken the initiative for other things I hadn’t before. Studied magic, made cheese, learn to fly an airship...”

“So would one more really be so bad? And anyway, have you even stopped to consider what you will do with any of that in the future? About where you are going in life, beyond the here and now?”

Thorax blinked repeatedly to himself, and momentarily found himself unable to reply. He thought about how he wished to bring friendship between ponies and changelings which still wasn’t complete. “I have other things I need to do first,” he reasoned, a technical truth.

And Fly didn’t challenge it. “And that’s fine, it really is.” She gazed at him with concern. “But what about when you have finished with that? Where are you going to go afterwards? What are you going to do in the meantime?”

Thorax thought about it for a moment. He did see that he had been so focused on that one goal, and completing it seeming so far off in light of his banishment and going into hiding that it had been a very long time since he stopped to think about what he’d do with himself afterwards if he ever completed that goal. And what if that goal really does prove to be insurmountable? He still believed that wouldn’t be the case and that it was still possible to achieve…but it could still be a long time before it came about…and he started to see what Fly was getting at. What else could he at least be doing with himself in the meantime? “I’m not sure, Miss Fly. I…I guess I hadn’t really thought too much about it.”

“You see why I feel obligated to bring it up then, right?” She tilted her head at Thorax. “Where would you like to be, Thornton? Or are you going to stay here and just keep working here like before for the rest of your life, on your own except for your friend the dragon?”

Thorax was quiet for a moment. “…would that be so wrong?”

“I suppose not, if that’s what you really want. And indeed, you’re still welcome to stay here and do that for however long you want. But it’s not the only thing you could be doing. Don’t you want more? To meet new ponies, new friends? To build a career for yourself? To build a family of your own? To find your place and purpose? Do something to be remembered for?”

Thorax opened and closed his mouth a few times, finding her words stirring. It was true that staying in hiding had prevented him from trying to explore a great many things he might have otherwise tried by now. But having spent so many moons thinking they weren’t a possibility to him anymore, he found it hard to consider what some of them might be. “What is it you want me to do then, Miss Fly?” he asked softly.

Fly didn’t reply right away. “Just to look beyond where you’re at now…at what else you could have.”

Thorax licked his lips yet again. “Like Trixie,” he said, bringing the conversation full circle as he suspected that was Fly’s intent. He shuddered at the thought, feeling that ache in his chest reappear.

Fly nodded. “Yes.” She was quiet for a moment. “Thornton, forgive me for asking directly but…where do you stand on her? It’s clear to me that she’s showing signs of affection for you…so I suppose I’m asking if it’s being returned at all.”

Thorax hesitated, his mind whirling the possibilities around his head. “I don’t know,” he admitted finally. “That’s most of what the problem is, really.”

“Ah,” Fly said, nodding her head, understanding. She grinned faintly. “I suppose this is all a bit new for you, then?”

Thorax nodded. “It sort of makes it hard to know what to do when you don’t fully understand just what it is you’ve gotten into.” Fly chuckled a little at how he chose to phrase it. Thorax grinned faintly, but he didn’t chuckle too. He shook his head then glanced at the orange mare beside him. “I don’t know…what do you think I should do?”

Fly studied him for a second. “I think you need to at least…clear the air…between you and Trixie. Work out where you two actually stand on things, and if there really is something going on between you two, figure out if that’s something either of you would even like to do.”

Thorax let out his breath in a whoosh. “That’s just it, with how complicated it’d be…” he trailed off and frowned, finding one concern rising up over all the others. It caught in his throat slightly as he moved to speak it aloud, but he still felt he needed to say it. “I’m…I’m not sure I’d be…ready.”

Fly grinned. “Well, don’t get too far ahead of yourself,” she said. “You and Trixie are still budding, after all. Take it slow. A lot could happen still.”

Thorax studied her for a long moment, tasting her emotions faintly. “You really think there’s something between us, though?”

Fly didn’t reply right away, but finally she nodded. “I do,” she admitted. She shrugged. “Call it a hunch if you must… but if I may, I think there is a definite interest between you two, and I think it’d be a great shame if nothing became of it.” She glanced at Thorax. “At the very least…I can confidently say that I think Trixie’s interested in exploring it, and by keeping in close contact as she has, she’s already taken steps to do so. And I think you have your own interest in her, Thornton.” She grinned a little teasingly. “It’s that silly grin you get whenever you get to thinking about her that clues me in on that.”

Thorax thought about it for a second, grinning a little as he let his gaze wander.

“Yeah see, that’s the grin I’m talking about,” Fly said, nudging Thorax with one hoof. She sighed. “And yet…you seemed completely oblivious to it…missing all the hints…”

“So finally you just up and told me,” Thorax guessed.

Fly nodded. “Maybe I was wrong to do so,” she admitted. “But…I can’t see it being a bad thing…at least it’d get you socializing more.” she turned to face him suddenly. “I mean, you and Spark are such a nice pair…but neither of you really do much to socialize much, to go out and meet new ponies.”

Thorax sighed. “We have reasons for that, Miss Fly,” he admitted.

“It’s such a lonely way to live though…don’t you want that sort of companionship you’ve both been missing out on?”

Thorax hadn’t really thought about it before. “Do I?” he asked, rhetorically.

Fly answered anyway with a nod. “I think you do. And why not do it now? I mean, it’s not as if you’re going anywhere.”

“I might be, you never know.”

Fly reached out with one hoof and soothingly hooked it around Thorax’s. “Thornton…it hasn’t escaped my attention that, when you and Spike both came into this shop for the first time, looking for work, you both made it very clear that you did not intend to stay long. And yet, you’re both still here.” She averted her gaze briefly to collect her thoughts, before returning her gaze to him. “I haven’t said anything about it up to now…because I believed it wasn’t important to do so, until either of you thought it important enough to mention on your own. And thus far you hadn’t.” She gave Thorax’s hoof a squeeze. “But now that the subject’s come up…I’m perfectly aware that neither of you really want to be the wanderers you claim you are. You both came to Vanhoover more to look for some place to settle down and make a living…it’s just you both found it sooner than you were expecting.” She gazed at him for a long moment. “I think you know that too…don’t you? So don’t you think it’s time you both stopped holding yourselves back and just embrace it?”

Thorax sighed and shook his head at her, closing his eyes. “No, we didn’t come here to Vanhoover by choice,” he admitted. “We came here because we didn’t have any place else to go. And because of that…we have reasons to be hesitant to really…settle in.” Thorax took on a faraway gaze for a long moment. “I know Spark’s been slow to do it, but I had always thought I had been doing better at it than he was…” he thought about how he had been handling life in Vanhoover a week at a time, always thinking, but not always acknowledging, that it might not last, and one day he’d have to move on. “…maybe I haven’t though.”

Fly gave an encouraging smile. “I wish you two would tell me what those reasons are,” she said.

Thorax was quiet for a moment. “Maybe someday we will.”

The conversation fell silent after that for several more moments. Then Fly patted Thorax’s hoof and stood up. “Well, food for thought at any rate,” she concluded. “Whatever you choose to do Thornton…do what you think is best for you, and what would make you the happiest. If you really think you and Trixie isn’t a good idea, then don’t you let me tell you what to do. Sometimes I like to think otherwise…but I really don’t always know what’s best. All I really want from you is to pursue what the future could bring you…whatever it might be.” She started to head down the stairs, leaving Thorax sitting still at the top, but after a few steps, she then stopped and glanced back at him. “It’s just…take it from an old bachelorette like me who never got around to finding her significant other. It’s easy to get caught up in the here and now and keep putting it off…only to realize one day you wish you hadn’t. I just don’t want to see you making that same mistake, Thornton.”

And then with that sobering thought, she turned and continued trotting down the stairs, leaving Thorax sitting at the top, lost in deep thought.

Author's Note

I had explored making mention of Gervas again during the talk of Thorax's training flights, possibly by having him serve as one of Thorax's instructors and have the two chat briefly, but worried I'd get too caught up with that when it wasn't the focus of the chapter, so I opted not to do it in the interest of keeping the chapter on track.

I realize the past couple of chapters have been pretty heavy on focusing on Thorax and not Spike so much, which wasn't the original plan. There were supposed to be chapters intermixed through some of these that would've helped to rectify all of that...but for one reason or another that I'll probably elaborate upon in more detail at a later date, these chapters were all cut from the story, leaving this string of Thorax-heavy chapters by accident. So to try and off-set that at least slightly, I took the time to convey the sort of things Spike was up to, and that he might be, finally, starting to move on from what had happened.

As for the rest of the chapter...I'm not much of a shipper, and as such I've only read so many shipfics...but it seems like a lot of the ships I read about just throw x with y but don't take the time to explore what the characters themselves might think about that...and any reservations they might have about pursuing such a thing...and I decided this was something that deserved exploring in this case. It was actually very hard to write, because I kept debating just how far I actually wanted to take it, and spent far longer going back and tweaking this one chapter more than what has been the average (so much so I fear I've lost some ground maintaining my buffer of completed chapters, but we'll cross that bridge if we come to it). Hopefully the added attention paid off.

Burning Desire

Just a couple of days ago, Thorax had been thinking how it seemed Spike had been finally accepting where he was in life and making the best of it. Now, however, Thorax was starting to realize he hadn’t been doing the same, not as much as he could. So now it was his turn.

But he was starting to see why Spike had been so slow to do it.

The problem was that Thorax didn’t even know where to start. All he knew was the same goal that had led him into Equestria in the first place; make friends with ponies and show to the other changelings it was not only possible, they could do it too and help bring peace between their peoples. And unlike Spike, who he knew had growing doubts it would come to pass ever since they fled the Crystal Empire in banishment, Thorax still was holding out that it could happen. More importantly, he was the only changeling in any sort of position to try.

It was just taking far longer than he would’ve hoped, and him getting banished and going into hiding certainly hadn’t helped. It could be that he’d grow old and die before any real progress was made, though he hoped to at least have paved the way for others to continue from where he would be leaving off. The point being, though, was that as admirable a goal as it was, it was very much a long term goal. So what other things could Thorax do with himself in the meantime? There must be other goals he wished to achieve in life he could now take the time to be working towards while he had the chance.

But as he reflected back on his life up to now, he realized he never really had any. Until the Canterlot invasion and Thorax became enthused with the idea of spreading friendship, he had always sort of just drifted through life, not really knowing where he should be or what he should be doing. If anything, he had always felt out of place back in the hive, like he didn’t belong. So to him back then, it hadn’t mattered. The only goals he really had were to try and minimize how many shouted at him in a given day. Therefore, he found it hard to devise life goals determining just what it was he wanted out of life when he had never stopped to consider it before.

At the very least though, one goal he knew he could work on now is figure out the situation with him and Trixie and where they were heading. The very idea of where it could go still seemed strange to Thorax, and he was still personally quite divided on where he stood upon it or if he even wanted it. He was somewhat shocked to find that the more emotional part of him seemed open for that sort of companionship, but the more logical part of him reminded him it didn’t make any sense to pursue it if real. Especially since he was a changeling and she a pony; how could that ever work?

And that raised the subject of whether or not he should let it continue if that were the case. The logical part of him screamed he shouldn’t even consider accepting it. If that really was where he and Trixie stood on each other, then he ought to end it before it went further, for both of their well-beings. It would only spare them both the hurt and suffering he feared it could only end in. Worse, even if he were to set aside the whole changeling-pony issue, he knew he was on the run from the law. Allowing such a deeper relationship would only drag Trixie right into the thick of things…and potentially put her in danger in the process. And love or not, Thorax wouldn’t stand for that. She deserved better.

But every time the thought of ending it arose, the ache in his chest would start up again. Thorax often glared down at his barrel in annoyance when it happened, as if he could intimidate the ache into going away. He really didn’t understand how he could really be feeling two different ways over this matter, or even how that could be possible. But he knew going against it would likely mean severing all ties with Trixie…and he hated that. The one thing he could agree upon without hesitation was that he enjoyed the contact he had with her. He knew that, at the very least, she was a good friend, one who seemed to understand where he came from on some base level, and one who was surprisingly supportive, all things considered. He enjoyed that much, Trixie seemed to as well, and he loathed having to lose it…even though that wouldn’t make the situation any easier to handle. Was this really what others had to deal with when they got themselves into love relationships? It seemed like an awful lot of stress then…

Was he even really interested in such a relationship, regardless of who it was with? He really hadn’t been planning to end up in one. He hadn’t even really been looking ahead to pursuing one at some point in the future. He’d always figured he’d just let fate decide. He never thought this was where fate would put him though. Still, he did have to wonder if he should have expected this possibility, theoretical or not, coming up at some point. Did he not want changelings and ponies to reach a point where they could be ready friends between each other? Logically, then, the question of whether or not ponies and changelings could pursue beyond simple friendship for something more intimate should be addressed as well. Thorax just didn’t think he’d be the one pioneering the way.

It made him feel awkward and unsure about the whole subject. He had no past experience in love. Feeding upon it, certainly. Knowing how to look for it in others, obviously. But never had he faced it personally…not like this. How could he be sure it even was love? He didn’t actually know for certain after all. Fly Leaf had merely but strongly posited the theory, and managed to be convincing enough that Thorax had to stop and wonder if it really wasn’t imagined after all. Just because Fly Leaf believed it existed didn’t mean it was true though. How did he know the supposed attraction he felt wasn’t just a peculiar side-effect of a particularly healthy friendship?

Regardless, now that Fly had brought it to his attention he couldn’t deny that there was at least something there between them…he just couldn’t be sure what to accurately call it. Was it just friendship, or was it really something more? In an attempt to puzzle it out, Thorax decided to take the sum of his interactions with Trixie thus far and compare them with his own friendship with Spike, knowing there wasn’t anyone else he had a stronger friendship with. He reasoned that if the two matched up, then he could just rule off his interactions with Trixie as being the same sort of friendship and leave it at that for now, at least until new developments arose.

Unfortunately, he ultimately concluded that while there was certainly a lot of parallels between the two associations, his interactions with Trixie still bore a markedly different trait to it that he just couldn’t find an equivalent to in his friendship with Spike. This trait was very pronounced too, and worryingly, it seemed to lend credence to Fly’s views about what it was. This mysterious trait could very well be love, or at least something akin, leading into it. In the end though, determining this didn’t help Thorax much because while he identified this mystery trait as being there and Thorax felt a strong emotional connection to it…he had never felt the like of it before, and without that frame of reference, he couldn’t confidently identify what it actually was.

He spent most of the rest of the day since his and Fly’s chat that morning pondering the matter, but by that evening he saw he was only going in circles and succeeding in making himself less and less confident he actually understood what was really going on. What he needed was a second opinion, and he thought that since he would probably have to do it eventually anyway, he decided he would take Fly’s advice and turn to Trixie, consulting her opinions on the subject. She hadn’t before mentioned anything like this being the case for her either, but Thorax figured that if whatever she was feeling was in anyway like what he was experiencing now, he couldn’t blame her for neglecting to speak about it. She might be still trying to figure it out before she said anything herself. Or, as Fly had implied, she had already hinted and Thorax had simply missed the hints. Considering how much this was new territory for him, it was certainly possible.

Either way, he had a chance to do so now. As Fly had been so apt to note the previous day, Thorax was usually quick to write back and mail a response to every letter he got from Trixie the same day he got one, but because of the hubbub the realization these letters may not be so innocent after all had caused, it was now nearly the end of the day after and he still hadn’t written and sent his response. So he sat down and proceeded to begin, deciding to use the chance to voice his thoughts.

Thus began the daunting prospect of writing a letter inquiring about it. That evening after dinner, while Spike sat across the room working on his latest writing project (and seemed to be getting really into it as he was all but oblivious of what Thorax was doing), Thorax sat on his sleeping nest and tried to compose a satisfactory letter to Trixie. He wanted to be upfront, but he also wanted to be gentle about it, for her sake. And it was going about as well as one would expect; it wasn’t. After about six or seven false starts that only ended up as crumpled balls of parchment now scattered about his nest and several minutes of long internal debates over every single word he penned, Thorax stopped on his latest attempt to review what little he had written thus far and found he was yet again dissatisfied with it.

Not only did he lack the nerve still, he also wasn’t happy with how he was approaching it. It felt too impersonal, too lacking in genuine emotion, and above all he felt Trixie deserved more context about the whole matter than he was giving. He felt he should give more background about why he was writing this first, to give her a better frame of reference. But he knew there were problems to that approach as well; he had tried it already in one of his past attempts, only to ramble on aimlessly for over a page of parchment and still hadn’t gotten to the point of the whole letter. Clearly, there was a need for detail, but also a need to be succinct or it just wouldn’t feel right. A balance he was struggling to find.

Either way, the letter wasn’t going well. With a groan, Thorax dropped the quill and rubbed his hooves over his chitinous face. He stared at the letter he had started, then with a sigh grabbed the parchment and crumpled it up into a ball, tossing it onto the floor to join the others.

Spike noticed, and glanced up from what he was working on across the room. “Something wrong, Thorax?” he asked aloud.

“No, just…not having any success in getting my thoughts in order,” Thorax replied vaguely. He rubbed at his eyes again, before glancing over at Spike once more. The dragon, apparently reassured enough, had already turned back to what he was working on, the scratching of his quill a near continuous sound as he wrote. Thorax watched him for a moment. “At least you seem to be having better luck than I am.”

Spike chuckled. “We’ll see if it lasts,” he admitted without looking up from his writing.

“What are you working on anyway? You seem to have been pretty dedicated about it the past couple of days.”

“Just a story idea that sprang to me recently. I guess the sudden inspiration has left me on a bit of a writing high…I keep getting ideas to write and the story’s been coming together way fast…faster than everything else I’ve been working on, and I’ve just been on a roll.” Spike’s grin grew. “I don’t want to get ahead of myself…but I might finally be onto something with this one.”

Thorax turned his gaze to the parchment Spike was writing on and grew curious. “So what’s it about?” he asked, hoping Spike would enlighten him. He suspected the dragon wouldn’t though; he was very private about his writing and didn’t like to share them much while he was still working on them.

“Something I think might be a whole series of books,” Spike explained however, before proceeding to actually give Thorax some details for a change. “You might like it actually, it’s definitely a sort of sci-fi-ish story, just with a lot of adventure too. It begins with these two ponies who’re in the wrong place at the wrong time when these aliens attack the office building they work in, planning to use the metal frame of the building in a plot to destroy Equestria, and now they have to work with this other pony who’s part of this secret league of ponies that are working to stop the plot and protect the planet from these and other aliens. The idea is that they then join this pony in further adventures saving the planet and fighting aliens after that, traveling throughout the solar system even.”

Thorax hummed in approval, seeing an appeal to the idea. “Can I read it?” he asked next.

“When it’s done,” Spike replied, and Thorax had to grin at this response. That was the sort of response he was more used to getting when asking about his friend’s writing.

The conversation stalled out from there though, so Thorax decided to turn back to his letter to Trixie, pulling out a clean sheet of parchment to try yet again. He got as far as “Dear Trixie,” before becoming stuck again. He sighed to himself, really not knowing how to proceed with this. The desire was there, but it was all sorts of awkward to do, and it didn’t help that his mind was lost in a sea of conflicting thoughts, trying to puzzle out a matter he wasn’t certain he fully understood. He glanced back up at Spike, watching the young dragon write, and realized abruptly he hadn’t talked to Spike about all of this either, and wondered if he should.

He even wondered why he hadn’t already…but it wasn’t hard to discover his hesitation. Since Trixie’s departure, Spike seemed to have put her entirely from his mind, and demonstrated no outward worries about her or that she had met Thorax, which suggested he wasn’t worried—or at least as worried—about security issues associating with Trixie as he did other things. But Thorax had never been able to shake the perception that while Spike had relented in that Thorax attending her show hadn’t caused any harm for them and was for now okay with Thorax writing letters to her…he still didn’t feel inclined to trust her personally or overall like her too much. And that was probably Thorax’s issue right there—he flatly disagreed with Spike on this matter. He had come to feel that Spike didn’t really know Trixie as well as he thought, a thought that Thorax had only grown more confident of the more he associated with Trixie.

Regardless, he couldn’t help but wonder what Spike might think about the idea of a changeling like him getting with a pony like Trixie, and whether or not he’d think like Fly and that there was actually something like love there. Then he wondered if Spike would think that was a good or bad idea. Thorax reckoned the latter…but it would be sort of nice to get a second opinion on that much. And it’d be a bit of a shame to not to, really. This was the sort of matter he could’ve counted on Spike’s advice and input in the past, and he felt he should have it this time around too…good or bad. And then he thought that perhaps he still could, just…indirectly.

“Spike,” Thorax began suddenly, acting on the whim before any misgivings could catch up to him. “I…have something of an odd question for you.”

“I’m listening,” Spike replied without looking up from his writing, his quill still scratching away. Thorax wondered if his attention was really on him enough.

Regardless, Thorax tapped his holed hooves together as he collected his thoughts, devising how he wished to phrase this question. He decided to give no background, no frame of reference, nothing that might let him put it off and loose the desire to proceed, and just got to the point of his problem. “What’s it like to be in love?”

The scratching of Spike’s quill abruptly stopped. Spike glanced up at Thorax with a blank look on his face, clearly caught off guard by the question. “Where did this question come from?”

Thorax shifted uneasily, knowing he needed to phrase this delicately. “Well…as a changeling…you know I’m always feeding upon love and the such…but it’s occurred to me I’ve…never actually experienced it for myself before, like ponies do, so…”

Spike slowly began to nod. “You’re wondering what it feels like,” he finished, catching on.

Thorax nodded, relieved Spike had finished his explanation for him so he wouldn’t have to continue. “Yes, exactly.”

Spike frowned, tickling his snout with the tip of his quill as he mulled upon the question. “I’m not sure I’m really the right one to answer this,” he admitted finally. He blushed slightly. “I…haven’t had a lot of luck in the love department either.”

“Surely you’d still have a better frame of reference than I do.”

“That depends…what do you already know about the subject?”

Thorax bit his lip, eyes rolling upward as he sought answers. “Really not a lot,” he admitted. “I mean…it shouldn’t be a surprise when I say that there’s really not a whole lot of love to be had in the changeling hive…”

“Yeah, but…don’t changelings still have relationships?” Spike asked, draping one arm over the back of his chair. “You know, where the guy gets the gal and that sort of thing?”

Thorax chuckled at Spike’s simple phrasing. “Not really in the way ponies seem to do it,” he admitted. He changed his position in his sleeping nest slightly so to better face Spike. “You see, in the hive, pairings between male and female drones happen more at…random, and just so to serve as a means to an end.”

Spike’s brow furrowed. “I’m not sure I follow.”

“Basically, there’s only ever one goal behind such pairings; to mate and produce offspring. As soon as a changeling is mature enough, they’re assigned by the queen to find a mate and produce at least one offspring, so to propagate the hive’s populace. Once they’ve done that, the parents of that offspring part ways and go back to their usual duties.” Thorax shrugged. “Sometimes they’ll come back together and mate again when next asked, but usually not. There’s nothing personal about it, it’s just business. I guess changelings see it as only another job to fulfill and little more.”

But Spike seemed to grow more puzzled, the whole idea seeming bizarre to him. “But…what about their kids? Don’t they stick around to raise them?”

Thorax shook his head. “No, once the fertilized eggs are laid, the clutch is taken to the hive nursery where rotating crews of assigned brood mothers oversee the care and tending of the eggs, and the eventual hatchlings. Most never meet their biological parents. I never did.”

Spike’s eyes widened. “Really?” he breathed, stunned. “You mean to tell me your parents just had the egg and then abandoned you to be raised by someone else entirely?”

Thorax shrugged, well-adjusted to the idea. “That’s how it works in the hive.”

“But…” Spike’s brow furrowed again as he struggled to puzzle this out. “…how does that give you any sense of family?”

“There are no families in the hive, Spike,” Thorax reminded patiently. “The only reason changelings even know what that is, is because of our need to infiltrate pony culture to feed. Otherwise, from hatching on, it’s every changeling for themselves, except where it’s for the greater good of the hive on a whole. The closest I ever got to anything like the sort of family you would be familiar with are my clutchmates…and I’ve already made it clear we didn’t associate well. And even if we had…we would’ve still been off doing our own thing most of the time, doing whatever asked of us in the hive, and not really associating any.”

Spike winced. “Well that’s certainly got no love in it at all!” he decreed. “No parents, no real sense of siblings…” he then shrugged. “Well, I guess still you had those brood mother changelings or whatever…”

But Thorax shook his head again. “If you’re implying any of us bond with our brood mothers, that’s not the case. Like I said, they’re a rotating staff. My clutchmates and I had a different brood mother nearly every week until we left the nursery. Never really got to know any of them too well. I think Queen Chrysalis does this deliberately to ensure there’s little chance of any conflicting loyalties being imprinted on the new offspring.”

Spike scowled. “Well then, I’m starting to see your problem all right,” he remarked. “You really wouldn’t get much frame of reference for love—of any type—in an environment like that. Just the idea of any parent more or less abandoning their offspring like that, just because…” He then blinked and trailed off, a thought coming to him he hadn’t ever considered before. “You…haven’t actually done that yourself…have you, Thorax?”

“You mean mate and sire offspring?” Thorax asked, matter-of-fact and innocently blunt. He shook his head. “No. I’m certainly old enough, and have been for a couple years even before leaving the hive, but oddly, despite that, I was never assigned to mate by the queen before I left…so I never did. I have a hunch Queen Chrysalis was avoiding requesting me to do so because she didn’t want me passing on the traits in me she disapproved of on to future generations.”

“Oh,” Spike said, looking awkward. “Well…that’s good! Because…well, frankly that’s an awful way to go about it. I really can’t believe that’s how it’s done for changelings.” He started to grow concerned. “I mean, I knew life wasn’t sunshine and daisies in the hive already from what you’ve told me before, but this…”

“You see why I left, then,” Thorax remarked with a small, sad grin. He straightened. “But we’re getting off topic.”

“Right…” Spike said distractedly, though he looked like he clearly wanted to say more about the subject of changeling mating and nurturing practices. He stopped to consider Thorax’s original question for another few moments. “Well…love’s difficult to describe, Thorax. Twilight has dozens upon dozens of books on the subject, all describing it a little differently…and Cadance, the princess of love herself, seems to describe it a little differently every time she talks about it, so…” he shrugged. “I guess love can mean different things to different ponies.”

Thorax nodded, following his reasoning. “So what does it mean to you?” he prompted. Again, Spike had to stop and think about it, so Thorax decided to try and narrow the scope of his question. “Have you ever been in love, Spike?”

Spike froze suddenly at this, gazing at Thorax with blank eyes for a long moment. Gradually, though, his gaze turned vacant and faraway, thinking of other things that were hopefully relevant to Thorax’s question. He assumed they were, because he soon caught whiffs of adoration and longing within Spike’s emotions, a welcome change to the feelings of shock, disapproval and almost disgust he had been putting off while discussing the lack of love within the changeling hive. Soon, Thorax began to wonder if Spike was indeed thinking of a target of his love or affection, and while waiting for Spike to formulate a response, he started to ponder who it might be.

Then his gaze fell upon the bowtie Spike still wore about his neck as part of his disguise, and recalled the reasons why that particular bowtie was so special to the dragon. “Rarity,” he suddenly blurted out aloud.

Spike’s expression immediately turned into one akin to a foal with its hoof caught in the cookie jar. “N-no,” he quickly and nervously denied, starting to sweat. “Who told you that? That’s not—it’s nothing like that…certainly not with Rarity, not to say she’s isn’t more than worthy of it of course, but—no wait, I mean…um…” he trailed off, blushing. By this point, Thorax, not fooled, had started to give Spike a knowing look. Embarrassed, Spike sighed in defeat. “It’s that obvious, huh?”

Thorax motioned to himself. “Changeling,” he reminded teasingly.

Spike nodded, sheepishly rubbing the back of his head with his claws. “Yeah…yeah, I guess I should’ve figured that already…” He winced. “Look…it’s…sort of a secret…”

“Mm-hmm,” Thorax hummed, who, after that display, couldn’t help but wonder if it really was. He worked to nudge Spike back on topic again. “But anyway…you and Rarity…”

Spike continued to wince, avoiding eye contact. “Well…to be truthful…it’s really more of a crush…” he admitted with much reluctance.

“A crush?” Thorax frowned, not understanding. “Meaning…?”

“Meaning it’s not really a relationship.” Spike turned mellow now, feelings turning ever so slightly darker. “Basically…I have…” he waved his claws about, trying to find the right word he was comfortable admitting. “…feelings for her, but uh…” he sighed. “…I’d been starting to think they weren’t ever going to be returned by her.”

“Oh,” Thorax said, starting to understand. “So…it’s all one-way, in other words.”

Spike snorted. “One way of putting it.” He played at the bowtie with his claws, thinking about the mare in question a little dejectedly. “I guess it doesn’t matter now, seeing we’re apart and I’m on the run and in hiding…I don’t know, maybe it’s for the better anyway…Twilight always was telling me that it was more puppy love than real love anyway, but…you know, what does she know?” Spike sighed again. He shook his head. “I guess what you’re looking to know though is that love is…love is complicated. You love it and hate it at the same time, because it’s the most wonderful feeling the world, but it’ll also lead you to do things you didn’t necessarily want to do…”

“A sort of…hypnotism, then?” Thorax attempted to reason, not following.

Spike laughed. “No, no, no,” he assured, chuckling. “Sheesh, you really don’t understand this, do you?” He shook his head. “But no, it’s not anything like that. You do those things, because it hurts too much to think not to do them, not when they’d bring the…uh…subject of your affection I guess, joy in doing them.”

“So…it’s sort of like torture…but good?” Thorax again attempted to poorly reason.

Again Spike chuckled. “I guess it does kind of torture you in a way, but…you don’t mind it. You sort of want it to happen…” Spike trailed off, waving his claws about again. “…is any of this making sense?”

Thorax simply shook his head.

Spike sighed, and rubbed at his forehead for a moment. “Okay, let me try it another way,” he said, starting over. “To me…and keep in mind that I’ve only had so much experience at this…love is…liking someone so much that…you’re willing to do pretty much anything for them, so you can be assured that they’re happy…safe…taken care of…they become so important to you that their happiness starts to become more important than your own. And you take joy in seeing them happy and successful in life…and you’d hate to see anything bad, big or small, happen to them. You enjoy their company so much that you’d hate to ever have to be apart from them for too long, and are always longing for their presence…and that there’s this burning desire within you to keep them close and safe. And if you ever lose that…it makes you feel cold and almost sick inside.” Spike trailed off again, pondering if there was any other way he could describe it. “Love is special, Thorax…it’s not something to be taken for granted. I suppose in some ways…having the ability to love and be loved…that’s what makes life worth living.”

Thorax tilted his head at the dragon, considering his almost poetic words in silence for a long moment. He considered inwardly his own feelings, and supposed he saw what Spike was trying to describe. He still wasn’t sure if it was the same thing…but thinking about Spike’s words did make him feel comfortably warm inside, a feeling that grew when he applied it to thoughts of Trixie. But doing that also made him feel anxious, realizing the implications might just be genuine after all. He also noticed that tell-tale ache in his chest he couldn’t explain throbbed in varying degrees during all of this, almost in response to Thorax’s ponderings on the matter…and he wondered if this ache was the “burning desire” Spike was describing. That made him feel even more uneasy.

Spike waited for Thorax to make some kind of comment back in response, but when he didn’t, he spoke again. “Does any of that help?” he asked. “I know it’s sort of jumbled…like I said, it’s hard to describe…but did I at least get the gist of it across?”

“I think so,” Thorax said, but then he had one last question, something he realized he needed to be considering if this was actually something he was going to be facing. “But…how does one go about…getting love?”

“…you mean falling in love?” Spike inquired for clarity. When Thorax nodded, Spike hummed to himself, considering it. “Well, in my experience, it’s not really something you plan for. It just sort of happens on its own. I’ve found you can’t really force it…doing so just ends in disaster and you no closer to getting the love you desire…if not driving it further away. It’s better to not try and direct it or speed it up yourself, but instead just let it progress on it’s on…let it grow and develop naturally. Sort of like planting a seed and letting it grow into a plant. If there’s really something there, then if it’s getting the proper nurture, love will eventually bloom in full.”

Thorax envisioned love blossoming like a flower. “Hm,” he hummed as he mulled this over. He glanced back down at the unfinished letter to Trixie. “So in short, you let things proceed on their own, and eventually you’ll not only have love, but personal confirmation and certainty that this is what you’ve got?”

“If that’s what it actually is,” Spike pressed. He then furrowed his eyes at Thorax, puzzled. “Why are you asking all of this all of a sudden? I mean, I can understand if it was just simple curiosity, but you seem…oddly specific about it…” He trailed off, looking like he was waiting for Thorax to offer an explanation, but Thorax instead sat in his sleeping nest and stayed silent, nervously trying his hardest to not look nervous, hoping to not give Spike any clues about what was really happening. Eventually though, it was to no avail because Spike then tilted his head at the changeling. “Do you…have someone you have your eye on, Thorax?”

Thorax immediately diverted his gaze. “No,” he impulsively lied, embarrassed at the idea of having to explain the situation to Spike, not eager to face what he strongly suspected would be a negative reaction from Spike.

Spike was silent for a very long moment, eyeing Thorax closely during that space of time. Thorax avoided eye contact that whole time and said nothing further, attempting to make himself look busy by turning his attention back to his letter. To his alarm, he suddenly spied Spike’s gaze moving upward to look at the poster of Trixie that happened to be hanging on the wall above Thorax’s head, and Thorax felt his heart jolt in fear that Spike was figuring it out anyway.

But if this was the case, Spike chose to say nothing about it as his gaze went back to Thorax. “Okay then,” he said simply. He then turned back to his own work. Thorax proceeded to do the same when Spike spoke one final time. “Even if you were though…I just want you to remember that you are still a changeling in hiding…not exactly the right type of environment to nurture a love relationship in.”

Thorax looked at the dragon for a beat, Spike not looking up from the writing he had resumed. “Good thing I’m not in anything like that, then,” he concluded.

“Guess so,” Spike said, and with that, the topic was closed.

Thorax eventually did complete that letter to Trixie, but not in the way he was originally envisioning. Instead of this lengthy discussion about where he and she stood on each other and whether or not that was something akin or approaching to love, he wrote a comparatively more normal letter responding and commenting to all the points Trixie had brought up in her letter as normal. Then, at the end, he wrote:

I enjoy getting your letters too Trixie, and I also hope you will keep sending them. They bring me joy to read, and according to my boss, they always bring a smile to my face. I am still debating on just what she means by that when she brings it up, but whatever it is, I trust that it means I am doing something right. I am uncertain what it means about you and I in the future, and perhaps I should not be thinking about that right now. But considering it I have, and I hope that, whatever does come, I will be ready for it, and I hope I will have and can count on you for support, whatever that may be. May whatever come be joyous for the both of us. I like to think you would agree with that assessment.

Upon finishing writing the letter, he then mailed it off with the postmare the following morning. When he got back Trixie’s response a few days later, he was somewhat underwhelmed to find that Trixie didn’t comment on the matter beyond writing “We will have to discuss it further and in more depth next time I visit” and nothing more, conveying little about her own thoughts on the matter. Nevertheless, Thorax still got the distinct impression that if Trixie hadn’t been thinking there might be a closer relationship growing between them, she was now, and now, like Thorax, was beginning to wonder just what that meant for the both of them.

And for Thorax, that was good enough for now.

Author's Note

When faced with the prospect of Thorax and Trixie being an...well...item, it wasn't long before I got to thinking about what this might mean for the pair of them, and what sort of thoughts might be running through their heads. Then I latched onto an even more intriguing idea; as a changeling, does Thorax even know and understand what it's like to be in love? I mean, as pointed out in the chapter, he's fed upon it, but he's never experienced it for himself. Then I got the idea of him and Spike talking about what love is, and as Spike obviously only has so much experience in love himself, it was a prospect too fun to ignore, if only for the writing challenge it presented. Hopefully it was worth your while to read.

Spike's story idea mentioned in this chapter is loosely modeled (with a few personal tweaks to taste) upon a series of webisodes called "The Mercury Men". I had been rewatching them not too long ago and thought that was something I could see Spike being interested in, as unlike Thorax's tastes in sci-fi, which are more technical and detailed, this was more focused on the action and adventure, and didn't care so much if the science was accurate so long as it still presented an intriguing story. So it seemed like something Spike might try his claws at writing, and I figured it was past time I got him committed fully to such a project.

Finally, even though there isn't an instance of it in this particular chapter, I'm getting tired of repeating it again and again to readers, so I'm putting here for, hopefully the LAST time, the deal on Fly Leaf and the instances of where she refers to Spike as "Spike" and not "Spark." These instances are not accidents and are deliberately written that way. As explained in the chapters "Danger" and later in "Story Time", to explain away their own slip-ups over the name to Fly early on in their stay, they pass of "Spike" as a nickname for the "Spark" identity, and Fly's adopted it into her usage. Aware Spike would rather she not use it in public though, she tries to make it a point to just stick with "Spark," but in the heat of the moment, especially when in private, she'll slip up and use "Spike" anyway, and as that's obviously Spike's real name, Spike and Thorax were slow to catch it until, by now, they've pretty much gotten used to it. That's basically been my intention behind all of that.

In talking about it with the great many of you who have been commenting on it though, especially as of late, I've come to the conclusion that Fly's usage of one name or the other has come across as feeling random. Since realizing that a couple chapters back, I've been making it a point to try and be more consistent on when and where Fly uses either name so to minimize the problem. However, as there won't be many more instances to do it in the chapters remaining, I'm thinking that once the story's all said and done, I might go back and edit my approach to all of that and hopefully make it clearer what I was trying to do.

But basically that's the deal on that and now that you've all had the chance to read it, there will be no more need to ask me about it. 'Cuz anyone who does after this point is only getting directed right back here again to read it so I don't have to type it all out again. :rainbowlaugh:

Middle-Ground

It was quiet in the acorn grove, and as Thorax strolled calmly through the expanse of oak trees, he saw nothing of any other changelings that may be present in the grove that evening save himself. This wasn’t especially surprising though; the acorn grove had grown to be over a mile in size thanks to the many generations of changelings that have tended to it; even when viewed from the hive standing some distance from the border marking the edge of the grove and the start of the Badlands, the grove appeared as a line of green and brown that looked to have no end. It was easy for a changeling to find a private spot within the grove to ponder and meditate in the peaceful aura of the acorns as long as they liked without ever being disturbed by another changeling, so Thorax thought little of the fact that he encountered no one else.

Instead, he thought with a grin just how much he had missed coming to the grove. It was one of the few things he missed about life in the changeling hive, and it had been too long since he had a chance like this to soak in the peace and serenity blanketing the woods. The tranquility was especially thick this evening. Thorax gazed up at the acorns growing on the tree limbs above him and could almost hear the blessed nuts whispering words of wisdom to him. It stirred his soul to have the chance to be there, taking it in.

After several minutes of peaceful strolling through the grove though, taking in the beauty and letting himself be lost to his thoughts, Thorax eventually stepped into a small clearing out on the farther edges of the grove and came to a stop when he saw, landed and parked neatly within the clearing but still clearly ready for takeoff at a moment’s notice, his air yacht, the Vergilius. Thorax was fleetingly surprised to see it here, but then became more enthralled as he gleefully started to trot closer to the elegant airship. Its gangplank was lowered, beckoning its changeling owner aboard, and Thorax was more than happy to do so. He had successfully earned and been issued his airship pilot’s license just earlier in the week, and he, Spike, and Fly Leaf had already been making plans to take the Vergilius out on her first cruise about Vanhoover that weekend…but Thorax was too eager to fly his air yacht at the moment to wait, and bounded on up the gangplank, stepping aboard the craft’s main deck, ready to begin to takeoff.

Once aboard, he took a moment to survey the main deck before him, double checking to make sure everything still appeared shipshape. Pleased to see that it was, he turned his head to look in the direction of the airship’s bowsprit to wonder where he wanted to take the craft, only to see the airship was already in the air. Peeking over the main deck’s railing, Thorax saw the craft was now several hundred feet in the air, sailing gracefully over the acorn grove now far below. Disoriented by the sudden change in location, Thorax raised his head and turned to face the main deck fully, only to see that the row of rigging mountings for holding the airship’s lifting envelope in place normally running down the center had been replaced with a long table, a white tablecloth draped over its whole length.

Half of the table was set with dishes of funeral potatoes, of which Thorax naturally had little interest in, but the other, closer, half was set with dishes of fresh and hot cherry pie. The heavenly scent of the pie tickled Thorax’s nose, his stomach rumbling in approval of the idea of eating the love-imbued dish even though Thorax would likely pay for doing so in the morning. Excited, the changeling moved to help himself to one of the pies, licking his lips. But even as he did so, he couldn’t help but sense that there was something more important to focus on, something that was nagging at him, and he still felt puzzled by these odd events regardless.

So with some reluctance he pulled himself away from the pies and gazed further ahead of the main deck. There, at the other end of the lengthy table and just before the Vergilius’s deckhouse stood a group of shadowy figures who seemed to be quietly observing him. Because of how they were clustered together, he couldn’t quite pick out how many there were or how many of them were ponies or something else. But he estimated there were at least three to four of them, and at least one tall figure rising above the others was clearly not equine. Believing he spied Trixie’s pointed hat being worn among the group though, Thorax started trotting down to greet her, eager to speak with the magician mare at the very least. But his pace slowed as he felt a niggling in the back of his head grow the closer he drew to the group, a sense that something was amiss and very wrong, that he had cause to be concerned that he was not safe, and it was very near.

A sense that something here did not belong.

Realization striking him suddenly, Thorax came to an abrupt halt and, with narrowed eyes, began to scan the Vergilius’s main deck determinedly, resolute to not permit this intruder he knew was hiding somewhere nearby escape him yet again. Eventually his gaze fell upon the deckhouse itself, and through its forward viewport he could see the ship’s helm. Propped up on the steering controls was a red-bound, hardcover, and impressive looking book, left open so the pages inside could be read. Thorax couldn’t make out the title from here, but his attention wasn’t on the book but on the nondescript figure studying it that stood behind the ship’s wheel. Suddenly becoming aware that Thorax was watching them though, the figure abruptly looked up, locked eyes with Thorax, and like before, its eyes went very wide then darted away from the helm, raced out of the deckhouse, and then threw themselves off the airship, diving overboard.

“Oh, no you don’t,” Thorax growled and, leaping over the table of food dividing him from the fleeing figure, he buzzed his wings and took to the air, immediately giving chase and diving after the intruder.

Already he was making far better progress than last time, quickly closing the gap between him and the intruder as they both shot down towards the ground far below. Thorax was so close he could easily sense the urgent terror within the intruder, anxious to escape, and within a few more seconds, Thorax was just inches from being close enough to grab the intruder’s tail with his hooves. A few more inches after that and he could grab the tail with his mouth if he so wished. But they reached the ground before either happened, and before Thorax could react, the intruder abruptly leveled out and shot off along a mere foot above the land then dropping onto the ground and proceeding on by hoof at a full gallop.

Thorax landed as well, intending to continue the pursuit, but halted as he was jarred by the realization that his surroundings had changed again. Instead of standing back in the acorn grove like he had expected as that had been clearly what the Vergilius had been flying over, he found himself standing just outside an unnamed and very ominous looking graveyard, the entrance in the picket fence surrounding it looming before him and through which the intruder slipped. It didn’t help the weather had also taken the chance to turn very gloomy, foggy, and overcast, adding to the terrain’s very eerie appearance. Thorax felt a shudder of fear run down his spine, and sensed that something he wouldn’t want to encounter lay beyond that graveyard’s entrance.

But that was also where the mysterious intruder had fled, and still determined to not let whoever or whatever it was escape him this time, Thorax eventually pushed past his trepidation and surged on into the graveyard, following the intruder’s trail while dodging tombstones. Then after heading some distance into the graveyard, the intruder’s trail suddenly vanished. Worried and thinking perhaps he had simply wandered off the trail, Thorax looked back to pick it up again, only to see the trail behind him had vanished as well. So had the graveyard’s exit, eliminating any way of leaving, at least by hoof.

Involuntarily gulping, Thorax trudged onwards, continuing his search blindly, but growing increasingly antsy, bracing himself against anything jumping out and attacking him as he was beginning to suspect this could only end in. It didn’t help that the fogginess of the night had increased, reducing his visibility to maybe about ten to fifteen feet ahead of him, making it harder to tell what might lie ahead. Still, Thorax centered his attention on the intruder, now long gone from sight, and focused on finding the figure and ensuring that this time he got some answers about it.

Some minutes of aimless searching passed as Thorax wandered through the rows of aging gravestones, very worried that sooner or later he was going to come across something he would dread encountering. His fears were finally realized when a grave he was passing suddenly stirred, and a purple hoof burst free from the loam. Startled, Thorax jumped back and looked on in horror as he watched Princess Twilight Sparkle literally rise from the grave, smudged from head to tail in dirt and her fur slick with some kind of green slime. Most ominous of all though was the deep and bloodied stab wound that was prominently featured on her chest.

“Huc debemus non esse!” she uttered in a cryptic and strong voice, pulling herself free of the grave fully and starting to move towards Thorax, repeating the phrase with every confident step.

Alarmed greatly, Thorax pulled back from the mare’s advances, moving to put some distance between him and the mare. But this action was brought to a halt when a neighboring grave behind him also shuddered, and now Starlight Glimmer started to pull herself free from within the grave. Her body was also dirtied and scratched all over and bearing an unsightly stab wound to the chest, and like Twilight, immediately turned her attention to Thorax, advancing towards him.

“Huc debemus non esse!” she also declared, her tone and diction mirroring that of Twilight’s, so much so that soon the two were repeating the phrase continuously with every step they took and quickly falling into sync.

Growing increasingly frightened and the intruder largely forgotten for the moment, Thorax adjusted his position so to safely back away from the two mares, at a loss on what he could do as he watched the two steadily approach him, their movements fluid and unhindered, yet also unhurried, no more than a calm walk in terms of pace. Regardless, Thorax had no desire to stick around to see how this played out and turned to hurry onward, accelerating to a light canter as he moved to put as much distance between him and the two mares. It did little to help though, because as Thorax moved away from the mares, more graves he passed broke open to reveal others rising from the depths within.

Soon the list of individuals emerging from the graves to pursue Thorax grew to be quite large, and included a wide range of those Thorax had met or knew at some point in his life; Fluttershy, Fly Leaf, Ragg, Sunburst, Princess Cadance, Letterpress, Shining Armor, Princess Celestia, and even little Flurry Heart were among the examples that stuck out to Thorax the most. Not all of them were ponies though, for it wasn’t long before he spied fellow changelings, undisguised, in the group. He even spied Queen Chrysalis joining the growing fray. Then there were plenty of others that Thorax either only dimly recognized, perhaps those he had encountered only in passing, or those he didn’t recognize at all. One of these figures was a notably tall and bipedal being that Thorax was certain he had never seen before in his life. She also emerged notably close to Thorax, and so he quickly dodged away, fearing greatly what might happen if he got too close.

These individuals were all diverse, but they all still bore the same series of consistent traits, namely in that they all tried to approach Thorax at a calm pace, all bore similar stab wounds to the chest, and all repeated the same phrase, “huc debemus non esse,” in a sort of continuous chant. Not understanding what any of this was about and growing increasingly worried that he was outnumbered and about to be mobbed by this group, Thorax began searching for any way to escape with increasing urgency. It helped that the path ahead of him still remained clear, as it seemed newcomers to the group of chanters chasing him only arose as he passed them, and all of them lagged behind him. Despite that, Thorax was not reassured much, and knew he couldn’t keep fleeing the group forever.

In hopes he could just outrun them, he increased his gait to a full gallop, but didn’t get far when he all but stumbled onto a new grave and froze in horror as he saw the newest figure to emerge from a grave, joining the group. Her mane drooped and while she was missing her cape, she wore her pointed hat, but it flopped wetly about her head, soggy with green slime. And like all the others, she bore the same horrid and bloody stab wound to the chest.

“Trixie!” Thorax hissed in alarm, suddenly rooted to the spot and unable to move.

Trixie, however, only reacted like all of the others, moving to face the frightened changeling and started to move towards him. “Huc debemus non esse!” she chanted in time with all the others starting to catch up with Thorax now that he had ceased moving.

Thorax wasn’t thinking about that though, his eyes locked on the stage magician before him, backing involuntarily away from her in horror. He only got a few steps however before he suddenly felt something latch onto his hind leg. With a yelp, Thorax twisted around at the owner of the claws in time to see Spike pull himself free from the grave, wearing his usual disguise as Spark, except his shirt was smudged and tattered, his sweater vest soaked with red blood to the point it had lost its navy color, and one lens of his false eyeglasses was cracked, through which Spike gazed at Thorax with a determined and cold gaze.

“Sed qui noscis non es!” the dragon stated firmly to the changeling, breaking the trend.

Thorax could only gape at Spike in terror, jaw opening and closing repeatedly as his body built up to release what probably would’ve been a scream. But it never reached that point, as suddenly Thorax sensed something pulse once through the very world around him. The moment it washed over them, and it did so in almost a blink of an eye, Spike released Thorax and calmly retreated back into the earth. Behind him, Trixie did likewise, and the multitude of others all calmly turned away Thorax, ambling back to their respective points of origin, the chanting abruptly ceasing and silence falling. Panting, Thorax stood numbly, attempting to piece together what just happened, before the realization dimly struck him that the pulse, whatever it was, felt something akin to magic. He turned to look in the direction of its logical source in time to see a unclear figure dart out of sight behind a row of bushes growing in the graveyard, and Thorax suddenly recalled the intruder he realized still lurked nearby, whom his mind still warned was a danger.

But Thorax was puzzled by what this all implied. “…what?” he murmured aloud, and gradually resumed the chase once more.

He picked up the intruder’s trail again not long thereafter, and began tailing after the figure as it darted around, weaving around the many objects in the area, continuously slipping in and out of sight in brief bursts, no doubt in an attempt to evade Thorax. The intruder was not especially successful in doing so, but they did succeed in causing Thorax to fall behind slightly. As they started to weave around a series of burial vaults, Thorax feared the intruder might successfully give him the slip yet again. Determined to not permit that, he began considering a new plan of action that would hopefully lean the odds in his favor again.

He was just getting such an idea when, while coming around the back of one of the burial vaults, Thorax’s hoof landed into a throng of tangled vines and he abruptly came to a halt. With a series of jerks he attempted to pull the hoof free of the vines, but the vines held and his hoof remained within their tangles. When the first few tries didn’t seem to help, Thorax began to show panic, his grunts of frustration over his tugging evolving into squeaks of fear gradually growing in volume. After a minute or two of this, drawn by Thorax’s cries, the mysterious figure Thorax had been pursuing gently approached him from behind, carefully coming closer and searching for the appropriate way to render mild aid without Thorax realizing it quickly enough for him to exploit their close proximity.

Exactly as Thorax hoped.

Suddenly and smoothly pulling his hoof free of the vines, demonstrating it was never really caught in the first place and that he had been faking, the changeling spun around and grabbed the intruder by the shoulders, slamming it against the outer wall of the adjacent burial vault. “Gotcha!” Thorax cried, relieved his ruse to lure the intruder close to give aid again had worked. “Now I want to know just what this is all about!”

He lit his horn and, while keeping the only slightly resisting intruder in place with his hooves, brought the tip of his horn in contact with the intruder’s, working to force the link between them back onto the intruder and giving Thorax control. He immediately faced resistance, but Thorax pushed on, trying to force his way through as hard as he could. He began to feel a shaky counter-link start to form the same time the overcast sky above them suddenly cleared, revealing a brilliant full moon. Thorax noticed its image being reflected back at him in the eyes of the intruder before him.

And it was in that moment that he realized just who it was that he was dealing with here.

In the next moment, Thorax found himself somewhere else entirely, but had a hard time determining just what, let alone where, that was due to how abstract it was. He was at least lucid enough now to see he had successfully left his dream and had pioneered out of his mental scape, leaving it behind him and protected, but that he was also not so far in the link that he had entered the intruder’s mental scape lying somewhere before him, still barred from him with such opposing strength that Thorax found he couldn’t press further. He simply lacked the skill to do so. Nonetheless, he took small pleasure in noticing that he apparently had skill and strength enough that he similarly stopped the intruder from pushing him back into his own mental scape, barring them access, and it would stay that way until either Thorax backed off and permitted access, or the link collapsed from instability brought on by the chaos of the conflict.

Of the two options, Thorax found the latter the most likely as he eventually came to understand that they had caught themselves somewhere between their two mental scapes, arriving in something of a temporary “middle-ground,” but one that was highly unstable. A large part of the instability was brought on by the fact that this was not how a mental link was supposed to work; links typically flowed in a singular direction like a river. The initiator of the link forges the link heading into the receiver’s mental scape then loops the flow back to their own so to share information. Thorax, however, was barring the intruder’s attempts to build that loop leading back out of his mental scape, and he found his own attempts to form a similar loop in the intruder’s mental scape was similarly blocked with great skill and power; more than Thorax possessed. The effect was similar to stopping up a river; the flow backed up behind the blockage until the pressure grew too much to hold and something gave way. So would be the case with this link, leading to its assured collapse when it reaches a point it could no longer withstand these two opposing forces pushing at each other without avail like this.

But in the meantime, this vague “middle-ground” was holding, and though it was taking a good deal of concentration to keep it there—and he wasn’t sure how much longer that could be—Thorax was able to take in his metaphorical surroundings in this middle-ground and clearly make out the intruder directly before him, gazing at him in silent wonder as she, too, struggled to maintain the failing link. The link was just far enough for disguises both physical and mental to become meaningless, which meant that Thorax was before her fully out of disguise, but so was she, revealing her true form to him for the first time.

She was resisting Thorax’s attempts at intrusion, and Thorax had to fight to block her on attempts back at him, but Thorax could sense and see the gentle intentions of her actions, and that she had not planned to bring harm, nor did she at all expect to have to face a situation such as this. Because of this, she regarded Thorax with partly concealed surprise. “You continue to startle me, changeling,” she remarked aloud. There was no contempt in her tone, nor was there any elation. It was simply a statement of fact.

Thorax, however, couldn’t help but take small issue in her choice of words. “My name is Thorax,” he stated back in reply, conveying that he wished to be referred to by his proper name.

“Of course,” she replied back, conceding herself to Thorax’s desire. “I am Luna.”

Thorax nodded in acknowledgement at the princess of the night. “I know who you are.” He felt the link flicker briefly, signaling its increasing decay and saw this rare chance to learn what was going on wouldn’t last for much longer. So in an attempt to speed things along, he asked the most pressing question he had, wreathed with puzzlement around his entity. “What do you want?”

“Answers, young Thorax,” Luna replied gently. “I have been privately and discreetly searching for you via the dreamscape ever since I first received word of your banishment and Spike following you to parts unknown as outcasts, in hopes I could find at least a few to settle some uncertainties of mine.”

Thorax felt confusion arise within him. “How long have you been doing this, then?” He asked. “How many times have you intruded upon my mind like this?”

“Only once before now,” Luna assured, being patient. “And I promise they were not meant to be so intruding. My intent was more to monitor you from the dreamscape.”

This only puzzled Thorax more, recalling that he had been perfectly aware of Luna’s last intrusion. “But that means your last attempt at this was a couple moons after banishment…so—”

“—why the delay?” Luna finished. She turned apologetic. “There are thousands of dreams to sort through, and it took a while to find yours among them. It does not help that the dreams of changelings do not call to me, so I must seek them out more…manually.” Now Luna turned puzzled herself. “Once I did, I confess I was unprepared to find that your dreams are…highly resistant to my attempts to enter them, nor was I prepared for your ability to sense my presence so readily every time, and the implications all of this conveyed.” Her form reverted back to regarding Thorax with curiosity. “I was unaware that changelings were so telepathic.”

“It’s a latent ability,” Thorax admitted disinterestedly. He was momentarily distracted when he felt Luna give a sudden and hard push against Thorax’s attempts to bar her from any glimpses into his mental scape and had to shift his focus on stopping it.

The push was short-lived and unsuccessful though, and he when he had returned concentration to their mental conversation, he found Luna surrounded in an aura of polite amusement. “Do not sell yourself so short,” she said, and Thorax wondered if the sudden push was to prove a point. “You clearly have more talent in the art of the mind than you believe yourself to have.”

Again Thorax was confused, not understanding what she was trying to tell him. “What do you mean by that? I clearly can’t have that much talent if I can’t even keep you from even getting this far.” Luna, however, chose not to elaborate on her words and would not give Thorax’s any peeks at her deeper thoughts behind said words. As the link was felt flickering again, he realized it was because she herself knew time was short, and knew there were bigger things to discuss, so he allowed that topic to drop and instead pursued another. “So why infiltrate my dreams?”

A warm sense of cheer surrounded Luna. “You can learn a lot about one’s true nature from their dreams.”

“That can’t be all though. My dreams always turned to nightmares whenever you came along…so was that deliberate on your part? Are the nightmares some sort of punishment?”

“What you term as nightmares are not my doing,” Luna explained, conveying denial while continuing to be patient. “At least not intentionally. I fear they may be a result of your own mind sensing my attempts to enter, perhaps its way of warning you of what it perceived as a danger, but that is only a guess. But no, at most my only interference in your dreams was attempts to create small distractions—harmless, of course—so to keep your attention off of my presence…attempts which as you clearly know were not successful. Your dreams would then go…awry from there only afterwards beyond my control. But they are not nightmares.” A confusion of a sort that Thorax sensed Luna wasn’t used to facing when it came to the dreamscape surrounded her. “I am not sure what they are, as I have never seen the equivalent before to my recollection…they are certainly no normal sort of dream.” She again did not elaborate further.

Thorax had connection enough with Luna’s mental state to see she was not lying or trying to deceive him. “Okay then, but you still haven’t answered my question. What was it you hoped to gain from all of this, if you really meant no harm? You said you wanted answers, so what was it you were trying to learn?”

“About you, Thorax,” Luna pressed, her feelings making it clear that she thought this should have been obvious. “I wished to learn about your nature, your manner of behavior, and above all, I wished to learn more about what your intentions are, especially in regards to Spike. I had hoped to do so discreetly, without you ever being aware of my searching, but…as we already discussed, you proved to be far more aware of your mental surroundings than I ever could have predicted.”

“Then if it was so much trouble, why focus on me? Why not probe Spike’s mind?” Alarm then welled up in him. “Have you infiltrated Spike’s mind already?”

“No further than the dreamscape, and no deeper there than I do for anyone else in Equestria, as I have been doing since the beginning of my reign as princess,” Luna assured. “For instance though, I sought your dreams over Spike’s, because if the accounts I had been told about your banishment and the reasons behind it were true, then Spike’s perceptions of these events may not be…trustworthy. And this is a matter that cannot be afforded to get wrong, and I already had my reservations to how it had been playing out, so I knew I needed to seek out a source I could be assured would be true.”

“So you sought it from the changeling himself,” Thorax deduced, beginning to understand.

“Yes. My apologies if I have unduly alarmed you in doing so. When my first attempt at this failed in disaster, as you no doubt recall, I backed off to devise a new method of approaching it, taking what I had learned from the experience to plan ahead. I attempted to enact that plan this evening, but again it did not go as I’d hoped.” Luna turned optimistic and positive. “But perhaps that is for the better. This has given us the chance to communicate more one on one.”

Thorax felt the link flicker again, this time more severely, and this time it didn’t go away. Its collapse was certainly imminent. “It’s not going to be a very long chance,” he noted. He felt the strain from just barring Luna from his mental scape and knew he couldn’t spare the attention in providing additional support for the link. “I don’t have the ability to keep this up on my own.”

“Nor do I,” Luna confessed. The strain was showing on her as well. “I believe the only reason it hasn’t already collapsed is because of our efforts combined to prevent it, but even that does not seem to be enough. The only way to prevent full collapse is to permit a full link with either of our mental scapes.” But Luna was filled with doubt on this. “I am supposing that you are unwilling to permit me to do that, though.”

“No,” Thorax admitted. “And I’m guessing you won’t let me do it either.”

“I do not think it wise at the moment.”

Thorax considered their options. “Perhaps we can go back to my dream or whatever?” He attempted to backtrack to it.

But Luna denied that plan. “The dream has already collapsed and has ended. There is nothing to return to, and I cannot fabricate a new one from here.”

By that point, Thorax felt the degradation of the link had already reached a point of no return anyway. Nothing would stop its collapse now except a miracle. He paused to consider his options. Permitting Luna back into any contact with his mental scape, even if just limited to the dreamscape as she claimed, did not sit well with him and he found himself very leery of the idea, regardless of getting the clear sense that Luna was being perfectly truthful in her claims. She was a significantly more skilled and powerful in mental abilities than he, so what if it was all a deception? Further, being one of the princesses, how would he know she wouldn’t abuse what she learned, bringing trouble to him and Spike or revealing where they’ve been hiding? And no matter what, this was his mental scape they were talking about, an immensely private thing, and good intentions or not, he didn’t appreciate Luna’s attempts to intrude upon it without his knowing like this.

But at the same time, Thorax saw he had a distinctly unique opportunity here. Here he had the princess of the night in such a situation that all she could do was hear him out, and further still, she had already conveyed that, unlike her peers in the royal family, she was willing to give him the benefit of a doubt, wanting to know about who and what Thorax really was. He could have a chance to tip the scale finally, get the ball rolling for the Equestrian royalty to even see he had come meaning no harm, possibly bringing an end to this ongoing feud at last. But…how to do it?

And just how much had Luna already learned anyway? “You said you were simply trying to view my dreams,” he remarked to Luna. “You really think that would’ve told you things about who am I?”

“Quite,” Luna replied, swelling slightly with confidence and warm cheer.

“Then you’ve already seen into my dreams a little already,” Thorax reasoned next. “So…what have you learned from them?”

Luna took a moment to reply. The link again shuddered, about ready to give way, and feeling the middle-ground of sorts they had caught themselves in beginning to shrink, Thorax fleetingly feared it would collapse before Luna would give any sort of answer. But at last Luna spoke again. “I am undecided,” she admitted, her tone frank. “I was not able to see enough to form a solid opinion. However…” here, optimism filled her being again. “…I saw enough to get the impression that things are not as they seem…at least not as some would have me believe. Am I correct in assuming as such?”

Thorax made no attempt to hide his relief in hearing this, hoping in sharing that with Luna would make it clear to her he was being truthful too. “Absolutely. I never once meant harm, princess.”

The link shuddered again, and their control over the crumbling link was fading, yet Luna pressed on with slight urgency, hurrying to finish speaking her part. “Perhaps, then, I shall consult my sister further on the matter in the waking world, discuss if we need to change our approach to how we have been handling it.”

Thorax grew worried about what that might entail. “Are you going to tell Princess Twilight about this?” he asked, fearing Twilight wouldn’t be so understanding as Luna.

“Twilight, last I checked, is currently preoccupied with other affairs and currently traveling…I regret I do not recall where off hoof, somewhere south I believe…but she may not be readily available to discuss the matter until she has returned. Indeed, it may be a few days before I can make any headway of note regardless.”

“Headway?” Thorax couldn’t help but repeat the term aloud in hope, wondering if Luna was implying she was coming around in his and Spike’s defense, and was willing to fight for it.

But by this point, the link was fading fast, and Thorax was starting to sense Luna’s presence fading, being dragged gradually away as the link caved in on itself. It would be gone in a matter of moments now if not less. No doubt aware of this herself, Luna again opted not to elaborate and instead switched to one last topic he sensed she urgently wanted to bring up while she could.

“I must ask,” she said, her tone turning serious for the first time. “Despite everything that has happened, why are you continuing to associate with Spike, and what is it you hope to gain from it?”

There were many ways Thorax could have answered this question, some of them being very long and technical. But knowing time was short, Thorax, in a moment of inspiration, found a way to sum it up in one quick statement. “Because I get his friendship out of it, princess.”

Luna didn’t seem to expect this response. “Is that all?”

Thorax found it really was. “That was all I had ever wanted in the first place, princess. Friendship.”

He felt a flood of emotions suddenly from Luna, and was somewhat startled to see just how deeply moving this statement was for her. He had just time enough to recognize that she might not have expected the response, but she fully supported it. He was just turning to dare to believe that this meant Luna would support him and was about to ask, when the link shuddered and began to flicker out entirely and quite rapidly. He sensed Luna was about to speak again, perhaps to convey one final thought, but never had the chance to as she was cut off by the link finally collapsing and Thorax felt himself mentally yanked back as it severed.

He awoke from sleep a moment later, not with any sort of jolt or alarm, but peacefully, simply opening his eyes and finding himself awake. His senses returning their focus on the waking world, he stared at the far wall across from his sleeping nest for a moment recollecting himself, then gently pushed himself upright into a sitting position, gazing about at his surroundings. He found it was late at night, possibly near midnight by his guess, not that it mattered much at the moment. Their room was dark and dimly lit, and Spike was sprawled out on the window seat as expected, deeply asleep and unaware of Thorax’s present state.

Thorax needed a few moments to figure it out himself, sorting out what had just happened in his head. He felt a buzzing and tingle in his mind, a leftover from the mental link with Luna, and a fading sense of alarm at the unexpected intrusion, but now that he had a much better frame of reference for what was going on, he found he wasn’t nearly as concerned about it as he had been last time, when he hadn’t known anything. In fact, he found himself in awe more at the realization that eventually sinking upon him that he had just finished a partial mental link with another pony miles away from his present location, and marveled at the power Luna had to have to even achieve such a feat. No changeling could recreate such a long distance link on their own, not without artificial help.

But eventually his mind turned to a more pressing question that, in light of everything that just happened, he didn’t quite know how to answer; what now?

As it often was, Thorax decided to turn to Spike for help, and moved over to the sleeping dragon, gently trying to shake him awake. “Spike, wake up,” he urged in a collected whisper as he did so. “It’s important!”

Spike let out a snort as he jolted awake, then wearily pushed himself up to look at Thorax. “Thorax?” he groggily asked, squinting at the changeling with tired eyes, before sighing and letting his body flop back down onto the window seat. “Why do you always have to do this so late at night?”

Thorax pulled his friend upright with one hoof. “Ask Princess Luna,” he stated.

Spike rubbed at his tired eyes. “Luna? Why, what does she have to do with—?”

“Remember when someone tried to force their way into my mental scape while I was sleeping some weeks back?”

Spike went still suddenly as he caught on. Lowering the claws he had been using to rub his eyes, he gazed at the changeling in surprise. “No way,” he breathed.

Thorax nodded. “Better still…this all might be a good thing.” He then proceeded to summarize the experience to Spike.

Afterwards, Spike looked decidedly lost, unsure what to make of this. “…so what does this mean?” he asked the changeling after a long moment of silence.

“I’m not sure,” Thorax admitted. “We could speculate of course…in fact I’d love to do that, because I have hope this will go our way…but the fact of the matter is that Princess Luna wasn’t able to clearly convey what her plans are.”

“Hmm,” Spike hummed, and his gaze wandered as he considered this.

“All we can say for certain,” Thorax continued, “is that I was at least able to convey to her that things were not as she had been led to believe, that she intended to discuss the matter further with Princess Celestia and assess if they needed to change their approach in addressing it, and that she seemed to have reacted very positively to what little I was able to convey to her about what my real intentions in all of this are.”

Spike mulled over this for a moment, his thought processes going slower than normal due to his tired state. “And you’re certain she wasn’t lying or deceiving you?”

“Nearly completely,” Thorax promised. “The only thing I can’t guarantee is if she really told me everything, but what she did tell me, I could sense she wasn’t being dishonest about. You can have my promise as a changeling on that.”

“If that’s the case, then why didn’t you permit her to see into your mind or whatever so she could confirm what you told her?”

“Spike, my mental scape contains all of my thoughts, memories, and ideas stored within, both private and public. Would you really be willing to let someone be able to access it and see all within like that?”

“I did with you,” Spike replied pointedly, recalling the time Thorax had linked with him.

And Thorax had to concede to that point. “Okay, fair enough,” he relented. “But I do want to point out that she already did try to access my mental scape, even just by limiting herself to the fringe that is my dreams, without my knowing. I may trust what she told me of her intentions were true, but forgive me if I still felt overprotective of my mind after that.”

“Couldn’t you have just given her limited access then?” Spike reasoned. “Controlled what she saw in your mental scape, and only showed her what she needed to in order to know that you were being truthful?”

“Because then that would only convey to her that I had something to hide,” Thorax reminded. “Besides, I don’t I have enough skill for that sort of control…it’s not something I’ve attempted before. And it didn’t seem like a good time to try and risk failure. And anyway, she would’ve been able to tell if I was trying to deceive her the same way I was able to tell with her. It’s more what I was not able to tell her that might give her pause…and given the circumstances, we both knew the window of time we had was a narrow one, and that we could not convey all we could’ve. In fact, it wouldn’t surprise me if she didn’t try this sort of link again so to have a second chance at getting those details. But that should be taken into consideration, at least.”

“I know, I know, and looking back, I probably should’ve realized Luna was involved when we first realized someone was trying to spy on your mental scape, and why she’d want to.” Spike sighed. “It’s just…I don’t really know what to make of all of this. You seem convinced that it could only be a good thing, but…I still have to pause and wonder, Thorax. We don’t really know just what it is she plans to do about this. What if she tells Twilight?”

“She can’t right now, she told me that Princess Twilight is away somewhere and not where she could readily discuss the matter with her. But…” Thorax paused briefly. “…I got the impression that Princess Luna wanted to keep this private for now anyway, probably going no further than herself and at least Princess Celestia for now. I don’t know…it was just something about her approach to all of this that tells me all of this was meant to be discreet, to keep others from finding out before she was ready to report what she had found with confidence that it was accurate. I’m not certain the other princesses were even aware that she was doing this.” He gave Spike an optimistic nudge. “And the fact that she has gone to such lengths tells me she already suspects there was more to be learned than what she had already been told. She indicated that what Princess Twilight had told her about our banishment seemed amiss…that suggests to me that she already had her doubts. Doubts that I earnestly hope I was able to confirm to her. That right there might be enough to sway things our way. And if so…why not tell Twilight? The new perspective might just get her willing to sway too.” He frowned when he noticed that Spike didn’t seem enthused by that prospect. “C’mon Spike…that’s an exciting prospect for us to consider, isn’t it?”

“If it’s true,” Spike replied.

“Princess Luna has given us no cause to believe it isn’t at least possible,” Thorax pointed out in return. “But if Princess Luna can be swayed enough to have doubts that banishment was really the right choice in dealing with us, then perhaps that is the beginning of having that reversed.” He couldn’t help but grin a little. “Spike, that could mean we no longer have to stay in hiding sometime soon. That we can come forward for all to see without fear of capture or trouble. Wouldn’t that be wonderful?”

Spike couldn’t help but grin a little too, Thorax’s optimism being infectious. “It would,” he admitted. The smile faded away again. “But…it just feels weird…after all this time, I mean…I…” he trailed off.

Thorax understood what he was getting at and lowered his head to be level with Spike’s, gently placing a holed hoof on his friend’s shoulder. “Look Spike…I know they shattered your trust in them…and you’re afraid of setting yourself up for them to do it again…but be wary of falling into the same trap that they did when this all started.” He gently lifted Spike’s chin a little and grinned. “Just like changelings…even ponies can change.”

Spike sadly returned the grin. He took a deep breath and let it out again. “So what do we do?” he asked again.

Thorax sighed himself. “The only thing we really can do at the moment,” he admitted. “Wait and see what becomes of it.”

“Is that really all?” Spike asked, doubtful. “What if things go wrong, and they come here, hunting for us?”

“Princess Luna didn’t convey that she had actually figured out where we were at, first of all. I don’t know if it’d be smart to assume that she does, and she still hasn’t given us any cause that she would reveal that knowledge anyway…especially if she already has reason to doubt what happened and that others may have acted…incorrectly.” Thorax straightened. “Besides, we can’t just leave either, not without more just cause to. What if this really does sway them in our favor? Finding that we left again and went even deeper into hiding anyway just might give them cause to suspect us again. It’d at the very least drag out any attempts at a peaceful solution.”

“What if I don’t want a peaceful solution?” Spike asked suddenly, his tone turning dark. He gazed meaningfully at Thorax. “After what they did…to just end it like nothing had happened…”

“No one’s saying that’s what will happen,” Thorax assured. “I doubt it could even if we all wanted it to. But surely you do want this to end…right?”

Spike just gazed at Thorax for a long moment, his look vacant, and didn’t answer.

Thorax had a good hunch why, but as the adrenaline from all of this wore off and he felt sleepiness start to ebb back upon him again, he decided it was not the time or place to press further. “Look, it’s late, and there’s not anything we can do about it right now anyway.” He patted Spike on the back. “Let’s sleep on it, and talk about it more when we’re both of clearer minds, okay?”

“Okay,” Spike said simply, and he laid his body back down to sleep.

Thorax assured his friend was comfortable in his window seat bed, then returned to his own sleeping nest and settled back down, welcoming the return of sleep. Both were soon deeply asleep once again and remained that way for the remainder of the night. Luna did not try again to visit Thorax’s dreams nor did she attempt to visit Spike’s as far as either of them could later recall. But both slept very well and dreamed peaceful and heartening dreams regardless.

Author's Note

"Called it!"

-All of you after reading this chapter.

It being Luna was always the plan, and I had figured at least a few of you would figure out it would be her in advance, but I of course still hoped it wouldn't be as many...as there actually were. :rainbowderp: As such, I did actually toy with changing it to someone else, and explored a few ideas on how to do it. I even considered some of the alternate ideas of who it could be that a couple readers suggested, some of which were actually really intriguing. But all of them would only end up jarring my plans both before and after this chapter, and since I was only considering doing it to be Mary Mary Miss Contrary, it didn't seem worth that extra effort...so I stuck with Luna. In giving this chapter its customary final edit though, I was struck by the eerie mood and tense suspense I was able to convey still, so I'm content regardless. I think its a chapter that turned out good anyway. :twilightsmile:

Anyhoo, welcome back after that brief hiatus I took from posting chapters so to accommodate time for a quick family reunion and to pad out my buffer of completed chapters some more (for those who missed what that was about, as there still seems to be the odd straggler, there's a blog post all about it on my profile). I appreciate everybody's patience and willingness to allow me to do that, and it proved very fruitful. I was successfully able to expand my buffer of completed chapters from about three to presently about thirteen, which was better than what I had even been shooting to achieve. :pinkiehappy: Hopefully, I'll be able to maintain enough of that buffer that I won't have to repeat this again on through to the end of the story (which is rapidly coming ever closer. Things are going to start getting very hectic here very soon). But I expect chapters will start becoming much more variable in length from here on out too, so...we'll see. I'm going to try to avoid another hiatus as much as possible though, mostly because I don't want to drag this out any longer. More likely, but only if I have to, I'll simply adjust the posting schedule from posting twice a week to only once a week, so to give myself more writing time if need be.

But for now, "Grief" will be resuming it's normal biweekly posting schedule as before. :raritywink:

Discovered

The following morning began without fanfare. Despite waking up in the middle of the night because of Luna visiting Thorax’s dreams in his sleep, both awoke, refreshed and ready for the new day, at their usual respective times. Thorax awoke first and went off for his usual guizhou fa practice with Fly Leaf, and returned to the room in time to find Spike waking up next. Together, the two then proceeded to undergo their usual morning routine to prepare for work that day. Partway through, while Spike was brushing his teeth, gazing at his reflection in the mirror, Thorax was standing beside him, and after a few moments of regarding his reflection in the mirror too, he sat upright and frowned as he poked and prodded at his currently undisguised barrel.

“Spike, tell me honestly,” he finally began. “…am I putting on weight?”

Spike paused brushing his teeth and shot a sidelong glance at his friend. “I wasn’t going to say anything,” he replied.

Which, of course, only confirmed Thorax’s fear. “Oh, wonderful, I am, aren’t I?” he bemoaned softly, glaring down at the added padding he was starting to show about his middle.

“Hey, I’d rather have that than you be a malnourished skin and bones like when we met,” Spike argued. He proceeded with brushing his teeth for a moment before a related thought came to him. “Actually…do you even have bones?”

“Only sort of,” Thorax replied, but he didn’t elaborate, preferring to stay on topic. “But there’s keeping fed, and then there’s being fat.” He made a face. “I don’t want to be fat.”

“You’re not fat,” Spike persisted, rolling his eyes. “You’re just…” he glanced at Thorax’s reflection in the mirror. “…padded.”

Thorax shot him a look. “That’s not helping.”

“No seriously, Thorax, you’re not that fat,” Spike assured, turning his head to look at the changeling. “So you’re a little chubby around the middle…that’s not always a bad thing, and you’re certainly not so chubby that you’re unhealthy. Heck, I’m chubbier than you are.” He glared down at his round belly for a moment and muttered under his breath how he seemed to be cursed with it forever. “The point is,” he then continued, restoring his gaze on Thorax, “I’d rather see you a little chubby than not, as it means you’re getting enough nourishment, something I admit I was very worried about when we were starting out. Plus, you were reaching this point once before a couple moons ago, but then you fell ill, and you lost a lot of weight during that time. So you being chubby just tells me you’ve gained it back and are staying healthy.” He grinned. “It’s a good thing, bud. And anyway, it makes sense that you’d have a bit extra padding anyway. You’re in an environment now where you’re getting exposed to more regular food sources than you ever did before…and from what you’ve told me about life in the hive, that can’t be bad, right?”

“I suppose not,” Thorax admitted reluctantly. He glared down at his belly again. “That doesn’t mean I’m happy about it.”

“Then hide it behind your disguise,” Spike suggested, resuming brushing his teeth again. “I haven’t noticed Thornton putting on weight yet.”

“That won’t make it go away, and anyway, even that’ll change if this keeps up. The disguise will eventually subconsciously adapt to more closely match my real body weight unless I continuously remember to deliberately keep it thin, an act that requires regular concentrated thought to do. It’d be easier to just loose the weight instead.”

Finished with his teeth, Spike spat the residual toothpaste into the sink. “I’m guessing you think that’s necessary then,” he reasoned as he rinsed out the sink and then his toothbrush.

“Yes!” Thorax agreed. “Chubby or not, it’s no excuse! A fat changeling is a lazy changeling.”

“You’re not fat, Thorax.”

“I’m getting there though, that’s what I’m getting at. And in the hive, if you start putting on weight, the less you’re going to be able to pull your weight in the hive, and if you can’t do that, the rest of hive starts shunning you, and you get overlooked…not a good thing to happen to a changeling as it can lead to them getting left all but abandoned, and often falling ill in the process.”

“All the more reason to not live in your hive.” Not for the first time, Spike was secretly glad Thorax was no longer there. It was clearly not a nice place to live.

Thorax wasn’t listening. “If Queen Chrysalis were here, she’d reprimand me silly…none of her changelings are allowed to put on extra weight, ever,” he continued on.

“No changeling, huh?”

“Well, except for the queen herself.”

“Oh, of course, I should’ve seen that coming.”

“It’s not what you think. A plump queen means a well-fed queen, which in turn means a well-fed hive. It’s seen as a good thing.”

“But not when all the other changelings are plump.”

“No, because then things don’t get done.” Thorax sighed. “I’m just going to have to work it off somehow, get more exercise…” he hummed to himself, rubbing his chin with one hoof. “Maybe for my lunchbreak today, I’ll head down to the park and go jogging for a few laps…”

“Fine, whatever toots your horn,” Spike remarked, having moved on to straightening his green spines. He did so in silence for a moment while Thorax gave himself one more critical look over. The mundaneness of it all suddenly struck him as bizarre. “So we’re really just going to go on with lives as normal after what happened with Luna last night?”

“I don’t see any reason why not to yet,” Thorax replied immediately. “Until we know more, it’s hard to know if we even need to act.”

“And maybe that’s what bugs me about it,” Spike said as he stared at his glum reflection in the mirror. “Not knowing what’s coming next.”

Thorax moved closer and put a reassuring hoof around him. “Hey, it’s not like we ever have known what’s coming next,” he pointed out. “We’ve pretty much spent all of these past four moons making it up as we go along.”

Despite everything, Spike had to chuckle at Thorax’s phrasing. “Yeah, I suppose so.” He breathed a sigh. “I guess if we could get this far doing that, doing it once more won’t hurt too much…it’s just…I’m not happy about it…it leaves me feeling uneasy.”

“I know,” Thorax said. He sighed himself. “I wish I could do more to comfort you on that Spike…but trust me…I think we’re going to get out of this fine, no matter what happens next with Princess Luna and whatever it is she is planning to do in regards to us…but for the record, I think she’s going to come around to our side, I really do.”

“Then I hope for all of our sakes that you’re right, Thorax,” Spike concluded.

The day then continued to proceed on fairly routinely from there. Business in Fly’s shop followed roughly the normal routine, of business starting out relatively slow, but gradually picking up as the day wore on. Well-adjusted to this by now, both Spike and Thorax thought little of it and went on with their usual duties in the shop as normal. Fly at one point remarked aloud that it seemed to be business as usual in the shop, and she was perfectly okay with that, preferring that over problems that could potentially disrupt business.

By lunchtime, Thorax made good on his promise to try and exercise more, and as he had said he would, he went down to the park during his lunchbreak and spent it jogging laps around it. By the time he came back from the jogging at the close of his break, Spike was just beginning his own lunchbreak which that day he had decided to take upstairs in their room so he could work on his writing. When Thorax—still disguised suggesting he didn’t plan to stay up there long—entered the room after his return to the shop, Spike was intrigued to see that Thorax seemed to be in high spirits and was wearing a big grin.

“I take it jogging went well,” he remarked aloud with a smirk.

“Better than that,” Thorax replied, unzipping his jacket that he had worn for the little venture. He reached into the pocket of his jacket with one hoof and pulled something out. “Check out what I found while I was at the park.”

Spike glanced at the little object in Thorax’s hoof, immediately identifying it. “It’s an acorn,” he simply noted aloud.

“Yes!” Thorax confirmed, looking eager. “It means the trees are shedding their acorns for the final time in preparation for winter.”

“That’s normally what happens at this time of year,” Spike said dryly, aware that acorns held special meaning to the changeling but he still didn’t see what was significant about this. “What about it?”

“You recall what I had explained to you about acorns before, right?”

“That changelings believe the first changelings sprouted somehow from an acorn and that acorns are spiritually imbued with knowledge or some such, yes.”

“Right, acorns are sacred. Back at the acorn grove at the hive, all acorns that the trees in the grove produce are collected and stored with reverence until about this time of year, when an event takes place called the Dissipatio.”

Spike frowned, not sure he was following. “The ‘Scattering?’” he repeated, knowing enough linguae mutationis to translate the changeling word and guessed the purpose of the event. “You collect all the acorns just to scatter them?”

Thorax nodded. “What did you think we’d do with them?” he asked.

Spike thought about it for a brief second. “I would’ve thought you’d keep them close, so…I don’t know, eat them?”

Thorax looked appalled by the very suggestion of that and he whisked his one acorn protectively from Spike, clutching it to his chest. “No! We don’t eat them! They can’t sprout into new acorn trees if they get eaten! Besides, who’d want to do that with something as special as acorns?” He seemed genuinely flabbergasted by the idea.

Spike could think of half a dozen of creatures that’d want to make a meal out of acorns, some ponies included, but he figured now probably wasn’t a good time to name them. “Okay, so you scatter the acorns, in hopes they’ll sprout into new trees?” he summarized, hoping to distract Thorax from the subject of eating them.

It worked, and Thorax nodded in approval. “It’s a highly honored changeling tradition,” he explained. “It’s the one time the queen permits work in the hive to pause so we can all go witness the event.” He shifted positions, leaning close again so to explain. “You see, what happens is that a number of changelings are selected, a huge honor, to take bags filled with the year’s harvest of acorns, and then take them and fly off, scattering them as far as they can. And as you said, the hope is that by scattering the acorns, that will give them the chance to grow into new trees, creating new sacred acorn groves or even possibly, according to the legends, sprout new lines of changelings.” He regarded the acorn he found with reverence. “Since I left the hive, I haven’t had the chance to properly celebrate a Dissipatio myself for a while, but after finding this lovely acorn, I thought maybe I can just collect some acorns of my own from the grove in the park as they fall, and then once I’ve collected a fair number, perform the ceremony myself.”

Spike also regarded the acorn for a moment, but he did so with more skepticism. “Not to be a killjoy Thorax…but I don’t think you’re going to be able to get very many of these acorns here in a city like Vanhoover.”

“I know,” Thorax conceded willingly, not bothered by this. “But that’s okay, I’m just one changeling. As much as I’d want to, I’d only be able to scatter so many acorns on my own anyway.”

Spike rubbed the back of his head sheepishly for a moment. “Well then…maybe when you do this Dissipatio thing…I could come with and help.”

Thorax chuckled. “I’ll keep that in mind,” he said. “But in the meantime, my lunchbreak’s over. I need to get back to work.”

He set the acorn down beside the record player before trotting back out of the room. Spike watched him go for a moment then looked back at the solitary acorn. He still didn’t know what to make of the peculiar changeling beliefs surrounding such acorns, but he knew it meant something to Thorax, and he couldn’t help but grin a little that Thorax was still finding ways to demonstrate it.

He directed that grin at the acorn. “Then let’s make sure that Dissipatio ceremony goes better than he expects, shall we?” he remarked aloud to it, before chuckling to himself, satisfied and turning to return to his own lunchbreak.

The day continued on still. Spike was starting to find that it had been a pretty routine and average day today despite his expectations, and frankly he preferred it that way. He commented as such to Thorax later that afternoon, during a lull moment in the shop as business started to wind down for the day.

“It is nice to have things go as you expect them to,” the disguised changeling admitted as he took advantage of the spare moment to straighten a few things on the front desk. “And I’m sure that after events from last night, that goes doubly so.”

“I just hope it lasts,” Spike said, turning his gaze to glance out the shop’s front window. “You know, we’ve been incredibly lucky these past four moons.” He sighed. “Sometimes I can’t help but wonder if it’ll keep up.”

“Personally, I’d prefer to not dwell too hard on it,” Thorax replied.

Spike leaned on the side of the front desk and grinned at his friend. “Why, because we might jinx ourselves doing so?”

“No, because there’s no point in losing sleep over it when there’s other things you can be doing in the meantime to make the best of life,” Thorax replied, not playing along. “Life still goes on, you know. There are still things right here in Fly Leaf’s Books and Stationery that we need to manage.”

“Speaking of,” Spike said, changing the subject. “About our plans to take the Vergilius out for a shakedown cruise this weekend. Fly asked me while you were out on your lunchbreak what she should pack for a picnic lunch.”

Thorax shrugged. “You tell me, you’re likely going to be eating it more than I will be,” he remarked, discreetly reminding Spike of his changeling biology not requiring as much solid food.

Spike smirked. “Of course, because you’re the one suddenly watching your weight and all that.” He chuckled as this elicited a sigh from Thorax. “You know Fly’s not going to go for that though. She’ll want you to both have a say and partake in the goods she packs.”

“And as always, I’ll humor her where I can,” Thorax assured. “After all, it’s her satisfaction in my doing so that’s really filling for me. Not that it matters, because I’ve been keeping pretty well fed lately, weight notwithstanding. But that said, I really don’t have any particular preferences. I’ll probably take whatever it is she packs and try and down what I can.”

Spike shrugged and turned to gaze out the front window again, this time casually. “I’ll tell her to just pack sandwiches then,” he concluded. “Maybe we can take some of your Thornton Cheese and make grilled cheese sandwiches with them or something.”

“Perhaps we can,” Thorax said. He then glanced around the room, looking for their employer. “Where is Miss Fly at the moment anyway? I can’t say I’ve seen her recently.”

“Last I saw, she’s upstairs on the second floor,” Spike replied. “She says she’s been beginning advance preparations for Nightmare Night.”

“Nightmare Night?” Thorax glanced at Spike, confused. “I admit that I’m not the most-versed fellow on Equestrian holidays…but isn’t that late next moon?”

“It is,” Spike said with a smirk, but his gaze not wandering from the front window he was staring vacantly out of. “Fly says she likes to get a head start, and it’s honestly not hard to guess why. You and I have both heard tales of how competitive she and Letterpress get in trying to outdo the other in decorating for the holidays. Nightmare Night is apparently no exception.”

“Oh.” Thorax turned back to his work and shrugged. “I guess we’ll be seeing first-hoof if there’s actually any truth to those tales we’ve heard then.”

“Having seen how Fly and Letterpress go at it on a regular day of the week, I don’t doubt for a second that they are. But I can’t blame Fly too much for that. Letterpress is so full of herself, one can’t help but want to try and knock her ego down a couple pegs…or a few dozen.”

Thorax chuckled. “Letterpress does grate on one’s nerves after a while…but that’s not necessarily an excuse to go overboard trying to get back at ponies like her…or that one should try to do so at all. If it were me, I’d try—”

He was cut short when Spike, still idly gazing out the shop’s front window and watching the ponies pass by, suddenly let out a loud gasp, straightening abruptly. Startled, Thorax whipped his head around to look at the dragon in time to see Spike had gone both wide-eyed and very pale, gaze locked onto something outside the shop. But before Thorax could even have the chance to ask why or even turn his head to follow Spike’s gaze, the dragon was suddenly diving for the front desk, throwing himself underneath it to hide and briefly bumping Thorax’s legs out of the way in doing so.

“Spike! What the—?” Thorax uttered as he shifted his position accordingly, gazing down at his friend in perplexed concern.

But Spike cut him short. “Shhh!” he hissed urgently, motioning for Thorax to keep quiet and thereby implying he say nothing about the dragon.

Thorax still didn’t understand why though. “But what’s wrong? Why are you…?” He trailed off when he heard the shop’s front door open, announcing the entrance of a new customer, and he lifted his gaze to look…

…in time for Princess Twilight Sparkle herself to walk into the shop.

Thorax immediately froze, and could only stand there and stare in shock as the purple alicorn mare casually trotted into the shop, stopping once inside to glance around at the interior. He and Spike—the latter still hiding out of view under the front desk—both rushed through the series of questions that this unexpected and alarming event immediately flooded their minds with, but they could all be boiled down to one question most pressing of all: does she know we’re here? And if so, how? Twilight was not alone however, and she was followed into the shop by another orange-colored mare wearing a hat. Not being as familiar with her as he was with Twilight, Thorax needed a moment to inwardly identify her, but Spike, even though he couldn’t see her from where he was hiding under the desk, knew who she was the moment he heard her speak.

“Quaint liddle place,” Applejack remarked aloud in her usual country accent, sounding calm and nonchalant. “Ah rather like it, actually.”

“Yeah, it’s nice isn’t it?” Twilight was heard agreeing, who sounded cheerful to Spike, something he wasn’t yet sure to make of. “I used to daydream about working in a little privately owned bookshop like this, back before I came to Ponyville.”

Applejack chuckled. “That don’t surprise me in the slightest, sugarcube.” She paused then continued innocently. “This place weren’t on yer list of places ta visit though, was it?”

“No, it’s not, but since we were passing by, I figured we might as well pop in and take a look so to be certain.”

“Ya think this place will have wut yer lookin’ fer?”

“Not entirely, but we won’t know until we’ve taken a look around.”

It was then that Applejack’s eyes settled upon Thorax, still rooted in place standing behind the front desk in horror. When the country mare looked his way, his eyes flicked down at his hooves to double check and make sure he was in disguise still, which of course he was, but Thorax was for the moment terrified discovery was still imminent. Applejack, however, didn’t gaze at him with a look of recognition or suspicion, and rather seemed to interpret Thorax’s no doubt visible apprehension as one to be amused by, for she chuckled to herself again.

She leaned closer to Twilight. “Looks like yer reputation as princess has preceded ya again,” she remarked to the alicorn.

Twilight let out an exasperated groan and turned to face Thorax, taking a few steps towards him. “Look, yes I’m the princess of friendship, but as I’ve told everypony else today, I’m not here on royal business or anything like that, I’m just here on a personal trip searching for books to add to my collection at home, at my own private leisure and nothing more,” she told Thorax firmly. “I don’t want any special treatment, just…ignore the fact that I’m a princess and treat me like you would for any of your other customers, understand?”

Spike watched from where he was hiding as Thorax shifted his position slightly so that his body and legs would block from view Spike’s hiding spot under the desk, even though Applejack and Twilight, the only two customers in that room at the moment, still stood before the desk, where Spike wouldn’t be visible at all anyway. “Yes ma’am,” the disguised changeling managed to squeak out, clearly nervous.

Twilight seemed to interpret it as simply being nervous in the presence of a princess like Applejack had and sighed lightly, but otherwise she didn’t press the matter further. “Now then, I’m looking for any books at all you might have on the subject of astronomy. If you have any, could you kindly tell me where to find them?”

Thorax raised a hoof to point at the relevant shelf. “Bottom shelf of the middle bookcase on that wall is where all the books we have addressing the subject are, ma’am,” he again squeaked out in a rush, eager to get the attention of the two mares off himself.

Satisfied, Spike listened as the two mares trotted off to investigate, and it was then that he realized Applejack and Twilight were both here entirely by chance for reasons completely unrelated to him and Thorax. They had no idea the significance of the place they had just waltzed into and that he and Thorax were here, hiding in plain sight. But if they found the books they were looking for without trouble, they just might come and go without ever realizing he and Thorax were here. So the question was…could they keep attention off themselves and Spike out of their view long enough to do this? Spike curled himself up tighter where he hid under the desk to wait it out. It was the only thing he could do at this point except continuing to wait it out and see what happened. As well as hope that Thorax could continue to keep his cool—he could only see Thorax from about the barrel down from where he was hidden, but he still was able to see that Thorax’s rate of breathing had accelerated to the point that it was a miracle he wasn’t hyperventilating.

But Applejack and Twilight’s attention were clearly on the books now as Spike listened to their chatter while they looked. “Well, how d’ya like that?” Applejack commented aloud from the far right of the room. “Looks like this shop’s got sumthin’ along the lines ya were lookin’ fer after all Twi.”

Books could be heard shifting about as Twilight no doubt pulled out a couple to examine. “Yes, they’re not books that go into incredible depth on the field, but some of these look like they might be promising regardless that I don’t already have. Let me flip through a few of these real quick though, get a feel for their contents…”

“Ah ain’t in no rush,” Applejack assured, and her tone of voice had Spike picturing her glancing idly about the shop some more while Twilight studied the books. “Still kinda surprised this place had any of these sorts of books at all, though.”

“I’m not, it’s clearly a general purpose bookstore, meaning it’d look to carry a wide selection of titles on as many subjects it can,” Twilight replied calmly. She had taken on an instructing tone that Spike realized he hadn’t heard in quite a while now. “Its selection is thus going to be bit generic over all, but still diverse in subject. For a few books relevant to this topic to pop up in one isn’t surprising, but not much more than that. What would be surprising was if we found a great many books all on this one topic instead of just three or four.” Spike could hear her shifting books again, possibly switching to a new book. He couldn’t actually see from his hiding spot so he had to guess from the sounds. “Still, it makes me glad that I decided to pop in here and double check anyway or I might have missed out.”

“So why didn’t ya have it on yer list then?” Applejack asked.

“I knew Fluttershy had been up in Vanhoover recently, so while I was planning this whole trip, I put together a list of shops I knew were here, asked if she knew any of them, and if so, if they might have the sort of astronomy books I’d be interested in.” Spike heard Twilight pause to turn a page. “I remember this shop was on the list, but Fluttershy had been rather adamant that I wouldn’t find what I was looking for here, so much so she told me straight up to not even bother visiting it, so I removed it.” Spike then heard Twilight close the book with a thump. “But, not to discredit Fluttershy or anything, I’m thinking she wasn’t as familiar with this shop as she thought. Here’s at least one book that’s worthwhile for me to purchase. Let’s see if some of these others are similar.”

Spike had to blink to himself though, realizing that Fluttershy, the only one of Twilight’s friends who knew Spike and Thorax’s location, hadn’t directed Twilight away from Fly’s shop because of any books (in fact, due to the nature of Fluttershy’s visit, Spike doubted she even really knew much of what the shop offered) but rather as an attempt to try and keep Twilight as far from Spike and Thorax as she could, hoping to prevent Twilight from discovering them. It actually touched Spike a little to know that Fluttershy was still actively keeping their secret and working to keep them safe and undetected. Too bad, then, that the attempt had clearly proved fruitless.

“Ah’d heard Fluttershy had gone up here couple moons back from Rarity,” Applejack remarked, continuing the conversation while Spike mulled on this. “But Ah never did catch why she went up here at all.”

“According to Rarity and Rainbow Dash, she apparently has a veterinary friend that lives up in this area and who she sporadically visits now and then, usually to assist this friend in her work. Rainbow says she met her once, and could confirm that she and Fluttershy go way back. So I guess it was simply another one of those visits,” Twilight answered distractedly. “To be honest though, I didn’t really think much of it.”

Spike, for one, was personally glad for that.

This got Applejack moved to a different topic though. “About that not thinking much of things, sugarcube,” she said with faint hesitation. “Ah, uh, can’t help but notice that’s been yer approach ta a lot of things outside yer…work…lately.”

Spike could almost hear Twilight’s brow narrow. “I’ve been pretty busy lately.”

“I know that,” Applejack assured. “It’s just…it don’t seem like yer payin’ attention ta…much anythin’ else lately. Ya don’t go out an’ do…well…things like this anymore.” Though he couldn’t see it, he imagined Applejack was motioning to their surroundings. “Just…goin’ out an’ hangin’ out with friends, an’ enjoyin’ life.”

“I haven’t had time for that much lately, Applejack.”

“Have ya really, sugarcube? Or have ya let yourself git too…carried away? Lost sight of important things in life?”

Twilight’s tone darkened suddenly. “Are you saying what I’m trying to do isn’t important?”

“No, it is, it’s just…” Applejack trailed off for a moment. “…we’re worried ’bout ya, Twi. Ya really ain’t been yerself a lot lately. Ya always seem so caught up in yer search that…ya don’t socialize. Ya don’t hang out with us. Ya don’t do anythin’ else. Ya seem…lost…distracted…it can’t be healthy fer ya, Twi. It’s been, wut, four moons now? This is the first time ya even pulled yerself away from it ta actually do sumthin’ else fer a change.”

“And the only reason I did was because Princess Celestia explicitly requested I take the break,” Twilight added firmly.

“Yeah…Ah know.” Applejack was quiet for a moment. “Me and the girls sorta…petitioned her ta talk ya into doin’ it.”

Twilight was quiet for a long moment. By this point Spike had already figured out what it was they had been discussing about Twilight obsessing over, but if there were still any doubts to be had, they were chased away by Twilight’s next comment. “I miss him, AJ,” she said softly, just barely loud enough for Spike to still hear from his hiding spot. “I should’ve never let Spike out of my sight. And I don’t intend to rest until I’ve set things right and he’s back where he belongs.”

Applejack breathed a long and steadying sigh. “Look Twilight, Ah git this has all been hard fer ya, ’specially since he’s like a liddle brother ta ya. When Ah think about sumthin’ like this happenin’ ta Big McIntosh or Apple Bloom, Ah think Ah start ta have a prudy good idea wut ya’ve been goin’ through. And even without that, it’s still been hard fer the rest of us. We miss him too. Things just…haven’t quite been the same without Spike bein’ around. But it also ain’t been the same without you around Twilight…an’ we’ve been gittin’ a lot less of ya ever since Spike left.”

“I’ve been trying to find him, Applejack.”

“Ah know sugarcube…but we all know ya haven’t been havin’ much luck doin’ so…an’ wut is it costin’ ya, continuin’ ta focus so hard on it? Have ya even been payin’ attention ta the world around ya anymore? Wut’s been goin’ on with the rest of us, our own ups and downs? Starlight says it’s been moons since either of ya sat down an’ did any friendship lessons, or any lessons of any sort, ’cuz ya’ve been too ‘busy’ with the search. When me, Rarity, an’ Pinkie had that spat durin’ our botched sailin’ trip down at Seaward Shoals an’ came home all in a huff at each other, we all thought fer sure ya were gonna git yerself involved ta figure out wut happened…but ya didn’t even ask us how the trip went. It was like ya didn’t even notice…an’ frankly that shocked me so much Ah nearly fergot ta be angry at Pinkie an’ Rarity still. An’ then there was Rainbow’s recent friendship mission at the Wonderbolt Academy that she struggled ta sort out.”

“That she worked out just fine in the end,” Twilight interjected.

“Barely. Even Rainbow admits she really struggled ta figure it all out, an’ she spent over a week just tryin’ ta figure out wut the friendship problem even was. An’ when she did, she ended up only makin’ it worse at first by gittin’ those two cadets that had the problem all mad at each other, an’ she nearly messed up the whole trainin’ program tryin’ ta sort that out. Rainbow says Spitfire was mighty upset with her ’bout that, and Rainbow was afraid she was ’bout ta boot her off the Wonderbolts over it. She really struggled to sort out that friendship mission on her own, Twilight.”

“What do you expect me to have done about it? The map only called her to go, and no pony else, and it’s been quite clear by now that the map only ever calls who needs to go, not sending extra ponies who might only get in the way.”

“Ah know that, but…since when has the map ever just called one of us ta go on a friendship mission? Look, Ah’m just saying Rainbow could’ve used a bit more help figurin’ it out, even if it was just moral support…an’ she certainly wasn’t gittin’ it from you, sugarcube. Ya know wut ya were doin’ the whole time Rainbow was away? Sittin’ in yer study, pourin’ over maps, tryin’ ta find Spike.”

Twilight suddenly slammed down whatever book she had been flipping through hard on whatever she had been using as a reading surface. The sudden noise startled Spike, and he saw Thorax, who had been busy pretending to be preoccupied with something on the front desk while still keeping himself positioned so to block Spike’s hiding spot from view, jump slightly in surprise. “Just what is it you’re trying to tell me, Applejack?” Twilight demanded finally. “Quit beating about the bush and just give it to me straight!”

There was a long moment of silence, in which Spike listened intently from his hiding spot, caught up in this unexpected conversation he was eavesdropping on. Applejack took her time giving any sort of response, and Spike suddenly had the impression the mare was looking around to make sure there was nobody listening in. But as far as Spike knew, she and Twilight were the only two customers in the room still, and as she couldn’t see Spike was in the room, this left only Thorax, who Spike couldn’t tell what he was doing precisely, but he knew the disguised changeling had suddenly became very interested in whatever it was he was doing on the desk directly above the dragon’s head and knew Thorax was trying very hard to look like he wasn’t listening at all.

Applejack apparently was satisfied enough by this and finally gave her response, but she still said it in a soft and gentle voice. “Twilight…maybe it’s time ta let Spike go.”

Spike felt his breath catch at this, his heart skipping a beat. It took a long moment to process Applejacks’ blunt statement, for all the implications to sink in fully, trying to figure out just what it was he felt about this. Apparently Twilight needed such a moment too, because he heard no audible response back from her after this statement either.

Whatever sort of reaction it generated from Twilight, it seemed to have left Applejack uneasy as she was eventually the only one who spoke again, sheepishly trying to break the silence. “Ah gotta be honest Twilight, that’s wut this was all fer. We knew ya were startin’ ta git obsessive over this ta the point we worried it was gonna go wrong so, like Ah said, we quietly petitioned Celestia ta help git ya focused away from it fer awhile at least, ’cuz we didn’t think ya’d listen ta us. An’ she did by suggestin’ ya take a break and go sightseein’…if ya can call goin’ ’round ta all the different bookshops in Equestria sightseein’…but she has her concerns too, so she also urged us ta do sumthin’ ta…sort this out with ya…ta talk it over with ya. So…when ya said ya were interested in sumone comin’ with ya as a travel companion, us girls got t’gether ta draw straws, an’…well…Ah lost.” There was a sheepish pause here for a moment, but then Applejack continued. “Ah’ve actually been meanin’ ta bring this up with ya the whole trip thus far but…Ah knew it weren’t gunna be easy so…Ah kept puttin’ it off, fer yer sake. But then the subject finally came up, so…”

By this point, Twilight finally found her voice again. “So you want me to let Spike go?” she repeated softly, sounding hurt.

Applejack sighed. “Twilight…it’s been four moons since he went with that changeling. Ya haven’t found any real sign of him since. None of us have. Not you, not me, not any of the other girls, not Princess Celestia, not yer brother or Cadance…not anyone. Ya’ve already searched every possible place he could be in Equestria…ya even went down ta the southern border an’ searched fer any clues that he might have been dragged through there in the direction of where we think the changeling hive is, or any sign of any heightened changeling activity…an’ ya’ve found nothin’, Twilight. Now Ah know ya don’t just want ta give up on him, Ah don’t either, an’ Ah ain’t takin’ any pleasure havin’ ta even suggest it ta ya like this ’cuz Ah know it’s gonna hurt, but…it’s gittin’ ta the point that we all need ta start facin’ facts…that he might never gonna come back.” Applejack hesitated for a moment then added one more thing. “Twilight, ya don’t even know if he’s still alive…an’ even you have ta admit that…at this point…it’s gittin’ highly unlikely that he is.” Applejack took a moment to take a deep breath. “Ah know ya miss him Twilight, and ya don’t want ta think he’s gone fer good. Ah can’t blame ya. And of course we can all still keep an eye fer him after this…but sooner or later yer still gonna have ta face that possibility, an’ it’s probably sooner than either of us would like. An’ in the meantime, we worry ya’ve been losin’ yerself in tryin’ ta search for him, lost sight of yer other needs in life…an’ that it’s slowly gunna destroy ya…if it hasn’t started already. Either way, Ah can tell ya, that it’s been hurtin’ yer frienships with other ponies…ya’ve been alienatin’ the very ponies that wanna help ya, an’ might be the very thing ya need to git through this.” A long moment of silence fell, and then Applejack sighed. “That’s it, that’s all Ah wanted ta say.”

Twilight was quiet for a long moment, during which Spike listened closely, anxious and curious to hear her response. “I’m sorry Applejack,” Twilight finally admitted. “I’m…I’m not trying to alienate anyone, it’s just…” she trailed off for a moment, leaving Spike hanging on her words, desperate to know what it was she would say. Whatever she said could affect where things go from here, and he knew it. “…he’s still out there somewhere Applejack. I don’t know how, but I can just…feel it. He’s out there, and waiting…but that window of time to find him is shrinking, and I don’t want to waste any of those precious seconds I could be using to find him. And despite everything, I feel like I’m so close! There are times when I feel like he’s right under my nose, just within reach, that I’m closer to him than I realize!” Spike had to stop himself from snorting contemptuously, perfectly aware that the statement was far truer than Twilight realized. “I just…have to figure out how to reach out and pull him back, free him from whatever it is that’s keeping him away…and then things can go back to how they were. That’s what I really want, Applejack. Him back at my side, my faithful little assistant, friend, and brother.” Twilight’s voice turned into a soft whisper. “I can’t tell you how much I miss that. I’d give anything to have the chance to at least see him again, if nothing else.”

Spike found himself shuddering involuntarily at the emotion in Twilight’s words, not having expected the passion the clearly troubled alicorn had managed to convey. It had even more of an effect on Thorax, him being the one who could sense emotions and could no doubt tell for certainty Twilight’s true emotions over all of this. Gradually, the changeling leaned back slightly so he could look down at Spike hiding under the front desk and gazed solemnly at him. To Spike’s shock, he could see the faint glimmer of tears in the changeling’s eyes, he was moved that much. Naturally Thorax said nothing, but his pleading gaze made it clear what he wanted to say to Spike in that moment.

Maybe it’s time to end this…and reveal all.

And it annoyed Spike that he couldn’t help but give it some actual consideration. Up to now, he had been envisioning Twilight as acting as an angry and scorned pony trying to get revenge, but now he was hearing she was simply a hurt and troubled pony trying to fix something that’s causing her pain of the sort that she couldn’t bear it. And Spike, with a sinking feeling in his stomach, realized it had been getting worse for Twilight the more time went by. She truly did seem desperate to have Spike back again, to the point now that she might be more interested in that above all else. If there was ever a time to end the charade and reveal himself to her…this really might be it. But the skeptic in Spike refused to let himself consider it, to let himself fall prey to the trap that was that line of thinking. Further, he still hadn’t forgiven her for how she had treated him at the Crystal Empire, and was still frankly furious with her over the matter. She had her chance to fix this, he thought to himself, and she threw it away. She’s already proven to me what she really thinks. She does NOT deserve another chance just to prove that to me again, to put me through ALL of that pain again.

And he felt vindicated of this as Twilight continued to speak, her tone suddenly turning dark. “Besides Applejack,” the princess pressed on. “Let’s not forget that changeling that was the very cause of all of this. He’s still out there, plotting who knows what sorts of pain and misery! And if he could lead away Spike so easily with his trickery and mind control, what’s stopping him from doing it again? No, I intend to find that monster Applejack, and give him justice for what he’s done to all of us.”

Spike could just picture Applejack’s disapproving frown. “Is it justice ya want? Or is it revenge, Twi?”

Twilight didn’t reply for a moment, but her tone didn’t change and she sounded unrepentant. “If I ever am so blessed as to find that changeling again…I will not hold back, Applejack.”

Twilight’s ominous words killed any further conversation on the topic, and both mares went quiet, a very heavy and uncomfortable silence then befalling the shop, which then proceeded to stretch on and on for several minutes. Twilight’s final words had drawn Thorax’s attention back on the two mares again, but after it was clear the silence would continue to stretch on unbroken, Thorax gradually leaned back again to peer down at Spike. Curiously, his expression was largely unchanged, conveying that his unspoken message was the same. But now Spike could see a flicker of fear in the changeling’s disguised ice-blue eyes, telling him Twilight’s threats had still chilled him. So Spike returned the gaze with one his own, one of stubborn determination and resolute that they stay hidden. The possibility of a peaceful solution to all of this was still just as much an illusion as it had been four moons ago in the Crystal Empire…and he was convinced still that this wasn’t going to change.

So they did nothing, and the silence dragged on as Applejack and Twilight continued to sort through books in the shop. As they were no longer talking, it was hard for Spike in his hiding spot to tell what they were doing, but he could hear the soft bumps and shuffles that made it clear they were very much still there, in the shop, and entirely too close for comfort. But at least they were still oblivious to the fact that the very two beings they were interested in finding were in actuality a mere matter of feet away from them, and Spike hoped their miraculous luck they had been sporting these many moons would persist still, ensuring that their obliviousness remained intact, and that they would leave the shop again none the wiser.

Spike, in fact, had begun to plead to himself for this. Just leave, he thought to himself with as much force he could muster. Just leave the shop and go away forever, never to come back. Just leave us be and in peace, Twilight. Applejack’s right…it’s time we BOTH let the other go.

But it was in vain, because the moment had come where their long lasting luck was finally undone by the very pony that had taken them in.

“Thornton,” Fly Leaf called as she suddenly entered the room, innocent and oblivious to the very tense situation she was unknowingly walking into. As Thorax twisted his head to look at her, Spike could just barely catch a glimpse of the orange earth pony through the space between Thorax’s leg and the side of the front desk as she stepped down the stairs and into the room, her head already turned in Thorax’s direction and appearing to miss the significance of the two other mares in the room entirely. “Do you know where Spike is? I’m thinking I might go ahead and order another shipment of pumpkin orange acrylic paint so to stock up on extras, but I wanted to consult with him on the state of our stockroom first and make sure we’d actually have the space to store it.”

While Spike tensed under the desk, unseen by Fly just as much as he was to Twilight and Applejack, Thorax struggled to find an appropriate response. “Uh, no, actually I don’t know where he is at the moment, Miss Fly,” the disguised changeling hurriedly lied, almost stumbling over his words. “But I, uh, I think he might’ve gone out for something.”

“Really?” Fly asked, stopping short of the front desk. “Why?”

“He, um, didn’t say.”

The puzzlement in Fly’s voice was clear, and Spike heard her start to turn around again for the stairs. “Well that’s odd, that’s not like him to do…I wonder why he’d—Oh hello!” her voice suddenly turned welcoming as Fly finally noticed Applejack and Twilight, and moved to greet them. “I didn’t realize we had been graced with the presence of such distinguished guests! Welcome to Fly Leaf’s Books and Stationery, princess. Anything we can do to help?”

Spike heard Applejack chuckle. “Oh don’t mind us ma’am,” she assured Fly Leaf casually on Twilight’s behalf. “We ain’t here on any formal business or anythin’ like that, just killin’ some free time fer personal reasons. Pretend we ain’t even here.”

Fly laughed. “Fair enough then, I’ll leave you two to it. But if either of you need any help or assistance, just speak up and we will be more than happy to assist as much as we can.”

“Mighty appreciated, thank ya,” Applejack assured.

Spike then heard Fly start to trot off again and assumed Applejack had turned back to whatever she and Twilight were doing as well. His heart beating fiercely in his chest, Spike bit his lip, pleading and hoping that the discussion ended there. Please leave it at that, don’t say anything more, don’t talk any more, just go your separate ways, please…

But then Twilight abruptly spoke up before Fly had gotten more than a few steps away. “Actually…”

No Twilight, no, no, NO!

“…I couldn’t help but overhear your conversation just now, and I must ask, who was that you said you were looking for?”

“Spark?” Fly asked, stopping innocently to answer though Spike was fighting every fiber of his body not to shout and order her not to answer at all. “He’s just one of my employees, is all.”

“Except you didn’t call him Spark, you called him Spike,” Twilight pressed firmly, and could be heard moving closer to Fly.

“Twilight,” Applejack interjected then in a warning tone. “Ah’m sure it’s just a coincidence.”

Spike, in the throes of a panic attack that he was desperately trying to keep himself, inwardly agreed. That’s right, that’s right! It’s just a coincidence Twilight, don’t read anything more into it! Just go! JUST GO!

“It’s just a nickname,” Fly assured Twilight, continuing to speak. She chuckled. “He actually doesn’t like me using it in public though, so I probably shouldn’t have used it.”

Shut up, Fly! Shut up, SHUT UP!

“Is he a dragon?” Twilight then asked, almost demanded, her tone growing increasingly urgent. “A baby dragon, about this tall, purple scales and tall green spines running down his back with blunted tips, loves to read comic books?”

“Twilight…” Applejack again interjected in her warning tone, and Spike heard her moving closer to where he assumed Twilight was standing. Unfortunately, Applejack was ignored by this point.

“Why, do you know him?” Fly asked Twilight back instead of giving a direct answer.

“Please, it’s imperative that I know where he is!” Twilight stressed, taking Fly’s response as a yes. “Tell me where I can find him!”

“Twilight,” Applejack again interjected and was heard moving again, and Spike wondered if she was gently moving to pull Twilight back. “Ah really don’t think this is gunna—”

“Where is he?” Twilight interrupted, tone rising as she repeated the question to Fly.

Fly sounded taken aback. “Well, I’m not certain, obviously that’s why I came down here to ask.” She then turned back to Thorax. “Thornton, are you sure you don’t know where he might be at the moment?”

Thorax sounded like he desperately didn’t want to be involved as he replied. “Uh, no, I really don’t—”

“Please, you must know something?” Twilight pleaded, and with a jolt alarm, Spike heard her approaching the front desk. “Anything at all?”

Thorax panicked as well, and blurted out the first thing that sprang to mind. “Well, I think maybe he might have gone down to the game shop—”

“The game shop?” Fly repeated in surprise. “Why would he be heading down to the game shop now before we’ve closed?”

“Where is this game shop?” Twilight demanded next, not giving Thorax a chance to reply to Fly.

“Uh, it’s on Park Avenue!” Thorax answered urgently in a hurry, his desperation sounding clear to Spike. “Go down this street and take your first left, proceed forward for four blocks, then turn right for another two, it’s right in the middle of the street, you can’t miss it!”

Twilight was immediately heard racing for the front door. “C’mon Applejack!” she declared as she burst out of the shop and out onto the street beyond.

Applejack was heard quickly gathering their things and galloping after her. “Twilight, wait! Twilight!”

Then with a gentle thump of the shop’s door closing again, and a tense silence fell inside once more. For a long moment, Fly, Thorax, and even Spike didn’t move.

“Huh,” Fly finally grunted, confused. “Well that was…peculiar.” She turned to Thorax. “Thornton,” she said slowly. “When Spike gets back, have him come find me so I talk with him, please.”

“Yes, Miss Fly,” Thorax replied breathlessly.

Then Fly turned and left as well, heading into the back of the shop, and at last, Thorax and Spike were alone in the room again. Thorax tensely waited for a moment to make sure Fly wasn’t going to come right back and had indeed gone all the way into the back and wasn’t where she could overhear. He then finally took a step back from the desk and peered down at Spike still hidden underneath, eyes wide with alarm at what had just transpired.

Spike appeared alarmed as well, but his brow was also narrowed with determination, having already come to the conclusion on what they needed to do next. “We need to leave,” he told Thorax bluntly and without hesitation. “Now.”

“But she’s gone now!” Thorax immediately objected. “I told her to go to the game shop—”

“And when she finds I’m not there, she’s going to come running back here to search for answers!” Spike interjected in a hiss, pulling himself out from under the desk. “You don’t know her like I do, Thorax, she’s not going to just give up on this! Once Twilight puts her mind to something, she doesn’t stop until she’s finished. And never mind me, sooner or later she’s going to figure out that you’re likely the changeling she’s looking for, and it’s you I’m more worried about! We have to leave.”

“We could turn to Princess Luna—”

“There isn’t time! You know that! By the time we got word to her and she got back over here to do anything to intervene, it’ll be too late, and that’s assuming she’s even willing to help us at all, which even you can’t confirm right now.”

“But what about Miss Fly?” Thorax protested next, pointing a disguised hoof back at the batwing doors Fly had gone through. “What do we tell her?”

“Nothing!” Spike declared firmly. “She just gave us away to Twilight, Thorax!”

“She didn’t mean—”

“I know she didn’t. But the fact of the matter is that she did, and Twilight will grill her for all the information she knows! So the less Fly knows, the better!” Spike then turned sympathetic and sad, putting his claws on Thorax’s shoulders. “Thorax, I know you don’t want to go. You can sure as hay bet that I don’t want to either. But we agreed that we’d leave Vanhoover the moment trouble came. And now that trouble’s here, and we aren’t going to be able to escape it this time. So please, we don’t have time to fight over this. We. Have. To. Leave. Before it’s too late.”

Thorax was silent for a long moment, his expression a diverse mixture of emotions ranging from terror, to dismay, to anger. It was the sadness that this was happening at all that was the most prominent though, so much so that Spike almost felt like he was the changeling for a change, and that he could sense the waves of sadness Thorax now giving off. The moment was long and tense…but then Thorax finally nodded reluctantly, relenting.

“I assume we’ll be taking the Vergilius then?” he asked simply, softly.

Spike nodded. “I think it’s going to be our best way out of here, yes,” he agreed.

Thorax took a deep breath and straightened. “What do you need me to do?” he asked resolutely.

“For now, stay here and act normal, but keep an eye out for trouble, especially if Twilight returns,” Spike instructed patiently. “Meanwhile, since everybody thinks I’m not here, I’ll run upstairs real quick and pack what we can take of our things. When I’m done, I’ll come get you, and then…” he swallowed heavily. “…we’ll go.”

Somber and quiet, Thorax slowly nodded. “Okay,” he said simply.

Spike sighed, sharing in Thorax’s somber mood. “I’m sorry, Thorax,” he said.

Thorax nodded again. “So am I.”

Spike forced a grin, so much so it was more a grimace than anything. “It’ll work out,” he promised half-heartedly. “It did before.”

Thorax didn’t reply, so Spike gave him a hopeful pat then turned and hurried upstairs, going quietly so the thumping sound of his feet on the stairs wouldn’t carry to Fly Leaf. Thorax, meanwhile, remained where he was at the front desk, and turned himself to look back towards the front of the shop, worrying about what would be lying ahead of them now.

Author's Note

Fasten your seatbelts, ladies and gentlemen...we've reached the beginning of the end.

I Know

Normally Thorax enjoyed the latter half of the work day in Fly’s shop, as it meant that, one, the work day was nearing completion, and two, he could walk away satisfied in having completed another day’s worth of good work.

But with the realization that it would be his last, he couldn’t today.

While Thorax sat at the front desk and waited for Spike to return, ready to depart from Vanhoover forever, the minutes dragged on agonizingly slow. It didn’t help that business had slowed down significantly, with scant few customers in the shop and few in need of Thorax’s services, leaving him with little to do but sit there and think about what he now faced.

Repeatedly he thought to himself that it wasn’t fair, that after so much time having successfully spent in Vanhoover without detection, without suspicion, it chooses now to unravel, after he and Spike had dared to think they would be forever safe here. Clearly not. It made Thorax angry, afraid, and above all, extremely depressed, but he knew there was nothing he could do about it now. He wished there was some way to fix things so they could eliminate the threat Twilight Sparkle now presented to them while also staying where they were, but he knew there was no way to do it. Spike was right. The smart thing was to flee, while they had a chance. And what a small chance it was going to be.

As a result, Thorax knew very well that it meant they would have to leave many of their possessions behind. If they had more time, they could’ve transferred all of it onto the Vergilius, the airship having sufficient space to house it all, but only did they lack that time, Thorax knew such a move would draw too much attention to them anyway. There was no way they could take it all with, and Thorax fully expected Spike would be in the middle of packing up the things they had always planned to bring should they reach this very point; food, water, useful tools for traveling, blankets, as much of their collected finances they could carry, and backpacks to carry it all in. The rest would have to stay.

Thorax lamented what would have to be left behind. His books, his record player and records, and more. Thorax wasn’t even sure they would have the chance to bring the supply of the Thornton Cheese he currently had made. It would all have to stay, and the thought weighed heavily on him, but he took faith in the hope that Fly Leaf would certainly find good homes for all of it in the end. But it wasn’t just the physical things that Thorax lamented he was about to lose, it was losing being here at all. He had become quite attached to life in Fly’s shop, and as he gazed around at the wood-paneled walls of the shop for what would likely be the last time, taking in as much as he could and burning it to memory, he found himself afraid leaving the familiar environment to wander back out into the unknown, something he had hoped he had left long behind by now.

He felt especially bad about having to leave Fly Leaf in the dark, and wished they could explain the situation to her, or at least let her know they would be all right. But they couldn’t even do that. He knew she’d no doubt learn the truth soon enough once Twilight inevitably returned and told all, but he hated that Fly would have to learn it second-hoof like that, and plus he knew Twilight’s version of the tale would be biased and inaccurate. After everything she had done for them and for taking them in like she had, she deserved far, far, better than this.

Worst of all was the realization that Thorax would likely have to abandon the Thornton identity he had built, which also meant he’d have to sever all ties to anyone familiar with it. This was bad enough, but it also meant Thorax would have to end relations with Trixie. She wouldn’t be able to stay in contact with him anyway, as she only had his Vanhoover address, and Thorax knew he shouldn’t give her any alternative while they were going on the run again. Thus he would never be able to communicate with her again, and would have to end it today, one way or another, whether he liked it or not. A daunting and horrible task indeed for him, Thorax at one point attempted to ponder how he ought to do that, what the best way to do it would be…but the thought of abandoning ties with Trixie, no matter how he did it, pained him so much it nearly drove him to tears, and knowing he needed to stay composed during this pivotal and sensitive moment, it was better to not dwell on the matter, pushing it aside for focusing on at a more opportune time.

If one ever arose.

It was perhaps the uncertainty of it all that was most vexing about it though. He didn’t know what lay ahead from here, just that they would leave Vanhoover and, barring no unforeseen complications—of which many dozens could transpire between then and now—they would go…somewhere else. He had no idea where; this was something he and Spike never had settled upon should things fail in Vanhoover. Both of them had begun to bank on it never coming to that. And now their reluctance to face that prospect was coming back to haunt them…but this, too, was a problem better left to face later.

For now, Thorax did as he was told. Keep up appearances while Spike secretly packed, and keep an eye out for any complications that could hinder their efforts to flee. He did so with reluctance, but did it he did. And the minutes continued to tick by. It felt like hours had passed by since Twilight Sparkle and Applejack had raced out the door on a false lead to find them and Spike had given his dreaded statement that they had to leave, but a glance at the clock showed it had only been ten minutes at best. A mere glimmer of time, yet one that felt like Thorax had spent an eternity of internal torture getting through.

But he still chose to not let it distract him and kept vigilant. He was eventually glad he did, because it was as he checked out one of the few customers that needed help during this space of time that he spied the first member of the guard outside the shop window.

Because Equestria was such a large nation and it’s royal guard could only ever be so big no matter what was done, the individual cities took it upon themselves to maintain their own private, volunteer, force of protective guards assigned to their city and meant to fill in with royal guard duties locally whenever the royal guard themselves weren’t available. Vanhoover naturally possessed such a militia, marked by the distinctive copper-colored armor they were issued. However, over the decades and as Equestria persisted in a long period of peace, the need for such a city guard diminished greatly, and support for it continued to degrade. These days, though the guard still existed, they were severely underfunded and understaffed, to the point that it was arguable if there was even enough guards in service with which to support the city in an emergency at all. Many locals wondered if the city guard was even still necessary and should be instead disbanded, allowing the Vanhoover police to fill in the job, as it often did on a day-to-day basis already. Usually the most service the guard saw was for ceremonial events within the town, in which they were present more for appearance than anything else, and was how Thorax was even aware of them at all, having seen a small party of them at one such event a couple moons back.

But despite all of that lack of use, the city guards were all still trained with the same skills as any member of the royal guard, and were ensured to still be fully capable of providing the needed services if it ever arose, meaning they were still a force to be reckoned with. Plus, unlike the Vanhoover police who answered first to the leader of the city and then the royal throne second so to best serve Vanhoover’s needs, the city guard answered directly to the throne and whatever princess sat upon it. Therefore, when Thorax spied the member of the city guard strolling past in front of the shop and bearing the distinctive copper-colored armor, a rare sight, Thorax immediately feared the guard had been sent by Princess Twilight, who’d have more than enough authority to take emergency command of them if she so desired. And if Spike’s comments about how Twilight was likely to react to the present situation were true…

The guard did not enter the shop though, and instead strolled on past it, so Thorax told himself it was a false alarm. One guard passing by didn’t equate to trouble. But Thorax began to question that assessment again when he spied a second guard strolling past the shop a few minutes later, going the opposite direction from the first. Not long thereafter he spied a third go by, soon followed by a duo of guards walking by together. The space of time between each sighting was notably getting shorter and shorter too, to the point that Thorax knew it all couldn’t be a coincidence; they were here for a reason. It was when Thorax saw the first guard again, this time going the other way, that he realized what the guards was doing. They were discreetly surrounding the shop and patrolling around it, circling the area and no doubt on the watch for any escape attempts from the likes of Spike and Thorax. They were trying to keep them corralled there no less, and Thorax knew only one pony could be behind that.

Thorax was in the middle of debating what he ought to do about it, when Fly returned from the back. “Spark come back yet?” she asked as she stepped out of the batwing doors.

Startled by Fly’s sudden appearance, Thorax quickly shook his head. “N-no, no sign of him, Miss Fly.”

Fly stopped and gave him a look that was part confused and part concerned, and Thorax realized suddenly he was trembling slightly. “Is everything okay, Thorn—?”

“Miss Fly, can you take over at the front desk for me?” Thorax suddenly interrupted as he spied yet another city guard go past the front window. “I just remembered something I really, really, need to do upstairs.”

Fly frowned. “Well, actually, I need—”

“Okay, thank you!” Thorax interjected again, not waiting for an approval and turned and raced for the stairs.

Fly snorted. “You’re welcome!” she called sarcastically, but Thorax didn’t pause to listen as he galloped up the stairs.

He didn’t slow until he burst through the door of his and Spike’s room. “Spike, we have a problem!”

Spike, in the middle of finishing packing their travel bags which he had currently set out in the middle of the floor, looked up in immediate alarm. “What now?” he asked with obvious dread.

Thorax quickly shut the door behind him. “It’s the city guards,” he explained urgently. “For the past several minutes, I’ve been seeing them passing by the shop’s front window with growing frequency. I think they’re circling the building.”

Spike groaned. “Probably to make sure we don’t try anything,” he muttered. “And you said it was the city guard, the ones with the coppery armor, and not the police?”

Thorax nodded. “Yes, there was no mistaking them,” he said. “And I think they’re here because they are the ones who can take orders directly from a princess.”

Spike groaned again. “Of course Twilight would try something like that.” He quickly went back to packing. “We need to hurry. We can’t have much time left before they all start barging in here for us.”

“But how are we going to get out of here?” Thorax asked, anxiously circling around the bags to stand beside Spike. “If we try to go out the front door or even the back door, they’re surely going to try and block our way.”

“We’ll figure that out in a second, but right now help me pack. I’m worried as all hay that I’m forgetting something and now’s not the time for that.”

Thorax pulled the saddlebags he would be carrying closer to him and peeked inside. “Well, looks like we got everything important…I suppose that’s all we’d really need…”

“I know, I know, I don’t want to leave all this stuff behind either,” Spike stated, stopping to gaze sadly about their room. “I wish we could take it all with us…but you’re right, the bare minimums are going to be better. Anything more than that and it’ll just slow us down.”

Thorax also stopped to gaze about the room, and the idea of leaving it forever made his heart ache. He sniffled, finding himself fighting tears. “I don’t want to go, Spike.”

Spike gazed at his friend sympathetically. “I know you don’t,” he said, his own voice shaky, revealing that Spike was only just holding together himself. “But you know we don’t have much choice at this point. We can’t weasel our way out of this one, not this time.”

It was then that the door to their room abruptly burst open. “And why not?” Fly Leaf demanded firmly as she, for the first time ever, marched into their room uninvited and unannounced.

Spike and Thorax immediately jumped to their feet in surprise. “Fly!” Spike exclaimed, his eyes darting over at Thorax to double check the changeling was still disguised, despite knowing that Thorax had never dropped the disguise when he entered in the first place. “I thought you were downstairs!”

“And I should be, but you two are acting all…squirrelly,” Fly stated in a huff as she sat down, planting herself between the two and the door, their only quick way of escape. She took only one look at the bags, no doubt put together what they signified, and focused her frown upon her two employees. “What’s going on? You’re both hiding that Spike’s actually here after all, you both look like the world’s about to end, and now I see you’re packing! So I want an explanation. Now.”

Spike and Thorax shifted awkwardly and nervously, reluctant to give such an explanation, both because it would mean revealing details they had kept secret and because they both knew they had more pressing matters threatening them than Fly Leaf at the moment.

“Something’s come up, Miss Fly,” Thorax finally offered, being deliberately vague. “I’m…afraid we have to leave.”

Fly wasn’t having it though. “No one’s going anywhere until I get an explanation,” she firmly said.

“I don’t think we even have time for that even if we wanted to, Fly!” Spike retorted straightaway, trying to sympathetically convey the urgency of the matter to Fly in as few words as he could. “Look, I’m sorry Fly, I really am, neither of us wanted to be put in this situation, but we have, and I genuinely believe…”

“You really expect you’re just going to waltz right out of here with no warning without giving me some kind of reason why first?” Fly interjected, unswayed still.

“Fly Leaf!” Spike snapped while Thorax shifted guiltily. “We absolutely do not have time for this! In order to explain this enough for any of it to make sense, I’d have to go into great detail about who we are, where we came from, why we had come here to—”

“Then skip it,” Fly interrupted to suggest, waving her hoof dismissively. “I already know most of it.”

“I can’t just skip it!” Spike declared, throwing his claws out in exasperation. “How can I just skip it when it’s all so important to…” he trailed off as what Fly had said started to sink in fully. Both he and Thorax stared at Fly in surprise for a moment, but Fly’s only continued her stern gaze at the pair. “What do you mean you already know? How could you possibly know anything about any of this?”

Thorax then gently intervened. “Miss Fly,” he said in a soft and apologetic voice, “I’m afraid we haven’t been entirely truthful with you since the beginning.”

Fly gazed at them for a long moment, her expression not changing except for the metaphorical gears that could be seen turning behind her eyes. Finally, she made her response. “I know.”

Spike and Thorax’s eyes went very wide at this, the reality of Fly’s words starting to hit them that she might, baffling somehow, already know the truth. Thorax, completely shocked, instinctively opened his mouth to make some kind of exclamation or retort. But Spike quickly stopped him. He couldn’t see how Fly could actually know the truth, and wondered if perhaps this was instead some sort of misunderstanding. Or, though Spike hated thinking about it, it was a bluff on Fly’s part to try and trick them into admitting the truth. Seeing they needed to tread very carefully then, Spike made a quiet motion for Thorax to remain silent and leave the talking to him, not wanting to accidentally let something slip until he better understood just what it was Fly claimed to know.

“Fly,” the dragon began slowly, addressing the earth mare directly, “you couldn’t possibly know everything.”

Fly simply shrugged. “I likely don’t,” she relented. “But I’m pretty sure I still know enough, so please, just tell me.”

Spike still refused to do so. “Then just what, exactly, is that you already know?” he challenged, calling what he hoped was a bluff.

Fly’s gaze narrowed slightly, demonstrating that she was indeed reluctant to say just what it was she claimed she knew. For a brief moment she and Spike simply stared each other down, both stubbornly standing their ground and not wanting to budge. Finally though, Fly caved, and nodded her head in the direction of Thorax’s disguised form. “I know Thornton’s not a pony.”

Thorax inhaled involuntarily at this and started to move forward, again opening his mouth to speak. Afraid he’d say something reckless, Spike again stopped his friend, holding him back and motioning for him to stay silent. Knowing that Fly had only revealed she knew he wasn’t a pony but not that she knew more than that, he knew there was still a chance—albeit a slimmer one—that Fly still didn’t know the whole truth. For all he knew, she had only taken a guess to what the truth might be, assuming something that might not actually be true, and didn’t want to admit it in case she was incorrect. Spike didn’t want to reveal anything until he was absolutely certain this wasn’t the case. Plus, he might still be able to dissuade Fly and leading her to believe something different from the truth. Once he was assured that Thorax wouldn’t do anything rash and kept quiet, Spike turned his attention back on Fly, choosing his words carefully.

“So if he’s not a pony, Fly,” Spike said slowly and carefully, eyes locked on Fly Leaf, “then just what is it that you think he is?”

Fly broke her unwavering gaze finally and sighed, suddenly turning apologetic and concerned. “Spike, really, you don’t need to hide it anymore…”

“I’m not telling you anything on the subject until you answer the question, Fly,” Spike declared firmly, laying down the line.

Fly fell silent for a long moment. Her gaze shifted continuously between Spike and Thorax, and her firm attitude was rapidly ebbing away into something much more apologetic and dismayed. It was clear she didn’t like being forced into this situation any more than they did. At one point she even averted her gaze, staring at the floor for a tense moment, as if ashamed. She saw they weren’t going to bend though, so finally she faced them again and took a deep breath, opening her mouth to speak:

“I know Thornton’s a changeling.”

The statement hit Spike like a jolt of electricity, and his alarm over his and Thorax’s situation that evening doubled in that moment. Regardless, his first instinct was to deny Fly’s statement as truth, doing nothing to confirm it so to next ask for validation on just how Fly had come to reach this conclusion. This question ended up getting left unasked though, as before he could stop him, Thorax suddenly pushed past Spike to advance on Fly, dropping his disguise in a whoosh of cyan flames so to spread his sparkling gossamer wings, ready to use them for a quick escape, while brandishing his pointing changeling horn at Fly, lit with a cyan aura as he prepped a stunning spell to have at the ready. Fly, to her credit, blinked and pulled back slightly at this sudden transformation, but Thorax wasn’t focused on that.

“How did you know?” the revealed changeling demanded in a harsh voice. He sounded like he was trying to sound commanding, but instead he came across as sounding hurt and betrayed.

Spike angrily threw himself on the changeling, grappling at the changeling’s smooth chitin so to hold him back. “She knows because you just revealed yourself to her and confirmed everything, you idiot!” he snapped in the spur of the moment.

Thorax twisted his head around angrily, ready to argue back with the dragon, but it was then that Fly almost timidly intervened. “Um, actually, I, uh, have already seen Thorax out of disguise long before now,” she said, looking sheepish.

Both Thorax and Spike stopped in the middle of their imminent spat, the two freezing in mid-grapple, and whipped their heads around to stare at Fly blankly, not expecting her to reveal something like this.

“Since when?” Spike demanded at last, gaping at her.

Fly bit her lip while she rubbed one leg with her hoof, all of her former bravado gone in light of Spike and Thorax’s emotional display over this. “…you remember the second night you were here, the night I made the little celebratory dinner to mark you two becoming employees?” she asked softly.

Spike and Thorax exchanged glances, no less stunned. Surely she hadn’t known for that long?

Seeing the unasked question in their eyes, Fly pressed on. “So, um, that evening, well after you had both gone to bed, I was in my room, staying up rather late reading a book in bed, when I heard someone stepping out of your room down the hall. Wondering if either of you needed something, I went to peek out my door to see who it was, and, well…” she motioned to Thorax’s natural form, “…that’s when I saw Thornton here pretty much exactly as you see him now, standing there in the hallway and turning to head downstairs.”

Spike gaped at Fly for a moment, and then turned his head to look at Thorax, whose expression had simply turned blank as he recalled the event in question. “Thorax!”

“It was late, I thought everybody was asleep!” Thorax declared back in his defense. “Look, I probably wasn’t fully awake and thinking straight, all right?”

“What were you even doing up at that hour?” Spike demanded next.

Thorax tapped his forehooves together sheepishly. “Uh, well…”

At this, Fly couldn’t help but smirk a little. “Considering he came back upstairs a few minutes later with the leftovers of the cherry pie we had at dinner, I’d say it was to get a midnight snack,” she remarked a little teasingly.

Spike whipped back on the changeling again. “THORAX!”

“It was made with love!” Thorax retorted like this explained everything, as he usually did when it came to cherry pie.

“Wait a minute, wait a minute…” Spike interjected, cutting short the argument so to change gears. He pinched the bridge of his snout for a second before turning back to Fly. “You mean you knew…this whole time…and you never SAID anything?”

“Well, by that time, I had figured that if either of you were really going to do any harm to me, you would’ve done it by now,” Fly said, explaining her reasoning simply. “I decided then you were both harmless, meaning no ill-will. Besides…I had learned other things about you two so to get an idea of your real situation by then.” She averted her gaze for a moment, looking down at the floor while her composure turned somber. “The day you both first came into my shop, looking for a job…while you were both up here looking at the room and I had gone downstairs to assist that customer…the stallion just needed directions to get another store up the street, so I finished helping him well before you two came back downstairs. And, while I was waiting…I had noticed you had left your saddlebags by the front desk, and, well…I decided to take a peek.”

She shifted awkwardly. “It was pretty obvious you two were struggling more than you were letting on just by looking at you, but I wanted to be sure. And I was sure all right, after seeing what scant belongings you had. It was clear you both had…pretty much nothing. But I also found a train pass in there…with Spike’s name—not Spark—printed on it.” Spike winced, and glanced in the direction of their bookshelves, spying the very same train pass they had since been using as a bookmark poking out of one of Thorax’s books. “That was when I figured out you two had something to hide, and that was why I didn’t hire you that same day, and instead had you come in for a trial run at the shop first…I had wanted to be sure you two were really here to work.” She grinned slightly. “Obviously I decided you were.” She turned her gaze back up at them. “It wasn’t until the crystal guard came down here to Vanhoover looking for you to that I learned you two were pretty much on the run from the law, though.”

Thorax perked up at this, realizing something. “So you did recognize Spike in those wanted posters!” he declared.

Spike furrowed his brow, and glanced at Thorax. “What wanted posters?” he asked.

Thorax looked at him sharply, remembering he never did tell Spike about them. “Oh, well…” he began, then shrugged half-heartedly, grinning apologetically. “…I hadn’t wanted you to worry.”

Spike blinked, looking blank. “There were wanted posters of me?”

“The point is that was when I learned the basics of the story about you two,” Fly remarked, continuing her confession. “But by then, I had been around the pair of you long enough that I couldn’t believe the claims that you were trouble or meant harm. So…I chose to play along. Pretended I was the unknowing pony you hoped I was, and try and do what I could to assist.” Seeing the still-stunned looks from the two she was still getting, she chuckled. “Oh c’mon you two, you really shouldn’t be so surprised. Even if it weren’t for all of that, I was going to figure it out eventually. You both gave me plenty of chances.” She nodded her head at Spike. “Spike, you recall when Thornton was sick, the morning we had sat in the living room and talked about how ill he really was?”

Thorax, who of course had no recollection of such an event, glanced curiously at Spike while Spike slowly nodded his head, still getting chills at the memory of the emotionally intense day.

Fly nodded her head back. “Well, when you left your room that morning…you’d left the door open, leaving me free to steal a peek inside and see Thornton, undisguised…and terribly ill.”

Spike’s eyes widened as he reflected back on his memories of the day. Sure enough, he recalled that when he had returned to the room after talking with Fly that morning, the door had been closed, but he had no memory of closing it himself after he had flung it open when he raced out of the room earlier that same morning.

But this reveal only made Spike frown. “But that means you knew even before you spoke with me just how ill Thorax was,” he remarked aloud to the mare, looking baffled at her. “So…why didn’t you…?”

“…intervene to ensure Thorax’s health?” Fly finished. “Because like you no doubt were, I wasn’t sure I could find someone who could help him who’d also keep the secret, and I was hoping you really knew enough about treating a changeling to get him to pull through without that aid as you claimed.” She rose to her hooves slowly, starting to move closer to the pair. “But it’s also because I trust you. I trust both of you. Enough that regardless of whatever it was that you two had done, I’m on your side. I’ve been trying to tell the pair of you that you could put your trust in me, because I’m committed. I’m both willing and able to help you, in the past, present, and the future.” Her gaze then started to turn frightened and worried. “So please… I want to help and I’ve never seen the pair of you so frightened like this before…what’s going on?” She gazed at them for a moment, concerned. “This is about what happened with Princess Twilight, right? But what does she have to do with either of you?”

Spike frowned. “Twilight has everything to do with us,” he grumbled. “She’s the chief force behind trying to hunt us down!” He suddenly turned angry at Fly. “And even though you knew the truth about us, you all but gave us away to her!”

Fly’s brow furrowed, not following. “But she went away! You told her you weren’t here, but somewhere else!”

“And when she finds I’m not there, where do you think she’ll go next?” Spike reasoned. “She’s going to come right back here for answers, and Thorax and I can’t be here when she does! You told her too much when she was here, Fly!”

Fly hesitated, starting to see the significance. “In my defense, I didn’t realize the princess was even in the room when I first entered. I never even thought Princess Twilight was involved, or that any of this even went as high as the royal family, so—”

“How could you not have?” Spike interrupted, not convinced. “Back at the convention we went to a moon ago, when you caught me talking about Twilight while playing the piano…if you had really known this much about us by then, THAT should’ve made you figure it out that Twilight was involved!”

“But I didn’t!” Fly stressed. “I’m sorry, maybe I should’ve! But you never once referred to her as Twilight Sparkle, you only referred to her as Twilight, and to be quite honest, Spike, there are plenty of other ponies in Equestria with the name Twilight!”

Thorax knew nothing of the conversation they were talking about, but regardless, he still considered this for a moment. “She does have a point,” he admitted.

Spike wasn’t so easily swayed though. “My point is that Fly should’ve known that Twilight wasn’t just involved, she’s personally involved!” he pointed out, swinging around on the changeling.

“Judging from what you said at the convention, she was once your friend,” Fly recapped. “So I get it, she—”

“No you don’t!” Spike interrupted again, whirling back onto her. “Twilight wasn’t just my friend! She…she…” Spike trailed off, suddenly overcome with emotions. “Fly, I was abandoned as an egg, and Twilight Sparkle was the one who had hatched me, helped to raise me, and took me in…and until about four moons ago, I wasn’t just her trusted friend, I was her long-time personal assistant and…something of an adopted…sibling.” Spike’s eyes started to tear up, but the flare of anger behind it was still visible too. “She was family to me, Fly…and she threw it all away just because I sided with the changeling! She betrayed me, Fly! AND NOW YOU’VE ENABLED HER TO DO IT AGAIN!” Spike then dropped to his knees, emotionally overcome, yanking off his false eyeglasses to try and wipe away the tears.

Wearing an expression of concern and sympathy, Thorax wrapped a comforting hoof around the dragon. “She didn’t mean to, Spike,” he comforted. “She couldn’t have known.”

Fly heaved a heavy sigh, bothering by the sight of Spike overcome by this, lowering herself to the floor, troubled. “No, but I should’ve,” she mumbled. Seeing Spike too choked up to really talk at length, she turned to Thorax. “What happened?”

Thorax sighed himself, letting Spike lean on his chitinous side as he embraced the changeling’s comfort. “What happened,” he replied solemnly, “was me, really. Spike and Twilight had come up to the Crystal Empire to visit friends and family, but upon arrival, found the empire on alert because a changeling had been sighted in the area. Me. Fearing trouble, they wanted the changeling found so to eliminate the…threat they thought I posed. Spike was helping to search when he got separated from the group and…almost literally…stumbled upon me hiding in a cave.” He sighed a second time, clearly troubled by all of this. “The thing is, Fly, is that I never meant any harm…quite the opposite, in fact. Yes, I am a changeling originating from the hive of Queen Chrysalis and was one of her subjects…but after seeing the friendship among ponies during the invasion at Canterlot, I left the hive and came here, to Equestria, on my own to try and make friends with the ponies here, upon failing to do so with my fellow changelings back at the hive. I wanted to do what other changelings hadn’t…wouldn’t…because I think it can be done.” He shrugged helplessly. “But like the other changelings at the hive, nopony was willing to give me the chance. They all saw me as…something to be feared.”

“I told Spike all of this,” Thorax continued, glancing down at the dragon leaning on his side but starting to calm down again. “And after showing to Spike I wasn’t a threat, he was one of the few who believed me. Thinking he could help then, Spike thought he could help sway the ponies in my favor, help me to make those friends. We tried him testifying in my favor, giving them a chance to get to know me directly while disguised, to flat out telling them.” Thorax then hung his head. “…none of it worked. The other ponies only thought I was an enemy, thought I was lying, trying to deceive them, and worse still, had pulled Spike in with me. Believing, then, that I was too much trouble, they had me banished as a result.” He returned his gaze to Fly Leaf. “Spike wouldn’t have it, though. Not only did he know it wasn’t right, he knew that I had nowhere else to go, and would only starve on my own. So…he chose to go with me…and all of them, even Twilight…let him. We fled the Crystal Empire then, and eventually came here. Princess Twilight, so we’ve since learned, has been trying to seek us out ever since until today, determined to…well…”

“She’s not going to let Thorax get away with it,” Spike growled suddenly, having regained his composure, but his face was still a mixture of sadness and fury. “She’s determined that she will have her way. I left her world and my old life so to keep Thorax safe, but she won’t let me.” Tears started to well up in Spike’s eyes again. “And now my life is unraveling all over again.”

Fly went quiet for a moment then abruptly stood, growing determined. “No,” she said determinedly. “I’m going to fix this.”

“How?” Spike asked, pulling away from Thorax to watch her.

“When she comes back, I’m going to talk with that mare,” Fly vowed. “Set things straight.”

Spike shook his head in dejection. “She won’t listen to you!”

“I will MAKE her listen!” Fly snapped determinedly. “What she’s doing is wrong, neither of you deserve any of this, and its high time somepony said it to her face!”

Thorax’s gaze turned distant. “Actually, this might be the one chance we have to do it,” he admitted.

Spike gaped at the changeling in surprise. “Thorax, we can’t, she’ll—”

“Spike, things have changed since last time,” Thorax reasoned. “You heard her say it herself. She misses you immensely, to the point she’s willing to do all of this just to get you back. She’s desperate to have you back. If she could have at least that much, even if briefly, then she might be willing to hear us out this time!”

“Further, it’s not just your word this time,” Fly added. “This time, you’ve got me backing you up.”

“And Fly’s not the only one who’d support us!” Thorax continued in agreement. “We could call upon the support of others who have caught on to our secret and defended us. Ragg, Discord, Fluttershy, maybe even Princess Luna…” Thorax actually had to stop and grin a little as realization sank in. “We actually have much more support now than we did last time. Spike, Twilight might not be able to get away with this unchallenged this time. No pony could!”

Spike was still very skeptical and shook his head. “You don’t know Twilight like I do,” he said. “She’s past reasoning. I’ve seen her like this before! She’s so set on this that you aren’t going to be able to lead her away that easily, not when she would still have so much widespread support, and she’s a princess with authority that would overrule us! I don’t want to take that risk!”

“But you don’t also want to go back on the run though, do you?” Thorax asked seriously.

This gave Spike pause, and for a long moment he couldn’t give a response back. It was during that moment that all three of them were brought back to the reality as they distantly heard the shop’s front door open and close downstairs.

“Hello?” the voice of stallion was heard calling, his voice faintly echoing up the stairs outside the open door of their room. “Is anyone here?”

Fly glared back in the direction of the voice and frowned. “Look, I have to go downstairs and take care of the customers,” she said, turning back to the two as she started to back out the door. She pointed a hoof at them. “We’re then going to talk about this further. Do not go anywhere.”

She then exited the room and proceeded to trot down the stairs. Thorax and Spike remained where they were as instructed, the two exchanging silent but troubled looks, both wondering how things might still play out. Spike stopped to wipe his eyes of any lingering sign of his tears, determined to refocus on the task at hoof without indulging in his emotions for the time being. In less than a minute, Fly could be heard arriving at the bottom of the stairs on the first floor.

“Hello,” she greeted in the usual cheery tone she used to greet customers. “Welcome to Fly Leaf’s Books and—oh!” Her sudden cry of surprise drew Spike and Thorax’s attention to the still-open door of their room, listening. They were glad they did, for Fly then continued, raising her voice louder than normal, allowing them to hear her better from all the way upstairs. “I wasn’t expecting to be visited by a duo from the city guard this evening!”

Spike and Thorax turned and stared at each other in alarm, then hurried to stand in the open door so to listen better. They could hear one of the guards making a reply of some sort to Fly, but because they had no need to keep their voices raised like Fly would, it was hard to make out what he was saying. Spike quickly started to get frustrated, but Thorax motioned for him to wait a moment, and lighting his horn, cast a spell over the entrance to the staircase outside their door. Thorax didn’t explain what the spell was, but whatever it was, it caused the sounds echoing up from downstairs to be amplified enough to be more clearly heard.

“—reason to believe is a fugitive changeling,” the guard was in the middle of explaining to Fly, precisely what Thorax and Spike feared he would be. “As such, we request your cooperation, ma’am, in our search for any evidence or information on the matter at this time.”

“What in Equestria are you saying?” Fly Leaf was heard asking, sounding like she was acting like she was an unknowing bystander in the whole matter. “There are no changelings here, don’t be ridiculous!”

“Ma’am, as we explained, we have strong evidence to believe that one and a dragon he has kidnapped have been operating in hiding here at, or near to, this location,” The guard continued to explain patiently. “It is entirely possible you have been regrettably deceived in their identities, which makes it all the more imperative that we have your cooperation in securing their arrest. If you will please permit us entry, we will conduct a search of this building for them or any clues to their whereabouts.”

Thorax and Spike warily exchanged looks again upon hearing about the intended search.

“You can’t do that,” Fly insisted meanwhile. “This is private property! You don’t have the authority to trespass and conduct foolish searches on flimsy evidence just willy-nilly!”

“Ma’am, I respectfully request you do not resist, or I’m afraid we will have to use force for the good of your security and the security of other ponies.”

Fly could be heard snorting. “I’m not just letting you have free reign of my shop like that, not without some better reasons than this!”

“We have our orders, ma’am,” the guard replied, while in the background, Thorax and Spike could hear the front door of the shop opening again, announcing the arrival of other ponies, though could have no way of knowing who. Presumably, though, they were more guards, come to assist.

“On whose authority?” Fly demanded.

It was then a new, and unfortunately familiar voice, spoke. “On my authority, Miss Fly Leaf,” came the voice of Twilight Sparkle. She did not sound happy.

Spike felt a chill run down his back and looked at Thorax again. “We need to get the hay out of here,” he determined, deciding Fly’s attempts to shield them already a lost cause. He turned and raced back to their bags to resume final preparations, now hurrying as fast as he could and less afraid to cut corners. He knew there likely wasn’t time to be more thorough now.

Thorax, however, watched Spike go, but lingered at the door still, soon turning his attention back to the ongoing conversation two floors below.

“Princess Twilight,” Fly was heard greeting, though her own tone turned faintly hostile. Thorax could almost sense his employer’s emotive bitterness from here. “I actually would like to have a word with you…”

“And I with you,” Twilight agreed. “I have many questions for you. But first things first, Miss Leaf, I ask you stand aside and let these stallions do their work. Trust me…it is for the greater safety of Equestria. I’ve been chasing this changeling for four moons now and I still don’t know the full extent of his plans, but they can’t be anything good. And the more chances he has to carry them out…”

“How do you know there even is an evil plan?” Fly interrupted, challenging the princess.

Twilight chose not to answer the question, and instead took on a tone of forced sympathy. “Miss Leaf, I understand this is all probably coming as a big shock, but I’m afraid the two you are trying to protect are not who they seem, and one of them is highly dangerous, and the other a confused victim of the first’s scheming. It is imperative that you let us take him into custody and end this before more harm is done.”

“Over my dead body,” Fly growled in response. “I’m starting to think this is all just an excuse to fuel a petty vendetta of yours, and an abuse of power, so—”

But Twilight had heard enough. “Search the building,” she ominously ordered the unknown number of city guards now present. But judging from the number of bumps and thuds that Thorax could hear echoing up, it seemed to be a fair number of them.

“Thorax!” Spike cried in an urgent, harsh, whisper as he ran to their writing desk to yank out a sheaf of papers from its drawer. “Move! We need to get out of here before they get to us! Go grab as many bits as you can from the safe!”

But though he glanced in Spike’s direction, Thorax didn’t move, frozen in focus as he continued to listen to what was transpiring downstairs.

“First floor clear!” one of the guards was heard shouting.

“Two more to go then, gentlecolts!” another could be heard ordering and ponies could be heard mounting the stairs to the next floor.

“Thorax!” Spike hissed as he stuffed the papers into his bag, seeing the changeling hadn’t moved, or even put his disguise back up.

“They’re not listening to Fly…” Thorax muttered blankly.

“Yeah, I warned her about that…” Spike grumbled back in response, not slowing as he ran to their safe to pull out some of their savings upon seeing Thorax hadn’t.

“Princess, we’re already not finding much sign that there’s anybody else here than us,” a guard reported. “We’re still searching, but…”

“Miss Leaf,” Twilight could be then heard asking Fly. “Where are they?”

Fly didn’t respond. Thorax could just picture Fly instead giving Twilight a defiant glare.

“Where do they go when they don’t work here?” Twilight then asked when she got no response. “Do they live somewhere else? Or do they live here?”

Still no response from Fly.

“You live here, right? Where are the bedrooms?”

Fly still didn’t respond, but instead a guard did. “Looks like that would all be on the third floor, your highness,” he reported. “We were working a floor at a time here, but if you’d like I can send ponies to search now…”

“Do it,” Twilight ordered. “Miss Leaf and I will come with.”

More hoofsteps on the stairs were heard, and this time they were coming closer.

“Thorax!” Spike hissed again, having pulled out as many bits as he could and dumped them into one of Thorax’s saddlebags. “Time’s up!”

Heart beating anxiously and in fear, Thorax finally ripped himself away from the door, closing it quickly in hopes it would by them at least a moment longer. “Where can we go?” Thorax asked as he grabbed his navy jacket hung nearby and slipping it on. “They have the lower floors are blocked off, we can’t go out that way—”

“Then we go out the window,” Spike said, nodding his head at the sole window in their room. “You can carry me in addition to these bags, right?”

There was a flash of cyan flames as Thorax threw up his disguise as Thornton, but adjusted so that instead of being a unicorn pony, he was a pegasus with wide, elegant, wings. “We’ll have to find out,” he said, pulling on the saddlebags.

Spike meanwhile pulled on his backpack and proceeded to clamber onto Thorax’s back. “Where do you want me?”

“As close to my neck as you can, and hold tight,” Thorax ordered, tensing as he heard hoofsteps begin to reach the third floor landing. Carrying Spike, he hurried to the window and threw open the drapes. “This could be rough.”

He unlatched the window and threw it open, proceeding to carefully step out the window and onto the slanted roof outside. He felt Spike’s grip tighten about his neck, but Thorax was more worried about the ponies that he could now clearly hear on the third floor landing just outside the door of their room. Normally, giving the less than ideal area to takeoff, Thorax would’ve taken a moment to get proper footing, but hearing one the guards give an order to start searching rooms, and his and Spike’s being the closest and thus the likely first, he instead gunned it, and threw himself forward. Spike inhaled sharply as this sent them skidding down the slant of the roof haphazardly, but as the roof edge neared, Thorax vaulted himself off it, spreading his wings and taking to the air, veering over the roof of the building across the street before lifting up into the air, banking away from Fly’s shop as quickly as he could so to hopefully be out of sight of any of the guards that might peer out the open window while also pointing himself in the direction of the airship yard across town.

As they did so, Spike twisted his head back at the shop receding in the distance, feeling his heart sink as he watched it vanish in the sea of buildings that was Vanhoover, already missing what had become their home. Meanwhile, Thorax inwardly lamented to himself that, in the rush to leave, he had failed to take a final good look around their room before leaving.

The door to Spike and Thorax’s room was flung open a second time that evening, and the city guards filed into the room, quickly searching the room. As they did so, Twilight stepped into the room, idly looking it over with a critical eye, something already catching her attention about it. Behind her, a scowling Fly Leaf reluctantly followed the princess, being escorted into the room by one of the guards at Twilight’s request.

“Is this your room, Miss Leaf?” Twilight inquired as she scanned the room. “Or is it one of your employees, because this room doesn’t look like what I’d expect for a pony like you.”

Fly glanced at the alicorn, not happy. “Does it really matter?”

Twilight frowned, tilting her head at the nearby writing desk and some of the remaining papers still strewn upon it. “It just might,” she murmured, studying the familiar looking handwriting on the paper.

“Room’s clear!” one of the guard’s reported, poking his head out of the attached bathroom. “There’s no one here.”

Another was peering out the open window that hung over a window seat, and Twilight noticed Fly Leaf was watching this intently. “Something wrong about the window, Miss Leaf?” she asked in an interrogative tone.

Fly’s eyes returned to the princess. “Must’ve left it open by accident,” she murmured.

Twilight’s eyebrows went up skeptically. “Must’ve.”

The thumping of hoofsteps announced the arrival of a new pony on the floor and Applejack suddenly came rushing into the room. “Twi!” the country pony declared. “Those guards ya had surroundin’ the buildin’ ta keep an’ eye on it say they saw sumthin’ fly off from one of the upper floor windows just now! They think it was a pegasus carryin’ sumthin’, and…”

“That’s them,” Twilight said, perking up at this news but she also didn’t seem surprised. “It has to be!”

“They must have jumped out the window right before we got here,” one of the guard’s reasoned, leaning out the window in search for the target. “I don’t see them out there now, but they couldn’t have gotten too far…”

“Go after them then!” Twilight snapped at the guards. “Now! Don’t let them get away again!” She motioned them on as they started to hurry out of the room. “And get as many ponies as you can patrolling the borders and train stations! I don’t want them leaving this city without my knowing!”

As the guards gave answers to the affirmative as they filed out, Twilight turned her attention to Fly Leaf, advancing on the mare. Having already come to the deduction that Fly had tried to buy Spike and the changeling time to escape, she got right to the point. “Where are they going, Miss Leaf?”

Fly glared at Twilight. “I suspect away from you, your highness.”

“But where?”

“I’m not telling. Not until we’ve sat down and talked about this. Properly.”

Twilight’s eyes narrowed at the shop owner, then she jabbed her head at the remaining guard escorting Fly. “Take her downstairs and keep her under guard. I’ll be down in a moment to speak with her. I want to look around up here some more first.”

“Yes ma’am,” the guard said and led the defiant Fly out of the room as well.

This left only Applejack in the room with Twilight, who stood in the door, watching Twilight as the princess moved to the nearby bookcases in the room. “Ya really think it was them, then,” she said slowly.

“Who else could it be, Applejack?” Twilight asked as she scanned the books on the shelves, looking for clues.

“Ya don’t know that fer sure, though. Couldn’t it just as easily be someone else? Some random an’ innocent pony ya just given a fright bargin’ in like this?”

“Then why did they run?” Twilight reasoned, using her magic to pull a slip of paper being used as a bookmark from one of the books. “No, we’re onto something here, and Fly Leaf is trying to hide it from us.”

“That don’t excuse wut yer doin’!” Applejack sighed. “Look, Twi…Ah know ya want it ta be them, but Ah worry ya’re takin’ this too far on just a whim…ya don’t know it was them, ya have no solid evidence other than a slipped name an’ a few convenient coincidences, an’…”

“It was them,” Twilight assured, studying the bookmark in her magic.

“But how do ya know?”

Twilight looked up at Applejack and responded by floating the bookmark over to the country mare. Applejack took it into her hoof and studied it. She noted it was an old train pass, the edges worn and scuffed, and doodled onto many of the open spaces on the slip were strange round symbols with notches in them.

Applejack scoffed at it though. “Twilight, just because ya found sumthin’ with strange writin’ on it, doesn’t mean—”

Twilight used her magic to flip the slip over in Applejack’s hoof. Applejack studied the slip again, and this time noticed the name printed at the top of the slip, smudged a little over time but still plenty readable: “Spike the Dragon.”

Eyes going wide as realization sank in, Applejack looked up at Twilight, while Twilight stepped closer to her friend. “They’ve been right here Applejack,” Twilight said firmly as she strolled up and then on past her friend, watching her closely as she went past. “They’ve been right here this whole time, right under our snouts. And they gave me the slip once before, but I promise you…I am not about to let that changeling take Spike away from me again. Not this time.”

And with that, Twilight turned and trotted out of the room, leaving Applejack standing alone in the now abandoned room, lost in deep, troubled, thought.

Author's Note

"I KNEW IT!"

-All of you after reading this chapter.

Seriously, so many of you were catching on that Fly knew far more than she let on that I had started to actively search for ways to try and dissuade all of you from assuming that and to lead you all down a false trail instead. So, it's with some irony that I noticed, right when I give up on that and start prepping to come clean on all of this, THAT'S when I start seeing comments saying Fly didn't know more after all. :rainbowlaugh:

I can at least take comfort in that all of you actually underestimated just how long Fly's known, though. She's known at least the basics just shy of the whole time Spike and Thorax have been there.

Oh, and all of those little things Fly observed that clued her in on the truth? All legitimately set up in their respective chapters from the get-go. Go back to those chapters and you'll probably notice little but vague hints I dropped so to support them that I suspect most of you all overlooked.

Finally, a fun fact: obviously I've had this chapter planned for a good long while now, but originally it was going to go slightly differently, with Fly barging into Spike's and Thorax's room with Thorax already out of disguise, and the two were forced to come clean then and there without protest...only to find out Fly already knew most of it. But I decided that this version built the suspense better. And of course, you all know by now I'm a sucker for some suspense. :ajsmug:

Lost Cause

Spike and Thorax didn’t get far in their flight before a trio of pegasus city guards appeared behind them, giving chase. Spike quickly spied them after they hadn’t gotten much further than a block away from Fly’s shop. “We’ve been spotted!” he cried anxiously to Thorax.

Thorax shot a glance back at the pursuing guards and immediately upped the speed of his flight. “Hold tight!” he told Spike. “I’m going to try and lose them!”

Spike tightened his grip about Thorax’s neck as instructed, and did so in time for Thorax to drop altitude so to be flying between more obstructing buildings, then turn sharply as he twisted around a street corner and onto a new street. The turn was so sharp that Spike felt his stomach get compressed into his liver as inertia tried to hurl him off Thorax’s back, but he maintained his secure hold of Thorax. The guards still kept on their tail though, and recognizing their targets were trying to lose them, they upped their own speed too. Undeterred, Thorax kept at it, weaving dangerously fast and sharply around buildings and anything else that could be put between them and their pursuers, trying to keep themselves out of the sight of the guards as much as he could. At most, though, the guards lost a little ground but otherwise successfully maintained their pursuit.

Deciding he couldn’t keep this up forever, Thorax changed tactics, and the next time he sharply turned around the corner, instead of continuing to follow the street below them, he used the small gap of time they had while they were out of sight of the guards to loop around one building and come shooting back onto the street they had just left, appearing behind the guards as they surged on ahead, not yet realizing that their targets were now behind them. Using their momentary confusion to their advantage, Thorax used the chance to try and put as much distance between them and the guards as they could. For a moment afterwards it looked like they had successfully lost the guards, but to play it safe, Thorax opted not to resume course for the airship yard just yet, and instead chose to follow a false course pointing in the direction of the Vanhoover train station. He was ultimately glad that they did, because abruptly the guards reappeared and resumed the chase, though neither Thorax nor Spike could tell if they were the same guards or in fact a different set.

At any rate, it didn’t matter. They weren’t losing them fast enough. “All right, enough of this,” Thorax decided, allowing his horn to reappear on his disguise as he planned out his next move.

“What are you planning to do?” Spike asked, having to shout in order to be heard over the rushing wind during their rapid flight.

“Something I hope will actually work, or it could end this chase very quickly!” Thorax admitted, deeply concerned the trick he was about to attempt would only go awry.

He didn’t have any better ideas though, and Spike made no attempt to suggest any alternative either, so Thorax proceeded with the plan, putting on first a burst of speed, going as fast as he could force himself to go, so to put as much distance between himself and the pursuing guards. He then did another sharp and abrupt turn around another street corner, but after getting little further than halfway down the street they had turned onto, he came to an abrupt halt, twisting around to face back the direction they had come, hovering in place. In that same moment, he cast a spell that created a sphere of faint cyan mist around them, shrouding them almost like a fog, but it tingled like the energy it was.

As the guards rounded the corner ahead of them and started heading right their way though, Spike started to panic and he pressed the side of his head into Thorax’s. “What are you do—?”

“Shh!” Thorax shushed, quickly clamping a hoof over Spike’s mouth, silencing the dragon.

The guards drew nearer and nearer to where they hovered, the tension growing thicker and thicker as they bore down on the dragon and changeling’s motionless location. Then, just when it seemed certain that the guards would be springing themselves upon the two, the guards instead abruptly flew on past them as if they didn’t even notice them, continuing to fly on down the street without slowing. Spike and Thorax twisted around to watch them fly off before vanishing from sight as they rounded the next corner at the other end of the street, continuing to search for targets they had already passed right on by. Once they were gone from sight, Thorax slowly flew over to a nearby rooftop to land, the sphere of cyan mist Thorax’s spell maintained following them tightly as they went. Only once he had all four hooves solidly on the rooftop did Thorax slowly remove his hoof from Spike’s mouth.

“Sorry about that,” he whispered to the dragon as he reoriented himself. “But I wasn’t sure the spell was going to mask sound too, so it was best we both stayed silent.”

“What did you do?” Spike asked in a similar whisper, regarding the mist shrouding them with puzzlement. His eyes widened slightly. “Did you make us invisible?”

Thorax hemmed and hawed to himself for a moment while he got his bearings for the direction the airship yard laid once more. “Sort of…more like I just made us…unnoticeable,” he explained. “It’s kind of a combination of spells using both pony and changeling magic that I had devised once during my studies, but I had never actually attempted to physically cast before now. I wasn’t even sure it was going to work.”

Spike winced, realizing just how big a risk Thorax took. “Glad that it did work.”

“Me too,” Thorax said as he took to the air again. “But the point is that we’ve given the guards the slip, and so long as I maintain the spell, it should at least be hard for them to pick it up again, so hopefully we can take a straight shot to the airship yard without problem now.”

“And get the hay out of here before something else goes wrong,” Spike added in agreement, warily watching their surroundings for trouble.

A table had been set out on the second floor of the shop and Fly Leaf sat down at it, under guard still, so to be interrogated by Twilight. By this point in time, word had reached the princess that Spike and the changeling had managed to give the city guard the slip, to the princess of friendship’s great concern. However, the city guard was quite confident that they were still in the city, were still actively searching for them, and were now beginning work to bring in the aide of the Vanhoover police as well. Regardless, the tense situation was still at its tipping point, and it was anyone’s guess still whose favor it was ultimately going to lean towards.

It made Twilight anxious, and it showed as she worked to question Fly Leaf while Applejack hovered in the background behind her, listening. “Miss Leaf,” Twilight stated, trying to keep her patience in light of the antics of the stubborn mare. “I realize this is all very distressing and difficult for you…but I really need to know anything, anything at all, you can tell me about where the changeling plans to take Spike.”

“Away,” Fly simply replied, for the fifth time since the interrogation of sorts began, being stubbornly unenlightening as she glared defiantly at Twilight.

Twilight frowned at this, but Applejack leaned closer to whisper in her ear. “Y’know, she really may not know,” she pointed out to the purple mare.

Twilight refused to believe that. She was quite certain Fly knew something that would be vital to their search, but the shop owner was deliberately withholding it out of what appeared to be pure rebellion at this point. And it was really starting to try Twilight’s patience. “Miss Leaf, please,” she begged. “It would be to the benefit of both of us and Equestria at large if you would just tell us what you know.”

“I’m still waiting for you to explain why,” Fly replied curtly.

Twilight sighed. “I’ve already explained the situation to you, so…”

“You’ve explained your version of the situation, but you haven’t given me any definitive evidence proving it.”

Twilight frowned. “Miss Leaf, I get you don’t want to believe it, but your two employees are not who they have claimed. You have been deceived.”

“You underestimate what I know, your highness.”

Twilight perked up slightly, as this was the first time Fly had made any real comment that she knew more than she had said, but didn’t want to get her hopes up, knowing Fly wasn’t going to surrender whatever knowledge she had so easily. “Why don’t you enlighten me, then?” she asked, still trying to be patient.

“I already tried,” Fly snorted. “You aren’t listening.”

Twilight licked her lips, already having an idea where this was going, but steeled herself so to humor the mare. “I am now.”

Fly regarded Twilight skeptically for a moment. “Thornton and Spike are innocent,” she said bluntly.

Outwardly, Twilight sighed as her expectations were unfortunately met. Inwardly, she was fuming at the mare’s stubbornness. “Spike certainly is,” Twilight relented. “But he has been misled, if not worse still, by the changeling. The changeling, however, most certainly is not innocent.”

“So you keep telling me, but princess,” Fly Leaf leaned closer, “just because he’s a changeling doesn’t mean Thornton is trouble.”

“Miss Leaf, I don’t think you know the changeling as well as you think.”

“Look who’s calling the kettle black. How long have you interacted with him? I’ve been working closely with those two for the past four moons, and have gotten to know them and their characters very well. Neither of them are capable of the criminal feats you’re trying to accuse them of. In the whole four moons they have been here, neither of them have done anything to cause harm or trouble for anyone, and in fact have actively looked to prevent such things!”

Twilight thumped her hoof on the table between them, her frustration about to reach a breaking point. “Miss Leaf, I will remind you that changelings are masters of deception and manipulation! I’ve seen them first-hoof go to incredible lengths to get what they want, and they aren’t afraid to go about it unethically! And this particular changeling is guilty of kidnapping, impersonation, threating the royal family, trespassing, plotting treason and conspiracy, assault, and potentially more that we don’t know about yet! It’s nothing short of a miracle that no one’s been killed by this changeling yet!”

Fly Leaf actually laughed scornfully. “Thornton isn’t capable of any of that!” she declared. “He can’t even kill a spider that’s fallen into a bathtub! On the contrary, he’d sooner help a pony than do them harm! I’ve seen him do it. I don’t know if I’ve ever met a gentler soul than his!”

“But I’m afraid your observations prove nothing,” Twilight replied flatly. “This changeling is cunning enough that he’s demonstrated he can manipulate others to believe what he wants startlingly well. I fear he has tried the same thing on you, Miss Leaf. I have little doubt that all of these traits you have mentioned are simply tricks of his to convince others that he is something that he is not.”

Fly Leaf gaped at Twilight for a long moment, staring at the princess as the depth of refusal to listen sank in. “You really won’t see him any other way, will you?” she breathed, her expression and tone a mixture of shock, disappointment, and dismay.

Twilight’s frown deepened, and she averted her gaze to glance through the notes she had been taking during her questioning of Fly. She decided she wasn’t going to dignify the comment with a response. But then Fly, seeing this, kept talking.

“Spike was right about you. You really are a lost cause.”

Twilight was suddenly on her hooves, slamming her front legs hard on the tabletop as she glared at Fly with a barely contained fury. Before she could do anything reckless though, Applejack was immediately at Twilight’s side, pulling her aside so to intervene.

“Twilight,” she said sharply. “Maybe it’s time ya took a break.”

“There isn’t time for a break,” Twilight hissed back at Applejack. “The longer this takes, the longer Spike—”

“Losin’ yer temper ain’t gonna help with that either, Twi,” Applejack pointed out simply, cutting the retort short.

Twilight shot a glare back at Fly Leaf (which was returned), then let out her breath in a long exhale through her nose, deflating a little. “Fine,” she conceded. “Maybe I do need to do something to clear my thoughts a little…there’s something I wanted to investigate further upstairs anyway.” She jabbed a hoof at the guard that was standing beside Fly though. “Keep her under close guard though. She is to not leave this building for anything without my okay, and monitor her actions closely.”

“Yes your highness,” the guard replied with a nod.

Twilight then jabbed her hoof at another guard who had taken a monitoring post at the second floor staircase landing. “As for you, I want to make it as hard as we can for them to flee the city. Keep patrolling the city border, the train stations, and the harbor, and I want ponies sent out to have any public means of transportation in and out of the city shut down. If they are going to try and escape, I’m at least going to make them work for it.”

“What about the airship yard, princess?” the guard inquired.

“Have them ground all flights until further notice,” Twilight instructed. Fly glanced up suddenly at this.

“Yes ma’am,” the guard said, and proceeded downstairs to spread the word.

Twilight turned for the stairs herself, but she twisted her head back for a parting glance at Fly. “We’re not done discussing this though, Miss Leaf,” she assured.

“Lovely,” Fly replied. Her voice lacked sincerity.

“I’ll be upstairs trying to open a safe if you need me,” Twilight then stated to no one in particular and proceeded to head up the stairs, vanishing from sight. Applejack gave Fly one last parting glance herself, her expression troubled but otherwise uninterpretable, before following Twilight upstairs.

Fly Leaf watched them go then allowed the silence to settle in the room in their absence, mulling upon her situation. She was frankly shocked and disturbed by Twilight’s attitude to all of this. When Spike had conveyed to her that trying to peacefully talk this out with Twilight was a lost cause, Fly had wanted to believe this wasn’t the case, that one just needed to keep trying until the right approach was found and that Spike was simply being faithless. But now that she had personally interacted with Twilight, she could see Spike hadn’t been exaggerating. Worse, it was almost tragic seeing just how much Twilight had deluded herself into thinking there were no other explanations for their situation than her own…and Fly worried that the fact that Spike, someone she suspected Twilight actually did still care deeply for, was caught exactly in the middle of all of this had only worsened this delusion of the princess’s.

Stranger still though was the fact that Fly wondered if Twilight was alone in this pattern of behavior, as she noticed other ponies didn’t seem to be thinking quite as resolutely on the matter as Twilight was. Applejack had largely kept her personal thoughts to herself while in Fly’s presence, but Fly could still see in the country pony’s eyes that she had her misgivings about Twilight’s strict approach to all of this, and Fly felt that it was Applejack’s reacting to those misgivings of Twilight’s various actions, being the voice of reason from time to time, that was keeping this matter from exploding even more out of control than it already was…and Fly felt Applejack knew it. Even more alarming was that Fly sensed that even some of the guards were reacting with slight hesitation to Twilight’s almost obsessive behavior.

Unfortunately, none of this especially helped Fly’s current situation, and it wasn’t so much herself she was worried about at the moment, it was Thornton and Spike. She took comfort in the fact that they had managed to elude capture thus far, but would they be able to continue to do so long enough to escape Vanhoover? And wherever it was they chose to go next after that, would they be any safer there? What worried Fly the greatest though was the fact that the longer Twilight Sparkle failed to find them, the more inclined she seemed to seal off any ways in and out of the city.

This most recent order wouldn’t be so problematic if it had kept to just grounding any means of public transportation in and out of the city, as Fly assumed Spike and Thornton would be taking the Vergilius, a private means of transportation. But then Twilight ordered all flights at the airship yard grounded, and that would certainly include the Vergilius, private or otherwise. And even then, knowing how much Thornton’s recent love of airships would be clearly reflected on things he possessed in his room, Twilight could put two with two even sooner than that and move to raid the whole airship yard. If Spike and Thornton weren’t out of the city by then…

Fly thought she’d feel a lot better about the matter if she could just get out of here and to their side, at least long enough to ensure their safe departure. But how could she do so when she was trapped inside her own shop and under constant guard? There was no way she could slip away undetected. Of course, that may not be a big problem if she simply got large enough of a head start. And it was around then that Fly, in watching her sole guard—an earth pony—keeping watch over her, the lithe stallion having moved to stand at the other end of the table from Fly to stand sentry, noticed that her one guard seemed fairly youthful in comparison to some of the others and she started to get a hunch.

She folded her forehooves on top of the table and leaned closer to the guard. “So…stuck watching little ol’ me, huh?” she quipped with a grin.

The guard, to his credit, acted unfazed. “I have my orders, ma’am.”

Fly gave him a mock salute, still grinning. “Understood. It’s nothing personal, then. You seem like you’ve got plenty of experience at this sort of thing anyway.”

At this, however, the guard shifted positions slightly, as if uneasy for split second. “Well…actually I’m still a relatively new recruit.”

Fly raised her eyebrows. “Oh really?” she asked, sounding intrigued, but inwardly was thinking, Bingo.

“Uh, yeah, they needed everyone they could for this little incident,” the guard elaborated, but then quickly added, “Not to say that I don’t still have enough training and experience for this, of course.”

“Of course, I didn’t mean to imply you didn’t,” Fly said. She shrugged. “Just so long as you have the ability to take orders and beat ponies senseless on demand, right?”

The guard chuckled nervously a little. “There’s more to being a guard than beating ponies up, ma’am,” he pointed out. “Besides, I’ve only just recently completed basic combat training, so…”

“Oh really?” Fly inquired, this time intrigued for real. “Basic combat…what does that include? Any martial art stuff?”

“Uh no, just basic hoof-to-hoof combat and a series of basic defensive spells for the unicorns,” the guard explained. “I won’t be getting any martial art training until the advanced combat training course that starts this spring.”

“So then you wouldn’t know any martial arts like, say…” Fly waved one hoof about casually. “…guizhou fa?”

“Uh, no, I guess I wouldn’t.” The guard then frowned and tilted his head at her. “Why do you ask, ma’am?”

Fly simply grinned sweetly at him. “No special reason,” she lied.

Author's Note

This was originally going to be the first half of what will be the next chapter...but I liked the idea of ending it with Fly's line there. Feels more...theatric. :raritywink:

Judging from comments last chapter, I suspect Twi's and Fly's (hey, that rhymed) conversation probably feels disappointingly not as in-depth as hoped, but at this tense time where the clock's ticking, I didn't want to waste too much time on them just having what could only be a circular argument...plus I'm saving some of the more really in depth stuff for later chapters that are coming soon.

Becoming Complacent

Applejack found Twilight in the room they had determined Spike and the changeling had been staying in, stooped down low as she magically worked with the lock of a safe. “Pickin’ locks now, are we?” she asked as she stood in the open doorway.

“They wouldn’t go through all the trouble of getting a safe for no reason, Applejack,” Twilight reasoned as she worked with the lock.

“Yeah, an’ that reason’s probably ta have sumthin’ ta put their money in,” Applejack reasoned back, not seeing why it was significant.

Twilight, however, shook her head. “This safe has had additional security applied to it,” she explained. “The changeling must have added a number of magical defenses onto it after the fact. I don’t doubt they’ve been keeping money in there, but there also has to be something else more significant than that. One doesn’t just put that much security on something and not hide something extra special inside.”

“Ya do if yer just paranoid of someone tryin’ ta steal yer money,” Applejack retorted. She tilted her head knowingly at Twilight. “Or yer on the run from a pony who’d try ta break into it just ’cuz she could.”

Twilight ignored Applejack’s snark and continued working on the safe lock. It seemed to be slow and meticulous work. Applejack watched her in silence for a few moments. Finally, she sighed.

“Twilight, she might have a point,” she remarked aloud finally.

Twilight didn’t look up from the lock she was concentrating so much on. “Who? Miss Fly Leaf?”

“Yeah…Ah, uh, gotta wonder if yer maybe takin’ all this a liddle too far…”

Twilight frowned. “Now don’t you start.”

“Ah’m sorry Twi,” Applejack apologized. “But…sumthin’ ’bout all of this just don’t add up.”

“We can focus on figuring out the finer details once we’ve safely recovered Spike and have that changeling in custody where he belongs. Then we can finally get to the bottom of this.”

“An’ see, before now, Ah was willin’ ta go along with yer approach t’ all of this thinkin’ the same thing…but sumthin’ hasn’t felt right ’bout this since the beginnin’ an’ Ah’m startin ta wonder if maybe we’ve got this all wrong…Twi, wut if Fly Leaf’s tellin’ the truth?”

“I’m sure she thinks she’s telling the truth…I’m actually starting to think the poor mare’s been misled by the changeling in the same manner that Spike was…in which case you know everything she could say on the matter might potentially be suspect.”

“An’ see, ya just automatically jump ta that conclusion, but do we really have any proof that’s wut’s happenin’?”

Twilight was quiet for a moment, her gaze narrowing as she continued to work with the locked safe. “She’s not right, Applejack. She can’t be.”

“But wut if she is?” Applejack persisted. “Or wut if she’s at least close to it? Shouldn’t we at least consider it might be possible?” Applejack threw out her hooves and motioned to the surroundings of Spike and Thorax’s room. “Ah mean look ’round ya at this room…this is where Spike an’ the changeling have been stayin’ in fer the past four moons, right? Does this room look like a place a mean criminal changeling plottin’ conspiracies an’ holdin’ a kidnappee hostage against his will has been stayin’ ta ya? ’Cuz it don’t ta me. It looks ta me like just two roommates sharin’ a room t’gether, tryin’ ta make a livin’.”

“Trying to keep up appearances, no doubt,” Twilight mumbled.

“Except we’ve got no evidence that they’ve done anythin’ nefarious the whole time they’ve been here!” Applejack argued. “Nothin’ in four moons straight, Twilight. If anythin’ they seem ta have been fittin’ right in!”

“And that’s what scares me, Applejack,” Twilight remarked. “Equestria is becoming complacent to the idea that a changeling could be living in our midst.”

Applejack was quiet for a long moment. “If this is really how a changeling would live among us, Twilight…then would that really be a bad thing?” She sat down, removing her Stetson respectfully, fondling it with her hooves as she gathered her thoughts. “It ain’t that I think yer entirely wrong Twilight or that we shouldn’t proceed with caution…it just seems clear ta me that…there’s more goin’ on here than we first realized…an’ Ah can’t help but feel yer tryin’ yer darnedest ta ignore it.” Applejack bit her lip for a moment. “Look at it this way…ya dabble in science right, Twilight? Doesn’t a good scientist consider all of the angles…even th’ ones they don’t want ta be right?”

A long moment of silence fell during which Twilight didn’t respond, focusing instead on the safe still. Judging from the look in her eyes though, Applejack thought she had at least sparked something within the alicorn, though she wasn’t sure if it was a good thing, or the reaction she hoped for. Whatever the case, Twilight seemed unsure how to respond to that. Eventually though, Twilight was spared from having to do so when the lock to the safe suddenly clicked, and the door sealing it popped open a crack. Eagerly, Twilight swung it open fully and peered inside. Applejack, returning her hat to its usual place on her head, strolled closer so to take a peek as well.

Inside the safe was generally a series of smaller containers, mostly shoeboxes, filled with varying levels of bits of all denominations, no doubt the funds Spike and the changeling had collected over the moons under Fly Leaf’s employ. Applejack couldn’t help but be a little smug about it. “Told ya there was only gonna be money inside,” she told Twilight. “So unless yer intendin’ ta steal all that, an’ Ah shouldn’t have ta tell ya wut would be wrong ’bout that…”

Twilight wasn’t really listening though, instead having spied a small pile of papers tucked into a space at the bottom of the safe and withdrew them with her magic, holding them aloft to examine and shifting through each one in turn. “Hmm,” she hummed to herself.

“So wut’s all that, then?” Applejack inquired, moving positions again so to steal a peek at the paperwork too.

“Legal documentation, mostly,” Twilight replied, not pulling her eyes off the documents as she flipped through them. There weren’t a great many of them so it wasn’t long before she was reaching the bottom of the thin pile. “Mostly warranties for items they’ve purchased…including one for this safe, in fact…though I’m certain they voided it when the changeling modified the locking mechanism like he did…still, it gives me a paper trail I can perhaps follow later, so to get a better idea what all they might have been…”

She trailed off suddenly, stopping as she arrived at the final paper and continued to sit there and stare at it. Applejack frowned, sensing Twilight’s alarm, and turned her attention to the paper as well, but she didn’t immediately see what was significant about it. She nodded her head at it when Twilight didn’t resume speaking after a moment. “…an’ that one?”

“It’s a deed,” Twilight replied slowly. Her eyes were darting back and forth as she quickly read through the lettering printed on it.

“A deed?”

“You know…the personal copy of the document proving ownership of property that you keep for your own records?”

Applejack frowned, starting to understand why this gave Twilight pause. It seemed like an odd thing for two runaways to have. “A deed fer wut?”

Slowly, Twilight’s eyes began to widen as she reached the end of the document. “An airship,” she murmured aloud. She then twisted around to face Applejack, growing increasingly alarmed. “They’ve got an airship, registered to them in their name and everything! An airship they can privately use to take off from anywhere they choose!” Twilight dropped the paperwork and turned for the door. “This must be what they’re using to escape! We have to figure out where they’re taking off from and stop them before it’s too late, if it isn’t already!”

She raced out the door and started to hurry downstairs again. Applejack chased after her. “How the hay d’ya plan ta find that out?”

“We’ll have to get that information out of Miss Fly Leaf, it’s our only chance,” Twilight explained as they proceeded down a floor and exited the stairs again on the second floor. “If we can get her to tell us anything about where this airship may be parked at…”

She trailed off as they both arrived on the second floor, slowing to a stop at the sight that lay before them. The table they had left Fly Leaf sitting at just minutes earlier was still where they had left it. But Fly Leaf was now gone. And the one guard they had left to watch over her now lay on the ground, stirring as he faded back into consciousness and beginning to sport both a black eye and a notable bump on the head.

Twilight was beside the fallen guard in an instant, propping him up urgently. “What happened?” she demanded. “Where’s Fly Leaf?”

“I don’t know!” The guard replied with a wince, still somewhat dazed and his thinking clouded. “She was sitting there all nice and quiet…she was actually being rather friendly. We got to talking…but then she was suddenly on me before I could react! She moved like lightning, doing some kind of combat stance I didn’t know. I’m not sure I would’ve stood a chance even if I had seen it coming!”

“But where’d she go after that?” Twilight pressed as she moved the guard so he could prop himself up against the table, Applejack hovering around worriedly, wanting to help but unsure how.

“I don’t know, I didn’t see,” the guard admitted with a groan. “She must have knocked me out for a second there…”

“But why?” Applejack asked, not understanding why Fly Leaf would do this.

“She must be trying to escape,” Twilight mumbled darkly, turning around and surveying the room briefly before heading for the stairs. “Trying to get to wherever Spike and the changeling are and warn them or help them escape before we find them.”

“That assumes she even knows where ta find ‘em any more than we do,” Applejack argued as she followed Twilight down the stairs towards the shop’s first floor. “An’ how would she even escape a shop under guard?”

“Through the back door,” Twilight concluded instantly as they arrived on the first floor and Twilight immediately turned for the batwing doors that led into the back of the building.

“Why not the front door?” Applejack asked, throwing a hoof out at the door across the room as they raced across it.

“It’s guarded,” Twilight replied pointedly, not even looking at the door that was indeed clearly guarded from the outside by a trio of city guards. She instead kept pressing forward, slipping through the kitchen.

“So’s the back door!” Applejack argued, still hot on her hooves.

“Yes, but not with as many gu—” Twilight trailed off and they both came to a halt as they arrived in the hallway leading to the building’s back door. “—ards.”

A simple glance down the hall was all they needed to clearly see the two guards that had been posted there at the back door were now down on the floor, having been attacked similarly to how the guard upstairs had been, as well as hurriedly tied up with some decorative twine taken off one of the storage shelves lining the walls. The two mares trotted up to the two fallen guards, but while they saw that these guards were no more hurt than the one upstairs, they were both unconscious still, and weren’t going to be quickly revived.

“Still think she doesn’t know anything?” Twilight growled to Applejack as she opted to slip past the two downed guards and to the back door. She quickly found it sealed shut. “Drat, she put some kind of high-security lock on the door on her way out!” Twilight growled as she jiggled with the lock briefly but knew it wouldn’t be quickly opened again, even with magic. “She’s trying to slow us down, keep us from following her trail too quickly, to buy them time!”

“Try the front door then!” Applejack suggested, having satisfied herself that the guards were going to be okay and standing at the ready to act as Twilight needed.

Twilight nodded in silent agreement, and they quickly backtracked to the front door again. Twilight was first to reach it and quickly jiggled the latch, only to find it wouldn’t open any more than the back door. A quick glance confirmed it was for the same reason. “She’s locked this one, too!” Twilight grumbled, turning her attention to the lock identical to the one on the back door.

“How?” Applejack asked, seeing the guards that were stationed outside the door notice them through the window and turn to try and figure out what was happening and help accordingly. “How th’ hay could she have gotten ta the lock ta lock it without that lot out there seein’ her?”

“I don’t know, but it doesn’t matter now!” Twilight said, pointing her horn at the lock and beginning a series of spells to try and magically pick it open. “I’m trying to see if I can open the lock now, but it might take a few minutes. This is a seriously high-end anti-theft lock, magically based, and not easy to pick! Why does she even have a lock like this? It seems like such an unusual thing to have for such a smalltime shop in a city renowned for low crime rates…”

“Oh fer th’ sake of corn starch, move, would ya?” Applejack interrupted, gently but bodily bumping Twilight aside so to get at the door herself.

Twilight let herself be pushed aside, perplexed, but only until she saw Applejack twist around and rear up her hind legs. “No wait—Applejack!”

Too late, Applejack bucked the locked door with all her might. That was all that was needed, because with an almighty crack, the door’s latch snapped and the door itself sprang open with sufficient force that the window mounted in it fractured into a spider web of cracks. Locked as it was, it also set off the shop’s anti-theft alarm, and nearly in the same moment a loud bell concealed somewhere in the shop began to clang loudly, almost deafening them.

“Whoops!” Applejack declared, turning around at the source of the noise, blankly realizing her error.

“Your highness, what’s going on?” one of the three guards positioned outside ran forward to ask, having deduced accurately that a problem had arisen.

“Fly Leaf’s escaped, attacked her guard, and knocked out two more that were guarding the back door!” Twilight explained loudly, dragging Applejack out of the shop since the door was now open anyway. She had to shout in order to be heard over the ringing alarm. “I’m positive she’s running to warn and help Spike and the changeling, who I’ve learned possess an airship of their own and are almost certainly trying to use it now to escape! We have to find out where they’re launching this airship from and stop them before they get away!”

“What are your orders then, ma’am?” the second guard asked, catching on while the third attempted to send away several ponies from off the street that had curiously started to gather upon hearing the very loud alarm.

“Spread out!” Twilight ordered. “Find every airship you can, landed or airborne, and ensure all of them do not leave this city! I also want guards going out to search outside the city in case they’ve got this airship hidden out in the outskirts! But one of the airships in Vanhoover has to be theirs, and I want it found!” She pointed a hoof at the second guard. “You, go and spread the word! Get as much help as you need! Also have guards come and meet me at the airship yard!” She turned to the first guard. “You, come with Applejack and I down to the airship yard to double check they grounded all flights like I asked and to have them ready an airship to search the area with, in case they’re already airborne!” She then turned to the third guard. “And you, stay here and wait for when the police turn up to investigate this alarm that Applejack’s set off! Have them turn it off while they’re here if you can’t do it yourself!”

“Ah’m sorry!” Applejack apologized, following in Twilight’s wake as Twilight and the first guard turned to set off for the airship yard as fast as they could. “Ya wanted the door opened though, an’ darn it, Ah opened it!”

Iterum Vergilius Volat

Thanks to Thorax’s spell concealing them by making them “unnoticeable,” as Thorax had put it, he and Spike were able to arrive at the Vanhoover airship yard without further delay or trouble, not seeing the city guards again after they’d successfully lost them. But by the time they had landed, Thorax had grown weary from maintaining the spell and was glad to let it collapse. The experimental spell clearly had proven itself to be rather inefficient in practice, draining and requiring more thaums than would be practical. Thorax estimated that he should probably only maintain the spell in no longer than ten or fifteen minute bursts because of it, and wasn’t eager to do it again anytime soon, needing a moment to let his magic recover first. But the important thing was that they arrived at the yard safely thanks to it.

Better still, the employees on duty at the yard seemed unaware as of yet of Twilight’s crusade against them and were more than willing to help them. The clerk at the front desk even recognized Thorax in his disguise as Thornton (already switched back to his usual unicorn appearance), having seen him in the yard fairly often as of late as the changeling worked to get the airship pilot’s license he now held, and was very friendly. She at most seemed surprised to learn that they wished to launch the Vergilius now rather than later that weekend like she knew they were originally planning, especially on such short notice, but didn’t ask questions about it. As the airship yard was presently not especially busy at the moment, she and the rest of the yard staff didn’t foresee a problem with it and quickly set about making the necessary preparations.

This included sending a team of ponies out to the hangar where the Vergilius was parked, so to see to it that the airship was properly filled with the required supply of hydrium lifting gas and the engines were magically charged fully for the planned flight—all a service Thorax had paid and arranged for in advance with consideration for the originally planned weekend flight, and he was glad he had done so, because while he knew enough to do all of this himself too given the needed equipment and supplies, he didn’t have as much practice actually doing it and knew he couldn’t do it as quickly as the yard staff could. And he trusted they would do so effectively and efficiently, enabling them to make their getaway all that much sooner.

In the meantime, a flight plan needed to be registered, which Thorax entrusted with Spike to handle while he turned his attention to one final affair he wanted to do before they left. When asked what sort of flight path Spike should give to the yard staff, Thorax told him it didn’t matter; he didn’t plan to follow it at all, thereby giving their pursuers nothing reliable to follow and give chase with. So Spike arbitrarily chose to file a flight path that would lead to Los Pegasus, mostly following a common airship trade route, making the planned flight seem all that more mundane than it really was. That decided, he then sat down to quickly work out all the needed paperwork with a second but also helpful navigation clerk, this one a stallion who hadn’t met either of them before.

While he did that, Thorax sat with their carry-on supplies at one of a small cluster of simple tables serving as a waiting area within the yard’s main offices, and for the first time since noticing the city guard was in the process of surrounding Fly’s shop, he let his mind wander and think about just how much he didn’t like their situation, inwardly lamenting that they had to leave like this, or leave at all. It especially bothered him that he couldn’t take the time to give proper farewells to everypony he had made the acquaintance of during his time in Vanhoover; Ragg, Monterey at the cheese shop, some of the regular customers at Fly’s shop like the friendly Mrs. White or the kind zebra mare that liked working the most with Thorax because he could speak her native language…he’d even want to give Gervas, the gruff griffon who had led the training cruise Thorax had participated in, a parting farewell, even though Thorax hadn’t seen hide or tail of the griffon since the day of the training cruise. Since he was already at the airship yard, Thorax asked around if Gervas was present and available to speak with, only to be told that today happened to be Gervas’s day off and he hadn’t been at the yard all day.

Thorax especially lamented that he hadn’t been able to give Fly Leaf a proper farewell either, as Princess Twilight’s abrupt return to the shop and Fly’s attempts to stall her so he and Spike could escape had prevented that. He felt that was the most unfair part of all of this, especially after finding out that Fly had known their secret this whole time only moments before. However, despite all of that, he knew there was at least one he still had one final chance to give a proper farewell to, one who deserved it the most but it was also the one he dreaded giving the most—Trixie. Nonetheless, pulling out a free piece of stationery that was offered at the main office’s front desk, Thorax took up a quill and proceeded to write a painful but unfortunately quick farewell letter.

Curiously, it didn’t take much debate for Thorax decide there was only one way he should write this letter; to give in to the temptation he had long been toying with since meeting the stage performer and tell her the truth. So after starting the letter with his customary greeting and acknowledging that this letter would arrive in Trixie’s possession only shortly after receiving an earlier letter Thorax had sent out only the day before, he proceeded to admit that he had not been truthful about his identity to her as gently as he could think to do it. He then didn’t beat about the bush and proceeded to immediately reveal that he was a changeling, what his intentions in Equestria were, and to explain the situation that had led him to this point in brief…and why they now had to part ways.

It intrigued Thorax that once he had started putting down the truth, he couldn’t stop. In fact, he found there was plenty more he wished to tell Trixie, but knew there wasn’t time, so much so that he noted as such in the letter as he proceeded to wrap up, apologizing for this and that he didn’t have more time to write a more carefully thought-out letter than this rushed one he feared it could only come across as. But he assured Trixie that he had never meant harm no matter what other ponies said, and certainly none to her. He then added that he had genuinely and truly enjoyed their interactions and their friendship (the only term he was comfortable to describe it as at the moment, as he still wasn’t certain how else to describe it or if other terms would even be accurate) and that had never, ever, been a deception. He especially lamented that this meant they would not get to cross paths again and meet in person once more like they had planned.

He then proceeded to bid Trixie farewell, the hardest part to write as Thorax very much didn’t want to put the words down, but he forced himself to, and then before he could let himself get too emotional or allow his mind or the hurtful ache in his chest to talk himself out of doing it, he finished the letter, sealed it in an envelope, and left it in a courtesy mailbox the airship yard kept for the use of travelers, effectively sending it on its way. He wondered to himself what Trixie’s reaction to the letter might be, fearing it was going to be a hard blow for her no matter what, but he knew he would never find out as he would never receive a reply from Trixie; he had deliberately not given her any new contact information, explaining that this was for the safety of both of them. Besides…he had no idea yet where he and Spike were going to end up next. He couldn’t give an address for a location he didn’t know he was going to be at, not even for a mobile mailing spell.

He hung about the mailbox sadly for a moment after he had put the letter inside, tucking his hooves into the pockets of his jacket, then, snuffling to himself, he wandered back to the table to sit and wait in silence. A few minutes later, Spike joined him after having completed filing the flight path they both knew they weren’t even going to follow, looking much like how Thorax felt.

“It is done,” he remarked with a depressed sigh as he sat across the table from Thorax, leaning his elbow wearily on the edge.

“Mm,” Thorax grunted, unable to bring himself to say anything more than that. Nothing seemed appropriate, given the circumstances.

A very long moment of silence passed between them, only amplified by the fact that it was already utterly silent in the waiting room they sat in, as there was no pony else present. Even the stallion clerk Spike had been working with had left so to finish his end of the paperwork somewhere else.

“I’m sorry, Thorax,” Spike said finally, breaking the silence.

“As am I,” Thorax replied.

Simple as it was, that seemed to be all that needed to be said to sum up their depressed mood. Both then voluntarily allowed the silence to fall again, hanging heavy over their table as they awaited final word that the Vergilius was prepared and ready to depart, word that by now they were expecting to receive at any minute. The only sound to be heard was the quiet tick of a small clock that sat on the desk of the stallion clerk, still off elsewhere finishing filing the forms for their flight.

It was then that Fly Leaf, panting and out of breath, suddenly came barreling around the corner and into the room at a full gallop. “You two are STILL here?!” she exclaimed in alarm as she hurried up to their table.

“Fly Leaf?” Thorax and Spike declared together in surprise, twisting around to stare at her.

Fly Leaf motioned urgently for them to get to their feet. “Hurry, hurry, hurry, you two need to go, NOW,” she stated in a near panic, looking about the empty room like she was expecting a monster come to eat her was going to jump out at any second.

“What are you doing here?” Spike then asked, still shocked to see her. “I thought Twilight…”

“I escaped,” Fly explained, turning her attention back to them, picking up their bags where they had set them on the floor and stuffing them into their hooves and claws respectively. “But they’re going to notice and come after me at any time now, and I just know that princess of yours is going to figure it out about the Vergilius soon and come down upon this place immediately. I’ve tried to buy us some time by locking them into the shop when I left, but…”

“How will that help?” Spike asked. “You know, Twilight could just teleport around that…”

“Not when there’s a magical ward prohibiting teleportation on the building,” Fly reminded.

Spike blinked, surprised. “Wait, really?”

“Most businesses have such wards in place as an anti-theft measure,” Thorax explained patiently for the dragon’s benefit. He regarded Spike with some mild surprise. “You didn’t know?”

Spike shot him a look. “Do I look like the sort of person who’d be going around, teleporting willy-nilly?”

Thorax shrugged. “Well, teleportation’s overrated anyway.”

“Whatever the case,” Fly urgently interrupted and getting back on topic, “they could be coming after us at any moment! You two need to be out of here well before that happens!”

“We’re still waiting on the ground crew to finish fueling the Vergilius though,” Thorax objected, motioning one hoof out one of the windows in the room that overlooked the actual yard of the facility. “Until they finish…”

“But what happened exactly?” Spike interrupted, wanting details. “You said you escaped?”

“Yes, I tried getting Princess Twilight to listen to the truth, but she wasn’t having it,” Fly explained urgently.

“I had warned you about that,” Spike remarked pointedly as he pulled the straps of his loaded backpack over his shoulders.

“You did, but the point is that she didn’t listen and basically put my whole shop on siege with me in it while she searched for clues or tried to get me to confess.” Fly shook her head. “Look, more importantly, she sent out guards to bar any means of transportation in and out of the city, including grounding all flights here at the airship yard.”

Thorax blinked in surprise. “Really?” he asked as he hesitantly placed his saddlebags on his back. “Then word must not have reached here yet, because everyone here has been more than happy to…”

“Excuse me?” came the voice of the stallion clerk as he strolled back into the room suddenly. He approached their table calmly, but was giving the still panting Fly Leaf a puzzled look. “Who are you?”

“Just a friend here to give a quick farewell before these two leave,” Fly covered quickly and without any hesitation.

“Oh!” the clerk remarked with a brief grin, which was sadly gone again all too soon as he proceeded with bad news. “Unfortunately though, no one is going to be departing for now. I’m afraid we’ve just been told by the local city guard that there is some sort of emergency taking place in the city at the moment, and that we are to ground all flights until further notice. I regret that I don’t have more details, but this means that until they give the all clear, no airships may takeoff or land.”

Thorax pulled a face. “Me and my big mouth…” he muttered to himself.

The clerk only partly heard him. “Pardon?” he asked. It was ignored.

“There must be some exception you can arrange,” Fly pleaded quickly.

“It is sort of an emergency,” Spike added just as quickly.

The clerk, for his credit, looked genuinely apologetic. “I’m sorry, I wish I could do something to help,” he admitted. “But there’s really nothing more I can do.”

Fly heaved a heavy sigh, almost appearing to deflate some. “That’s terrible news,” she admitted glumly.

The next moment she was suddenly upon the surprised clerk, swinging her hooves skillfully as she quickly sought to bring the clerk down with a flurry of guizhou fa moves. Startled, the clerk reacted instinctively to shield himself, managing to block the first few moves, but he was still utterly unprepared when Fly managed to get her hooves upon him and secure enough of a hoofhold on him to slam his head down on Spike and Thorax’s table. Dazed, the clerk was barely able to struggle as Fly, in the blink of an eye, switched her hold on the stallion, putting him into something of a headlock. It was then that Thorax, also caught by utter surprise by the sudden attack, reacted without much thinking to light his horn and fire a stunning spell at the clerk. This resulted in the clerk abruptly going limp and sinking out of Fly’s hooves and onto the floor.

The three of them stood around and stared at the fallen clerk for a second, all a little shell-shocked that this actually happened. “Sorry,” Thorax hissed aloud, lamenting he had to resort to such actions.

Spike threw his claws to the sides of his face. “Are we really doing this?” he asked, incredulous. “Attacking innocent ponies just to get out of here?”

“If you stay, Princess Twilight will find you two, and then where will you be?” Fly reasoned as she stared at the unconscious clerk herself. Her voice had a tone of finality to it, but even she was regarding the fruits of the deed with mixed feelings. “Spike, you were right…it’s not safe for you to stay. Even if it means we have to fight your way out.” She returned her attention fully to her two about-to-be-former employees. “You two need to go,” she repeated. She motioned for the door that led out onto the yard. “Get to the Vergilius and takeoff as soon as you can!”

“What?” Spike declared, his head snapping up to stare at Fly.

“We can’t just takeoff!” Thorax declared. “Because they’ve grounded all flights, we’ll stand out like a sore thumb! The control tower will never—”

“I’ll deal with the control tower!” Fly assured. “You two get to that airship!”

“But there were a group of workers out there servicing her!” Spike objected. “They’re probably still out there in her hangar—they’re not just going to let us aboard!”

“Do whatever you need to get aboard,” Fly said, then abruptly pulled the two close and into a hug. “I don’t care how we do this. But this is the last chance either of you are going to get to escape, or else that Twilight Sparkle is going to catch up and have her way with the pair of you…and neither of you deserve what she has planned…and I’m not about to let her have the satisfaction.” She pulled back again. “Now…about how many ponies would be in this group of workers?”

“I don’t know for certain,” Thorax replied, a little taken aback by Fly’s show of affection. “But I would guess about anywhere between five to seven.”

“Do you think you can successfully subdue that many on your own?”

Thorax thought about it tactfully for a moment. Spike was shaking his head almost immediately, but Thorax wasn’t so quick to rule it out. “Maybe if we were to surprise them…”

“Surprise them then,” Fly said. She sighed. “Look, trust me, we can pull this off, but we won’t be if we keep discussing this because we literally don’t have time. So get going! Now! Leave the rest to me.”

And after giving them both a nudge for the door, she turned around herself and galloped out of the room in search of the control tower, soon out of sight yet again. Spike and Thorax exchanged glances briefly, both having mixed feelings about what they were going to attempt, but both opted not to dwell on it and did as Fly instructed. They hurried for the door leading out onto the yard, and within moments were running across it, heading from the main offices towards the hangar the Vergilius was docked inside of, located to the side of the main yard. They proceeded through the first half of the run in silence, but then Spike’s misgivings started catching up with him.

“Do we even have a plan on what we’re going to do once we arrive?” he asked Thorax aloud.

“No clue at all,” Thorax admitted without hesitation, looking like he knew this was all far less than ideal.

“Oh good, so we’re both on the same page then,” Spike sarcastically replied.

“Just don’t let them catch you,” Thorax advised, the most of a plan he could offer at the moment.

Entirely too soon and before they were really ready to be, they were at the hangar in question. Thorax led the way to the nearest entrance, a pair of double doors set into the side of the building near its front. Pressing himself close to the side of the building, he silently motioned for Spike to wait beside him and to keep quiet before moving to the door and, carefully and slowly, nudging it open just far enough to steal a peek at the hangar’s interior within. Inside, he could see the Vergilius docked in its berth, looking the same, sleek and elegant, as the last time he had seen it, except now her envelope was more filled, the lifting balloon looking plump and taunt as well as free from its restraining slings so to float freely above the craft. Gathered around the still tethered craft however, working with pieces of equipment while chatting amongst themselves, were a small party of ponies. They did not notice Thorax peeking at them from across the large interior of the hangar.

Spike couldn’t see from where he was, but he saw Thorax wince at the sight of them. “The workers are still in there, aren’t they?” he asked softly.

Thorax nodded. “I think they’re in the middle of putting things away now, but I can’t be sure.”

“How many are there?”

The disguised changeling quickly did a headcount. “I see about six, but I can’t see the whole hangar from here.”

“So what do we do?”

Thorax glanced about real quick. He noticed a stack of metal pails sitting a couple feet down from the door and levitated one over for Spike to take. “We’re going to have to do what I’d rather not do if we could’ve.” He kept his horn lit after Spike hesitantly took the pail, preparing a stunning spell he could fire quickly and repeatedly while gearing himself up against the door. “We’re going to have to go in attacking.”

Spike gulped, understanding why Thorax had given him the bucket; it was meant to be an impromptu club if needed. “Oh boy,” he murmured aloud.

Thorax took a deep breath then let it out again in a slow whoosh. “On three, okay?”

Spike forced himself to nod, not feeling good about what they were about to try. “Okay.”

“Okay then…one…”

Spike made himself ready to sprint, figuring he ought to go in running, and took on what he hoped was an aggressive-looking battle stance with the bucket.

“…two…”

Thorax wiped sweat from his brow before pressing his hooves against the double doors, getting ready to throw them open.

“…three.”

Thorax threw the doors open with a loud clang and the two immediately ran into the hangar side by side, as fast as they could. Both were yelling at the top of their lungs as they ran, partly because it seemed like the thing to do in an assault charge like this, and partly because they were scared witless by what they were doing. Naturally, their yelling, echoing and booming out within the expansive interior of the hangar, immediately drew the attention of the six visible workers, all of them turning to stare at the two racing towards them nearly at the same time. The stare was incredulous and for a split second, none of them did anything except watch their attackers charge, clearly not knowing how to react. One at least managed to shout out something along the lines of “who the hay are they?” but that was about the full extent of their lack of action in that split second.

By the time any of them started to move and react though, Thorax, having given up trying to take aim at each individual target while galloping like this, started firing off stunning spells randomly and as fast as he could up and down the length of the hangar, trying to flood the space with as many fired stunning spells as he could at once in hopes that would increase his odds of hitting the desired targets. And reckless though it was, the spells quickly downed the first few workers as hoped while inciting panic in the remainder, leaving them too uncoordinated enough to find adequate shelter and soon were stunned too. The rest of the fired spells simply struck either the Vergilius or the hangar’s far wall in harmless bursts of colored sparks. By the time Spike and Thorax arrived at the spot most of the workers had been gathered, all of the apparent workers in the hangar had been struck by at least one stunning spell and were now all sprawled out and limp on the floor before them.

Spike slowed to a stop as he reached the closest worker, letting his loud yell trail off and the pail he hadn’t used hang loosely at his side. “…oh,” he concluded as he gazed down at one of the downed workers.

Meanwhile Thorax was hurriedly looking around the hangar, confirming they had indeed downed everyone here, thinking that this was a little too easy and deeply afraid there was somepony they had missed. He was proven right when he caught sight of a pony bolting out from behind the Vergilius’s prow and making a mad dash for the exit, no doubt hoping to raise the alarm. Thorax jumped in surprise at him and was briefly caught off guard.

“Spike!” he declared, pointing in the direction of the fleeing pony as Spike had his back turned at the time the pony revealed himself and hadn’t yet noticed him.

Spike whipped around to look at the fleeing stallion, already a good couple feet away from them, and did the first thing he thought of; throwing the metal bucket still in his claws in the stallion’s direction. The pail sailed upward in a very high arc, so much so that for a moment it was unclear it would actually hit the stallion or stop him in any meaningful way from reaching the exit. Indeed, he was more than halfway to the double doors leading out when the bucket started to come back down again. For a fleeting second, Spike and Thorax thought for sure that the stallion would outrun the bucket before it finished coming back down, enough that Thorax was fumbling to ready a stunning spell again as he had foolishly allowed his horn to go dark again. But Spike’s aim proved better than they both thought, and the bucket came down perfectly in time to strike the stallion in the head with a loud clang. The impact being painful, the stallion slowed and veered off course for a second to clutch at his aching skull, just long enough for Thorax to fire off another stunning spell so to finish the job.

A long moment passed as the two stood in silence, gazing about the hangar floor now littered with unconscious ponies, somewhat out of leeriness that something else would still go wrong or there was still somepony else still they had missed, and somewhat appalled that they were the ones responsible for the attack that had downed these ponies.

Thorax succinctly summed up why with a simple statement. “This isn’t going to help anypony’s views of us,” he murmured, starting to feel ashamed as he gazed at the closest of the fallen workers. The thought he knew they weren’t harmed and would make full recoveries once the stunning spells had worn off didn’t seem to help soothe this any.

“It’s Twilight’s own fault, she drove us to this,” Spike grumbled in response, a little more unrepentant once he had that in mind. “Again, I might add.”

The mention of Twilight reminded Thorax of the danger they were still in and the time rapidly running out, and he quickly gazed about the hangar once more. He had kept his horn alight this time, ready in case any other missed ponies revealed themselves, but it seemed they had successfully cleared the hangar now. “We need to keep moving,” he murmured and turned to Spike, pointing a hoof at the large hangar doors at the front of the structure, currently closed. “Spike, go open the hangar doors. I’ll go aboard and make sure the Vergilius actually is prepped enough for flight, or we’re in more trouble than we already are.”

“Right,” Spike said and turned and ran for the large doors.

These doors were manually-opened unidirectional sliding doors composed of six smaller door panels, positioned so that each panel slid overtop each other as the door opened until all six panels tucked neatly out of the way at the far end of the hangar. Once unlatched, which Spike needed only a moment to figure out, the doors were built to be easy to move, and the tracks they hung from were well-oiled so to aide in this intent. Regardless, Spike struggled initially to get the doors moving, finding that he lacked the same sort of arm strength the airship yard’s ground crews would have, and he had to strain quite a bit to get them to start moving. Luckily, once they got rolling, their own momentum helped to carry them further better, making it easier for Spike to keep the doors rolling open.

Meanwhile, Thorax hurried aboard the Vergilius, promptly heading into the air yacht’s interior. Keeping his horn lit and a stunning spell at the ready, the first thing he did was quickly glance through the craft and make sure nopony had been aboard and safe from being stunned like the rest of the crew of workers lying unconscious outside. He was immensely relieved to find this was not the case, the airship empty of anyone but himself, and there wasn’t really any good place to hide one’s self aboard the ship beyond the main general-access compartments so he could be quite confident of this.

That done then, he hurried back to the yacht’s helm and began switching things on and checking gauges on the airship’s controls, anxiously wondering just how far the worker crew had gotten in prepping the Vergilius before receiving word to ground all fights. He was again relieved to find that the engines had been fully magically charged, and the ship loaded with more than three-fourths of hydrium lifting gas, more than the needed minimum for prolonged flight (meaning he had a little extra to work with in case of an emergency). She had even been loaded with a small starter supply of regular air and water to serve as ballast even though the Vergilius bore intakes so she could take in such supplies in-flight. Their odds for pulling this unauthorized flight were continuing to improve.

Thorax threw off the saddlebags he had been carrying and tossed them into an empty corner of the deckhouse to sit for now, hurrying through a quick pre-flight check so to finish prepping the craft for takeoff. He was wrapping up as Spike finished opening the hangar doors and was dashing back to the Vergilius’s gangplank. Thorax moved to meet him on the plank so to give him further instructions, seeing Spike was all he had for any sort of a ground crew, but both were brought short when one of the devices the workers had left sitting nearby suddenly let out a crackling noise, revealing itself as a radio on a wheeled stand.

“Hangar nine, this is control,” the radio transmitted, broadcasting the formal voice of a stallion radio operator. “We see you’ve opened doors for takeoff prep and request updates. Reminder, we have been ordered to ground all flights, repeat, all flights are grounded until further notice. Do not continue with takeoff prep at this time. Please confirm, over.”

Spike and Thorax both shot glances out the open hangar doors and at the control tower that could be seen from here across the yard, next to the main offices. As designed, the operators within had clear view of everything taking place in the yard and could see signs of Spike and Thorax’s activity from here. Fortunately, they didn’t seem aware yet the worker crew had been subdued and hangar operations basically hijacked, but it wouldn’t stay that way for long. They needed time and a means to dissuade the control tower’s attention for just a few moments longer.

Motioning for Spike to stay quiet and wait a moment, Thorax trotted down the gangplank and to the wheeled radio, picking up the receiver as he quickly recalled in his mind what the voice of the one worker who had managed to say anything before getting stunned sounded like. “Control, this is hangar nine,” he then spoke into the receiver in the closest approximation of that worker’s voice he could manage given the briefness he had heard the voice be spoken. Fortunately, being a changeling and naturally skilled at voice mimicry aided by radio transmission muddling the quality enough to hide discrepancies, it was hopefully enough for their purposes. “We copy; we are not prepping for takeoff. We’ve opened the hangar doors so to ease in moving some…equipment we have here while we waited for further orders in the meantime, over.” Thorax hoped that would be excuse enough, because he wasn’t sure he could come up with a better one at the moment.

Fortunately it was. “We copy hangar nine, keep us appraised of any new developments, over and out,” came the reply, and then the radio went silent again.

Thorax let out a relieved sigh, but knew the reprieve would be short, especially once they had the Vergilius moving. He would have to speed this along, and that would mean the Vergilius would need to be leaving the hangar under her own power already. He turned to Spike, still standing halfway up the gangplank and hurried back to him. “Spike, I need you to start unhitching the mooring lines. Start with the lines at the center prow, aft, starboard, and port sides, but not the lines at each corner of the ship just yet. I’m going to be getting the engines started and getting us a little positive lift.”

Spike twisted around to stare at him as Thorax slipped past and on up the gangplank. “Wait, you mean we’re flying her out of the hangar under her own power?” he asked incredulously. “Don’t we need to tow her out first?”

“Normally yes, but we’re not going to have time for that!” Thorax grumpily called back as he returned to the control cabin, fully aware that doing this would be like threading a needle and thereby risky; one wrong move and the Vergilius was liable to crash into the side of the hangar door. He wouldn’t even consider it if he thought there was a viable alternative.

This lack of alternatives was reaffirmed only a few minutes later when the radio crackled on again. “Hanger nine, this is control,” the radio relayed. “Be advised that a party of city guards will be en route soon to assist with moving equipment, as they want the yard cleared of crews as soon as possible, over.”

“Thorax!” Spike called, hearing this notice on the radio as he undid mooring lines and threw them up onto the main deck of the airship.

“I heard!” Thorax replied as he came hurrying off the airship’s sleek gondola and back to the wheeled radio, taking on the voice of the worker once more as he picked up the receiver. “Control, this is hangar nine, we respectfully request we belay the assist, we’ve got this nearly handled here and we don’t need more hooves getting in the way, over.”

The response was at least apologetic. “Sorry hangar nine, the city guard is insistent and we’ve been overruled by the officer in command. Assist will still be en route, repeat, assist still en route. ETA five to ten minutes, over.”

Thorax growled as he threw down the receiver and hurried to move back aboard the Vergilius. “I thought Miss Fly said she was going to handle them,” he mumbled as he hurried up the gangplank then started to pull the plank up after him. “New plan Spike, pull all the mooring lines now, as quick as you can! Give me a shout when you get to the last one, and I’ll pull you aboard with it!”

“On it!” Spike called back, upping his pace as he worked to undo the lines tethering the ship in place.

Thorax, meanwhile, resumed work at starting the airship’s engines, and only moments later the engines rumbled to life, though the propellers remained stationary as Thorax had not yet raised the throttle. He didn’t plan to until all the mooring lines had been freed, and stepped out onto the main deck again to assist Spike with that task where he could while the dragon circled the ship undoing the lines from the anchors they were tied to. Soon only the port prow and aft lines were the only ones left keeping the ship anchored, the center port line having already been undone earlier. Spike was just dropping down to start unhitching the prow line when the double doors leading into the hangar burst open for a second time and a quartet of city guards entered, looking shocked to see the sight unfolding within.

“Balani!” Thorax cursed with unusual volume, and without waiting for the guards to make the first move, he ran to the port side of the main deck and started firing more stunning spells at the guards.

Unfortunately, unlike the workers they had stunned earlier and were still left where they had fallen about the hangar, the guards reacted quickly and only one of the guards was struck by a spell…and only a glancing blow at that, not taking full effect. All four of the guards also happened to be unicorns, and as they took cover, they started returning fire. Soon a full-on magical firefight was taking place within the hangar, and worse still, the remaining two portside mooring lines Spike needed to undo were on the same side of the craft that faced the attacking guards. Knowing he couldn’t delay the task though, he narrowed how much of a target he was by throwing himself onto the ground and proceeding to gingerly pick the mooring line free from that position. This allowed him to be largely overlooked by the attack guards, who instead focused their attention on Thorax, the disguised changeling appearing the greater threat as he was actively attacking back.

Once Spike got the prow line freed though, he found he still had to stand for the next part, so grabbing the line and pulling it free from its anchor, he jumped up and hurled it up onto the main deck in as much of the same motion as he could muster before dropping low again. This one motion was risky enough though, as at the same time he did this, two stunning spells fired from the attacking guards and meant for him narrowly missed the dragon within inches to instead harmlessly strike the Vergilius’s beige-colored hull. Thorax retaliated by managing to down one of the guards, the same one he had only grazed earlier, this time knocking out the guard for good.

Needing safety still and one more line still needing untethering, Spike dove for the wheeled radio sitting beside the ship, tucking himself into a ball as he rolled behind the radio, using it as a shield. Again, he narrowly missed getting struck by spells when he did this, the stunning spells all coming within what felt like centimeters of Spike. Even though they still missed, the guards still had pretty impeccable aim to get that close. Nonetheless, Spike was shielded behind the radio, and better still, it was on wheels so Spike could move it aft towards the final line while staying safely hidden behind it.

The guards, to their credit, saw this, knew what Spike was doing, and started focusing their fire more on him, with several stunning spells striking the radio in some shape or form in rapid succession. One guard even attempted to shoot Spike’s feet by firing a spell through the gap between the bottom of the wheeled radio’s stand and the floor, but the gap proved just too small to get through; it sent nothing but harmless colored sparks over Spike’s feet which he only noticed because of the light they cast. It also brought their attention off Thorax even if just fleetingly, giving Thorax enough time to down a second guard with a stunning spell, cutting their attackers in half.

Arriving at the critical final mooring line then, Spike urgently went about freeing it as quick as he could before their problems got even worse, and with a hard jerk, the line was undone. “Thorax, go!” Spike bellowed to the changeling on deck, giving him the all-clear to proceed, though Spike didn’t yet know what Thorax would do.

Thorax’s response was to immediately turn and run back to the control cabin, stick his head through the door and quickly throw the throttle lever upwards. The airship’s propellers immediately spun to life, and a second later the Vergilius started to surge forward. Still holding onto the final mooring line in his claws, Spike soon found himself nearly getting dragged along behind the craft. This and the craft’s port stern elevator fin nudging the wheeled radio out of the way brought Spike back into view of the two remaining guards and drawing the focus of their fire again.

“Help!” Spike called in a growing panic, running behind the slowly accelerating ship as he dodged the guards’ fire and used a parkour move to vault himself onto the yacht’s elevator fin.

Thorax was immediately at the railing above him again, first firing off a stunning spell that successfully downed a third guard before grabbing the final mooring line Spike was dearly holding onto the end of. “I’ve got you!” he called as he quickly hauled Spike up onto the safety of the main deck. The moment he did, he pushed himself and Spike back down behind the railing to dodge fire from the sole remaining guard, but then Thorax poked his head back up and fired back, finally stunning the last of the quartet of attackers.

They had no chance to bask in the victory though as Spike, panting from the exertion of getting himself safely aboard, noticed the Vergilius was starting to drift dangerously to one side of the open hanger doors. “Thorax…” he said in warning, tugging on his friend’s shoulder and pointing ahead of them.

Thorax only needed a glance to see the problem, racing back to the deckhouse again, Spike following right behind him, and grabbed the ship’s wheel in his hooves, giving it a jerk in the opposite direction. The Vergilius veered back on course, hanging very far to one side of the open hangar doors, but far enough away to successfully start to clear the hanger and venture out into the open yard.

It was then that the Vergilius’s own radio started to crackle with chatter. “Airship Vergilius, this is control, you are not cleared for takeoff,” came the command from the control tower, who could no doubt clearly see what was taking place. “All flights are grounded until further notice. Repeat, do not take off! Stand down and cut engines immediately, over.”

“Don’t answer,” Thorax instructed Spike as he focused on piloting the airship the rest of the way out of the hangar, the most he could think to do at the moment.

Spike had no intention of responding, not seeing how responding would help any. Nonetheless, this didn’t make it any easier to ignore the radio as it continued to spew out commands from the control tower. “Airship Vergilius, you are ordered to stand down and cut engines, please respond immediately, say again, respond immediately!”

The control tower was still the least of their problems anyway, because as the air yacht pulled free of its hangar and Thorax upped the throttle higher now that they had room, the city guard proved to be in greater numbers at the airship yard than first thought when a squadron of pegasi guards rose to the sky from the other side of the yard and started to surge towards the Vergilius in an assault formation.

Spike quickly saw there were too many for them to fight off on their own this time. “What are we going to do about them?” he asked with concern.

Thorax pulled Spike in front of the ship’s wheel and moved to exit the control cabin. “Take the helm,” he told the dragon.

Spike immediately blanched at the idea, not confident he could steer the ship. “But…”

“Just keep her steady!” Thorax instructed as he galloped across the craft’s main deck towards its nose. Dropping his disguise so to free up as much magical power as he could muster, the changeling bounded up the yacht’s bowsprit then lit his horn and pointed it at the oncoming squadron. “I swore I’d never use this spell,” he muttered in dismay to himself as he charged the changeling spell in question, one of the more undesirable ones he had been taught back at the hive.

A ball of brilliant cyan magical energy grew at the tip of his horn, which Thorax held there before spitting a glob of changeling gel from his mouth and into the ball, the gel vanishing within the cyan energy. He then fired it off in the direction of the squadron like a meteor, aimed for the center of the rapidly approaching group. There still being a good distance between them and the Vergilius though, so all the members of the squadron saw it coming and almost lazily broke formation, allowing the magical burst to fly harmlessly between them, at no risk of any of them being directly hit by it. Precisely as Thorax hoped they would. Once the burst had flown as far as into the middle of the squadron’s ranks, it abruptly turned emerald and burst into a series of smaller and far faster bursts that homed in on each member of the squadron before they could react. A ball of familiar changeling gel, having been replicated by the spell to several times the amount Thorax had originally spat into it, formed around each of the pegasi immediately on impact with the smaller bursts, ensnaring them within.

As this gummed up their wings, that alone was enough to take them out of the air, the pegasi helpless but to let themselves fall to the ground. But each blob of changeling gel ensnaring them was also magically charged with a stunning spell, strong enough that each guard were quickly knocked out shortly after impact as well. Limp and unconscious, the guards then all tumbled down to the yard below where they impacted with thuds. As a live pony is more useful to a changeling than a dead one, the impact with the ground was cushioned by the gel surrounding each pony, causing them little to no additional harm. But once on the ground, the gel quickly hardened, pinning each pegasus to the ground, unable to move if they weren’t already unconscious.

As effective as the spell was, it was also a power drain, and the strain of casting it, especially as he wasn’t as practiced at casting it as other changelings due to his distaste for the spell, left Thorax feeling momentarily drained and light-headed. He wobbled slightly on his hooves, but quickly shook it off and surveyed the results of his spell, immensely pleased to see that it had effectively stopped the whole squadron of city guards, which was good because he wasn’t certain he could repeat it any time soon. He then switched to quickly scanning the airship yard for any other potential attackers. Instead, he saw sizeable wagon loaded with two tanks full of hydrium lifting gas sitting in the middle of the yard, the duo of ponies who had been working it quickly fleeing the scene as the Vergilius rapidly closed in on it, the air yacht still flying close to the ground and was low enough that it would hit the wagon in mere moments unless it raised its altitude.

Thorax quickly spun around to look back at Spike in the control cabin steering the craft, the dragon visible through the car’s forward viewport. “Spike!” he called urgently. “Take the altitude control lever and raise it up until you’ve heard it click three times, hurry!”

In a panic and only loosely familiar with the many flight controls that lay before him at the ship’s helm, Spike’s eyes flew over them, searching for the right lever. “Uh, uh,” he uttered with growing alarm before spying a label underneath a lever marked in bold letters: ALTITUDE. Quickly, he grabbed it and pushed it upwards, the lever making a regular clicking noise as it moved.

He stopped after he had heard it click three times as instructed, but the Vergilius’s nose was already starting to rise before he had done so, lifting the airship to a higher height. At the bowsprit, Thorax watched in concern as the wagon slid towards them before breathing a sigh of relief as the Vergilius sailed above it, the underbelly of the craft’s boat-like gondola skimming just above the abandoned wagon. Thorax then straightened, grinning a little in his relief before the grin turned into a chuckle then a full-on laugh of gleeful victory as he watched the craft continue to rise into the air. He was struck suddenly by how the Vergilius, his own airship, was airborne again and it felt glorious.

“Iterum Vergilius volat!” Thorax crowed suddenly in his native language. Hearing the shout from the ship’s helm, Spike couldn’t help but grin to himself at Thorax’s excited cry, knowing enough linguae mutationis to translate the sentence in his head: the Vergilius flies again.

Starting to rise out of the airship yard entirely and seeing they weren’t in the clear just yet still, Thorax retreated back to the helm, not bothering to restore his disguise seeing all pretense of their covers was already long ruined by now. He took control of flying the ship again, which Spike happily surrendered, and started to turn the air yacht about in preparation for setting a course out of the city. As he did so, he could hear the radio continuing to crackle with orders, becoming increasingly panicked, from the control tower.

“Airship Vergilius, land and cut engines immediately, repeat, land and cut engines NOW!” the transmissions were ordering. “You are not cleared for takeoff! Failure to comply and we will deem you rogue and will have authorities pursue for immediate arrest! I say again, you are not cleared for takeoff, please comply immediately!”

Thorax glanced at the radio with a concerned frown. “That just leaves the control tower,” he murmured, not knowing what to do about that.

Spike turned his focus towards the control tower itself, peering at it through the control cabin’s side window. “C’mon Fly,” he murmured to himself, “it’s your turn now…”

“Airship Vergilius, please comply!” the chief radio operator fruitlessly said into the radio receiver again. “I repeat, please comply!” He waited for a moment for any sort of a reply, but could only helplessly sigh when all he got was the soft static of an empty line. “It’s no use sir, there’s no response of any sort. I don’t know if they even have their radio switched on to hear us.”

The tower commander, who was watching the Vergilius rise and depart with growing concern through the wide windows of the control tower, decided he’d had enough. “All right then, we’ve got no other choice.” He turned to another pony working in the room. “Nav, get downstairs and alert the authorities then have a ground crew prep one of the training airships in hangar three for immediate takeoff so we can give chase and stop these guys, quick as you can.” The pony, Nav, nodded and turned for the tower’s exit while the commander turned back to the radio operator. “Ham, keep trying. Let’s at least have it on the record that we gave them plenty of warning.”

“Yes sir,” the operator, Ham, replied and resumed trying to raise the Vergilius on the radio.

Nav, meanwhile, arrived at the tower’s exit in time for a mare coming the other way, bearing a tray of steaming coffee cups. “Coffee break!” she announced cheerily as she entered.

“Oh thank Celestia, I needed this,” Nav remarked as he promptly stopped to scoop up the closest of the cups. “It’s gone all tartarus up here though, so I can’t stay and talk…” he trailed off as he started to get a good look at the mare, not recognizing her. “Hey wait, you aren’t the—”

He was cut short when the mare suddenly swung the tray of coffee into his head.

“Airship Vergilius, this will be your final warning!” the radio aboard the rogue air yacht continued to broadcast as Spike and Thorax tensely listened. “Land and cut engines! Failure to comply will—what the hay?”

Spike and Thorax both snapped their heads in the direction of the radio, surprised by the sudden exclamation and by the sounds of banging, shouting, and crashes that followed for the next moment. Then the transmission suddenly fell eerily silent. Not sure what to make of this, Spike and Thorax exchanged hesitant glances, their brows furrowed, as they silently attempted to piece together what had just transpired to themselves.

Then the radio clicked and a familiar, feminine, voice began to be broadcasted from the radio. “Airship Vergilius, this is the control tower speaking, do come in.”

“Fly Leaf?” Spike and Thorax declared together, exchanging glances of surprise once again.

Spike then immediately all-but flung himself for the radio’s receiver so to send back a response while Thorax grabbed a spyglass from a nearby drawer and, holding it to his eye, used it to peer at the control tower in the distance. Magnifying it, he could just make out Fly Leaf standing in the window and appearing to be waving at them.

“Fly Leaf!” Spike all but shouted into the radio’s receiver as he transmitted back a reply. His relieved joyfulness was clear in the tone of his voice. “What are you doing on this line?”

“Well, everypony else here in this control tower suddenly became…preoccupied,” Fly explained cryptically. It didn’t take much imagination for the two to picture what she meant though, especially after the demonstration of her guizhou fa skills eariler. “So I hopped on to tell you that you’re clear to head out, and to wish you two safe travels!”

Spike let out an overjoyed laugh at this, but Thorax, having set aside the telescope, levitated the radio’s receiver over to where he stood at the ship’s wheel. “Miss Fly, not to sound unappreciative for this, but they aren’t going to let you get away with what you’ve done,” he pointed out seriously, not batting about the matter like Fly had done.

Fly immediately shrugged that matter aside though. “Never mind about me,” she stated dismissively. “You two focus on getting out of Vanhoover. Besides, you two needed the help, and so I assisted in the best way I could. If it means you two can still go free for at least another day…then that’s all that matters, right?”

Thorax was quiet for a moment. He exchanged a glance with Spike, both of them touched by what Fly had done, both realizing what this would mean for her. “Thank you, Miss Fly,” Thorax finally stated into the receiver, speaking truthfully and earnestly for the pair of them. “For everything.”

“The pleasure’s been all mine, boys,” came the impish response, but her tone quickly turned serious and sullen. “Please stay safe.”

Spike reached up to take the receiver from Thorax. “We will, Fly,” he told her firmly. “We promise.” He frowned, voice cracking as his emotions started to get the better of him. “You take care, Fly.”

“You too, Spike and Thornton,” Fly replied, sounding a little emotional herself. “You too.”

Then with a click, the radio went silent once more. This time it remained that way. And as Thorax solemnly spun the ship’s wheel, turning the Vergilius about to speed away northward for the city’s border and for lands beyond they did not yet know for certain where they were heading for, Spike went to the rearmost window of the deckhouse to watch the airship yard, and Vanhoover surrounding it, shrink smaller and smaller as they flew farther and farther away from it.

By the time Twilight, Applejack, and the many city guards they had brought as backup to storm the airship yard for the missing runaways arrived, it was all well over, and the Vergilius and all aboard her were long gone from sight. Because of the city guards already at the yard and the crew of the control tower had all been knocked unconscious, and all other staff had been cleared from the yard prior to the hijacking precisely because the airship yard had been ordered to ground all flights, no one had clearly seen in what direction the air yacht had departed in. An educated guess could be made of course, and the city guard was sent out to interrogate any city inhabitants in the streets who might have seen the Vergilius leaving for more information, but Twilight was already fairly reasonably sure that whatever direction they had left the city in was a false trail—no doubt they would already be heading off on a notably different course so to throw off pursuers by now, and it was obvious that the flight plan that Spike and the changeling had filed would also be false for the same reasons.

The city guard quickly crewed a couple of spare airships at the yard and set off in search for the Vergilius, but the search was beginning very belatedly, and with consideration for the head start the Vergilius had, it was going to be difficult to pick up its trail again, especially without a solid idea what it’s course had been and where it might be heading now. And with the evening wearing on and the sun sinking towards the horizon, the light needed to aid in the search would be gone all too soon. It altogether felt entirely too much like how Spike and the changeling had given them the slip before when they fled the Crystal Empire by train, and it inevitably felt a bit too much like they had successfully given their pursuers the slip once again.

Unsurprisingly, Twilight was not happy about this, so much so she rather uncharacteristically began to venomously harangue the unlucky pony that had been elected to inform her about all of this immediately, and perhaps would have gone on for some minutes had Applejack not quickly intervened, reminding her that chewing out the messenger wasn’t going to help. So Twilight instead turned her attention to heading to the control tower in hopes of getting answers, marching irately up the stairs to the top with Applejack and a pair of city guards in tow.

She arrived at the top to find a city guard already waiting for them, standing guard over the scene while awaiting further orders, and every member of staff that had been working in the tower knocked out and sprawled out on the floor, all in manners similar to how the three guards had been knocked out at Fly’s shop—currently unconscious but still not hurt in any meaningful way. Spilt coffee and broken cups littered the floor in-between them. But most condemning of all was Fly Leaf casually sitting in the middle of everything, patiently waiting for Twilight’s arrival while supping the one cup of coffee that hadn’t gotten spilled in the scuffle.

“Good evening, princess,” Fly greeted with an infuriating amount of cheery smugness as Twilight entered the room, the others following behind her. “I’d offer you a cup of coffee too, but…” she glanced down at the spilled beverage all over the floor around her. “…unfortunately, it seems all the rest got spilled.”

Twilight spent a moment to take in the room, moving her head minimally as she let her narrowed eyes do the looking. She then slowly and deliberately approached Fly, making her ire very clear in her body language. Fly seemed completely unfazed by it, which didn’t help Twilight’s mood in the slightest. “I suppose you’re going to tell me absolutely nothing about where they are or where to find them,” she deduced in a low and cold tone, already guessing the direction this conversation would go.

“Nothing except where to stuff it, your highness,” Fly confirmed without the slightest hesitation, still using that cheery tone.

Twilight’s eyes narrowed further still. “You,” she said with deliberate venom, “have been a very naughty pony.”

Fly calmly set down her cup and held out her forehooves, offering them to Twilight. “Then you’d better arrest me now before I do it again,” she stated with finality, the cheeriness of her tone tainted by the implied threat in her words.

Twilight glared at Fly for a long moment, then nodded her head at the closer of the two guards. “Take her away,” she ordered levelly.

The guards nodded and solemnly stepped forward to slap cuffs onto Fly’s hooves and then lead her back downstairs, the third guard following so to take up the rear. Fly remained looking smug and completely unrepentant the whole time. It infuriated Twilight, so she chose not to watch as Fly was led away, instead turning her attention to stare straight ahead and out the control tower windows at the empty airship yard outside. Applejack, however, watched Fly be led away closely from where the country mare hovered near the door. Afterwards, alone with Twilight now, she then turned her attention back onto the alicorn.

“Ya plan ta banish her like ya did with the changeling and Spike?” she asked Twilight simply, her thoughts implied in her tone of voice.

Twilight didn’t answer the question directly. “It’s clear to me that Miss Fly Leaf’s has had enough close interaction with the changeling that it has been able to manipulate and mislead her much like how it did with Spike,” she explained levelly, though somewhat forced.

Applejack was quiet for a long moment. “She’s ain’t lyin’, Twilight. Ah can feel it in my bones. There’s a truth ta be had there.”

“And just what is that truth, Applejack?”

“Ah don’t rightly know, Twilight. Ah’m honest enough ta admit that. But Ah am startin’ ta see a pattern in all of this…perhaps there’s far more happenin’ here than ya’ve been lettin’ yerself see…and that maybe there’s been liddle ta no misleadin’ at all.”

Twilight’s anger, though still expertly controlled, was almost tangible as she glanced back at Applejack finally. “That changeling just assaulted a number of ponies, resisted arrest, hijacked an airship, and took off unauthorized,” she reminded firmly. “How can that changeling not mean to cause harm at this point? How could anyone not see that?”

Applejack gazed knowingly at her friend. “Then fer all our sakes, Ah hope yer absolutely right about this, Twilight.”

She then turned and left the control tower herself, leaving Twilight sitting in the room alone, lost in deeply emotional thoughts as she gazed at the setting sun casting shadows over the Vanhoover airship yard.

Author's Note

And with that, beyond a few passing references to her by name, Fly Leaf has exited stage left from the story for now. Oh, don't worry, she'll appear again in the final chapters of the story, but for now, her role in the tale has been fulfilled.

Also, now you know why I took the time to give Fly Leaf her guizhou fa training; it was specifically with this chapter in mind.

I wasn't going to acknowledge why Twilight didn't just teleport out of Fly's shop earlier in this chapter despite it being suggested, because to me it really doesn't seem like so much of a stretch for her to not to resort to it when she has opted to hoof it instead of teleporting despite the advantages it'd give at the moment so often in the show...but so many of you were getting so hung up over it. So fine, I threw in the obvious explanation. It really does make sense when you think about it. So now that matter's resolved and we can move on to talk about more important things...like, how about that escape, eh? :raritywink:

Also, do note, not so cliffhanger-y an ending this time. Relatively speaking.

And...I do hope people have been paying attention to subtle hints I've made in past chapters of the story...because what they're reference are all starting to pop up here at this point in the story...

Fly Up From the Flames

After they had departed from Vanhoover in the Vergilius, Thorax decided that the smartest thing they could do was to ensure anyone who attempted to pursue them lost their trail. To do this, after piloting the Vergilius about a mile or so northward out of Vanhoover, he turned the craft onto a loosely southeastern course heading towards the Unicorn Range of mountains. Mostly nothing but countryside separated them from the mountains, but there were scatterings of small farming communities spread about throughout that Thorax actively steered the air yacht around so to avoid any inhabitants spying them as they flew past who could then relay on news of those sightings to those chasing them. He also stayed far away from the major trade route passing through the area that most airships followed when flying to or from Vanhoover in this direction, as the route was too easily tracked and would only increase their chances of being sighted by other airships traveling it. Thanks to Thorax’s precautions, they saw no sign of any other airships passing through or much of any sign of any communities except from extremely far distances at most during the flight, which proceeded speedily as Thorax kept the Vergilius flying at or close to its maximum speed since departing Vanhoover, trying to put as much distance as he could between them and the city they had finally been discovered in.

This meant the flight felt rather secluded and barren though, isolating themselves from civilization like they were. It didn’t help that most of this flight to the Unicorn Range was spent in silence between the two runaways, the two lost in their own private thoughts about their situations, filled with sadness, conflicting disappointments, and above all, regret. Neither of them had said it out loud, but bidding their final farewells to Fly Leaf as they sailed out of the airship yard had cut much deeper than they were prepared for, driving home the reality of their situation. Once again they had been driven from the lives they had built for themselves, were on their own and on the run with limited supplies, and had nowhere to go. It was crushingly depressing for the both of them to find themselves back in this situation again after having permitted themselves to hope they had long moved on from it and wouldn’t have to return to it.

Clearly not, though.

In an attempt to distract themselves from all of these undesirable thoughts, they both quietly tried to focus on tasks to keep them busy with. Thorax poured all his focus into flying the Vergilius, more so than he usually did, and didn’t care to leave the ship’s helm for anything if he could help it. In the long hours that passed as they sailed away from Vanhoover in fact, he only left the helm once so to use the head…and even that he clearly had tried to put off for as long as he could. It was debatable if this extreme focus on operating the airship was working though, because his face was still etched with a sullen and disheartened expression that unfortunately Thorax could see getting faintly reflected back at him by the crystal glass that made up the control cabin’s forward viewport.

Spike, meanwhile, eventually took it upon himself to gather up their bags of travel supplies and took them below so to find places to store the equipment in the various cabinets and storage spaces the Vergilius offered, seeing that the air yacht would be their new home for the time being. He took his time doing so, almost afraid that when he finished, he would be left with nothing to do but finally face the boiling turmoil of emotions he had been trying to force deep down within him, fearing the pain they would bring if he let them spill forth. But like with Thorax, it was debatable if it really helped as he wandered about almost as if in a light daze, also wearing an expression of concealed aching and regret.

At last, they arrived at the Unicorn Range as the sun started to sink into the western horizon behind them. Instead of doing the safe thing and sailing over the mountains as most airships would do, Thorax instead decided to take a page from Esperia, one of his fellow students back in the airship training cruise he had undertaken, and kept the airship very low in altitude, so much so he was constantly having to dodge and weave the ship around the towering mountains that loomed around them. Such a course was obviously dangerous, and normally Thorax wouldn’t have done it, but he reasoned that keeping so close to the mountains would both make it harder for them to be tracked by any pursuers as well as make it harder to be seen by those searching for them.

They were only halfway through the mountain range though when the sun slipped fully behind the horizon and the darkness of Luna’s night started to descend upon them, reducing visibility for flying considerably. The Vergilius was mounted with a series of illuminating lamps to help light its way at night, but they only went so far, and with the dangerous terrain they were sailing through in mind, Thorax decided it might be better to set down somewhere and camp out for the night within the range. As he thought it unlikely their pursuers would think they’d even try such a thing, he reasoned it probably would only help to throw them off their trail further. So, finding a relatively level section of rocky terrain jutting out about midway down the side of one mountain, Thorax gingerly brought their air yacht in for a landing upon it, the chosen spot being just barely big enough to land upon, and they set about making it their camping site for the evening.

Because they knew there likely were still going to be search parties out and about looking for them and that they shouldn’t ignore that even though Thorax was confident they were unlikely to be found here during the night, they both agreed to minimize everything that could make the Vergilius visible from a passing search party, shutting the airship down in every conceivable way, both in terms of light sources and equipment. This way, the parked airship cast off little light, and did not produce much in the way of a magical signature that could conceivably be detected by a search party coming through the area.

This meant they were both reluctant to start a fire or make use of the Vergilius’s small stove it was equipped with, fearing the heat, light, or magic it produced as part of its function might be detectable by a dedicated enough of a searcher. So they opted to use neither of those, instead partaking of a simple and cold dinner of fruit leather and granola bars from the food supplies they had packed and wrapping themselves in blankets overtop their normal attires so to keep warm, the temperature rapidly turning cold in the mountains as the night began. Because they agreed the below deck interior of the air yacht was too dark for comfort without lighting like this, they had this humble meal outside on a patch of rocky ground next to the Vergilius, silently surveying the darkening mountain range they had parked themselves in. The darkness of the night made it all seem rather ominous though, adding a metaphorical chill on top of the natural chill of the evening.

To try and distract from that, Thorax was finally the first to let himself start to think about their future and what they needed to do next to find themselves shelter and safety again, knowing their supplies aboard the Vergilius wouldn’t last forever and that they would eventually need to find someplace to settle down again like they had in Vanhoover. In starting to ponder how to best go about doing that, Thorax suddenly had a thought, recalling Princess Luna’s visits in his dreams and their discussion about the truth of Spike and Thorax’s situation just the evening previous—though after everything that had happened, it felt so long ago. Regardless, remembering that Luna had expressed wanting to reassess the situation and how it had been getting handled, greatly implying that she was more inclined to side with Spike and Thorax’s side of things, Thorax suggested to Spike that perhaps what they should be doing was contacting her, imploring her for aid and help. And as Spike’s ability to send and receive messages via his firebreath would no longer be hindered by the spell Thorax had cast on him to block it well back when they were heading for Vanhoover four moons previous by now, he thought that would be the best way to contact her.

Spike, however, still had his doubts that Princess Luna could really be trusted and that she was, in fact, an ally. He reminded Thorax that they had no firm confirmation that was actually Luna’s intent and that she was in fact siding with them. “Besides,” he related, “I can use my firebreath to send messages to Princess Celestia, Twilight, and any of her friends, but not Princess Luna.” He shrugged. “As it happens, Princess Luna prefers to be more traditional with sending mail, and there had never been a time where I needed to learn how to use my firebreath to send her a message, or to receive one from her.”

But Thorax still reasoned that Luna had conveyed misgivings about how everything had played out to now, indicating that it hadn’t gone as she thought it should’ve, and was at least very willing to give them the benefit of a doubt. She was also no doubt hearing about what had transpired in Vanhoover by now and would probably be actively seeking for new information. She would be interested to hear their own version of events, seeing that was the reason she had sought out dreamwalking in Thorax’s dreams in the first place. Finally, she had also clearly stated that she would discuss all she had learned about Spike and Thorax with her sister, Princess Celestia, and so Celestia no doubt was already very much in the know about everything Luna knew too, reasoning that this meant they could safely contact Luna through Celestia, seeing they couldn’t directly contact Luna through Spike’s firebreath. At any rate, it was undeniable that they still had a chance to potentially resolve this all peacefully, so that they wouldn’t have to stay in hiding, something even Spike had to agree was desirable, and it’d be foolish of them to not at least try.

So Thorax struck a deal with Spike; they would prepare a simple letter conveying the basics of their version of what had happened in Vanhoover and include a plea for their help and request a chance to explain, in depth, their side of the story, convey fears Twilight was acting recklessly on the matter, and to be heard out without premature judgement. However, they would not say anything about where they presently were or where they were heading, or anything that could potentially enable either princess to track them down and find them should Spike be correct and the princesses were not going to support them as much as Thorax hoped. Once the letter was sent off, they would wait for a response as they continued to travel away from Vanhoover. If the response agreed to their requests to hear them out, then they would go from there, responding accordingly. If not, then Thorax agreed he would reapply the spell that would block Spike’s ability to receive messages via firebreath once more and consider that matter concluded. That then agreed, they jointly worked on such a letter, gently bickering about what to include and what not to include, before finally sending it off, watching as Spike’s emerald firebreath consumed the letter and transported it off to the desired recipient.

In the meantime, as it was getting increasingly late, and no response immediately coming from their letter, they decided it would be best for them to get some sleep. Still fearing a search party could possibly discover them though, it was agreed they would take turns staying up to keep watch. Thorax volunteered to take the first watch, sitting on the Vergilius’s main deck and quietly watching the night as it drew on, alert for any sign of trouble. There was next to none, though at one point midway through his watch, Thorax spied what he thought was the searchlight of an airship far off into the distance, quite likely from that of a search party looking for them. But if so, then the craft was keeping well outside the Unicorn Range, clearly not willing to head into the thick of the treacherous terrain in search for them, and likely assuming that the crew of the Vergilius would’ve thought the same. It made Thorax all the more confident that his choice to fly the Vergilius into the mountains to hide was a wise one and would help to keep them hidden.

Otherwise, Thorax had long and quiet hours of the night free to do nothing but to think, and think he did, mostly lamenting over their present situation. Being chased out of Vanhoover, he found, didn’t feel the same as fleeing the Crystal Empire had, and Thorax found he felt far worse that this had to happen than he had back when everything went awry before. He attributed it to the fact that he knew now that it certainly didn’t have to be this way; he knew there were those out there that would accept him for who he was and didn’t think he was some monster or criminal to catch or chase away. Ultimately though, what happened at Vanhoover only proved that the opinions of such ponies didn’t matter; what the powers that be, such as Princess Twilight, thought of the matter was what had the final say, leaving little chance to show things could be different.

But finding that line of thought to be too depressing, Thorax instead tried to make himself think about other things. Among them was an assessment of the Vergilius’s flight that evening, and though it’s first flight with him at the helm hadn’t transpired at all as he had planned or hoped, the ship had flown admirably, preforming very well and without problem. She was a very fine airship indeed, and Thorax couldn’t help but feel pride at the fact that the ship was still his to own. And that much couldn’t be disputed; though he remembered he had abandoned his personal copy of the Vergilius’s deed back at Fly’s shop, he still had the original placed in a safe location aboard the air yacht itself as per the regulations, and thus he knew he still had legal proof of his ownership of the craft. It made him glad that of all of his possessions he had lost in fleeing Vanhoover, the Vergilius certainly was not one of them.

He also took the time to study the stars in the inky black sky above him, recalling that they were supposed to form pictures in the form of star constellations, and attempted to pick a few of them out. Unfortunately, his knowledge of astronomy was admittedly limited; the most he knew was how to find the North Star, and he knew that for purely navigational reasons. Therefore his attempts to find pre-established constellations didn’t go well. He was eventually starting to work out some of his own invention instead when Spike arrived on deck to take over the watch, permitting Thorax a chance for some sleep. Thorax did so, drifting off while wondering if Princess Luna was going to try and revisit his dreams again like she had the night previous. He was somewhat disappointed to find that this was not the case, making no notice of the princess of the night in any of his dreams, though it didn’t help that he later couldn’t recall much of anything about said dreams, unsure if he had even dreamed at all.

His sleep was interrupted anyway sometime well after midnight when he was jolted awake by the banging sound of rocks falling just outside the airship. Fearing either an avalanche or the perch the Vergilius sat on giving way, he hurried up on deck to investigate, only to stop short in the control cabin doorway, keeping himself mostly concealed within the opening when he saw the source of the noise was in reality Spike. In a fit of fury, the dragon had suddenly stepped off the ship and shoved a sizeable bolder just slightly smaller than himself off the side of the cliff they had camped out atop of before proceeding to grab and hurl smaller rocks off the cliff, while all the while shouting and yelling in incoherent anger.

It only took a quick sampling of the dragon’s emotions to see what it was about; left to himself and alone during the watch, Spike’s emotions about getting chased out of Vanhoover and his lingering feelings about their banishment in general had finally caught up with him. Unable to keep it contained any longer, Spike had then proceeded to vent them the only way he knew how. Thorax remained standing in his secret spot, unnoticed, to make sure Spike would be all right, quietly watching as the little dragon wound himself into quite a furious state before, having run out of rocks he could throw or roll off the cliff, began to furiously pace in circles, then finally collapsing to the ground to weep bitter tears. Thorax found himself shedding a few tears himself for his friend before, feeling assured that the worst of Spike’s fit was over and that he was calming down enough to pull out okay once the last of his tears were shed, he quietly returned to bed, never revealing himself to Spike.

By dawn as they both proceeded to start the new day with a light breakfast similar to the dinner they had last night, neither of them made mention of the incident during the night, preferring to move on like it hadn’t happened. Instead, they went about preparing themselves for another day of travel. Thorax did so completely undisguised, wearing nothing but his natural form and his midnight blue hoodie, his thinking being that, as the Thornton identity had been rendered useless to him, there was little point in continuing to use it, and secluded as they were on their airship, there wasn’t much point disguising himself away. He supposed it was also his quiet way of protesting that he had been forced to go into hiding at all. Spike, however, continued to wear all the usual elements of his Spark disguise, from the sweater vest on to the false eyeglasses. Thorax supposed it was simply out of habit for the dragon, though it did make him realize that it had been a long time since the changeling had seen his friend spend a day as just himself and not in disguise. It made him wonder if it was in fact Spike’s way of hiding from more than just the ponies wishing to capture them.

After breakfast, they took flight again and Thorax proceeded to sail the Vergilius the rest of the way out of the Unicorn Range, seeing no sign still of any search parties looking for them, and continued to sail further east. As they went over the neighboring Galloping Gorge, they both couldn’t help but to stop and admire the impressive geological feature while flying gracefully over it, but during their light conversation about it afterwards in which Spike made a passing mention of Princess Celestia, they both realized they still hadn’t received any sort of response from the sun princess or her sister to the letter they had sent the night previous. This actually surprised Spike somewhat, who would’ve thought Celestia would’ve responded immediately to such a letter from them, but Thorax reasoned she must be working at assessing the situation further still and would respond once in a better position to do so. Though Spike was starting to worry about what this lack of response could mean for them, fearing the worse, Thorax convinced him to give Celestia some more time to respond.

In the meantime though, it was actually Spike who posited the idea of trying to contact other allies that could render them aid, with his preferred choice being Discord (though as he said it, Spike admitted he never thought he’d one day think to do so). His reasons being was that, unlike the princesses, Spike more readily believed Discord was on their side thanks to his one-on-one chat with the draconequus, and Discord was by far more powerful than all of the others combined. Thorax had his misgivings though. He trusted Spike’s claims that Discord was trustworthy and willing, but he was also more than familiar with the draconequus’s past reputation for causing trouble, and even Spike readily admitted that Discord wasn’t above causing more minor trouble even now. It left the changeling afraid that whatever actions Discord could take to render assistance might, while being good intentioned, only further complicate an already undesirable situation. Nonetheless, he agreed that they might as well try and seek his help too. They probably were going to need all the help they could get.

Which raised a small problem; neither of them knew quite how to get in contact with Discord. Spike personally assumed that, as he had indicated when they last crossed paths, he was already watching them, so they just needed to get his attention and draw him there. Spike attempted this in various (and, Thorax thought, rather silly) ways, ranging from simply shouting Discord’s name to trying and create some small-scale chaos on the Vergilius. Finally, Thorax reasoned that maybe they should try something more conventional, like sending Discord a letter like they had with Celestia. But Spike pointed out he couldn’t use his firebreath to achieve this, as Discord wasn’t on the list of those he could send letters via firebreath to…and frankly he preferred it that way, as he fully expected Discord would only exploit it for his own mischief. Traditional letter-sending also wasn’t going to be ideal, as it was apparently extremely difficult for mail carriers to deliver mail to him, often getting delayed by days to weeks—time both agreed they didn’t have. It didn’t help that no one seemed to know where Discord stayed at anyway, as he kept his place of residence highly secret. Not even Fluttershy knew exactly where it was, let alone how to get there. Spike personally suspected it wasn’t even on the same plane of existence as the rest of Equestria.

There was the option of trying to contact him via Fluttershy, which Spike knew he could do easily enough with his firebreath…but there was also the problem that Fluttershy was also close to Twilight, and regardless of whether or not Fluttershy was siding with them, they’d run the risk of Twilight finding out by association, and they already knew Fluttershy already had misgivings about her role keeping what she knew about them secret. Stealth was never her forte. Thorax also was starting to have worries that Fluttershy may not be able to keep the secret for much longer anyway, remembering quite well that Twilight had mentioned aloud Fluttershy specifically asking Twilight not to visit Fly’s shop. He feared she’d eventually put two with two and demand answers from Fluttershy and both of them knew Fluttershy probably wouldn’t be able to deny she knew anything any longer after that. And even if she had, Spike feared that with the way Twilight was going, she may be viewing Fluttershy as highly suspect regardless and would be monitoring her.

Thorax suggested they try contacting her via traditional mail instead of Spike’s firebreath then. But Spike pointed out that would mean they would have to land and drop the letter off for delivery in some town…and with most of Equestria possibly being on the lookout for them or their airship, that didn’t seem wise. It would also mean they would need to stay in one place for a day or more while awaiting a response, also probably not wise at present time. And it was then that Spike realized another problem anyway; he could send a letter to Fluttershy with his firebreath…but she’d have no way of sending a response back, obviously lacking access to the same firebreath and having no idea where to send a letter to them via traditional mail, and with her possibly being under the watchful eye of Twilight, they didn’t feel comfortable providing that information to her presently. So with no clear ideas on how to overcome all of these problems, they decided to rule out seeking Discord’s, or for that matter Fluttershy’s, help for now, but both agreed that they would keep it in mind as a possible last resort assuming all else failed first. Spike reasoned it might be better to reach some satisfactory and stationary spot of safety first anyway.

After passing Galloping Gorge, they continued on further across the countryside, still heading further east as the day wore on. As before, they kept the air yacht flying over uninhabited countryside and away from any towns or other signs of civilization, as well as staying clear of any common airship traveling routes. They passed close enough to Canterlot that the mountain it was built out of could be faintly seen off in the distance, but the city itself appeared as nothing more than a speck from their location. As such, it was doubtful that the far smaller Vergilius could even be seen from Canterlot, and even if it was sighted, it was doubtful it could be seen clearly enough to be identified so Spike and Thorax had few fears of being caught as they passed at this extreme distance.

As the day dragged on, Spike eventually took to sitting at the air yacht’s radio and listening to any radio chatter that happened to be received. He made no transmissions back of any sort, maintaining a sort of radio silence, but by listening in to the transmissions from others, he hoped to catch details on the progress of the search undergoing for him, Thorax, and their airship. It was slow going, because most of the transmissions he was able to hear were completely unrelated to them, but eventually he was able to gather some key details.

Upon finding no sign of them in the Vanhoover area, the Equestrian royal guard had been recruited in assisting to expand the search across Equestria. As their searchers were not sure where to look for their targets, they seemed to be focusing most of their search at any and all ports the Vergilius may stop at, big or small, hoping for any clues for the ship, and then if any were found, then search parties were sent out to search along any potential routes the Vergilius may be following. There was also chatter being passed between other airships to relay any sightings of any airships that could be the Vergilius on to the authorities immediately, but thus far it seemed Thorax’s attempts to evade detection had been paying off; none of the leads the royal guard had found were bringing them anywhere close to finding them, and most of the time actually led their pursuers away from where Spike and Thorax were actually at. It further helped that most of the search was still being carried out along Equestria’s western coast and was being generally slow to spread out eastward in the direction Spike and Thorax were heading.

At one point, a trade airship reported in that they had sighted an airship that seemed to match the Vergilius’s description and the royal guard all immediately converged on the spot to comb the area for the craft. They eventually found the craft that had been sighted, but it wasn’t the Vergilius and was in fact nowhere near where the Vergilius was flying, this craft being caught over the White Tail Woods, many miles away. To Spike’s amusement though, this dead end turned out to not to be a waste of time for the royal guard because it was soon afterward reported the captured aircraft was being piloted by a crew of black market operatives seeking to smuggle an illegal shipment of sugarcane out of the country, with plans to sell it to Saddle Arabian distributors under the table and thus bypassing Saddle Arabia’s tight regulations on the circulation of such goods (as they were in short supply in that part of the world). So it was ironic if not pleasing to see that some actual good was coming about from this unfortunate witch hunt Spike and Thorax were caught in.

As Spike happily relayed news of the arrest of these operatives to Thorax though, it led Thorax to think about something he had been trying not to consider. “Spike,” he began slowly, keeping his eyes ahead as he continued to fly their airship, “what do you think happened to Miss Fly?”

Spike gazed at him uncertainly for a long moment, not eager to discuss the subject either. But finally he swallowed and gave a reply. “It would depend on what charges were made against her.”

“Best guess, then,” Thorax requested.

Spike winced and breathed a heavy sigh. “She was almost certainly arrested for assault and battery, so…she could be facing up to sixty days to a year in jail or a fine of five hundred or one thousand bits depending on how serious they rule the charges, unless they decide to go lenient on her for some reason.” He frowned sadly. “But I highly doubt they’d do what they did with you on that street fight you got involved in and let her go free with a mere light citation for this.”

Thorax sighed, closing his eyes and dropping his head to rest atop the ship’s wheel sadly. “That makes two who have given up their livelihoods for my sake, you and now Miss Fly.” He took in a deep breath then suddenly whacked a holed hoof against the side of the steering wheel, straightening as he abruptly turned angry. “I never wanted any of that! I didn’t ask for any of that! I don’t want anyone have to give up anything just for my sake! But how many more are going to come to harm because of me? I wish this all just could end so it all can stop happening!” He then let out a faint wail, his anger turning back into sadness as he let his head fall against the ship’s wheel once more. “I came here to make friends…I don’t want to keep bringing ruin to everyone I come into contact with.”

Spike was silent for a long moment, watching the changeling with concern and hesitation, unsure how to respond. Finally, he rose and approached the changeling, slowly putting his claws on Thorax’s back, trying to reassure him. “I’m sorry nothing’s been going your way on this Thorax,” he said softly. “I can only imagine how frustrating that must feel.” He then took Thorax’s face turned it to face him. “But please remember…Fly and I did all of this for a reason. Because if we hadn’t…what would’ve become of you? If Fly hadn’t acted as she did, we probably would’ve been caught by Twilight and separated, with you thrown into prison if not worse, facing unjust treatment just for being who you are! Worse still, if I hadn’t acted as I did…” his eyes turned sorrowful, not liking the thought at all, “…I’m quite confident that you’d be dead right now, having been lost, abandoned, having quite likely starved to death, if the cold of the Frozen North hadn’t gotten to you first.” He then grinned a little. “Maybe people like Fly and I have paid high prices standing in support of you…but it’s always been to ensure you stay safe, that you stay alive. Because you might not think it Thorax…but you’re important. Just as important as the rest of us. And I, for one, will not let anyone tell you otherwise.”

Thorax gazed at Spike for a long moment, starting to tear up, before grabbing the dragon in a heartfelt hug, a hug Spike readily returned. Soon Spike was tearing up too, Thorax’s mixture of sadness and gratitude feeling almost overpowering as they both sought to quietly comfort and reassure the other.

They continued flying on for the remainder of the day until the sun started to set once more and Thorax opted to set the Vergilius down in a small forest clearing just slightly wider than the air yacht itself, located somewhere between Neighagra Falls and the start of the mountain range that contained the famed Foal Mountain. They again decided to spend the night with the Vergilius shut down so to avoid detection, but unlike their last campsite in the Unicorn Range, which was barren and cold, this clearing was far more temperate, lush, and peaceful. Thorax especially found the cheery looking forest surrounding the clearing very soothing, especially in this troubling time, and the feeling of peace reminded him greatly of the acorn grove back in the Changeling Kingdom. As such, he spent some time wandering around the edges of this forest while Spike worked out something new for them to eat for dinner that evening, and was somewhat disappointed that there didn’t seem to be any acorn-bearing oak trees to be found anywhere in the area.

After a dinner of a makeshift salad composed of various things in their food supplies and edible leaves Spike had found growing nearby, the two went to turn in for the night, Spike volunteering to take first watch this time. Thorax had again gone to sleep wondering if Princess Luna would again try to contact him in his dreams, but again nothing of the sort occurred. He wondered if the princess was even trying to find him, or if where one went to find his dreams was relative to his physical location, and the fact that he had moved so far from Vanhoover meant that Luna could no longer find his dreams. Unfortunately, knowing so little about the subject or what Luna’s plans were, he could only guess.

But by morning, he was starting to lose hope they could count on Luna for support in this trying time, and it wasn’t helped by the fact that, to the great surprise of both of them, they still had received no reply of any sort from Princess Celestia in regards to their letter. This utter lack of a response came at such as a surprise that Spike had to ask Thorax if he was really certain the spell he had used to block Spike’s ability to receive messages had actually worn off. Thorax was absolutely certain it had though; four moons was a far longer stretch of time than the spell could sustain itself without being renewed, and he never had renewed it during that time, because by the time it had worn off, it didn’t seem there was a need for it anymore. Regardless, he used his magic to double-check, scanning for any sign of the spell. Not to his surprise, he found no trace of it. It couldn’t be the explanation for why there had been no response.

But as they took off again after a light breakfast, Spike grew increasingly nervous over the matter. He began to fear there had been no response because Celestia and Luna wanted to keep them in the dark while they helped Twilight find them, leading him to believe they had again lost the battle in swaying the two princess sisters. Thorax still didn’t believe this, thought Spike’s interpretation of their plans actually ridiculous and unfounded, and overall just didn’t see that as the right explanation. He also didn’t want to cut off the option of using the firebreath messaging for possibly contacting others such as Fluttershy like they had discussed before, even though he had no new ideas on how to safely and successfully do that without running more of a risk than even he was willing. Nonetheless, he couldn’t offer any other explanations for the silence, nor any alternative solutions, and starting to see it probably was a lost cause anyway, he begrudgingly relented and reapplied the spell on Spike. And with that, the idea of seeking help from established allies was considered closed.

But because of that matter being ended, it raised the question of what they should do next, something they had both been avoiding in hopes something would come up. Up to now, Thorax had simply flying the Vergilius on a fairly aimless course across Equestria, the only goal in mind to evade detection by staying away from cities or other things that could give their location away. In doing this, their course eventually took them over Foal Mountain itself as they kept heading east until they neared Fillydelphia, at which point Thorax turned them southward towards a pair of mountains that existed near Baltimare. With the Vergilius still having plenty of magical charge in her engines and plenty of lifting gas to use still, he could keep up sailing the airship around aimlessly like this for some days more still if desired.

But he finally decided it was instead time for them to come up with a more definitive plan of action than this. After ensuring that the Vergilius’s path ahead was clear of any obstacles that would need avoiding for some miles still, he slowed her speed to about half, locked the ship’s wheel so the craft wouldn’t veer far off course while he was away from the helm, then went into the deckhouse’s back room where the ship housed all of the navigational charts and aids, and pulled out a map of Equestria, asking Spike to join him.

“We need to decide where we’re going to go now,” he told the dragon simply, being straightforward while looking over the map he had laid out on the desk before his friend.

Spike sighed from where he leaned on the frame of the doorway dividing the back room from the control cabin in the front of the deckhouse. “I know,” he admitted reluctantly. “It’s just…where do we go now?”

“Well, we can’t keep flying around aimlessly forever,” Thorax reminded. “We’ll need to set down and resupply at some point. It’d be best we do that at whatever location we intend to stay at next, even if just temporarily.”

Spike thought about the problem for a long moment, staring at his feet. “I suppose wherever it is, it probably shouldn’t be in Equestria this time,” he admitted. “Twilight’s onto us too much for it to be safe staying here. And we’ve got the Vergilius now, so we can reliably travel much further than we could last time.”

“All right,” Thorax said, turning to pull out a map of the known world, laying it out beside the map of Equestria. “Let’s look at some of our options, then.” He tapped his holed, black hoof on one location. “Griffonstone?”

Spike shook his head. “If we’ve learned anything staying here in Equestria, it’s that if ponies won’t accept us, the griffons probably won’t either.”

“I don’t know about that,” Thorax mumbled to himself, thinking about his first airship trainer Gervas, liking to think Gervas would be willing to give him the benefit of a doubt if he knew Thorax’s true identity, considering their short but notable past.

“Then do keep in mind,” Spike added with a false grin. “Griffons are more likely to fight back than ponies…and they are equipped with more pointy ends on their bodies than ponies.”

Thorax chuckled a little, seeing Spike’s point. “All right, not Griffonstone or the rest of the Griffon Kingdom. But there are plenty of other locations…Saddle Arabia…”

Spike winced. “Too hot, too dry.”

“…Yakyakistan…”

“We talked about that before when we were looking to leave the Crystal Empire and ruled it out already, remember?”

“…Abyssinia…”

“Are you kidding me? They’re much too litigious there.”

“…Maretonia…”

“Mm…maybe, I guess…”

Thorax looked up at Spike again. “Well, we have to go somewhere.”

Spike shrugged helplessly. “At this point, I almost want to say we should go for the undiscovered lands out west and try our luck there.”

Thorax sighed, gazing back down at the map again. “I suppose it’d be more of a plan than we have now…but let’s not jump to that just yet, let’s look at some of these other locations a little closer before we—”

It was at that moment that a shadow was briefly cast over the rear window of the room for a split second. Thorax had his back to it, but he still saw the shadow be cast on the maps before him. Spike, however, was facing the window and caught a glimpse of something zooming past outside. “Whoa!” he declared.

Thorax spun around to face the window. “What, what was it?”

“I…I don’t know!” Spike admitted as they both gathered around the window in search of the source of the mysterious shadow. “But whatever it was, it was big, and it was close.”

Thorax frowned, brow furrowing as he puzzled as to what it could be. “Well, it couldn’t be an airship, we would have heard its engines if it was, so—”

He jumped when the shadowy shape suddenly shot past the window once more, letting out a startled yelp.

Spike pulled back too, and this time he got a better glimpse at it. “That was a dragon,” he breathed in alarm. “A full-grown, adult, dragon.”

“A dragon?” Thorax repeated, also alarmed as they turned and headed back for the control cabin. “But what’s a dragon doing here?”

“I don’t know, we aren’t anywhere close to the dragon territories, I should be the only dragon around here for miles,” Spike admitted as they gathered at the helm, watching the movement of the unexpected dragon through the forward viewport as it flew around their airship. Only Spike noticed something else that didn’t improve the situation any and pointed. “Look! There’re two of them!”

Thorax bit his lip nervously as he watched the two dragons alternate between flying in the path of the Vergilius. He turned to Spike, hoping that because he was a dragon too, he’d know what to do. “What should we do?”

But Spike was baffled by this unexpected behavior and wasn’t sure. “Well, whatever we do, we better not do anything to aggravate them,” he reasoned and patted the changeling on his chitinous shoulder. “Better bring us to a stop, let them have the command of the air for a moment, see if they’ll back off then. Maybe they just want this space for themselves.”

Thorax obeyed, reversing thrust in a braking maneuver before pulling the Vergilius to a complete halt and shutting off the engines, leaving it just hovering silently in place. Unfortunately, it didn’t seem to make a difference because now the two adult dragons simply proceeded to circle the air yacht, cutting off any immediate means of escape it could take.

Spike shook his head, baffled. “Well, they clearly want something from us,” he concluded. “But what?”

Thorax, meanwhile, was getting increasingly nervous. “I don’t like this,” he moaned, and turned to his friend. “No offense Spike, but I’ve heard stories about changelings fighting battles with dragons plenty of times growing up in the hive, and let’s just say they never ended well.”

“Yeah, and we wouldn’t stand a chance if they chose to fight,” Spike agreed with a worried nod. He sighed. “I don’t know what else to do though…I guess we could try talking with them…but take my word for it…dragons are not the always the most reasonable creatures to talk with.”

“Present company excluded I assume,” Thorax remarked.

Spike chuckled a little. “I’d like to think so at least,” he admitted. He shrugged. “I’m not coming up with a better idea though. And if we tried talking, we might at least find out whatever it is they want…”

“What if they want…” Thorax gulped, “…lunch?”

“We don’t have any gems,” Spike pointed out, who he himself had gotten a far slimmer diet of gems since their banishment because of it. “Unless you mean they’d eat us.”

“…would they?”

“Um…better not to think about it, I guess.”

“…Informis Una auxilio mihi tribuit.”

As that technically wasn’t an objection then, Spike took a deep breath and proceeded to step out of the control cabin and onto the main deck. Thorax, lighting his horn, followed him, protectively staying close to his friend. Spike proceeded to turn himself to face the circling adult dragons so to address them. But he never got the chance to as, only moments after they appeared on the main deck, a far smaller third dragon previously hidden on the back of one of the bigger dragons suddenly dismounted and shot towards them. With a practiced flip, the dragon then landed with a thud on the deck before them. Planting the end of the staff it carried down on the deck, the dragon then proceeded to remove the golden-colored helmet it wore, revealing its face to them.

“Either of you care to explain why all of Equestria is turning itself on its ear looking for you two?” she asked aloud in a gruff voice.

Thorax, leery of the taller figure, pulled back a little. However, Spike could only grin at the sight of the familiar dragon.

“And hello to you too, Ember,” he greeted.

Author's Note

"FINALLY!"

-All of you after reading this chapter.

Seriously, I've lost count of how many times I was asked if Ember was going to appear in the story. The answer was always yes, of course, but, you know...it'd spoil the story if I'd just said so. :twilightsmile:

But yes. Ember joins the fight. :raritywink:

I suspect there will be those who aren't satisfied with my reasons why Spike and Thorax didn't pursue help with Discord, but I figured there would be more protesting if I didn't address the subject at all, so at least this way there's a given explanation. Ultimately though, as always, I'm hesitant to get Discord involved simply because he'd just snap his fingers and fix things and then there wouldn't be a story. Besides...exactly how they'd contact Discord is a legitimate problem; even the show's explored that before.

I recall there being talk about the Vergilius only getting so far across Equestria without having to stop to refuel at some point and thus my portrayal of things here might not align with that. So I offer a simple solution: dang good fuel efficiency. :rainbowlaugh:

Confrontation

Twilight Sparkle was not a happy mare at present.

It wasn’t often one saw the princess of friendship in such a deeply dark mood. To see her frustrated was more common, yes, but this wasn’t the same. A frustrated Twilight was more loud and quick to complain or protest the circumstances causing her aggravation. A truly angry Twilight, however, was colder, quiet, but bearing an expression such that it was almost chilling just how much it conveyed her anger. One could almost see the flames of her temper burning behind her eyes. It was not the sort of emotional state everyone hoped to see her in upon her return to Ponyville, for which Applejack was apologetic about, as it had been her assignment to guarantee that wouldn’t be the case. But then Twilight’s trip also hadn’t gone as planned and had been terminated sooner than expected for good reason.

Twilight’s five friends knew that her temper wasn’t entirely unjustified given recent events; the changeling and Spike had managed to give her the slip once more, even after Twilight herself all but stumbled upon them practically by accident while in Vanhoover. And according to Applejack, it certainly hadn’t been from the lack of trying to stop them on Twilight’s part, as Applejack claimed the mare had “nearly turned the whole dang city upside-down searchin’ fer ‘em.” Unfortunately, the effort still hadn’t been enough, and the two runaways Twilight sought slipped through her hooves a second time, this time making off with an airship Twilight discovered they had managed to obtain.

Now, at Twilight’s pressing, a hunt across Equestria was underway in hopes of finding that airship and capturing it with its crew of two aboard, in her hopes of ending the matter once and for all. To achieve this, she initially relied upon the authorities at Vanhoover to assist in the search of the area for the missing airship. When it, unsurprisingly, didn’t turn up, Twilight managed to arrange to have the royal guard jump in and help expand the search come the following morning, leaving the royal guard to continue searching while Twilight remained in Vanhoover attempting to find clues about where the two might be going, or what the changeling Twilight presumed to be leading the pair planned.

This search for clues did not go well. Part of it seemed to be simply that there were few clues to be found, though Twilight was not at all convinced of that. The other, however, was that the Vanhoover locale were not being as helpful as Twilight had hoped. Most of the locals, upon hearing the tale of what was happening, preferred to just stay out of it, and most could only say that they didn’t know anything at all anyway. It seemed Spike and the changeling had kept their interaction with the rest of the city mostly to a minimum and to the general neighborhood where they had taken up residence these past four moons. The rest, those who did know either of the pair, were oddly less likely to be willing to help.

Their employer and landlady, Fly Leaf, the mare who probably knew the most, refused to tell Twilight anything, and indeed had only aided in the pair’s escape. And as punishment for that, Twilight saw to it that Fly was arrested and placed in confinement for the time being until a more permanent ruling could be made. Because of Fly’s actions justifying such treatment in response certainly weren’t unfounded, the authorities backed Twilight up on that, but many of them were slow to follow Twilight’s lead on everything else, wondering if her approach to the matter was truly appropriate for the circumstances.

Other locals who directly knew Spike or the false identity the changeling had been using were usually quicker to defend the pair than to support viewing them as criminals. Even staff at the Vanhoover airship yard, the same yard that had the rogue airship take off from and had more than one of their employees attacked, seemed hesitant to withdraw their support for the pair, especially the changeling who many of them claimed to have gotten to know while he was applying for an airship pilot’s license (and the fact he successfully got one without any suspicion was something Twilight swore to “fix” at a later date) and didn’t support the idea that he was as dangerous as Twilight claimed.

One of these employees, a gruff griffon getting up there in years and who went well out of his way to track Twilight down not long before she left Vanhoover, told her in person just what he thought of her handling of the matter…and he did not hold it high regard, suffice it to say. Despite being uncertain upon learning the pony he knew was in fact a changeling in disguise, this griffon was still completely confident that he was “someone with a good head on his shoulders” regardless and refused to believe that everything he had done while in Vanhoover was a “bold-faced lie” just so to further some “half-flanked nefarious scheme.” So he especially did not appreciate Twilight claiming to the contrary on that. He also turned out to be Twilight’s breaking point, getting furious at the apparent lack of cooperation she was getting from everypony and just couldn’t fathom why. She likened it to all of Vanhoover being on a different wavelength from her, a notion she seemed to find absurd.

She probably would’ve kept pressing the matter there longer however, were it not the fact that both Princess Celestia and Princess Luna sent her notification pressuring her to hold off taking any further actions on the matter and allow them to take charge of the search for now, advising her to return home to Ponyville while the two sisters worked out something from their end. To Twilight’s added frustration, they did not elaborate on what, and in fact gently and politely refused to at this time, giving no clear explanation for this refusal either. Twilight still had enough details that she strongly suspected her fellow princesses had discovered something, possibly something important, yet bafflingly to her, they were unwilling to share with her what it was.

Their resistance at keeping Twilight in the loop only caused her inflamed temper to flare up even more than it already was, but with some additional prompting from Applejack, perhaps the only one who was keeping the alicorn from flying off the handle altogether at the moment, Twilight acquiesced to the requests of the princesses. They were both on the first train back to Ponyville by midday the day following Spike and the changeling’s escape, and Twilight was secure back in her castle once more by that same evening.

Come the day after that though, Twilight had decided that despite the wishes of her fellow princesses, she still wasn’t going to sit idle over the matter, and decided she was going to do something to continue the search on her own. This brought them to that afternoon, Twilight having called her five friends to an emergency meeting in the throne room of her castle so to discuss plans, gathering themselves around the map of Equestria and centerpiece of the room to do so. Starlight Glimmer was invited to participate as well, but first had been asked by Twilight to go and collect some documentation Twilight wished to use for the meeting and was expected to be gone a few more minutes still until she returned. In the meantime, there were plenty of other things the six could discuss…most of them dealing with Twilight herself.

“Twilight, dear, are you certain you’re doing okay?” Rarity couldn’t help but inquire as they all sat around the map in their respective thrones. The fashionista had been regarding the alicorn with some mild concern for a while now; she had seen Twilight looking far worse than this before now, and Twilight was still trimmed and groomed in appearance as she usually did…but there was something in her expression, the way she carried herself, that seemed… decidedly off-kilter.

Twilight took in a deep breath. “I’m managing fine, Rarity,” she assured patiently, trying to wave the matter aside.

“Are you sure? Because, no offense darling…you don’t look like it.”

Twilight rubbed at her temples with her hooves and sighed a little. “It’s been a rough couple of days, I’ll admit, but I’m pushing through. I don’t have a choice right now.”

“That’s no excuse for being all grumpy-gussy, though!” Pinkie Pie remarked, shooting Twilight a grin. She tapped the toothy smile with a pink hoof. “C’mon Twilight, turn that frown upside-down!”

Twilight responded merely shooting Pinkie a flat and weary expression, silently conveying she certainly wasn’t in the mood for this.

Pinkie’s grin faded into a wince. “…or not.”

Twilight sighed and managed a small apologetic grin. “Sorry Pinkie, it’s just…I’m worried. Worried about that changeling and about Spike…I’m worried he might be in even more danger now than he was before.”

“Are you sure you really know that for certain though?” Fluttershy timidly asked.

“You still got the changeling on the run at any rate,” Rainbow Dash added from where she had been casually leaning in her seat. “That’s gotta count for something.”

“That’s not good enough,” Twilight persisted. “He’s still out there, free to cause trouble.”

“Yeah, but it’s going to be a lot harder to so do with everypony out on the lookout for him,” Rainbow retorted simply. “Disguised or not, I figure he’s not going to want to draw much attention to himself right about now.”

“That might be the big problem we have right now, then,” Rarity reasoned. “He’s being hard to find because obviously he doesn’t want to be, more so than before.”

Applejack, who had been fairly quiet for most of this, was shaking her head. “Ah still don’t know ’bout all of this,” she admitted. “Sumthin’ don’t add up like it should. Iffin’ ya ask me, Spike an’ that changelin’ were fittin’ in a bit too well at Vanhoover if they were just plannin’ ta make trouble.”

“I highly doubt Spike is the one wishing to cause trouble,” Twilight pressed, still adamant that Spike wasn’t voluntarily doing all of this. “At least, not deliberately.”

“Yeah, but accordin’ ta you, the changeling does,” Applejack pointed out. “Which is wut bugs me ’bout it. Everythin’ we were able ta learn about the pair in Vanhoover seemed ta suggest that the changeling was actually a fairly respectable citizen as far as anyone ever noticed. Even the police didn’t have much ta say ’bout him. Their only records was that he got mixed up in a gang fight couple moons back, but had ruled that all the evidence suggested he was just at the wrong place at the wrong time. Not really a lot ta suggest makin’ trouble really is wut he plans.”

Rainbow, however, simply shrugged. “So he’s been lying low, keeping quiet,” she stated. “That doesn’t mean he’s not using the time to spy on us or something.”

Twilight nodded in agreement. “One of the many distinct possibilities we face,” she agreed. “But we’re going to have to find them again before we’re ever going to know for certain just what his plans truly are.”

“Okay, so we’re joining the world’s biggest game of hide and seek ever!” Pinkie summarized as she studied the holographic map of Equestria stretched out between them. She melodramatically considered their options for a moment, rubbing her chin with one hoof. Finally, she glanced at Twilight. “Any ideas on how we’re going to win this game, Twilight? I mean, Equestria’s a seriously big place.”

“Big, but still finite,” Twilight corrected. “If he’s still in Equestria, then there are only so many places he could be.”

“And if he ain’t in Equestria?” Applejack prompted.

“Then we broaden the search further as deemed necessary. But we thought he might have left Equestria last time when it turned out he hadn’t…so I think there’s still a good chance he and Spike are still somewhere in the country. The question is just where.” Twilight leaned closer to the map herself. “Fortunately, we can rule out a number of locations already. We know he’s not in Vanhoover or many of the surrounding cities because we’ve already checked. We can also be reasonably sure he’s not in the Crystal Empire or Canterlot, and it’s doubtful he’d be any place like Ponyville while having Spike with him, as there would be too many witnesses that would likely recognize Spike, regardless of disguise.”

“That still leaves an awful lot of places to look, Twilight,” Fluttershy pointed out gently. “It’ll take a very long time to search them all. Are you sure it’d really be worth it?”

“Fluttershy does have a point,” Rarity agreed. “We simply lack the ponypower to conduct such a large search quickly, even with the support of the royal guard.”

“And wut are ya gunna do when ya find him, anyway?” Applejack asked, folding her forehooves.

“Attack and subdue him and ensure Spike is safely back in our custody where he belongs,” Twilight replied, gazing somewhat forlornly at the map before her. “Celestia, I never should have let him go in the first place…”

Despite being on the wrong side of the map to reach Twilight, Rarity nonetheless reached a reassuring hoof out to the alicorn. “We know it was trying circumstances with the well-being of many ponies potentially in the balance, Twilight,” she assured. “Perhaps letting Spike follow the changeling wasn’t the best of options…but while I think I speak for all of us when I say we all miss him at least as much as you do too, I know you didn’t have a lot of choices to pursue at the time. And with Spike being as…swayed as he was to the changeling’s side, the argument that this could have made him a greater security risk had he remained whether we liked it or not was, as much as I dread saying it, a point that shouldn’t be too readily ignored.”

“Ah’m more concerned ’bout the changelin’ at the moment,” Applejack said, gazing at the map with a conflicted expression. “Twilight says ta attack him if we find him…but I ain’t so sure that’s gunna be a good idea.”

“Why not?” Rainbow asked. “It’s not like we haven’t kicked changeling butt before. And there were lots more of them to fight last time. We’ve lucked out and only have one to deal with this time.”

“That we know of!” Pinkie piped in brightly and unhelpfully.

“It’s not the attackin’ part that that bugs me,” Applejack explained. “It’s whether or not we really even need to.”

“I…kind of have to agree with Applejack,” Fluttershy added and glanced at Twilight. “I’m not sure we really need to get so violent over this…and whatever happened to trying to befriend our enemies?”

“Yes dear, but that only works if the enemy is willing to make friends,” Rarity pointed out. “And we’ve already tried it with this changeling.”

Fluttershy looked at her questioningly. “Did we?”

A moment of silence fell in which no one gave an answer to Fluttershy’s question.

Finally, Rainbow changed the subject to bring up something else she had been puzzling over. “Here’s what I don’t get,” she said. She pointed a hoof at Twilight. “Back when these two first vanished, Vanhoover was one of the places you said you had searched. But they didn’t find anything then. And all the evidence suggests that’s where they’ve been this whole time, so, how did we miss them for so long?”

Twilight, who had been mentally reviewing things while gazing at the map, suddenly had a thought and looked up from it. “Maybe we didn’t,” she said. “Or rather…one of us didn’t.”

“…Twilight?” Applejack questioned.

“Fluttershy,” Twilight began, looking in the yellow mare’s direction. Fluttershy cowered a little at this. “You were in Vanhoover not so long ago. Because of it, I asked you when I left on my trip what sorts of bookstores were there that I should visit. In fact, I asked all of you what bookstores you all thought I should visit while I was out traveling, and all of you gave me a list of places to visit, which I thank you all for. But, looking back on it now…I can’t help but notice that all of these suggestions you five gave me were in support of places I should visit. Yet Fluttershy was the only one who told me a specific place I should not visit at all. Told me to not even bother, if I recall correctly, right?” Twilight tilted her head knowing at Fluttershy, looking at her with expectant, prying eyes. “So Fluttershy…why was it that place also happened to be the exact place Spike and the changeling had been hiding at?”

All eyes turned to Fluttershy, who ducked down even lower in her seat, looking ashamed as she realized she had been caught. Most of the looks were ones of surprise, but it was Twilight’s cold and expectant look that affected her the most.

Finally, Fluttershy caved in, squeezing her eyes shut as she bowed her head. “…I Pinkie Promised not to tell, Twilight,” she admitted.

“Oh!” Pinkie declared in obvious relief, like this sorted out everything. “Well then, that explains that.”

“No! No, it doesn’t!” Twilight objected, shooting Pinkie a frustrated glare. “It doesn’t explain why Fluttershy still didn’t tell me she had found them regardless!”

Pinkie gasped in shock. “And break a Pinkie Promise, Twilight?!”

“Pinkie, I think we can make an exception to it when it happens to involve matters of national security,” Twilight stated sarcastically.

“But breaking a Pinkie Promise still destroys a friend’s trust in you!” Pinkie argued, emphatic about this. “It’s one of the fastest ways to lose a friend FOREVER!”

“You know, you’ve been saying that a lot lately,” Rainbow observed, mildly annoyed.

Pinkie looked at her and shrugged. “I can’t help it! It’s just so fun to say! For-EV-ver!”

“Now…wait, hold on a moment if we could please,” Rarity interrupted, looking confused. She gazed at Fluttershy. “Are we saying that you already knew Spike and the changeling were at this bookshop? If I may ask…how?”

“Um, well…Thorax—the changeling—had become very ill at one point,” Fluttershy explained simply. “And Spike sent me a letter, pleading for me to help.”

Twilight actually turned incredulous at this. “And you really helped that monster to recover?!” she exclaimed, shocked.

“He is not a monster,” Fluttershy reprimanded Twilight suddenly. “He’s just as much a living and breathing creature as the rest of us, and deserves just as much respect as such!”

“And how would you know?” Twilight demanded next.

“Because I’ve done what the rest of you haven’t,” Fluttershy replied firmly, or at least as firmly as her timid demeanor would ever let her. “I took the time to get to know him.”

There was another moment of silence. “What are you saying, Flutters?” Rainbow prompted at last.

Fluttershy averted her gaze, turning a little ashamed again. “I wasn’t sure at first,” she admitted. “But…the more I think about it, especially now after what’s happened…the more I think…Spike was right. The changeling really can be trusted.”

Applejack suddenly let out her breath in a quick, relieved, burst, slumping in her seat. “Thanks heavens then, Ah ain’t the only one!” she declared.

“Applejack?” Rainbow prompted, surprised.

“Look, it ain’t that Ah don’t think yer’re wrong entirely, Twi,” Applejack proceeded to explain to the princess who had begun gazing at her in silent shock. “But…and Ah’ve haven’t been wantin’ ta just flat out admit it…but ever since we figured out they were there in Vanhoover, my gut’s been tellin’ me that…that we’ve been lookin’ at this wrong. The actions of Spike and the changelin’ don’t suggest they’re sumthin’ bad out ta cause trouble…it suggests they’re sumthin’ that’s tryin’ ta run and hide from sumthin’ else in fear.” Applejack sighed, lowering her gaze for a second, abashed. “Like us.” Her gaze then snapped back up again. “And then there’s that Fly gal…Ah keep tellin’ ya…she’s tellin’ the truth. Ah just know she is, an’ Ah know Ah can’t prove it fer certain, but…Ah can just feel it.” She shook her head. “At any rate girls…we need ta change how we’re approachin’ this. Stop treatin’ ‘em like enemies an’ actually dare ta consider that they could be allies still.” She looked around at the other mares in the room. “Ah say we give ‘em another chance ta prove Ah’m right. Whadda’ya’ll think?”

There was no immediate response. Eventually, all eyes gravitated back to Twilight once more. Twilight, meanwhile, continued to gaze at Applejack in shock, but then her gaze traveled back over to Fluttershy. “I assume, then, that you would agree with that?”

Fluttershy slowly nodded.

Twilight sighed and collapsed onto the back of her throne, closing her eyes to think. No one dared to interrupt her. Finally, she straightened, shaking her head. “No,” she said with renewed determination. “No, as wonderful as it’d be to believe in that, I just don’t see the evidence to support it, and I’m unwilling to risk the safety of Equestria and all living within it towards a changeling just on a whim.”

“But Twilight!” Rarity objected, who had to concede a certain degree of appeal to Applejack’s idea. “It’s certainly more than just a whim! And anyway, showing the changeling a bit of support for a change might actually—”

Rarity was cut short when Starlight Glimmer suddenly burst into the room, alarmed and out of breath. “Twilight!” she exclaimed urgently. “There are full-grown dragons flying just outside, circling the castle!”

All eyes stared at her in alarm over this sudden turn of events. “Dragons?” Twilight repeated, stunned. “What are dragons doing here in Ponyville?”

“I don’t know!” Starlight admitted as she started to hurry around the table so to move closer to Twilight. “I just know that they flew into town just moments ago and they’ve been causing a panic ever since! They’ve taken position up around the castle, almost as if—”

But then Starlight got interrupted too when there was a resounding crash above them, and they turned in time to see a smaller dragon smash through one of the upper stained glass windows in the room, expertly flip about in mid-air, and then drop down hard on her feet, landing dead center of the map, right in the middle of the startled group. Straightening, the lithe dragon then removed her golden helmet, revealing her identity clearly.

Rarity gasped in surprise. “Princess Ember!”

With a thud, Ember unceremoniously dropped her helmet onto the map she stood upon, surveying the group with narrowed eyes until they quickly fell upon Twilight. “You!” she growled, pointing at Twilight with the tip of the crystalline staff she carried in her claws. “We need to talk.”

“Hey!” Rainbow snapped, immediately taking to the air. “No one just barges in here and threatens Twilight Sparkle out without risking a good beat-down in return!”

“Try it, and I’ll swat you out of the sky, pegasus!” Ember snapped back.

“Now hold on!” Starlight objected, intervening before focusing her attention on the unannounced dragon lord. “Just what is this about?”

Ember gazed a dark and knowing glare at Twilight. “I think she knows what this is about,” she replied cryptically.

Indeed, Twilight had been staring at Ember with narrowed eyes herself since Ember announced she wanted to talk with her and her alone. “Girls, could you all give us a moment?” she requested in a tone that suggested it wasn’t optional. “I would like to speak with Princess Ember alone for a little bit.”

The others hesitated, but then Starlight went into motion and started to usher the others for the door. “We’ll be right outside if you need us, Twilight,” she stated as they trotted out.

Twilight watched them go until the doors to the throne room had closed shut again before she turned her attention back onto Ember with a slight flick of her pupils. Ember’s gaze, however, had never left Twilight once. “Where are they, Ember?”

Ember folded her arms. “Safe.”

Twilight frowned. “Where are they, Ember?” she repeated, not satisfied with that answer.

“In my custody,” Ember replied curtly. “And far away from the likes of you.”

Twilight’s frown deepened. “How did you even find them, anyway?”

Ember shrugged dismissively. “I just thought about where I would go if I were Spike and went and searched that general area,” she answered. She permitted herself a small but smug smirk. “I’d say it paid off, don’t you?”

Twilight scowled and found Ember’s explanation that she basically just got lucky a little hard to swallow. “I say you’re bluffing and you haven’t found them at all,” she challenged.

“Spike thought you might say that,” Ember replied simply, and she pulled out a folded piece of parchment from one of the crooks of the golden armor she wore. Twilight snatched it from the dragoness and studied it. Opening it revealed an apparently blank interior, but what was written on the front was a phrase that made Twilight think otherwise.

“Say hi to Pinkie’s friend Inkie for me”

Twilight knew Ember couldn’t possibly know the significance of the code phrase, and it was clearly in Spike’s handwriting, so there was little denying who it had come from. At that moment, there was nothing more Twilight wanted to do than to take steps to reveal the hidden message Spike had undoubtedly concealed with invisible ink on the parchment, but satisfied enough that Ember wasn’t bluffing for now, Twilight instead set the message aside to address later. “So you have them,” she concluded. “What do you intend to do with them?”

“It’s not what I’ll do to them that you should be worrying about,” Ember growled darkly as she glared daggers at Twilight. “You have some explaining to do, after all.”

Twilight shook her head, unable to allow a small and bitter smile appear on her face as she believed she understood the problem. “With all due respect, Princess Ember, I don’t think you fully understand the depth of what you’ve gotten yourself into…”

“Oh, look who’s talking about who understands what!” Ember declared sarcastically. She jabbed a claw at Twilight. “I know what is going on here, princess, Spike and Thorax explained everything to me. Every. Thing.”

“I fear, then, that you have fallen prey to an ongoing deception that changeling has been promoting,” Twilight concluded gravely. “That changeling isn’t to be trusted, and I fear Spike is currently too misled to understand what he’s gotten himself into. The changeling, I suspect, may even be capable of a mental manipulation in which, to explain it simply, enables him to manipulate others like puppets.”

“Oh really?” Ember challenged. “Then, if that changeling isn’t to be trusted and is so dangerous…then why did you let him get away where he couldn’t be monitored in the first place?”

“We didn’t. We banished him from our lands for his crimes against ponydom. He shouldn’t even be in Equestria at all.”

“Ignoring the obvious flaws in that statement for a second,” Ember stated, drawing a glare from Twilight, “why did you banish him at all? What did he do to justify such a punishment?”

“Oh, I have quite a list,” Twilight assured, catching onto Ember’s doubt. “Kidnapping, impersonation, threating the royal family, trespassing, plotting treason and conspiracy, assault and battery both for civilians and officers, resisting arrest, theft, hijacking, deception, manipulation, endangerment, and that’s just for starters!”

“Well, gee!” Ember scoffed with obvious sarcasm. “Maybe he wouldn’t have done all of that if you weren’t so bent on doing him in!”

“I have no plans to kill him!”

“You could’ve fooled me!” Ember suddenly stooped down low to put her eyes more on level with Twilight’s. “They’re scared, princess. Scared for their very lives because of you.”

Twilight, to her credit, hesitated for a moment. But soon though, she was pressing on, taking on a dark tone. “Are you implying they have done all of this simply in self-defense?” she asked. “How does one commit crimes like these in mere self-defense?”

“They weren’t the ones to commit the first crime!”

“Oh? And, pray tell, just what that first crime is?”

Ember’s eyes narrowed accusingly. “Racism, your highness. That’s what this is all about, isn’t it? This isn’t about what the changeling has done. This is about what the changeling is to you.”

Twilight’s anger flared at the blatant accusation. “That’s ridiculous,” she snorted.

Ember tilted her head at Twilight, willing to challenge that. “Then if the changeling is really your enemy…why banish him, allowing him the chance to cause trouble again later, instead of simply imprisoning him for questioning? That way, you could also learn vital information about your enemy, and how to better combat them in the future.” Ember pulled back again, regarding the pony princess critically. “It seems to me that you passed up on an excellent opportunity there on poor reasoning.”

“First off,” Twilight began, “the changeling had made it clear that he wasn’t going to relate anything to us of the scheme that had brought him there to the Crystal Empire.”

“Probably because there is no scheme.”

“We can’t assume that.”

“A pity, then, you didn’t keep him around long enough to determine that, hmm? He is, after all, still a changeling, raised in a changeling hive, and knows more about changelings in general than either of us ever will. Some of that information you could’ve learned through mere observation, but you didn’t even think to do that, did you? So I ask again, why didn’t you try it?”

Twilight didn’t reply. But she didn’t have to. Though Twilight was clearly trying to hide it, it was clear from her expression that she had realized no one at the time had even stopped to consider that, being more focused instead on simply eliminating the threat they feared the changeling presented to them.

Ember couldn’t help but roll her eyes at it. “I’m suddenly less than confident about Equestria’s tactical abilities now,” she muttered aloud.

Twilight simply shook her head. “What are you trying to prove with all of this, anyway?” she asked.

“I’m trying to make you see the error of your ways before you do something you really regret, but I can see it’s going to be much harder than I anticipated,” Ember explained. She was clearly getting frustrated. “You are just so…blind! No, worse than blind! Willfully ignorant!” For a fleeting moment she almost turned pitying. “Whatever happened to that famed Equestrian desire to befriend everything you meet?”

Twilight leveled her gaze with Ember’s. “Equestria doesn’t befriend enemies.”

Ember laughed sarcastically at this. “Oh really?” she said, straightening and beginning to circle around the edge of the map she still stood upon. “I happen to know a few notables that would like to say otherwise.”

“I mean it, Ember. Equestria doesn’t just—”

“Discord.”

Twilight paused. “That doesn’t count, we had to befriend Discord, because he was too dangerous—”

“Trixie Lulamoon.”

“…how did you know—?”

“Starlight Glimmer.”

“Starlight wasn’t…I mean she’s—”

“Princess Luna.”

“That’s…that’s not—”

Having finished a full revolution around the edge of the map, Ember came to a halt before Twilight again, thumping the end of her staff against the crystal table beneath her feet as she spoke her final example. “Me.”

Twilight abruptly fell silent.

“Don’t you remember?” Ember pressured, refusing to let Twilight ignore it. “After the Gauntlet of Fire…you promised me friendship…that being friends with Equestria would be far more beneficial for both of our races than being enemies, that there was no greater magic than that of friendship, that with friends supporting you, you could do anything and have peace and unity be assured! Race, species, or past history didn’t matter! Anyone could be made a friend, trusted as a friend, of any type, including dragons! You had this glorious vision for a future built on such a friendship! We spoke of peace and friendship between our kinds, for no reason other than because we could! You told me all of that! You PROMISED me all of that!” Ember’s expression turned incredulous. “So what’s the deal with refusing to befriend ONE changeling?”

Twilight was quiet for a long moment. “A changeling cannot ever be trusted.”

Ember’s scowl turned dangerous. “Then it was a lie,” she concluded. “All of it. Everything you told me about friendship, especially you supporting it, BELIEVING in it…was a LIE!” She shook her head, almost sadly. “And like a fool, I believed you.”

Twilight chose to not answer, instead coldly gazing straight ahead. “Tell me where they are, Ember,” she concluded firmly. “And I will take them off your claws.”

Ember glowered at the princess, offended she wasn’t even going to acknowledge her words. “You will not lay one hoof upon them so long as I am dragon lord.”

Twilight rose from her throne. “Tell me where they are,” she repeated firmly. “Don’t make me have to use force to take them from you.”

If it was possible, Ember’s glare somehow turned even more dangerous than before. “Try it,” she said slowly, deliberately, “and it’s war, princess.”

Twilight returned the glare with a dangerous one of her own. “You aren’t leaving me much choice then,” she pointed out.

A long moment of intense silence fell as Twilight waited for Ember’s response “My father told me once that even the greatest will fall for petty reasons,” she murmured darkly. She stared at Twilight with a look that bored into the alicorn’s very soul. “So look how far the great have fallen.”

The thinly veiled insult finally pushed Twilight over the edge. With a furious yell, the alicorn had lit her horn and was lunging herself at the dragon. With a retaliatory bellow of her own, Ember threw herself at the princess in the same moment, bearing the bloodstone scepter down with intent to strike Twilight with it. Both were ready then and there to do battle.

But then the throne room doors burst open and turquoise magic immediately seized them both, halting them in mid-lunge and leaving them hanging in midair. “That’s enough!”

Frozen as they were, both Ember and Twilight turned their heads as much as they could to see who the pony that had halted their fight was. Standing in the open doorway was Starlight Glimmer, her horn shining brightly as she worked to keep the two in position and looking disappointed. Behind her stood Twilight’s friends, all wearing varying expressions of shock, dismay, sadness, and even a little anger. A tense moment of silence fell as they all stared at one another. Finally, Starlight alone stepped towards the pair.

“Twilight,” she said calmly, addressing the princess first. “I wish to inform you that I have found a design flaw in your throne room; the doors are not soundproof, making it rather simple for a pony to eavesdrop on the happenings taking place within. Especially when those within start shouting. I believe you may want to fix that at your soonest convenience.”

She then turned her attention to Ember. “Dragon Lord Ember,” she addressed politely. “We appreciate you coming all this way to voice your thoughts on the matter, and I can assure you that we will take them into immediate consideration. But now that you have made your point, I think it will be in everyone’s best interests if we didn’t keep you here any longer.”

Then, keeping a careful eye on both of them to ensure they didn’t try again to attack each other, she slowly lowered them back down to the floor in standing positions, releasing her magical hold upon them. Fortunately, though both of them were still giving each other dark glares that suggested this was far from over, neither of them tried to resume the fight.

Ember conceded to Starlight’s request, shrugging off the lingering tingle of Starlight’s magic before turning to grab her helmet from where she had left it on the map. “Fine,” she said as she said one last statement of warning to Twilight. “But know this. That peace, trust, and friendship between ponies and dragons we had spoken of? So long as you are leading the way, there will be none of that between our kinds.”

Then, with that ominous final statement, she returned her helmet to her head and vaulted herself into the air, flying up the high vaulted room, then, likely out of spite, she smashed through a second stained glass window, shattering it as well, instead of flying out the one she had already broken on her way in. The ponies gazed after the departing dragon for a long moment, but then their gazes returned to looking at Twilight while Twilight looked back at them. A long and tense moment of silence fell.

“Twilight,” Rarity finally spoke, looking hurt. “Were you really willing to resort to such grave actions over this?”

“I—I…that wasn’t what was going on…” Twilight fumbled, trying to explain her way out of this, justifying her actions. “Ember…she was just—it was never so bad as any of—”

“Twi, you nearly just started a war over this,” Rainbow interrupted bluntly.

“An’ a pointless one at that,” Applejack added sternly. “Just so ya could git at one rogue changeling.”

Twilight closed her eyes and let out her breath, trying to calm herself down. “All right, so I let my emotions get the better of me for a moment there,” she confessed. “But as you’ve all clearly already heard, Ember is helping to hide the changeling, enabling him, and it’s only going to come back to harm all of us. For all of our well-beings, I can’t just let Ember do that, so I was trying to convince her to just let me handle this, and get it done right. Now, with all of your help, perhaps we still can get this resolved already and get that changeling the punishment he deserves and…”

“No.” All eyes turned to Fluttershy, who was gazing at Twilight sadly, but with determination. “No, Twilight. I…I can’t keep supporting this. This is…wrong. You should know that. This…this isn’t the right way to resolve this. At all.” She gazed a little sheepishly at the others, looking a little ashamed to be doing this, but she didn’t back down either. “It’s time we stopped looking at this so aggressively and started working at resolving this peacefully, because I’ve met the changeling, got to know him…he doesn’t match up with you are telling us about him, Twilight. I don’t think he really means any of us harm.”

Twilight gazed at her for a moment. “I’m sorry, Fluttershy,” she stated. “But I can’t agree with that. It’s just too dangerous.”

Fluttershy let out a little sigh at that, before drawing her breath back in with a deep inhale, drawing strength. “Then I’m afraid you’re going to have to do it without me. I won’t be of a part of any plan that demonizes Thorax any longer. That’s…that’s just how it’s going to have to be.”

She then turned and quietly walked out of the throne room again. The others stared after her in stunned silence.

Then Applejack slowly started to nod her head. “Yeah,” she said, her resolve growing. “Yeah, ya know wut? Fluttershy’s right.”

“Applejack…” Twilight breathed, shocked.

“Twi, yer startin’ ta take this too far,” Applejack argued, and for a moment the apple farmer looked afraid. “Yer willin’ ta risk countless lives fer no point, just ’cuz yer mad Spike decided ta side with a changelin’ instead of you. An’ ya know wut the honest truth is? He wuz right. He wuz always right. We never had any real proof the changelin’ meant harm. That’s just wut ya wanted ta believe…an’ that’s just dishonest. An’…as much as Ah don’t wanna Twi…Ah just can’t support that any longer right now.”

Then she too walked out of the throne room, silently withdrawing her support.

After a moment of watching Applejack walk out, Rainbow let out a heavy sigh. “Well, if Applejack and Fluttershy are out…” she muttered, starting to turn for the door.

“Rainbow!” Twilight started to object.

“Twi, I want to believe you, I really do,” Rainbow admitted. “You know I hate not being able to support all of my friends. But Applejack and Fluttershy are right. This is going way too far. And for what? Maybe that changeling is trouble…but he can’t possibly be so much trouble to be worth all of this trouble you’re causing now. You’re letting yourself get in too deep, Twi. Too carried away. And it’s frankly getting a little…crazy.”

Then, oddly more lethargic than was normal for Rainbow, she trotted out of the room too.

Twilight stared after her for a second then turned to look at Rarity and Pinkie Pie. “And you two?” she inquired, almost pleadingly. “Where do you both stand?”

Rarity averted her gaze slightly, deep in thought. “I don’t know what to believe, Twilight,” she finally admitted, looking forlornly at the alicorn. “But I do feel that whatever it is…this isn’t the way to resolve it. I want Spike back too, darling…but do we really need to cause more harm than what has already been done to do it?”

And with a heavy heart, she walked out of the room too.

Pinkie was left looking anxiously and repeatedly between Twilight and the door the others had walked out of, starting to tear up as she realized the position this left her in. “Don’t make me have to choose!” she wailed in dismay.

But then even she ran out of the room, suddenly in tears.

This just left Starlight, who after watching Pinkie leave, turned to gaze expectantly back at Twilight. Twilight, meanwhile, wandered back before her throne but didn’t sit in it. Instead, she ran one hoof sadly over the edge of the map, still displaying the holographic image of Equestria. Finally, she gazed at Starlight with a look of worry and dejection.

“Are you going to leave too?” she asked slowly.

Starlight bit her lip for a moment, lowering her gaze as she thought. “You are my teacher,” she replied at last, returning her gaze on Twilight. “And as your student, I feel my place is still at your side, as before.”

Twilight let out a long exhale of relief at this. “Good,” she said, then started to lean over the map as if nothing had happened. “Now Ember knows where Spike and the changeling are at, and I’d bet anything she’s heading back to them now…if we hurry, we might just be able to—”

“That doesn’t mean I agree with you on this, Twilight,” Starlight added suddenly.

Twilight, cut short, stared at her in shock for a moment. She let herself drop heavily into her throne, gaze turning vacant and stunned. Finally, she closed her eyes and hung her head, accepting this suddenly collapse of support. “Fine,” she muttered. “Fine! Just go, then. Go on, go.”

Starlight hesitated. “Are you sure?” she asked. “I’m not so sure it’s a good idea to leave you like…”

“No, just…just go, I won’t keep you here like this,” Twilight said, shaking her head, waving one hoof to urge her student on out the door.

Starlight still hesitated. She gazed up at the windows Ember had broken, which had left shards of colored crystal littering the room. “What about the windows? I could—”

“I’ll worry about the windows, just…” Twilight caught herself and her anger suddenly vanished, leaving her looking sad and depressed as she slumped in her chair. “…I just need a moment alone to think, Starlight. Please.”

Starlight nodded slowly. “Okay,” she said softly and turned to exit as well. She paused at the door. “Just…shout if you need anything.”

Twilight didn’t reply or make any motion she heard or understood. She just sat there and stared at the floor, gaze vacant. Frowning and disconcerted, but not seeing what else she could do, Starlight sighed and continued on out of the room, leaving Twilight behind by herself. Twilight sat there in silence for a few moments, but then remembered the message Ember had brought as proof she had found Spike and pulled it back in front of her. Teleporting in a bottle of the solution that made the hidden invisible ink visible again from where she kept it stored in her writing desk, she then swiped the solution over the inside of the parchment with an included small brush and watched as the message within faded back into view. It simply read:

“Thorax is a friend and an ally, and no matter how much you want to deny it or tear up Equestria trying to catch us, this will NEVER change.

This is your last chance to accept this so we can both move on with our lives.”

It was not signed. But it didn’t need to be. Twilight clearly recognized Spike’s handwriting. Sighing sadly to herself, Twilight just sat there and stared at the message lying before her, torn.

Once she had left the throne room behind, Starlight then wandered for the castle’s front door, first planning to check and make sure everypony outside was okay and weren’t all still in a panic from the dragons that had flown in (and she assumed had now left, leaving with Ember), then hoping to go and find Twilight’s friends so to speak with them further about the matter and where they were going to go next with all of this.

Instead, she was able to do both at the same time. Just gazing out at Ponyville from where she stood at the castle’s porch was enough to see that the citizens of the small town were on edge, but seeing the danger had passed, were all slowly resuming their daily routines. More importantly though, Twilight’s friends had gathered in a group just outside the castle, quietly listening as Fluttershy was telling them about something. The subdued chatter immediately stopped when they saw Starlight stepping out of the castle to join them, and they started to gather around her.

“How’s she taking it?” Rarity asked, nodding her head in the direction of the castle and its princess still within.

“Heavily, I think, but I don’t know yet if that’s going to be a good thing or a bad thing,” Starlight admitted, feeling a little helpless. “She asked for some time alone to think, though, so…maybe…”

“Ah just hope this will git her ta stop an’ look back at wut she’s doin’, help her ta be a bit more…reasonable,” Applejack hummed. “Ah really hate havin’ ta do this to the poor girl, Ah really, really, do, but…Ah just don’t know wut else ta do.”

“We really sure this is a smart idea, though?” Rainbow asked. “I mean, we all know Twilight can get a little…wacko if she doesn’t think anyone’s supporting her. Do I even have to remind all of you of the Want it-Need it incident?”

Starlight frowned. “Want it-Need it incident?”

“Well, except you I guess,” Rainbow conceded with a grimace. “It’s a long story…just know we saw Twilight not at her best that day…and it’s sort of reminding me of today, admittedly.”

“It is a concern,” Rarity agreed. “But…surely we can’t do the alternative and continue to stand by her on all of this? As much as I don’t want to speak negatively of the poor mare, she is starting to take this much too seriously…I fear someone may get hurt that didn’t need to be soon if it keeps up.”

“An’ Rarity’s right,” Applejack agreed. “We can’t fix this if we keep showin’ support for it by standin’ beside Twilight. That’ll only enable her.” She then forced an encouraging grin. “But it ain’t like we aren’t still her friends, ’cuz we are. That ain’t changed, an’ not even a herd of wild manitcores are gonna force us apart like that. It’s just good friends don’t let friends make mistakes like this, where they’re just gunna cause more harm than good. Good friends do sumthin’ ta stop that before it gits that far. So as Ah see it, we’re just bein’ good friends by showin’ Twi we ain’t gunna let her do this, especially ta herself. Yeah, it hurts, Ah ain’t gunna lie ’bout that…but it’s my hope it’s also gunna show Twi wut we mean, and hopefully git her ta reconsider. Once she does that, we can work together ta figure out a far better way ta work this all out that we all can agree ta.”

“We’re just showing a bit of…tough love then,” Fluttershy reasoned, following Applejack’s logic.

“Exactly,” the apple farmer agreed with a nod.

Unfortunately, none of this seemed to reassure the group much, all of them worrying about Twilight and if this was only going to cause more harm than good.

So Starlight offered a plan. “Look, she’s going to need a bit of time to think about this,” she reasoned to the others. “So let’s give her a night to sleep on it, give her some time to push through all of this, and then work from there. Since I’m her student, and her home is basically my home too, I’ll still be around to keep an eye on her, try and talk it out with her if she’ll let me. If anything starts to go wrong, I’ll come get all of you right away. But until then, I think it’s just best to…wait and see.” The other girls all slowly nodded in agreement. Starlight then sighed and took a breath. “Now,” she said, turning to Fluttershy. “About this changeling…Fluttershy, you’ve met him?”

“Fluttershy was just telling us about that,” Pinkie explained with a nod, pointing a hoof at the butter-yellow pegasus.

Fluttershy nodded too. “I, um, got to meet him not so long ago in secret because he had fallen ill, and Spike asked—well, pleaded really—for my help,” she confessed to Starlight, since Starlight hadn’t already heard the details. “I learned a bit about him while I was there…saw he and Spike were living peaceful lives in Vanhoover…I really think Spike has been telling the truth and that Thorax means no harm.”

“Thorax?” Starlight inquired. “Is that his name?”

Fluttershy nodded in confirmation.

Starlight nodded to herself. “And just what was the name of this shop they were staying at in Vanhoover?” she asked.

“Fly Leaf’s Books and Stationery,” Fluttershy explained. She tilted her head curiously. “Why do you ask?”

“And this changeling, Thorax,” Starlight continued, not answering Fluttershy’s question. “Was that the name he was going by in public, or was he also going under an alias? If so, what was the alias’s name?”

Fluttershy rolled her eyes upward as she thought about it, suddenly not sure as she hadn’t ever been in the position to make use of such an alias. “Um…”

“Thornton,” Applejack offered suddenly. “Accordin’ ta Miss Fly Leaf, the name most knew him by was Thornton.” Now she tilted her head at Starlight too. “Why are ya askin’ all of this?”

Starlight averted her gaze slightly. “Just a loose end I think we might still have,” she admitted. “But I’ll worry about that. The rest of you…head on home for now. I’ll let you know straight away if there are any new developments.”

All nodding to themselves, the group then dispersed, giving subdued farewells as they parted ways. Starlight watched them all walk off before heaving a sigh and turned to head back into the castle. She stopped first to glance into the throne room to check on Twilight, easily done as the throne room doors were still open. She found that the stained glass windows that were broken by Ember had been magically repaired by Twilight, but otherwise Twilight hadn’t moved much from the position Starlight had left her in, nor had her mood seem to have changed. Nonetheless, she seemed stable for the moment, so Starlight moved on, heading upstairs for her bedchambers. Once there, she pulled out a box from under her desk and started sorting through the papers within, looking for one in particular. When she found it, she yanked it out with her magic and started to quickly skim through it, slowing only once she found the part she was looking for:

“…of course that shouldn’t be so surprising considering just who it is that I am. Vanhoover is a nice place, and true, there were plenty of ponies here that greatly enjoyed the wowings of me, the Great and Powerful Trixie, while I was there, but there were also a few too many stuck-up critics for my tastes. But it at least wasn’t all bad, as I do think I’ve managed to make a new friend while I was there, and with whom I do hope I’ll be staying in contact with, if not meet again soon. Better still, he’s a stallion, so…you never know.

I’m getting ahead of myself though. All you need to know for now, Starlight, is that this guy not only greatly enjoyed my show, he’s something of a secret wiz at illusionary arts. Like me! We spent hours after the show discussing ideas about how to add to my act and getting to know each other better. As it happens, we have a few of the same tastes even, and he’s an excellent listener. I feel like he gets me. Odd thing is that despite his clear magical skill, at least in all the fields that I care about, he doesn’t seem to have a lot of interest in a career using them, and right now works a simple job in a little local books and stationery shop. But hey, he says he’s happy there, so who is Trixie to judge, right?

That all said, I think you’d like him too. He’s a sweet and kind guy named Thornton, and maybe with some planning we…”

Starlight stopped reading there and sighed, lowering Trixie’s letter she had received some weeks back, realizing the fear that had begun slowly nagging her as the day’s events unfolded was, in fact, very much real. “Just what have you gotten yourself into now, Trixie?” she mumbled to herself while she pulled out a fresh piece of parchment so to start the daunting task of explaining the situation to, she feared, her oblivious friend.

Author's Note

In retrospect, sending the hotheaded and short-tempered dragoness to meet with the equally temperamental and somewhat irrational princess of friendship to serve as your representative so to try and work out some kind of agreement probably wasn't the best of ideas.

But let's face it...it was about time Twilight was told in no uncertain terms what she was doing was wrong, and what better way to do it than with Ember's blunt and unforgiving attitude?

And it did work to finally cause Twilight to take a step too far in her obsession...

The parts about how Ember had found Spike and Thorax and Spike's brief message serving as Ember's proof that she had done so were all added last minute over this past weekend in response to reader input last chapter. Otherwise, most of this chapter was planned out waaaay in advance to now.

I can't imagine there'd be too many complaints either...a lot of this is all things you've all been pressing to have for a good while now. :raritywink:

Degree of Trust

In lieu of support from her friends then, Twilight ultimately redoubled her efforts to urge Princesses Celestia and Luna to allow her to play a more central part in the search for Spike and Thorax, or, failing that, allow her to be kept more closely in the loop of what was happening than she presently was. Twilight confessed that was perhaps the hardest part of all of this, the fact that she simply did not know what was happening beyond her own increasingly shrinking roles in it…and she was starting to suspect there was a reason behind it. Thanks to a magical-based letter sending system Twilight had set up some moons before to use in the stead of Spike’s firebreath, this correspondence was very rapid-paced, with several letters being sent back and forth in the space of a day. However despite all those letters, neither Celestia nor Luna seemed willing to come forward to elaborate through for the remainder of that same day, either sending back responses to Twilight’s letters urging her patience while giving general non-answers.

By the morning following her friends all withdrawing their support on Twilight’s course of actions though, Celestia finally relented slightly and revealed in her next letter to Twilight that the reason she had been keeping her out of the loop was because Luna had been “following a lead that could shed new light on the matter.” If so, then the very nature of the whole situation could have very well changed and thus required further investigation and the obtaining of additional facts. Celestia did not want to give Twilight all the details yet though, fearing it would get her hopes up unnecessarily should it all prove false or lead nowhere fruitful. Therefore, to Twilight’s frustration, Celestia did not explain just what this “lead” Luna was apparently following even was.

This was not without trying though; the next few messages Twilight sent back to Celestia after being told all of this were all to press for more details. When Celestia wouldn’t acquiesce to Twilight’s persisting though, Twilight decided to ask the mare herself and sent a letter directly to Luna, inquiring for details on what it was she and Celestia were apparently investigating. Luna was just as refusing to tell however, and to Twilight’s surprise, she also politely withdrew her support from Twilight’s handling of the matter, on the grounds that it was “incorrect” given what she had learned from her still-unrevealed lead. She was further “disconcerted” about Twilight’s manner of behavior as of late, and simply said she felt it better “for the good of both Spike and yourself” that Twilight not be involved for now, and urged her to instead seek to “recollect yourself.” She refused to say more to Twilight beyond that, citing much the same reason as Celestia; whatever the two sisters were doing, they didn’t want to get Twilight’s hopes for something they couldn’t yet guarantee would actually come to pass. And with Twilight already being in “a troubling spot” as it was, Luna reasoned that neither she nor Celestia wished to contribute to it.

However, Luna did at least admit that she didn’t like excluding Twilight from the affair like this. “I know this feels unfair to you and indeed, you should have the right to be included in this matter,” she wrote to Twilight. “But you attempts to force a resolution have become too detrimental, and we fear it would only continue if we permit you continued access in this search. Therefore, for the time being, to ensure that does not come to pass, the only solution we have at present is to exclude you from these proceedings for now. I hope it will not have to be permanent.” Her words were of a mild comfort to Twilight as it suggested this wasn’t being done out of malice but rather concern for her own well-being…but that comfort only went so far, and Twilight was still highly dissatisfied with the situation.

So this eventually led Twilight back to trying to pry more information out of Celestia, her last real major source of information in the matter, and when Celestia continued to politely refuse by instead pleading for patience from Twilight, Twilight started to accuse her of turning her back on her too. Getting a reaction out of that, Celestia then quickly explained in her next letter that this wasn’t the case at all—she was only taking a more neutral stance for now while continuing to investigate further still until definitively picking a side. And that was simply going to take time. Regardless though, Celestia agreed with Luna; Twilight was letting herself get far too emotionally tied to the matter, feared it was not only clouding her thinking but also jeopardizing Equestria’s good standing “as well as your own,” and was overall too closely involved to ensure she could continue personally handling the matter with the proper tact and open mind it was now clear it required.

Celestia even admitted that she feared the matter had “already been mishandled.” Therefore, she pleaded Twilight permit herself to be moved aside so to allow herself, Luna, and the royal guard to handle the search themselves, bringing in “a fresh view” on the matter. When anything worthwhile was uncovered, Celestia promised Twilight would be notified immediately. She, too, knew that Twilight wouldn’t like this and was in some ways unfair for her to have to face. “Unfortunately, the situation is such that at this time, I have few other options I can do that wouldn’t be much worse than this for you,” she wrote. “Please understand that I do this not out of malice, Twilight, but in an attempt to try and spare you worse punishments. After all, I feel the blame is certainly not solely yours to bear. Please do not think that it is.”

But she went on to also allude that there had been direct complaints in regards to Twilight’s behavior as of late, influencing this response as it made it a matter Celestia could not ignore, but again she refused to elaborate on the particulars of these complaints for now. “We will discuss it further later, hopefully once the worst of this is over,” she promised. Still not entirely content with these responses though, Twilight at one point decided to try and bypass the royal sisters altogether by inquiring for details directly from the head staff of the royal guard, especially those who had been assigned to lead the search for Spike and the changeling. Unfortunately, her inquiries were immediately rejected as Celestia had already anticipated Twilight doing this and had ordered the staff of the royal guard to relay nothing to Twilight other than that the search was still ongoing, and that all would be revealed at the completion of the investigation, but not before. Upon turning back to Celestia one final time for answers after this led to Celestia finally revealing that she had by now learned of Twilight’s near-disastrous confrontation with Princess Ember. She left the consequences that would have to follow only implied, but she still made it very clear she simply could not ignore that it had happened, and could not tolerate it taking place. She additionally conveyed, for the first time, that she also bore a strong sense of disapproval on how the situation in Vanhoover had been handled without at least consulting her first too.

Finally, she did declare that she feared “evidence was increasingly arising” that things were not at all as Twilight believed, and while she worked to confirm the whole story behind this, she urged Twilight to think that perhaps the time had come to “consider that perhaps there never was a threat to Equestria at all.” “I honestly would prefer it that way and would rather have that than the alternative,” she wrote to Twilight, wanting her to see the same. But as Twilight hadn’t thus far, Celestia repeated that she had little choice but to block Twilight’s involvement and control of the matter “henceforth, until such time that the situation has changed.” Thus the matter was out of Twilight’s hooves now. From there, Celestia’s letters would only repeat the same as before: that the investigation was ongoing and that Twilight would be told more once more had been learned. Until then, she was to wait.

After that final letter, any further pleas Twilight sent to Celestia were not responded to, the princess of the sun going oddly and abruptly quiet.

Thus, beyond a vague note that Fly Leaf, still in custody back in Vanhoover, was apparently still telling her version of events to anyone who would listen, Twilight was forced to concede she had been cut out of the matter entirely, and it frustrated her greatly. She still adamantly believed that her actions had been in the right, at least given the information she had known at the time, and more importantly thought the search wasn’t being pursued aggressively enough and was as such unfair and dangerous for Spike’s continued safety.

And it certainly didn’t help Twilight’s temper when the crystal map suddenly stopped responding to Twilight entirely at around the same time…even though it would still respond just fine to everyone other than Twilight, including Starlight who normally didn’t get involved in map matters since abusing it in her past time travel escapades.

Nonetheless, despite fears that she’d try again to take matters into her own hooves, Twilight ultimately relented to the requests of the princess sisters, as much as she didn’t want to, admitting that at this point, she had little other choice. But while Twilight sat around and sulked, Starlight was struck by how after all that correspondence Celestia would just up and stop replying to Twilight’s letters like that. She didn’t know Celestia as well as Twilight did, of course, but Starlight had gotten to know the princess of the sun enough to know Celestia didn’t typically give one the cold shoulder, no matter how much one might deserve it. She had even seen Celestia voluntarily continue a conversation with Discord for hours even though Discord spent all of it teasing Celestia about awkward things she clearly didn’t want to discuss at her expense, and indeed could clearly see was only fueling Discord’s antics further by continuing the conversation like she did. Yet she did it anyway. So for her to stop communicating with Twilight like this, a pony Celestia obviously held in much higher regard, seemed more than a little unusual.

Starlight decided to take it upon herself then to try and contact Celestia via the same methods as Twilight, reporting in on Twilight’s present status and inquiring if the lack of communication with Twilight was really wise to promote right now. Unfortunately, she got no response back from Celestia either, who seemed to have put herself into some sort of communications blackout. However, where Celestia wouldn’t respond, Luna would, writing back a lengthy letter that explained the situation more, but did so with the understanding that Starlight would not publicize what she was told due to the political sensitivity things were presently in, and she assured she was not exaggerating that.

There were still things Luna would not explain to Starlight, among which was the “lead” both she and Celestia alluded to following, but she assured that it did exist, and Luna thought it still held “promise.” “Unfortunately,” she wrote, “I will confess that we seem to have hit a roadblock on that lead due to Twilight’s actions in Vanhoover, and I am left forced to compensate by starting almost back at square one and begin again my search.” She did not elaborate further, so Starlight was left wondering what was meant by “search”—she assumed she meant the physical search for Thorax and Spike she knew was already ongoing…but then Luna proceeded to speak of that same search as if it was a separate thing. So if not that, just what was Luna searching for? Her only clue was Luna confirming it involved “matters you would not have experience in, I’m afraid,” going on to write that “given the sensitive nature of the matter, it is best you leave such things to one who does have that experience. And as I believe Celestia has already conveyed, it may yet prove to be a fruitless endeavor, or at least one no longer needed as it is not the only plan we are pursuing. In the meantime though, I regret that we have bigger matters to focus on.”

She then proceeded to elaborate what that meant, establishing again that things were politically and diplomatically tense for her and her sister because of everything that had transpired. As such, Luna began by apologizing on her sister’s behalf, explaining that this had all had deeply affected Celestia, and she had lately abruptly become distant and non-conversing as a result during the day, secluding into her work trying to sort this all out. “I fear as deeply for her well-being as I do for Twilight’s at present time,” Luna wrote to Starlight. “I have been trying to give her as much support as I can in this affair, and I hope you are doing likewise for Twilight…but Celestia has become very engrossed in these affairs, and is not always willing to…talk.”

And while that was very worrying for Luna, she could at least partly understand her sister’s reasons, as there was a lot on her mind presently. Citizens in Vanhoover had complained about the disruptions caused during Twilight’s time in the city to their mayor, who in turn passed these complaints on to Celestia along with a few of his own. Worse, Starlight learned that after leaving her foul meeting with Twilight, Ember had passed through Canterlot and dropped a notice summarizing in brief the disastrous meeting with the purple alicorn, clearly conveying the dragoness’s extreme distaste for how it had gone and reiterating the same threat she had made to Twilight; any Equestrian attempts to take Spike or Thorax back by force would be considered an act of war.

Through that notice, word got out to the nobility that Twilight nearly started a war with the dragons over the matter of Thorax, and even though they similarly thought that the changeling was not to be trusted, they were still outraged at this incident and were now actively pressuring Celestia to take immediate disciplinary actions against the princess of friendship. Some of the especially extreme in this group were demanding Celestia do something to revoke Twilight’s alicorn state as if this was even an option (it was not; alicornhood was achieved entirely through the natural forces of magic exerting themselves upon a pony at its whims and not the whims of others, often in response to the actions of the individual in question—in other words, alicornhood could not be artificially achieved or undone by any pony) or that Celestia even wished to resort to such tactics.

And Luna assured Starlight that she very much did not. In fact, Celestia was very adamant that Twilight could not take the full brunt of the blame, insisting that she was just as much to blame for permitting this to get so bad without check. However, she also felt it was not the time for such talk yet, wanting to first resolve the matter with Spike and Thorax and, if possible, bring them safely back so to seek a diplomatic solution to try and make amends for the serious errors more than one pony had done to them. Upon doing so, Luna said it was their hope that they would then know both sides of the story in full and wouldn’t further risk acting unadvisedly due to a lack of information.

Unfortunately, Luna didn’t have to tell Starlight that this was easier said than done. Ember, of course, had given absolutely no clues about where the two were presently, and after her departure had left no clues on even where she was currently. Celestia had already tried to contact the dragoness via letters in hopes of working things out, but to no avail. The best guess they had to work off of was that she, Spike, and Thorax were all in the Dragon Realms by now, and so Luna explained that Celestia had sent a messenger into the region in hopes of establishing contact with them there. All they could do until then was to wait, and it was quite nerve-racking for them to do so, as Luna admitted to Starlight that she feared Ember would refuse to work with them.

“This wouldn’t especially surprise me, truthfully,” Luna explained in her letter. “But I do worry the cause is simply due to a traditional dragon belief that one finished what they started, and to expect the same from others. Dragon Lord Ember has started this with Twilight, thereby she expects Twilight to be the one to make the effort to try and finish it, wanting only Twilight to come to her if a resolution was truly desired. Anyone else will not be acceptable, and thus dragging out this matter. If so, then I fear the most we can try is attempt to convince her that Celestia and I can achieve the same goals. If Ember still refuses, then we will have to resort to other tactics that will be much less simple.” Starlight worried this meant they would have to figure out a way to get Twilight to cooperate with the scheme, a tall order seeing Twilight was currently still very critical of Ember among many other things.

Then, above all, Luna revealed that they worried they did not yet have adequate evidence proving Thorax’s innocence. By now, she and Celestia were personally and reasonably assured that he was, enough that they were willing to talk it over with them if they could get the chance. But for others, especially the nobility that bore enough political control to resist, it was feared it still wouldn’t be enough to sway them. They needed more to build a sound case in Spike and Thorax’s defense. Luna had put most of her personal focus on doing this. She did not say in her letter how successful she was being.

Luna then became more frank with her feelings on the matter with Starlight, admitting how very grave she felt, and just how much the whole incident had unsettled her too. “I am frankly shocked by just how much we have been in error over this,” she admitted in her letter. “Just how could this all have happened in Equestria, and under our watch, no less?” Luna even privately conveyed to Starlight, on the grounds that she would keep it completely secret, that there had already even been private talk between her and her sister that they weren’t certain the matter even could be resolved now, due to just how seriously things had gone wrong.

But while Luna accepted a share of the blame for the mess herself, much like how Celestia did, she still had to attribute much of the blame on how Twilight had handled the matter, especially as of late. “I take no joy doing so,” she pressed to Starlight. “But I must face the facts of the matter, and those are that Twilight remains the instigator at the very heart of this matter.” In short, Twilight’s increasingly unstable behavior wasn’t helping, and the two sisters had to force her out of the search for Thorax and Spike first and foremost simply in an attempt at damage control. It was still too soon if it would help in any meaningful way at this point though. “We may have acted too late as it is,” Luna confessed in her letter, and Starlight was forced to wonder if she wasn’t right.

Which brought Luna to why she was sending the letter to Starlight in the first place; she had fears that this was only going to work up Twilight even more, and she was already in quite a precarious state—even Celestia had agreed this was among the worst she had ever seen of Twilight. Starlight learned that even Shining Armor and Princess Cadance, though they obviously still had their strong misgivings about Thorax and stood behind the decision to banish the changeling, were shocked to learn through Luna of Twilight’s behavior and that it seemed to be driving Spike further away, something the two did not want happening (they, like Twilight, lamented that they had allowed Spike to go with Thorax, and wanted to bring him back if at all possible). Their alarm was such that Shining had volunteered to come down to Ponyville so to talk it over with Twilight, but he and Luna were uncertain if it would even help. Starlight herself feared it might not, given how Twilight and Shining had not been on the best of terms ever since the banishment, Twilight having pinned the blame for Spike and Thorax’s escape from the Crystal Empire on her brother for some moons now. And Starlight certainly didn’t want Shining Armor to waste all his time coming only to find he would be of no real assistance, not when the prince no doubt still had concerns of his own to attend to in the Crystal Empire.

And with that in mind, Luna ended her letter by wishing to task Starlight, as well as Starlight’s friends, to do everything they can to try and “pull Twilight back from the brink, as doing so can only help us resolve this matter favorably for all parties that much sooner.” To do this, she requested that they not worry about the search for Spike and Thorax at all for now; she and Celestia would continue to handle that matter until such time new developments forced a change. In the meantime, Luna wanted them to get back to their normal lives as much as possible and engage in any and all activities that would help to relieve the strain they had all been put through. If any social events were to take place in or around Ponyville soon, they were heavily urged to take part in them, to the point that Starlight almost wanted to say they were being ordered to for their own good. And above all, they were to continue showing their support as friends in helping Twilight beat this in the best ways they could, because Luna knew from experience that Twilight needed such a thing now more than ever, or her obsessing was only going to get much worse. The more they could bring Twilight back to normal life as before, the better.

It would be a daunting task, though, as the situation hung over Twilight like a storm cloud and they all could see it from the start, and it unsettled them all. No sooner had they withdrawn their support in Twilight’s little crusade were her friends worrying about her and coming back at soonest convenience, wanting to make sure she was all right. They feared she had taken their departures the wrong way, thinking they were abandoning her when nothing of the sort was taking place. They very much wanted prove that they were all still friends despite this, and as a group they all quickly planned that they would each take some time one on one with Twilight so to talk it over, explain why this had needed to happen.

Twilight, of course, wasn’t against the visiting as she longed for the companionship of her friends in these rough times…but she was still very bitter on the subject, and it was a matter she didn’t particular wish to discuss, making it abundantly clear that they were not welcome if that was all they were to do. She simply was not in the mood to listen.

After Applejack and Rainbow Dash were both quickly turned away again during their visits due to them being unable to leave the touchy subject alone, in fact, they all quickly saw that they would have to be careful about approaching the subject. Rarity tried to do so, but likewise struggled, leading to a very awkward conversation between the two that didn’t seem to go anywhere because of it. Fortunately, Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie seemed to make some progress as they both separately managed to visit Twilight for over an hour without Twilight turning them away. Starlight was surprised in Fluttershy’s case, because she was the one out of all of them that had since become the most adamant in believing Thorax was completely innocent, having become quick to say so whenever the subject came up. So for her to show such restraint and tact during a chat over tea with Twilight was fairly impressive…though it did lead to them having long moments of silence while they sipped tea. Pinkie, meanwhile, was more concerned in being a friend for Twilight and trying to cheer her up, so avoiding certain topics of conversation wasn’t a problem for her. They spent most of their time playing a board game, and Starlight was pleased to see at one point that it did manage to draw a rare smile out of Twilight. Yet Twilight still remained resolute in her sulking…though she didn’t seem as confident in her stance on the matter as she once was.

Otherwise, Twilight was behaving herself. She kept mostly to herself and eventually started back into the routine tasks she normally did about her castle…albeit with a somewhat half-hearted manner. But Starlight still feared it wasn’t going to last forever unless one of them managed to seriously talk it out with Twilight. And with Luna having little more she could offer right now, Celestia still out of contact, and Twilight’s other friends having minimal success, it seemed there wasn’t going to be anypony else either able or willing to do it.

So it was with all of this in mind that Starlight saw it was time for her to try and talk this through with her mentor, urging Twilight to at least see that the matter was still in good hooves and that they didn’t have to be hers…though of course Starlight also hoped to try and get Twilight to see that there was a better way to handling this than what she had been trying to pursue before. If not…Starlight actually had to shudder a little at the implications. She knew she herself had done horrible things just because she wanted “her way.” It was scary to imagine what Twilight might resort to if pressed to that state. Therefore, it was important to Starlight that she do her part to ensure they don’t ever reach that point, and the sooner, the better.

When she went and sought out her mentor and found Twilight in the upper levels of the castle later that same day after the meeting with Ember, moving boxes of books from a storage room and down a flight of stairs. She suspected that Twilight was doing it in order to try and prove a point, as she was doing so while trying to act uncaring. But even at her angriest, Twilight couldn’t intentionally harm a book, so the boxes she was moving as if careless were instead still getting placed neatly and gently into a stack at the base of the stairs. It would be amusing to watch if Starlight didn’t know the seriousness of the situation.

She watched Twilight for a moment, waiting until the princess arrived at the bottom of the stairs with the latest box before speaking. “Keeping busy, then?” she asked, trying to sound friendly.

Twilight glanced in her direction. “Not really,” she admitted bluntly. “But since I’m getting left out of the important things now, I figured I might as well get around to moving these older books to my reference section since, you know, I have the time.”

Starlight peeked into one the nearby boxes while Twilight stacked the box she was carrying with the others she had brought down. “Older books, huh?” she remarked.

“Yeah, got to keep the new books front and center after all.”

Starlight turned to Twilight, giving her a hopefully friendly grin. “Need any help?” she asked.

“Oh, I could use help for a lot of things, Starlight,” Twilight grumbled darkly, glancing in Starlight’s direction as she started to head up the stairs again. “But for this, no. Anyway, don’t you have your own things that need doing?”

“Not at the moment,” Starlight replied patiently. “I mean, I admit that will change once Trixie gets here, but…”

“Trixie?” Twilight stopped and turned to look in puzzlement at Starlight. “Why is Trixie coming here?”

Starlight opened her mouth to explain, but then paused, uncertain if she should tell Twilight all the reasons. To be honest, she still wasn’t certain just what all of Trixie’s reasons were herself. She had, of course, sent a letter yesterday to Trixie explaining that she suspected the pony Trixie knew as Thornton was really a changeling and asked the stage magician reply back as soon as she could so they could sort out what needed to be done next. She had received Trixie’s response just earlier that same morning, but was surprised to find the response was flat in tone, short, and to the point. Basically, Trixie explained that she did indeed wish to discuss the matter more and that, as she was already in the vicinity of Ponyville, she would head straight there so they could do it in person. She was expected to arrive by the weekend. Which was all fine, but it told Starlight little about what Trixie’s thoughts or emotional state in all of this was. All she could know right now was that it had generated some sort of reaction.

So for now Starlight decided to keep it simple. “Trixie has a personal matter she needs help resolving that’s interconnected with all of this,” she explained simply. She then grinned hopefully. “But until then, I’m still free to help you. And I really would like to where I can, Twilight.”

Twilight stubbornly shook her head, turning to resume heading for the stairs. “No offense Starlight, but after recent events…I’m a little hesitant to trust you on that.”

Starlight sighed. “Twilight, wait,” she said, motioning for Twilight to remain here for a second. “Look…we do need to talk about this. I know this is hard for you and you don’t want to…but you need to know it’s just as hard for us too…and the bad attitude doesn’t help.”

Twilight, to her credit, looked a little apologetic. She sighed too, moving to join Starlight at the bottom of the stairs. “Sorry, I’m…I’m not trying to take it out on you. Not really. It’s just…” she shook her head, squeezing her eyes shut as a wave of sadness fought to surface on her face. “…I’m desperately worried for Spike…and these days it seems like I’m the only one who cares anymore.”

“Now that’s not true,” Starlight interjected. “Twilight, we care about Spike too and what’s best for him. That’s why we’ve been pushing you to change tactics. We feel your actions are only going to bring him and you harm, not help him.”

“It wouldn’t be like that if ponies would just listen to me!” Twilight suddenly snapped, her frustration and anger back again just as soon as it had disappeared. “If we had done this my way from the moment we found out Spike and the changeling had been hiding in Vanhoover, we would’ve gotten him back by now! But no, everyone has to stand in my way and refuse to cooperate!”

“And there’s a reason for that!” Starlight pressured, concerned. “And we’ve tried to explain, but I think it’s clear you just don’t want to listen to all the possibilities. So until you do…it is better that this be left in the hooves of those who will.”

“I do listen!” Twilight argued. “I just haven’t heard any possibilities that are even remotely possible in comparison to what’s clearly the truth.”

“You mean the possibilities that put the changeling in anything less than a bad light,” Starlight summarized. She tilted her head at Twilight. “What do you have so much against him, anyway? I mean, it made sense before when it was a bit more in moderation, but after Vanhoover, now your…fury for him is getting a little unfathomable, Twilight.”

“It’s because he took Spike from me, and he’s still keeping him away from where he belongs!”

“No he didn’t!” Starlight frowned. “Twilight, I was there,” she reminded. “The changeling didn’t take Spike, Spike chose to go with him by himself.”

“That changeling manipulated him into doing that. The changeling may have put him in a hive mind where…”

“We don’t know that for certain! We all knew that from the start! In fact, Twilight, we’re finding more and more evidence that suggests that was never the case by every passing day.” Starlight turned concerned again, putting a hoof on Twilight’s shoulder, only for Twilight to gently shrug it off. “Look, the fact of the matter is that we need to start considering that the changeling, as hard as it might be for all of us to swallow, might have been telling the truth from the start, and that he actually may have geuninely come here with no nefarious intent after all, and has done none.”

“Then why are they running?”

“Because you’re chasing them, Twilight. And you’ve made it quite clear you won’t treat the changeling kindly if you caught up with him.”

“So why is Spike still with him?”

“Like he said when they left at the Crystal Empire…Spike’s trying to defend him. And it’s easily that this is the only way they can think of to do it.”

Twilight glared at Starlight for a moment, not convinced, but under the concerned look Starlight was giving back, the anger eventually caved and Twilight sighed again, looking worried. “Look, Starlight, I just can’t believe the changeling really means no harm. The changelings have done grave things to Equestria in the past, have repeatedly demonstrated that they weren’t afraid to do it again, and they are masters of deception and disguise to boot. The fact that Queen Chrysalis was able to go as long as she did disguised as Princess Cadance at the attempted invasion on Canterlot is frankly shameful.”

“Yes, but Chrysalis isn’t the same as this changeling,” Starlight pointed out. “And you’re going by the past actions of changelings as a race, who were, quite likely, only following the orders of their leader. It’s not fair to pin full blame on each individual changeling for many of those crimes because you don’t know if they even had a choice in the matter. So it is with our changeling that’s with Spike. From what I’ve been able to learn about him from others who’ve met him, he doesn’t match someone plotting and scheming to bring harm…just someone trying to find a peaceful place in the world to privately live life. And if so…you have to realize your actions as of late are only preventing that. And if that’s what the changeling really wants, shouldn’t we be considering that as an option and be open to it? I mean, I agree, we can’t assume a full-on happy ending for this just yet…but there’s still that chance. A chance that we could actually befriend a changeling for a change. Spike clearly did…maybe the rest of us still can too. We just need to give him that chance.”

“How can I befriend any changeling after what they’ve done?” Twilight asked, her tone a jumbled mess of accusing, confusion, concern, self-doubting, and even a little curiosity.

Starlight shrugged, giving the princess an encouraging grin again. “Why not?” she asked. “You’ve managed to befriend a great number of other former enemies despite the grave things they’ve done. You befriended Discord, despite his past attempts to bring ruin to Equestria by flooding it with chaos and his own past manipulations on you and your friends.”

“To be fair, I’m friends with Discord only in the academic sense,” Twilight reminded. “Otherwise, he still regularly drives me up the wall…and I think he takes secret pleasure in doing it.”

Starlight was undeterred though. “You also befriended Princess Luna despite her past actions trying to conquer Equestria and shroud it in an eternal night as Nightmare Moon. I’ve heard from the other girls you even went well out of your way to positively support her when no one else was willing in Ponyville once.”

“Well…” Twilight remarked, turning a little humble. “I wouldn’t say I was really the only one…”

“And you’ve forgiven others,” Starlight continued. “Sunset Shimmer, Trixie, other dragons including Princess Ember, and most important of all, me.” Starlight showed a tad of regret as she thought back on the past things she was guilty of doing. “After every horrid thing I did you and your friends, but most especially you…you still found it in your heart to forgive me…and I haven’t even been able to do that myself.” She tilted her head at Twilight, confused. “So…why is it so hard to forgive a changeling? Can’t a changeling change, too?”

Twilight didn’t immediately reply, but she averted her gaze, her expression turning dark. It surprised Starlight and she puzzled over it for a moment, trying to come up with an explanation for it. It wasn’t long before a sinking feeling came upon her, realizing a possibility she didn’t care to think of.

“Or was it not friendship you were seeking?” she asked aloud suddenly. “Is it instead just you going through the motions of friendship, so to ensure a close eye is kept on those such as me that could still be a danger? You don’t trust us to actually be fully good from here on out and not relapse again?”

Twilight still didn’t reply right away and continued to keep her gaze averted, clearly appearing conflicted by the subject, and just that was enough to make Starlight’s stomach sink. “Discord did,” Twilight finally pointed out.

Starlight swallowed hard, not actually wanting to hear the answer to her next question for fear it might be as she dreaded, but she forced herself to ask anyway. “…is that the real reason you took me in as your student?”

Twilight sighed, hanging her head. “Starlight, you still have plenty of talents that I do truly wish to nurture,” she explained slowly. “I thought it would be beneficial for the both of us…and I genuinely do want to be your friend, then and now. So there’s far more to my reasons to making you my student than just that.”

Starlight didn’t miss her careful phrasing of her response, either. “But you also aren’t denying it…are you?” When Twilight responded by simply turning her head further away from her student, ashamed, Starlight turned offended. “Twilight,” she breathed in objection, shocked and hurt by this revelation. “That’s not how friendship should work. You should know that better than I do already.”

Twilight suddenly whipped her head to look directly at Starlight again. “Being friends doesn’t mean being so foolish as to let one’s guard down,” she argued firmly.

“Of course not,” Starlight agreed readily, moving slowly closer to Twilight as she continued to speak. “But friendship still requires a degree of trust, an ability to trust that we will be able to still make the right decisions in the end, even without your guidance and watching eye, making sure we don’t stray off the path laid out for us. Trust that we are still capable of choosing to be good for ourselves. Trust that we can have the freedom to be ourselves, without the fear that it would only end in disaster.” She had now moved close enough that she put one hoof on Twilight’s shoulder, her expression again turning concerned for her mentor. “The peace and happiness we both want so desperately cannot be found without that trust. Because without it, living in that constant state of fear that those that have wronged you once will only do so again at the first chance given only causes contention and conflict, because you’ve giving no reason for either to be trusted. What happened yesterday with you and Princess Ember is an excellent example of that. Ember reacted the way she had because you wouldn’t trust her and thus had given her no reason to trust you back.”

“Ember never came here looking for a resolution or any sort of compromise,” Twilight reminded darkly. “She was only here just to complain about how I was doing this, nothing more.”

“But she also said there would be no peace between us,” Starlight added patiently, “so long as you are the one leading the way. All because you wouldn’t compromise any more than she would, and worse still, from what I overhead, you never even tried. Instead, you proceeded to shatter whatever trust she had held in you.” Starlight tilted her head sadly at the sulking princess. “Twilight, are you even aware of the things your distrust has led and is leading you to do? That forcing your distrust in the changeling upon others has only worsened the matter unnecessarily, for everyone? And just how many ponies have you inadvertently misled from the truth by stressing your distrust so adamantly? Has it ever occurred to you that it’s not the changeling that’s caused all of this trouble, but that perhaps you’ve put yourself through all of this grief by acting the way you have?”

Twilight snorted skeptically. “Need I remind you that I was not the only one who decreed the changeling untrustworthy back in the beginning?” she reminded. “Shining Armor and Cadance both backed me up on distrusting him and were never in disagreement with me on the matter.”

“Yes, but that’s not entirely fair of you to stress either,” Starlight argued back. “You know Shining and Princess Cadance would have an understandable bias against changelings because of the events that transpired at the invasion of Canterlot.”

“What, and I don’t?”

“I don’t know, Twilight. Do you?”

Twilight scowled, but Starlight saw a flicker of concern in her eyes. “Of course I don’t,” she muttered.

“Then shouldn’t that have left you in the perfect position to see that maybe Princess Cadance and Shining may have been letting their own bias blind them to the truth?” Starlight reasoned. “But I remember clearly that you never questioned it once. If anything, you only fueled it in them instead of questioning the truth of what was happening.” Starlight blinked to herself, realizing something else. “And because none of you questioned it, the rest of us didn’t think so either…my gosh, Twilight, you realize we never stopped to even consider that there might have been any sort of alternate explanations for the changeling’s presence and Spike’s support in him back then, right? Maybe if we had, then maybe things wouldn’t have ended in that banishment that has caused so much trouble for us now.”

“And just what do you expect me to have done?” Twilight questioned. “You said it yourself; Shining and Cadance may have been acting out of bias for the changeling. Assuming I didn’t already agree with that, which I did, what could have I done to change that?”

“You could’ve spoken up,” Starlight offered. “Suggested that we needed to consider all of the options, and not just latch onto the first. Shining and Princess Cadance are your family. You know they would’ve listened to you if you had just spoken up.”

“Spoken up about what, though?”

“That maybe Spike was right…and that this really was a good changeling.”

“Do you actually believe that could even be true, Starlight?”

Starlight was quiet for a moment. “I just might, Twilight.”

“Then why didn’t you speak up?” Twilight asked, confronting her student. “You were there for the banishment too…and I recall you did nothing more than the rest of us to resist the banishment.”

Starlight averted her gaze in shame. “I know, and I’m starting to wish I had,” she admitted. “But…you are my mentor Twilight…and as such, I saw you as being wiser and more knowledgeable about the subject than I did, and that you knew what you were doing. I felt it wasn’t my place to question things I didn’t think I could justify I really knew better on. So I kept quiet.” She looked back at Twilight again, saddened by her own lack of action. “But given what’s happened since, I want to make it abundantly clear now, Twilight. I did have my doubts. I know Spike fairly well too, and I had a hard time believing he would side with a changeling so readily without a good reason supporting it…and your version of the tale just wasn’t giving me quite enough of that reason. There was always just something amiss about it all that the rest of you just couldn’t quite justify to me. So yes…I had my doubts. And I regret now that I didn’t voice them sooner. I should’ve. But I’m voicing them now, Twilight. And I hope you can find it in yourself to listen to them.”

Twilight snorted again. “I am listening, Starlight,” she assured sadly. “But isn’t it a little unfair to focus all of this…criticism on just me? Whatever the truth of the matter was, I was not the only one who made the ruling on the banishment. The rest of the royal family has supported it too, so don’t you think they should at least share some of your blame?”

“Princesses Celestia and Luna weren’t there for the banishment though,” Starlight reminded. “Everything they knew about the matter was from what you told them later, and only your story. They had nothing to suggest there may be more to it to consider until now…they didn’t have all the information. And yes, your brother and Princess Cadance contributed to the ruling too…but I find it worth noting that they’ve stayed largely out of the matter since, deferring to the higher authorities of Equestria to handle the matter. Unlike you, who insists that you are the only one who can fix it and has tried to meddle in every aspect of it constantly until finally you were asked to stay out of it like you have now. Unlike you, the rest of the royal family seems to be considering that there might be more to this matter than you will let yourself do.”

“I will not take the blame for this,” Twilight persisted. “That changeling still instigated all of this, still played a role in bringing this all about.” She snorted again. “That changeling even wanted to be banished…I should’ve known it was just a trick he was playing me into when he asked me to support the banishment, but…”

“Wait, wait, hold on…” Starlight interrupted suddenly. “The changeling asked to be banished? Why?”

Twilight rolled her eyes. “He said he didn’t want to cause any more trouble. Thought trying to fight us further was pointless.”

Starlight tilted her head at Twilight again. “That doesn’t sound like something someone wanting to cause trouble would say,” she admitted. “Indeed, that only seems to suggest he only wanted to promote peace.”

“It’s all lies, though, it has to be,” Twilight argued with such confidence she stated it as simple fact. “He also threatened me, warning me of other troubles coming if I banished him, implying Spike would be among them.” She shook her head sadly. “Clearly, he was foretelling Spike was going to follow him into banishment and I was too blind to see it until it was already too late.”

Starlight rubbed her chin, reflecting on all of this. As she hadn’t been present for this conversation, there was really only so much she could rightly say about it. Nonetheless, one point was still jumping out at her. “Or maybe he was wary of harm coming to Spike if he continued to let Spike be caught up in the center of his conflict…and saw accepting banishment as the way to prevent it.” She shook her head. “At any rate, Twilight, deceived or not, have you ever stopped to consider what all of this has done to Spike’s trust in you? He was clearly counting on you to support him when he chose to defend the changeling…but when you didn’t…”

“Why do you think I let him go at all, then?” Twilight asked, suddenly turning distraught. “When he made it clear he was going to go with the changeling, I’d thought that if I had done anything to try and stop him at that point…it was only going to push him further away from me. He’d fight and resist…cause any sort of trouble trying to do what he thought needed to be done, not just risking harm to others, but also turning him further against us, seeing us as the enemy. And with the changeling having him so swayed to his side, just what could that changeling have done to use that against us as well, furthering his own plans? I had thought, foolishly at the time, that if I allowed Spike to leave with the changeling for the time being, it’d leave what little trust he had in Equestria intact still, for when we could regroup and retaliate against the changelings properly, prove to him once and for all the changelings meant nothing but harm. Shining agreed, thinking that once the crystal guard found them and had all of the changelings that could’ve been out there secure, we’d then be in a far better place to convince Spike of his errors…I never thought at the time that both he and the changeling were only going to use the chance to attempt the dangerous task of fleeing the area altogether…I had thought they were going to hang around in the vicinity while the changelings plotted, someplace sheltered from the dangers of the Frozen Wastes, we all did or I doubt any of us would’ve even dared consider it for the danger it would’ve put Spike in just going out into such treacherous terrain…but they didn’t, did they?…and that’s when I realized just how much of a mistake it was in letting him go. That’s why I’ve been trying so very hard to get him back ever since, Starlight. In a moment of sympathy for Spike’s wishes, I let him stumble even further down the wrong path. And I just can’t live with myself until I’ve set it right again.”

Starlight gazed in sympathetic sadness at her mentor for a moment. “I’m sorry Twilight,” she apologized. “I know this all cuts deeper than you can handle…but I also have to ask…what if Spike wasn’t in error at all…and we always were instead?”

“That can’t be!” Twilight snapped anxiously. “It just can’t! I can’t see any changeling ever being any friend of anyone in Equestria!”

“And yet Spike has managed just fine as the changeling’s apparent friend,” Starlight pointed out. “Vanhoover proved that. And Twilight…what if he’s been siding with this changeling so much because all of the rest of us have simply betrayed him too much? No matter why he was led to start down that path, after everything we’ve done to him, everything we’ve put him through, from his perspective…” Starlight hesitated, the next words catching in her throat as not even she enjoyed having to say them. “…what makes you think he’d want to do anything with us at this point?”

Twilight squeezed her eyes shut, fighting back tears. “So what would you have me do about it?” she asked, more demanded.

“I don’t know,” Starlight admitted. “I wish, for everyone’s sake, that I did. But taking him back by force like you’ve been trying certainly can’t be it.”

“And why not?”

“Because that’s not friendship, Twilight! It’s not peace, it’s not trust! And you’re going to need all of those in order to get Spike back now.”

“How would you know?” Twilight argued, tears starting to flow despite her attempts to keep them back. “You haven’t known friendship like I have!”

“Then maybe you don’t know friendship as well as you think!” Starlight blurted out before she could stop herself. “Friends don’t do things like this because they don’t want to admit and face that they messed up!”

A long moment of cold silence then followed, in which Twilight just gaped at Starlight, stunned for her chilling remark. Seeing her face only made Starlight regret saying it instantly, and seeing she had gotten very negative and unsupportive of Twilight with all of her accusing for the past several minutes of the conversation, Starlight decided it was time to switch gears and provide some support like she had originally hoped.

“Look,” she continued gently, playing with her hooves, “the gist of what I wanted to say is this; I know me and the rest of the girls have all probably seemed like awful friends after what happened yesterday. But we’re only doing it…because we’re such good friends to you, Twilight.” She stopped to lick her lips, pondering how she wanted to phrase this. “Friendship isn’t just blind loyalty to the one friend, after all. Friendship means occasionally having to stand up to your friends and oppose and disagree with them when they start to veer down dark paths, to try and lure such a friend back onto a better path…because we are friends. Twilight, we care for you as our friend so much that we don’t want to see you hurt yourself doing what is ultimately the wrong decision. You deserve better than that. Unfortunately…we didn’t see any other way to do it…but to stop doing anything that would support you in your attempts to go down those dark paths. We’re only doing this Twilight, because we want to see you on a better path than that.”

Twilight was quiet for a long moment. “…so we’re all still friends, then?” she asked softly, looking a little reassured.

“Of course we are, Twilight,” Starlight said with an encouraging grin. “And we want to help you, too. We haven’t abandoned you. We just…can’t follow you on the path you’ve chosen. We’re trying to show you that, just maybe, there are better ways to follow…and we’d like it if you’d take the time to seriously consider them.”

Twilight nodded to herself slowly, wiping her eyes with the back of her hooves. She still seemed to have doubts about what the truth could be though. “But Starlight,” she murmured softly, “how do you know? How do you know that my way really is the wrong way, and it’s not your way that is in fact the wrong way, and we’d only be leading ourselves into a changeling trap following it? How do you know?”

Starlight considered the question for a moment. “I suppose I don’t,” she admitted with reluctance. “Not definitively. But…I do have faith that it is right, or at least much closer to it. Above all…it just feels like it’s the right thing to do.” She gave Twilight an encouraging grin, resting her hoof on the princess’s shoulder again. “Can you please at least give it some serious thought?”

Twilight was quiet for a moment then slowly nodded her head. “Okay,” she agreed.

Starlight’s grin grew. “That’s all we ask, for now,” she promised.

They sat in silence for a long moment, pondering the matter to themselves. Twilight snuffled a few times and wiped her nose with the back of her hoof. Her gaze then wandered to the nearby window, blankly staring out it. Eventually though, her brow furrowed and she rose to trot up to it.

Starlight, puzzled, followed. “What’s up?” she asked

“That,” Twilight responded as she pointed a hoof at a distant and dark speck in the sky, appearing to be getting bigger. “Can you tell what it is?”

Starlight squinted her eyes at it for a second. “A parasprite?” she asked aloud, but then shook her head. “No, it’s clearly too big for that…”

Twilight kept squinting at it for a second until the object grew bigger as it speedily loomed closer, at which point her eyes went wide with alarm. “Get down!” she declared, ducking down behind the windowsill.

Starlight quickly followed, and did so just in time for a grey pegasus mare to zoom through the open window and slam into the stack of boxes Twilight had been moving, throwing the books within everywhere. Starlight and Twilight rose to their hooves again, moving towards the mess as the pegasus kicked a box that had fallen atop of her off, revealing her identity. Starlight recognized her as Ponyville’s local mail carrier, but also realized that she still hadn’t gotten the poor mare’s name down. What was it—Derpy? Ditzy? Muffins?

Whatever her name was, she was unfazed by the crash and cheerily carried on with her job, silently pulling a letter out from her bag and offering it towards the two mares with a grin. “Oh, a letter!” Twilight declared in understanding, taking a step closer to take it with her magic. “Finally, maybe Princess Celestia has found something in the search she can tell me for a change…”

But the grey mail carrier wouldn’t let go of the letter as Twilight tried to tug it away with her magic. Once Twilight released her hold on it, the mare shook her head politely at Twilight to show the letter wasn’t for her and instead turned to Starlight, offering it directly to her.

“For me?” Starlight asked, surprised, as she hadn’t been expecting any mail, not by traditional mail carrier at least. But when she accepted the letter in her magic and brought up to her face, she saw her name was indeed prettily written upon the front of the envelope, though the writing was unfamiliar. She proceeded to open the flap and pull out the piece of parchment within. “But…who’d be sending me a letter…?”

Author's Note

I'd say you have three guesses on what that letter is, and the first two don't count...but something tells me most of you aren't even going to need that much. :rainbowlaugh:

But for those who've been wondering about when we were going to start reaching that point in things...does this answer that for you? :raritywink:

The first part of the chapter summing up what had transpired between this chapter and the last was originally much simpler, but I kept coming back and editing it, expanding upon it, and indeed gave it another good edit while prepping it for posting tonight. Think I've got it satisfactorily settled without messing things for me in future chapters.

And now for the less appealing news...

I enjoy reading all your comments and speculation about where things are going and what ought to happen in response to given events, so much so that they do help influence the finer details within the story--repeatedly, I have made various changes to upcoming parts of the story as a result of such input. And we've reached such a point again, because reader comments the past couple of chapters have made me dissatisfied with the next few upcoming chapters and how they're written presently, and so I have devised an alternate take on them that I'd like to write and use instead.

But that's going to take time, and as I've been especially busy at work the past week or so--and it might not let up for the the rest of the month too--and having been getting as much writing done as I'd like (which frustrates me to no end), I'm going to need a little more time to get, at the very least, the next chapter prepped and ready for posting, so we're going to have to skip posting a new chapter this next Monday and instead wait until next Friday for the next new chapter, so only one new chapter next week.

And I know, I know, you don't want to have to wait longer for another chapter, and I don't want to make you all wait like that either...but that darn real life is often persistent enough that sometimes you just can't ignore it. :rainbowlaugh: At any rate, I thank you for your patience, and I'll let you know of any new developments or any further delays on this when I post the next chapter next Friday. :twilightsmile:

Edits made to chapter as of 8/14/2017

Loose End

Author's Note

First off, in case you missed my blog post about it, the last chapter was edited over the weekend, mostly for improved clarity, but a few new minor points were added, so I urge you to at least skim through it again to make sure you're all up to speed if you haven't already.

Second, as discussed before, this is the first chapter that I have decided to newly revise last minute (everything after the discussion on chess is pretty much brand new to the story). I've already got the next two chapters fully revised accordingly too, but I've still got more to revise and haven't gotten any all-new chapters written from where I had left off writing the story since these revisions began, so to play it safe, I will again be skipping uploading next Monday and hold off on posting a new chapter until next Friday.

I again thank you all for your patience during this--I really feel these revisions have helped greatly for this section of the story and will pay off in the end. Hopefully I will be able to return to the usual biweekly posting schedule of before shortly. :twilightsmile:

Loose End

Convincing Ember to side with Spike and Thorax had been relatively easy, largely because she already trusted Spike quite well, and even before she had found them she had already come to suspect that this mess had started from, in Ember’s words, “Equestria being stupid.” She was a little suspicious of Thorax initially, and him of her, but mostly because their two races did have a less than favorable past history and the two were more than familiar with that. Once Ember got to know Thorax a bit better and heard Spike’s defense of the changeling’s character though, the young dragon lord agreed that they were being treated unfairly, and she decided then and there that she would put an end to it by going right to the source. The three then came up with the plan that Ember would go and meet with Twilight, using her own political weight in trying and get Twilight to at least give up the chase. Ember seemed confident at the time that she could manage at least that much if nothing else, but nonetheless, the question still came up on what would happen should Twilight and the other ponies remain unmoved afterwards.

“If it comes to that, I’ll have you two escorted back into the Dragon Lands,” Ember promised with finality. “You two can stay there.”

“With the dragons?” Thorax repeated, sounding skeptical. “No offense, Dragon Lord Ember, but will your fellow dragons really be any more willing to accept Spike and I than the ponies of Equestria have been?”

“They aren’t going to get a say in the matter,” Ember promised. “If any dragon takes issue to a changeling being around, they can come to me. I’ll set them straight.”

And with that, the plan was set, and Ember made preparations for the trip to Ponyville. While she was doing that, Ember decided to put Spike, Thorax, and their airship someplace isolated from the pony population so to be safe from capture while also not too considerably far away and still within Equestrian borders. Therefore, Ember and her escort of two fully grown dragons led the Vergilius to a secluded area a bit further west from where Ember had found them, but still quite securely within Equestria. This area was not populated by ponies for no reason other than apparent chance; none had decided to come looking to settle there yet, and it was far enough into the more sparsely-populated south that there wasn’t a pressing need to.

But because it was rare for ponies to come through the area, the dragons had unofficially laid partial claim to it, using the area to roost and rest during traveling. So Ember thought that the Vergilius’s presence there would go completely unnoticed except by dragon eyes, who all answered to Ember of course and would not cause trouble without getting trouble back from Ember—though it turned out the region was presently empty of even any other dragons and a moot point, but it was for the better as Spike and Thorax felt safer with the seclusion. At any rate, Spike and Thorax waited there while Ember and her two escorts went off to confront Twilight and testify on their behalf. They didn’t have to wait much more than a day, but by the end of it Ember returned to the Vergilius with news of Twilight’s verdict—which was unchanged from before.

After learning this, the moods of those onboard were left mixed, but not unexpected for each respective individual. Spike was generally unsurprised and bitter, Thorax was disappointed, and Ember just fumed at Twilight’s “gall,” as she put it. Still, Ember hadn’t lost all hope just yet, and decided they ought to lie in wait somewhere awhile longer still, in hopes that Twilight or at least somepony else of authority would still come to their senses and seek to make amends properly…though Ember very much wanted it to be Twilight. Nonetheless, they agreed it was time to finally depart from Equestria, and as Ember had promised, she gave Thorax the needed instructions to set a course for the Dragon Realms.

The plan upon arriving was that they would then be more legally within Ember’s jurisdiction and protection as she was the leader of the lands, but also be in an obvious location where all three of them could reasonably be found should anyone in Equestria come along seeking diplomacy. Though Ember welcomed the two to go ahead and make themselves comfortable in the lands however they wished, Spike and Thorax, still aching from the aftermath of fleeing Vanhoover, were hesitant to do anything to settle down just yet and instead struck a deal to remain in a small and unpopulated valley just barely within the Dragon Realms border to stay and wait for now.

Once here, Thorax kept the air yacht stationary, hanging in the air roughly over the center of the chosen location, but opted not to land for now. His thinking was that this would leave the airship ready and able to flee the area quickly assuming it ever had to while also be making fairly minimal use of its magical power supply—of which there was still a little more than half remaining. Ember assured him that all of this wouldn’t be necessary though; she and her two adult dragon escorts were standing guard, planned to take down any threats that might come to the craft and crew, and could call in hundreds more to help easily if needed from that spot. But Thorax urged her not to resort to that though, preferring to keep the peace. Enough trouble had already been brought about because of him; he was not eager to add to it further still.

So there they waited. Ember’s two escorts assigned to guard their leader, who weren’t an especially chatty pair, typically spent their time taking turns patrolling the area, never straying far from the airship, either flying around the area or roosting somewhere within immediate sight. At least twice a day they would alternate in sending one out who’d go and fly out and about Equestria to try and learn any new updates—especially anything in regards to any Equestrian attempt to make peace with them—and come back by the end of the day to report in, but that was about the full extent of their contact with the two. Ember, however, opted to stay aboard the airship with Spike and Thorax so she could personally watch over them (when asked if this would disrupt her duties as dragon lord, Ember assured them this wasn’t the case, as usually her duties could be summed up as telling feuding dragons to “knock it off” and they could come to her for that). Having spent the past few of days aboard the Vergilius on their own, the added company of Ember certainly wasn’t undesired, especially for Spike, who found Ember saw eye to eye with him on many things.

They had little other contact from the other dragons in the land, most of whom would all be found much deeper into the territory, but also because at Thorax’s request, who was still leery of the idea of being within dragon territory at all, Ember ensured the rest of the dragons kept away and only informed “those who needed to know” that she was even back in the realms at all. Thorax ultimately became glad that he made this request, because while he was quickly coming to trust in Ember as much as Spike did, they were both quickly reminded during her stay aboard the airship that Ember was still a born and raised dragon. And as such, there was the odd hiccup every now and then.

For example, whenever there was something Ember decided she wanted, whether it was hers or not, she just took whatever it might be as much as she wanted without asking. This was especially a problem with the food stocks, so Spike sat down with her to point out that they only had so much food supplies and that they needed to conserve them, as well as explaining how it was more polite to ask for something that wasn’t already hers first before taking. But Ember pointed out that they could just get more foodstuffs there in the valley they hovered over (which wasn’t lush per se, but still wasn’t void of edibles either) and she didn’t really understand the concept of “politely asking for things.” It ended up being a very long discussion because of that, but eventually they got Ember to agree to do it simply because they asked her to.

Ember also seemed to have no sense of respecting privacy, as she tended to barge into any room without consideration of whatever someone might be doing within and didn’t seem to understand why that might be a problem at all. It became obvious after she walked in on Spike while in the middle of using the head, leading to an embarrassing discussion about why that was a problem that Spike refused to relate in any detail to Thorax (who was elsewhere on the air yacht at the time) later. The discussion was elaborated on later when Ember did it again when she walked in on Thorax in the middle of bathing in the main head (startling the poor changeling half to death), as Ember did not realize this included bathing too.

Thorax also observed that while the emotions he sensed off of Ember included much of the usual array of emotions, there was almost always a notable degree of general annoyance tacked on. He noticed the escorting adult dragons had the same thing. It wasn’t always annoyance for anything specific, it just seemed to be the cultural norm for dragons to be perpetually annoyed at something, if anything at all. As annoyance wasn’t a particularly nourishing emotion for the changeling, being continuously exposed to it had its minor downfalls. On the upside though, Thorax took note that wherever there was a rise in the mildly-tart emotion somewhere on the Vergilius, that was generally where Ember was at, allowing him to discreetly keep tabs on her location if needed.

This proved beneficial, because Ember also turned out to be curious like a cat. Though she acted like she had been on plenty of airships prior to now to the point that she’d staunchly insist on it if asked, it was clear to Spike and Thorax she never actually had before in her life, and was fascinated by all the things aboard the air yacht she had never seen before in the Dragon Realms. And whatever she found fascinating she tended to meddle with. Thorax had to have a lengthy talk with her about how the tethering cables that strapped the boat-like gondola of the Vergilius to its envelope of lifting gas were very important to keep in place, and no, the gondola could not keep flying without being attached to that envelope still.

The thing she found the most especially fascinating though was the most mundane; the two toilets aboard the airship. They were not exactly flush toilets—all they did when “flushed” was drain everything down into a septic tank located directly underneath for temporary storage until the contents could be more properly disposed of at an airship yard. But it turned out that dragons barely even had the concept of “outhouses,” as the general practice in the dragon realms was that, when nature called, one just dug a hole wherever they happened to be at. So Ember took great amusement (to the point she giggled every time while using one) with the toilets aboard the Vergilius, seeing them as “holes that dug and buried themselves.”

These antics aside though, the seriousness of the situation that had brought all of them here still weighed heavily on their minds. Their location wasn’t particularly close to any radio transmission sources, especially public access ones—which Thorax especially lamented when he discovered he couldn’t tune in and listen to a new episode of Doctor Hooves that was airing. In fact, they were technically outside Equestria’s established broadcast area now, but they were still able to pick up the odd transmission from other airships passing close to the region, or from the wayward transmission that ended up crossing the gap between lands whether intentionally or not. Through these, they were semi-able to keep continued tabs on Equestria’s ongoing search for them, listening for any new developments.

Unfortunately, in the days following the disastrous meeting with Twilight, there was little new to report. The royal guard still had the same orders; any airships found that matched the Vergilius’s description were to be detained along with its crew until confirmed if the right craft or not by a pony of authority, presumably one of the princesses. Any citizens with any information pertaining to the Vergilius or the two waywards flying it were urged to come forward. The reports the escorting dragon sent out into Equestria to gather information always reported much the same. Beyond that, there seemed to be little else to learn except, obviously, Equestria hadn’t found what they were searching for. Which, for Spike and Thorax, was a good thing. Unfortunately, it seemed the search wouldn’t be ceasing anytime soon and most ponies involved seemed to be viewing them as foes still, and that was not a good thing as it suggested their combined attempts to sway the others away from that still hadn’t worked.

They also had no further contact with Equestria since Ember’s meeting with Twilight either. Thorax reasoned that maybe waiting for them to come to them and act wasn’t working and wondered if it would be better to just come forward and publically reveal themselves, announcing they wanted to talk. But both Spike and Ember took issue with that idea, both expecting that such a reveal would only be abused by those that would seek to do Thorax harm, and neither would stand for that, nor believe it was an acceptable risk to take. A private reveal to somepony specific was instead more desired, but they had run out of ponies they could turn to who also had the power to actually make a difference.

Thorax kept suggesting Princesses Celestia or Luna as possible targets, but the two dragons weren’t willing to put that sort of trust in them just yet; Spike because he still didn’t believe either of the two had been swayed enough from Twilight’s side of things, especially seeing the conditions of the search for them hadn’t changed since it had started, and Ember simply because she saw this as a matter that was Twilight’s fault, and therefore was adamant that Twilight had to be the one who resolved it, not some other “pony princess,” as she put it. But Ember did admit that on her way back after seeing Twilight, she passed Canterlot and dropped a written notice of what had happened in that meeting, so she knew Celestia was more than aware of it. So, knowing of Spike’s ability to use his firebreath to send messages with Celestia and that Thorax had magically blocked it, Ember suggested he lift that enchantment so they could send another letter to Celestia, if only to inquire for an update. Which Thorax would’ve been more than happy to do…except to his great regret, there was no counterspell to the spell he had used to block this ability, so once applied, the only thing to do was wait for it to wear off again…which wouldn’t be for another few weeks.

It all disheartened Thorax, who was starting to wonder if all this hiding they were doing was actually hindering things, not helping them. But he was reminded that there were plenty of other ways to try and contact them or let them know Equestria was willing to talk now, so it wasn’t as if they were entirely unreachable. Spike and Ember both just wanted to play it safe for now and urged Thorax to be patient and continue to wait, seeing how things played out. If things changed, they would act accordingly in response. If they didn’t, then they’d change their approach. But for now, it was believed this was, while granted not ideal, the better option to pursue.

Thorax ultimately relented to this, deciding to trust the judgement of the two dragons, especially since he knew they both had a better understanding of the politics of Equestria than he did. But he also made it clear he didn’t entirely agree with their assessment.

And as the days started to roll by, the more their attempts to try and stir change hadn’t taken root—or at least not quickly enough—started to become apparent. It didn’t help that as the weekend came and went, Spike and Thorax couldn’t help but recall that, had their plans for the weekend gone as they had hoped, they would still be in Vanhoover, taking the Vergilius out for a day cruise with Fly Leaf…and that they had lost that weighed heavily on them, especially Thorax. It also gave Ember time to personally review the situation of the two, and eventually come to the conclusion that this banishment they had been forced into was becoming detrimental to them in more ways than one. She especially had concerns about Spike’s health, noting early on that his scales had “dulled.” Learning that Spike hadn’t gotten to eat much in the way of gems since going into banishment as they just weren’t so readily available to him anymore, she ruled he wasn’t getting enough minerals in his diet that a dragon like him was only going to get from such gems and blamed it happening because of their banishment—yet another reason for her to be unhappy it had happened at all.

Luckily, they were in the Dragon Realms, so Ember simply collected a large bunch of gems from the various stashes in the land and put them before Spike, ordering him to eat as many as he could. And by the time the weekend had ended and the next week began after starting this revised diet, Ember noted that Spike’s scales had started to take on much “healthier shine” that pleased her, and Spike admitted to feeling a bit more energetic too. Unfortunately, it didn’t help them with the root problem that created the need for such action; the fact they were on the run and it didn’t seem to be changing anytime soon. And by the arrival of the Tuesday following their fleeing of Vanhoover, their morale was slowly starting to fall.

On that afternoon, the trio was to be found below deck killing time. Despite their hasty departure from Vanhoover, Spike had still managed to have the foresight to pack his starter set of Ogres & Oubliettes, and as Thorax still couldn’t seem to wrap his head around the game, Spike had taken to trying to teach Ember how to play since her arrival aboard the air yacht. Ember seemed to have a genuine interest in the game, more than Thorax did at least, but she struggled to understand the calculating and statistics that were such a major part of the gameplay, and she felt that distracted from the “action” of the game, frustrating her easily. Nonetheless, Spike persevered in trying to teach Ember how to play, and the two sat about the table in the Vergilius’s saloon playing the game. Thorax sat on a nearby bench placed on the wall opposite from the two dragons, quietly watching them play while his mind pondered about what lay ahead in their immediate future, discouraged by recent events and the lack of progress made in the past few days.

“What are we still waiting for?” he finally asked aloud, forlornly and without warning, interrupting the details on dice rolling Spike and Ember were currently disputing.

The two went silent and glanced at Thorax for a moment. “You mean us staying here, waiting?” Ember asked, not sure she was following. When Thorax simply nodded in confirmation, Ember snorted. “In the hopes that one of those dumb ponies you both associate with will wake up to reality and come looking to do things right for a change.”

Spike gently lowered the guidebook he had been in the middle of consulting. “I…think Thorax is saying there’s clearly no more hope of that happening at this point,” he grumbled simply for clarification and was clearly what he personally had been coming to believe.

Thorax frowned. “More like I’m just thinking about what’s next,” he corrected, rubbing his chitinous hoof along the cotton sleeve of the hoodie he wore. “I mean…how long are we going to keep waiting? Suppose nothing changes anytime soon? Surely, we can’t stay here forever. The Vergilius is eventually going to need to set down to resupply sometime anyway, so isn’t it time that we try to do something to change our circumstances?”

“We are,” Ember assured.

Thorax closed his eyes and took in a deep breath before replying. “With all due respect Dragon Lord Ember, all we’ve done is your approach to the matter, which was basically to protest loudly the offense, then retreat away to a hidden spot where we could not be quickly contacted.”

Spike grunted at this thought, frowning. “As much as I hate to admit it, he does have a point, Ember,” he relented. “If we want them to come and work things out, we should probably figure out a better place where they can come to do that if they wish, some place a bit more accessible to ponies.”

“Fine,” Ember concluded with a shrug, as if it made no difference to her. She jabbed her head in the rough general direction she assumed her two dragon escorts would be roosting outside in the valley below. “Name a place, I’ll have Obsidian or Garnet get the word out, and we can go from there.”

Thorax looked at his hooves for a moment. “And if that’s not enough?” he asked. He straightened. “Look…I’m not trying to be stubborn or questioning the judgment of either of you. I trust Spike, and he trusts you, so whatever you two say is best…I’ll follow your lead still. It’s just…we’re at a tipping point here. It can go either way now. And I just feel like…we aren’t doing enough to…push it our way right now.”

“Mm,” Ember grunted as she turned her head back to the game board on the table between her and Spike. “The problem with pushing is that sometimes they push back. That’s what I’m worried about.” She glanced back at Thorax, looking genuinely concerned. “I want this sorted out too. What those ponies have done to the both of you is far from right, even to a dragon like me. But…” she shook her head. “I’ll be honest. After everything they’ve done thus far…I can’t help but start to think the damage is already done. And you two have been put through enough as it is.” She regarded Spike and Thorax for a moment. “So you two tell me. Do you think they’ll really seek to fix this mess they’ve put you in?”

A moment of silence fell as the trio pondered the question.

“No,” Spike finally replied, playing with one of the pieces on the game board. “I don’t.”

“Spike…” Thorax began, disappointed.

“I know, Thorax, that’s not what you want to hear,” Spike relented with a sigh. “And to be honest…it’s not really what I want to hear either. But…after all this…I’m not seeing them budge enough for it to have been worth it. And…I’m getting tired of trying, Thorax. At some point…we’re just going to have to cut our losses and call it quits, you know.”

Thorax was quiet for a moment. “And if it comes to that?” he asked slowly, the words feeling tight in his throat as he forced them out.

“Well,” Ember remarked slowly, and she shrugged half-heartedly, knowing she couldn’t suggest better, “you’re at least safe enough here. So…just stay here, then.”

Spike slumped in his chair though, rumpling the shirt and sweater vest he still habitually wore while understanding what Thorax was saying. “But what about in the long term?” he asked. “What about our future? What are we going to do with ourselves in the Dragon Realms? Ember, I can’t tell you how much I appreciate everything you’ve done for us and continue to do for us, and I admit that we probably stand a better chance here than we do in Equestria…to the point I’m basically ready to say good riddance to Equestria right now…but…at the same time, we still want to be able to have lives of our own…and I think what Thorax’s trying to say is…we’re not convinced we’ll find that in the Dragon Realms.”

Ember was quiet for a moment, picking up the dice and playing with it in her claws. “You’re probably right,” she admitted finally, a confession she was clearly making with reluctance. “The place for you two isn’t among dragons…which is admittedly ironic considering one of you is a dragon…but I don’t know where else to take you two if things with Equestria don’t work out.” She sighed. “I was…sort of hoping that by waiting, I’d give myself time to come up with a better plan, but…”

Thorax made a small grin for encouragement. “It’s okay, Dragon Lord Ember,” he assured her. “We know you’re trying to do everything you can. Like Spike said…we appreciate it greatly.”

Ember threw the dice down on the playing board on the table. “It’s not enough though,” she muttered darkly, frustrated at herself. “And I don’t understand Equestria’s stubbornness over this at all…this really shouldn’t even be a problem and yet it is.”

Spike snorted, propping up his head with one set of claws. “You can understand my frustration with them, then,” he muttered.

“Even more frustrating,” Thorax went on, “is the fact that it’s not universal. These past four moons, Spike and I have met plenty of ponies willing to give a changeling a chance…but they just aren’t ponies in a position that can convince the rest of that. The closest we got to changing that was through Princess Luna…” Thorax sighed, reflecting on how they had gotten utterly no further contact from Luna since her dreamwalking the night before Twilight found them in Vanhoover, and now he didn’t know what it was the princess of the night planned at all anymore. “…but even that doesn’t seem to be going anywhere…even though I wish it did.”

“Clearly, Equestria at large just can’t find it in themselves to forgive a changeling,” Spike muttered in grave disappointment. “And I guess if they can’t be led to do it by now, odds are they aren’t going to anytime soon.” He nodded his head. “Thorax is right…what are we still waiting for? We already know Equestria isn’t going to change its mind at this point, and I’m not inclined to waste my time giving it any more chances it won’t take.”

“Give them some more time,” Ember urged, though whether out of a lingering hope or simple stubbornness, it was hard to tell. “Just a couple more days at most. If nothing has changed in any meaningful way by then, we’ll work out where to go from there. Either way, you can have my vow that I will not be letting this matter go with Equestria anytime soon. They want to do anything with the dragons? Then they’re going to have to get this worked out to my satisfaction first.”

And with that vow, the matter was again postponed for a later date. Ember and Spike eventually returned to their game while Thorax sat watching them, wondering if they were really going to be able to put off facing facts for much longer like this.

For now, though, the conversation moved on to other things, eager to focus on brighter topics. “You know, Thorax, more than two players can play at this game too,” Spike offered a few minutes later, after he and Ember were well back into the game. “Hay, I could even arrange to have you jump into the middle of the game without having to restart if you’d like.”

“Nah,” Thorax said, waving off the offer with one hoof. He grinned. “The dragon lord here is a better player than I am anyway. Honestly, I’d rather play a game of chess…assuming we had the pieces to play.”

Spike chuckled. “You only say that because you know you’re good at it,” he pointed out.

Ember looked up from the playing board. “I’m sorry…chess?”

“It’s a pony game,” Spike explained. “You have a bunch of pieces that you move around trying to capture your opponents king piece.” He jabbed his head in Thorax’s direction. “Fly Leaf taught him how to play one uneventful Saturday, and let’s just say Thorax caught on quick. Their first game ended in a draw, but every game they played after that, Thorax won with increasing speed each time.” He shot a smug glance in Thorax’s direction, who sheepishly avoided eye contact. “Finally, after managing to checkmate her in only two moves, Fly stopped playing chess with him as it was clear she couldn’t ever beat him.” Spike then chuckled, returning his attention to the roleplaying game before him. “She then tried to get me to play a game with her. I’m no fan of chess personally, but I agreed to do it only if she would then play a game of Ogres & Oubliettes with me.”

“What did she say to that?” Ember asked, curious.

Spike smirked. “And I quote: ‘No deal.’” He shook his head in good spirits. “Fly clearly didn’t like roleplay games. Her loss, I say.”

“I think she knew she was just better at other games,” Thorax reasoned.

“Except chess, clearly,” Ember observed with a smirk of her own.

“Well, in my defense, I think that, as a changeling, I was just good at using deception as a tactic and Fly was just prone to falling for it. I still say that last game was a mere stroke of luck on my part.”

“Oh yeah, I’m sure luck had entirely to do with it,” Spike mumbled teasingly.

“It really did. As I recall what happened in that final game, Fly simply made a critical error in her last move without realizing it until—”

“DRAGON LORD EMBER!” a loud voice suddenly bellowed from outside the air yacht, the sound being muted somewhat by the walls of the craft but still loud enough to be clearly heard. “THERE’S A MESSENGER HERE WITH URGENT NEWS!”

Ember was on her feet immediately, grabbing her scepter from where she had left it leaning against the wall, and was bounding up the steps to the main deck above them before either Spike or Thorax had much time to react. Nonetheless, they started to follow right behind her, arriving in the control cabin just a few seconds after she did. Once there though, she silently motioned for the two to wait there for a second before proceeding out onto the main deck. Spike and Thorax moved to where they could watch and listen through the open hatch to the cabin. Hovering directly beside the Vergilius was one of the escort dragons, the adult’s head so large that it nearly filled the space between the deck and the ship’s lifting envelope hanging above them. He made a salute as Ember appeared on the deck. A second dragon, a male more closer to Ember’s age and size, also hovered beside the escort, and it was he that grabbed Ember’s attention, especially as she didn’t immediately recognize him.

“And you are?” she inquired, raising an eyebrow at him.

“Zirconium, dragon lord,” the newcomer responded curtly.

Ember wrinkled her snout a little at the name and smirked. “An unfortunate name,” she noted aloud with a little teasing amusement.

“Yeah, well, it’s the only one I’ve got, so what of it?” Zirconium grumbled, folding his arms, annoyed.

Ember simply snorted and turned her attention back to the much larger escort dragon. “Well, spill it, Garnet, what’s this about?” she asked.

The escort, Garnet, pointed a massive claw at the smaller Zirconium. “He came flying in saying he’s relaying a message that had been received from the pony princess, Celestia,” he explained simply.

Ember regarded Zirconium with renewed interest. “Oh!” she said with a grin. “Old sun-butt is finally lifting a hoof to actually do something for a change, huh?” She turned her head to the door of the control cabin where Spike and Thorax still waited within. “Spike! Thorax!” Then, without waiting to see if they were coming out, she turned her attention back to the two male dragons, waving Garnet away. “Go ahead and give us a few, Garnet, and go back to patrolling with Obsidian.”

Garnet nodded then the massive adult dragon turned in the air and flew off again, leaving Zirconium behind. The newcomer dragon then proceeded to swoop down and land on the main deck before Ember, straightening and awaiting further instruction.

“It’s about time we heard something from Equestria,” Ember mumbled while he did this and Spike strolled up to stand beside her, eyeing the newcomer curiously. “I was starting to think they weren’t going to take a hint after all.”

“Nah, just took some time for the message to reach here, I guess,” Zirconium remarked as he briefly turned his head to watch Garnet fly further away from the airship before the larger dragon turned and vanished behind a tall outcropping of rock to resume his patrol as requested. “Her highness is seeking an audience with the two waywards, wanting to talk.”

“About time,” Ember mumbled again, rolling her eyes in frustration. She then turned to confirm Spike and Thorax had joined the group, but was surprised to see that only Spike stood beside her, Spike glancing up at her confused as he started to realize this himself.

The messenger dragon, meanwhile, nodded his head in the direction of the open door to the control cabin. “So that’s him?” he asked aloud. “The changeling everybody’s all up in arms over?”

Ember twisted around and glanced puzzledly at the doorway, seeing that Thorax had, for some reason, stopped within it and was oddly giving Zirconium a very critical look. She again motioned for him to come join them with her claws. “Yeah, and you’ll treat him with respect,” Ember paused to order the other dragon before glancing back at Thorax to see he hadn’t moved. “C’mon Thorax, get out here so we can talk.”

But Thorax still didn’t move, his eyes locked firmly on Zirconium. “Why are you here?” he asked the dragon aloud suddenly in a slow and deliberate tone.

Zirconium had his eyes locked firmly on the changeling as well and started to step around Ember and Spike so to approach him slowly. “Princess Celestia has sent a message here to the Dragon Lands, inquiring for diplomatic relations and talks in trying and sort out the situation with you, peacefully,” he repeated aloud.

“I got that part,” Thorax said, still not moving, nor did his tone change, to the puzzlement of Spike and Ember, who weren’t certain what was going on. “But why? Why are you here?”

Zirconium smirked, continuing to slowly approach the changeling. Spike and Ember turned themselves so to watch in confusion. “I’m just the messenger,” he explained simply in a knowing tone. “But since you asked, her highness is simply trying to tie up a few loose ends.”

“She’s never cared enough to do so before now,” Thorax pointed out firmly as he watched the male dragon approach him.

“Circumstances have changed,” Zirconium answered. “You’ve created quite a stir lately, you know.”

Seeing that Zirconium’s slow approach was soon going to bring him into the control cabin, Thorax at last took just enough steps to stand outside the doorway, effectively blocking the dragon’s path into the deckhouse. “I didn’t think she was going to even bother anymore.”

“Oh, but she will,” Zirconium promised confidently as he finally came to stand in front of the changeling. His smirk grew as he took in the changeling in the midnight blue hoodie before him. “Her highness would very much like to speak with you.”

Thorax’s eyes narrowed slightly. “I’m sure she does,” he answered.

Greatly confused as to what was going on between the two and seeing that Spike didn’t seem to understand any more than she did, Ember started to take a step towards the pair, about to demand an explanation, but it was then in that moment that both abruptly acted. It was so fast and sudden that she missed who moved first, but in a blink of an eye, both had blocked an attempted blow each had thrown at the other. Recovering quicker than Thorax, Zirconium rapidly tried again, only to have Thorax block that punch from the dragon too, then quickly duck a third from Zirconium’s other fist. By the time he had popped his head back up, Thorax’s horn was alight and charged, promptly using it to fire a highly charged force spell into the dragon’s chest.

It didn’t harm him so much as it caused the tall dragon to stumble backwards, suddenly off-balance, but as he recovered and started to move back towards Thorax, a fury in his eyes, Ember leapt forward to restrain him. “What in the name of bedrock do you think you’re—” she was cut short when, before she could secure a firm hold on the male dragon, he slammed his elbow backwards and into Ember’s snout, the force of the blow throwing her head back and, caught off-guard, led to her falling to the deck, claws clamping over the injury while her scepter tumbled to the deck beside her.

“Hey!” Spike shouted as he raced forward to join the melee.

But Thorax beat him to offending dragon first, horn still charged which he used to fire another spell to force him back. Zirconium attempted to dodge it, taking only a partial impact, leaving him to free to grab Thorax by the hoof as the changeling raised it to strike at the dragon physically. This giving him leverage to his advantage, the dragon was then able to force Thorax sideways and plant a kick into the changeling’s barrel, slamming Thorax hard into the front of the deckhouse.

By that time Spike threw himself at Zirconium, going for the bigger dragon’s legs in hopes this would serve as a weak spot. But he was unfazed by Spike’s ineffective attack and, more annoyed than anything, grabbed Spike by the sweater vest and lifted him clear off the deck before hurling him aside. Scarily, the throw would’ve been enough to send Spike tumbling over the deck railing of the air yacht and fall overboard down to the valley far below, if he didn’t strike a set of tethering cables stringing the Vergilius’s gondola to the lifting envelope instead. This stopped his fall short, leading to him bouncing off the railing and dropping onto the deck, safe but winded for the moment.

Regardless, the close call wasn’t lost on Thorax, and with a loud bellow the changeling pushed off the front of the deckhouse and charged the opposing dragon, lashing out at him with three more spells at the dragon, all fired in rapid succession. All hit the dragon, but other than forcing him back slightly, they seemed to have little effect on him and allowed him to slap Thorax in the face as the changeling reached him, then kick him back down onto the deck.

“Oh, Thorax, Thorax, Thorax!” the dragon ridiculed as he placed one foot down on Thorax’s belly before the changeling could pick himself back up. “You still can’t even bring yourself to use the sort of spells that would’ve ended this fight already, you weakling, but I knew you would and it’ll be your undoing because of it!”

“The hay it is!” Ember suddenly cried as, her snout bleeding, she rejoined the fight, raising her retrieved scepter to strike at their attacker.

Zirconium, merely glancing back at her, snatched the scepter before it made contact with him and tried to rip it out of Ember’s grasp. When Ember’s grip proved firm, he instead lifted his foot off of Thorax and planted a kick to the dragoness’s chest, knocking her back into the railing on the opposite side of the deck were Spike still lay on all fours, trying to catch his breath.

Deciding she had enough then, Ember resorted to a tactic that she found worked to force apart squabbling dragons. “That’s it!” she bellowed before breathing a ball of magenta fire at the opposing dragon. As dragons are naturally fireproof, this normally just disorients them like a slap to the face, often to helping to bring them to their senses, and Ember was hoping it would do this for Zirconium too.

She was not expecting for the dragon to immediately catch aflame and holler in agony as he dropped to the deck and started rolling around trying to put out the flames burning him, the stench of burning flesh quickly striking the air.

The next second revealed why, because after a few flickers of green, his magical disguise collapsed completely under the flames and with a whoosh of emerald magic that only helped to partly disrupt the flames burning him revealed the changeling that had been hidden underneath. Before Ember could recover from her shock at this, Thorax, who didn’t react to the changeling’s disguise failing at all, jumped to his hooves and darted to the changeling’s side, using his magic to both try and hold him still and try to put out the lingering flames that had already burned most of one side of the intruding changeling’s body.

“Hold still, you fool!” Thorax hissed over the changeling’s cries of pain as he found that, despite his obvious attempts to help him, the enemy changeling kept trying to resist and throw off the advances of the other changeling. “I’m trying to help you!”

Ember hurried forward to assist and, not affected by the lingering flames, was able to do what Thorax could not and physically grab the burning changeling and quickly slap out the fire with her claws. Once she had, Thorax reasserted control and used his magic to keep the changeling still while surveying the damage. It was not good—the changeling’s chitin was scorched and/or blistering over most of the left side of his body, with most of these burns concentrated mostly on his upper body and left shoulder, where most of Ember’s fireball had initially struck him. His left wing had also become twisted as if it had slightly melted from the heat of the fire. The changeling was clearly in pain too, because although his hollering had lessened, it was clearly mostly out of sheer willpower, his face contorted and scrunched in a perpetual grimace as he fought against the barrage of pain he was feeling.

Though he was no healer, Thorax knew he needed immediate treatment. He noticed Spike joining the group finally, the little dragon’s eyes wide and his breathing still heavy as he recovered from being winded, and had lost his false eyeglasses during the scuffle but otherwise appeared unharmed. Thorax turned his head to urgently look in his direction. “Spike, run below deck and grab the first aid kit we packed, quickly!”

“Right,” Spike mumbled and tore his gaze away from the injured changeling to run for the deckhouse.

Noticing that Ember on his other side had pulled back to sit herself down beside the row of suspension cable anchors that ran down the middle of the main deck, Thorax turned his head to look in her direction, seeing she was pinching the bridge of her injured snout with her claws in an attempt to staunch the red blood still leaking from her nostrils. “Dragon Lord Ember, are you going to be—?”

“I’m fine,” Ember barked, waving him off with her free hand. “You keep doing whatever it is you’re trying to do!”

So Thorax did, turning his attention back to the changeling before him and proceeding to hawk up a ball of changeling gel that he then spat onto the other changeling’s burns, proceeding to spread the gel over the injuries with his hooves. The gel, upon drying, would act like a makeshift bandage, and it was Thorax’s hope it would also soothe the burns at least slightly too, easing the changeling’s agony.

The changeling was more focused on other things though, attempting to lift his head to stare both incredulously and in irritation as he watched Thorax do this. “What are you doing?” he asked, weakly hissing the words out through clenched teeth, gritted as he struggled to bear through the pain he was in. “I was just trying to attack you all!”

“Nobody’s perfect,” Thorax quipped flatly in reply, more focused on spreading the gel on the changeling’s burns. He paused to hawk up another ball of the gel before gazing at the changeling’s face, studying it closely. “I know you, don’t I?” he asked next. The changeling didn’t reply, but his eyes narrowed into a scowl which only served to confirm Thorax’s suspicions. “Yes, you’re Julius, aren’t you?” he went on speaking. “We both served for about year in the thirty-forth squadron of aggressores before you were promoted to the rank of legionary.”

The changeling, Julius, let out an annoyed hiss. “And you stayed an aggressor, because you were too pathetic to even try and fight most of the time,” he ridiculed back in reply.

“Aggressor?” Ember repeated, listening to the conversation.

“Being translated, an invader,” Thorax distractedly explained for her benefit. “It’s a low-standing military rank in the hive.”

Ember’s eyebrows went up as she peered at him past the claws she was still pinching her snout with. “You were a soldier?”

“Reluctantly,” Thorax emphasized sternly.

Julius let out a weak and scorning chuckle. “He hated it, the weakling,” he grumbled, amused by Thorax’s deepening frown as the subject persisted. “Couldn’t bring himself to even strike the trainers most of the time, let alone an actual enemy, and you could forget about him actually trying to kill anyone, no matter the circumstance.” He lifted his head up slightly to peer at Ember. “You’ve actually done him a favor striking me down like you did, dragon, as the weakling here was never going to do anything to really fight back and stop me.”

“There are other ways to solve a problem than with violence,” Thorax intoned flatly as he worked. “That’s what we were taught as nymphs.”

“Except with your way, you’d never resort to violence at all, you pathetic excuse for a changeling,” Julius grumbled, watching Thorax with a glare as the other changeling spat another ball of gel onto his burned chitin. “Here you are trying to heal the one who attacked you, after all.”

“You’re darn lucky he’s here to even try,” Spike growled as he abruptly returned, running up with the first aid kit in tow, which he opened, set down on the deck beside Thorax, and pushed towards his changeling friend so he could see inside. “You probably wouldn’t have gotten the same treatment from either me or Ember.” He paused to study the defiant but injured changeling, wincing slightly at the extensive burning the changeling faced. “Is it even worth it, Thorax?” he couldn’t help but ask. “These burns look awful, and I don’t think our little kit is going to have enough to treat them.”

“I’ll make do,” Thorax vowed as he sifted through the kit’s contents while passing Spike a roll of gauze with his magic. “Go help Ember with her snout.”

Spike reluctantly took the roll and ambled over to Ember, who accepted some of the gauze to press into her bleeding snout. Meanwhile, Thorax found a container of burn treatment and pulled it out, using it to treat the burns he hadn’t yet covered with gel. It was then that Julius, believing Thorax to be distracted, started to raise his head and light his horn, about to attack again with his magic, but almost distractedly, Thorax spat another ball of gel onto the horn, pinning it to the deck below Julius and disrupting his magic enough that his horn went dark again without firing off any spells.

The quick reaction surprised Julius, and for a moment he expressed it by chuckling weakly. This apparently left him short on breath because he started to pant afterwards and for a moment his expression went vacant. Then, furrowing his brow in puzzlement, he glanced at Thorax again, looking genuinely confused. “You are certainly more capable than I was expecting at least,” he muttered to himself. “I had thought you to be extremely weak and lethargic with hunger by now than you are.”

“Hunger hasn’t been a problem for me for some moons now,” Thorax explained simply.

“Informis Una—how? You’ve been away from the support of hive and on your own for so long…”

“I’m not alone.” Thorax glanced at Spike and Ember, who glanced back, still watching and listening to the conversation. “I have friends I can count on. That supports me…far more than you give it credit for.”

Julius scowled again. “Right. Friends. The ideals of prey you were always so big on.”

“You should try them.”

“And betray my race like you did?”

“I’ve betrayed no one. I did all of this to try and find a better way of life for changelings.”

Julius turned sarcastic. “And how has that turned out for you?”

Thorax shrugged simply. “I’m here, aren’t I? Alive, healthy, strong enough to help stop your attacks, capable enough to try and treat your injuries, and apparently enough of a threat for the queen to send you to kill me.” This gave Julius pause for a moment, gaze turning vacant again as he lay there, panting, realizing Thorax had a point. Thorax, however, pressed on with a different subject. “That’s why you’re here, isn’t it?” he asked. “You were sent here to kill me.”

Julius didn’t hide it. “Yes.”

“But why?” Thorax asked, confused by this. “What does Queen Chrysalis stand to gain from it? I know she hasn’t bothered to even try to find me ever since I left the hive before, so what changed? Why is she suddenly trying to get me out of the picture?”

“Like I said…you’re a loose end she wants wrapped up.”

“And what’s happened to make that suddenly so important to her?” Thorax gazed at him in concern. “What is the hive up to?”

Julius glared defiantly back at him, but the glare was weakened by his continued panting which had been steadily getting more and more ragged, like he could no longer draw in a full breath, even though Thorax could clearly see he was. “Why should I tell you anything?”

Thorax gazed at him calmly for a moment, before turning back to his treating of the changeling’s wounds. “I’m trying to save your life, aren’t I?”

Julius went quiet for a long moment, stumped by this. “Why are you doing this?” he asked finally, somewhat incredulously, while turning very confused again. “I just attacked you and your allies, with orders to kill you and show you all no mercy.”

“He’s got a point,” Spike couldn’t help but interject here, standing at Ember’s side as she sat on the deck, pressing gauze to her snout. “He’s only going to be a danger to us, alive.”

“I know,” Thorax responded.

“Then tell me why you’re being so stupid to do this!” Julius demanded with as much force as he could muster, which wasn’t terribly much at the moment. “Is it because you want to pry answers out of me?”

“No, I doubt you’re going to stay conscious long enough to do so,” Thorax answered truthfully, and looked Julius seriously in the eye. “It’s because only enemies wouldn’t help each other like this. And I am not your enemy, Julius. I never was.”

“I am now.”

“Only if you make yourself be…but wouldn’t it be easier for you if you had a few less enemies to worry about and a few more allies instead?”

Julius gazed at Thorax blankly for a moment. “Living among prey has really messed with you,” he noted.

“Perhaps,” Thorax relented with a small grin. “But I get their friendship out of it…and with it a sort of nourishing love like you cannot imagine, and I get it simply for being a friend back. No fighting. No trickery. You noted I was far healthier than you were expecting. That’s why. It’s because of friendship. So think about it, Julius. If everyone at the hive had a friend of their own, none of us would ever have to go hungry again, nor would we have to fight anyone to get that. Please…just think about it.”

And Julius did, or so it seemed, as he fell quiet and lapsed into deep thought, unable to do much else as Thorax worked with his wounds. There was little more Thorax could do to treat the injuries, though, and as he watched Julius’s eyes become more and more unfocused and disoriented, he feared it wasn’t enough. He passed a glance back at the two dragons who were watching the proceedings with tense interest, silently wondering what would happen.

Finally, Julius spoke again. “There are two ponies coming, heading for your location right now,” he announced through his panting, which was increasing to the point it was nearly hyperventilation. “They should be arriving near the Horseshoe Bay on the western coast of Equestria before this time tomorrow. Two mares, unicorns, their names are Starlight Glimmer and Trixie Lulamoon.”

Thorax turned his head sharply towards Julius at the familiar names. “What have you done to them?” he demanded coldly.

“Nothing,” Julius replied simply. “Yet. That’ll change after tomorrow. I suggest you find them before then.”

A moment of silence fell as the implications of his statement weighed heavily on the others. “Why are you telling us this?” Ember finally asked.

Julius lifted his head as far as he could, given his weak state and his horn still pinned to the deck with a glob of changeling gel. “You wanted answers, didn’t you?” he asked rhetorically.

This seemed to drain the last of his energy out of him though, and he let his head thump onto the deck again, limbs going limp and his breathing slowing, though Thorax doubted it was because he had finally caught his breath because his breathing had become very labored, like he was struggling to find the strength to keep up the panting he had been doing before. “Valde inusitatum tu es, Thorax,” he muttered in his native language.

Thorax gently placed a hoof over the other changeling’s injured barrel. “Informis Una auxilio tibi tribuit,” he mumbled back in reply.

Julius managed to nod his head a few times, but then his movements grew very sluggish as his eyes glazed over, rolling upwards as his eyelids began fluttering sporadically and frequently, the changeling struggling to stay conscious. Spike, suddenly recalling a tidbit of medical knowledge he had picked up from Twilight once, moved forward and pressed two of his claws to the changeling’s temple.

“His pulse is very sluggish,” he noted aloud, and looked urgently to his friend. “Thorax, I think he might be going into shock because of his burns.”

Thorax nodded his head urgently, turning all business again as he pushed the open first aid kit beside him out of the way. “Right,” he announced, rising to his hooves. “Spike, the closet beside the main head, go and pull everything out of it, including the shelves. Dragon Lord Ember, if you’re up to it, help me keep Julius steady while I move him below deck.”

While Spike ran ahead to carry out the requested task, Thorax cautiously picked up the injured changeling with his magic, lifting him into the air as levelly as he could while Ember, hurriedly stuffing gauze into her nostrils so to keep her bleeding nose at bay and keep her claws free, followed him, gently giving Julius’s increasingly limp body nudges to try and keep it from shifting positions too much. Carefully, they moved the changeling back into the deckhouse and down the steps leading into the lower deck. There, Spike was already at the closet in question, ripping out everything that was in it and tossing it to one side for now.

While he was doing this, Thorax brought Julius to the saloon table nearby, whipping his hoof across it to swipe the forgotten game of Ogres & Oubliettes they had left there off the table, placing Julius, now unconscious, down on the table in its place. Then, while Ember watched with a mixture of fascination and disgust, Thorax proceeded to hawk up more and more changeling gel which he started to stretch out with his hooves and wrap around Julius’s form, starting with his hind legs and moving on up from there. By the time Spike finished pulling everything out of the closet and moved to watch too, it was clear Thorax was creating a cocoon around the other changeling.

Once he was halfway up Julius’s body, slowly sliding the changeling off the table and into the rapidly forming cocoon, Thorax switched to stretching the gel over Julius’s head, forming a sort of hood. Then, at the top of this, he sculpted a small bubble, which he then reared up to cough up some kind of clear fluid into it that Ember didn’t recognize, but that Spike did; it was partially digested emotion. Once a fair amount was collected into the bubble, Thorax then sealed it up and pointed his horn at the bubble, casting a spell into it. The bubble sparkled with cyan energy for a moment then proceeded to case a mild yellow-green glow as it began to dribble a semi-clear slime into the cocoon itself, pouring over Julius’s form as it quickly started to fill its interior. As it did so, Thorax finished sealing up the cocoon, and by the time he had done so, the slime had filled the cocoon enough that it started to submerge Julius’s head.

Ember winced slightly as she watched Julius start to twitch and struggle within the cocoon, bubbles gushing out of his mouth. “Can he breathe in there?” she asked urgently.

“Yes,” Thorax promised as he put the finishing touches on the cocoon. “His lungs just need a moment to adjust to breathing the nutrient bath.”

“Nutrient bath?” Ember murmured to herself, watching as Julius quickly adjusted as promised and began to hang calmly within the slime-filled cocoon.

Thorax didn’t answer as he lifted the now-finished cocoon in his magic, carrying it upright over to the emptied closet and adhering the stem of the cocoon to its roof, letting it hang loosely within the small space. Thorax released his magic cautiously to make sure the cocoon was properly in place then backed out of the closet again, joining the others as they all silently moved to study the cocoon, alit with the faint glow of the bubble at its top that was presumably still producing more of the slime filling it.

Ember tilted her head at it, confused about what good this was all for. “What is it?” she asked aloud, her voice somewhat nasally due to the gauze still shoved in her nose.

“A healing cocoon,” Thorax replied. “It’ll keep Julius submerged in a nourishing nutrient bath that will keep him fed, hydrated, and filled with the nutrients needed while also easing him into a deep sleep, a sort of hibernation, so his body can dedicate all the energy it can to healing and repairing itself.”

“So that’s what a completed one looks like,” Spike mumbled to himself, entranced as he watched Julius hang within it.

Ember glanced at Thorax. “Will it help?”

Thorax shook his head slowly. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “But it should at least keep him alive for the moment.”

A long moment of silence fell as they all watched the cocoon warily.

Finally, Spike glanced at Thorax. “You know him?” he asked.

Thorax nodded slowly with a sigh. “We served together as invaders for a time…we never ever saw eye to eye, though, and the moment he was promoted, we went our separate ways. Frankly, I’m surprised he recalled any about me. I did not like him much, and I am quite certain he hated me.”

“Is it just a coincidence that he was the one sent for you?” Ember asked, glancing again at Thorax too.

Thorax again couldn’t confirm or deny it. “I don’t know. It’s easily possible. In the hive, all the changelings typically have some kind of direct contact with each other at some point.”

“Why was he sent at all?” Spike asked, confused about this.

“I don’t know,” Thorax repeated. He frowned. “All I know is that something has happened that has made the fact I am running free a matter of concern to Queen Chrysalis, and she is taking steps to change that, when before she had never bothered…I would’ve seen clear signs of that long before now if she had.”

Another moment of silence fell as the trio worked to try and puzzle this out.

“How did you know he was a changeling, anyway?” Ember asked suddenly. “You didn’t seem to be at all surprised by that.”

“Smell,” Thorax answered, and glanced back at the other two. “Neither of you would have the noses built to notice it, but all changelings produce an identifying pheromone that marks them as a changeling to other changelings, even when disguised.”

“And you could smell that on him even while he was disguised as a dragon,” Spike summarized, catching on.

Thorax nodded. “Almost from the second he set foot on the main deck,” he confirmed, and frowned. “Julius wasn’t even trying to hide that fact from me…he wanted me to know he was a changeling from the start…that might have actually taken the advantage from him, in retrospect…he should’ve jumped us when we all still suspected nothing.”

Ember, meanwhile, was shaking her head. “I should’ve realized something was off about him from the start too though,” she muttered. “I should’ve been clued in the moment he claimed his name was, of all things, Zirconium.”

“The fake gem,” Spike mumbled to himself with a nod. He shrugged. “I’ll admit though…it was fitting.” He went quiet for a moment then glanced at Thorax. “Why did you save him…really?”

Thorax didn’t reply right away. “Someone had to.”

Another moment of silence passed, but then Thorax turned and started to head back for the steps leading up into the control cabin. The others turned to watch him.

“So what now?” Ember asked, both dragons moving belatedly to follow him.

“Now we go and find Starlight and Trixie,” Thorax replied as he marched up the steps.

“What?” Spike declared, and ran ahead so to face Thorax directly as they arrived back in the control cabin. “You sure that’s wise?”

“We know where to look for them,” Thorax pointed out as he marched to the Vergilius’s controls and promptly started to turn the airship about, setting a course back for Equestria.

“It could be a changeling trap for all we know,” Ember reasoned as she watched Thorax.

“It could,” Thorax agreed. He finished setting the course and putting the air yacht at full throttle. “But I think Julius was telling the truth.”

“What do those two ponies have to do with anything, though?” Ember asked. “And why the hay are they so far from their homes?”

“They’re looking for us,” Thorax replied as he finished with the controls and, locking the controls, left the helm and headed for the doorway leading onto the main deck. “Like Julius had said. Why, I don’t know…but they’re going to be our best hope for answers.” He paused at the door to glance back at Ember. “Dragon Lord Ember…if you want your escorts to come with, you had best gather them now and let them know we’re leaving.”

Ember nodded and followed Thorax out onto the main deck, stopping to make sure the gauze she had shoved up her nose was still holding the bleeding at bay if not stopped it altogether, then launched herself into the air, flying off to quickly find the two escorts and bring them back. Spike meanwhile followed Thorax as he moved to stand at the prow of the air yacht, gazing out at the horizon where Equestria lay beyond.

“Why are we doing this, Thorax?” Spike asked sternly. “We’re not wanted in Equestria.”

“That doesn’t matter right now,” Thorax replied simply.

“Doesn’t matter?” Spike repeated. “It completely matters, Thorax! We could be caught by the authorities, who we don’t know if they’ll side with us or not any more than before! We’re taking a huge risk doing this!”

“We’d be taking a huge risk doing nothing too,” Thorax retorted, turning to face his dragon friend. Spying the false glasses Spike had lost earlier in the scuffle, he scooped them up with his magic and levitated them over, looking them over and observing that they had not been damaged. “The other changelings are up to something, Spike,” he explained as he gently placed the glasses back over Spike’s eyes. “And usually, whenever that happens, trouble follows for Equestria. We need to know what is happening, and right now we’ve only got one lead for answers. Besides…I suspect Starlight and Trixie, if not the rest of Equestria, might be in danger. If I’m right, they could use our help.”

“And after everything they’ve done to us, just what do we owe Equestria?” Spike challenged darkly.

“Probably nothing,” Thorax admitted. “But something’s changed, Spike. And whatever it is…it was important enough that the hive thought it necessary to hunt us down and finish us off, just because I’m suddenly a loose end to them. We’re in danger too…whether we like it or not.”

He turned his gaze back for the horizon. A little grumpy but having nothing immediate to retort Thorax’s point for the moment, Spike followed his gaze. “I still say this is a bad idea,” he grumbled.

“I know,” Thorax replied. He sighed, feeling very troubled. “I just pray, for all of our sakes, that you aren’t right about that.”

Right Thing to Do

Spike was furiously pacing in circles before the desk in the navigation room, but he stopped when Thorax entered, shooting a glare at the changeling though the false eyeglasses he wore. “I’m not doing it, Thorax!” he hollered. “You can’t make me!”

“Please sit down, Spike,” Thorax requested in a dark tone as he closed the door behind him and started to march across the room.

Spike didn’t move though, refusing to take the empty chair standing next to the desk. “After everything they’ve done to us, we owe them absolutely nothing! We have no reason—”

“I said please sit down!” Thorax suddenly snapped, whirling on the dragon.

Spike immediately fell silent, taken aback as he couldn’t recall Thorax ever raising his voice against him like this. Stunned, he stared at Thorax for a moment then obediently let himself drop into the chair as requested.

Thorax paced for a moment of tense silence in front of Spike, gathering his thoughts before he continued. Finally, he turned to face Spike, determinedly pointing a holed hoof at him. “I’m not going to let you do this to yourself, Spike,” he stated firmly.

“Oh, no, no, no, no, I am not to blame for any of this!” Spike objected immediately. “It’s all on them Thorax, not us! They should’ve listened to us from the beginning if they didn’t want this mess to happen! Don’t tell me you haven’t figured out that we could’ve prevented all of this if they had just listened and trusted us, because then they would’ve had you as a valuable ally, providing all sorts of important information Equestria could’ve used to prevent this very invasion Chrysalis is trying now, someone who could’ve potentially served to negotiate with the changelings, and above all, they wouldn’t have been distracted trying to search for us and could’ve instead focused on this invasion!”

“This isn’t about any of that though, and you know it!” Thorax objected. “This is about you, and how you are absolutely livid with them for betraying you, and you refuse to forgive them for it!”

“And why should I?” Spike demanded. “They meant the world to me once, Thorax, and how did they repay that? By throwing it in my face and turning their backs on me, then chasing me all over Equestria like some common crook, just because I wasn’t going to let them abuse you for no good reason! You deserve better than that, and frankly, so do I!”

“Maybe so!” Thorax agreed. “But now you’re putting yourself above their safety and well-being because of it!”

“They banished us, Thorax!” Spike argued. “They made it blatantly clear that they don’t want us around, and if that’s what they want, then balani devoveo, that’s what they’re going to get! I will NOT reward them with my loyalty after they pulled all of that on me! Not now!”

Thorax stared at Spike for a moment, briefly surprised at the dragon’s use of a changeling curse, and realized just how much he had rubbed off on his loyal friend. He shook his head, disappointed in himself. “This is my fault then,” he mumbled to himself darkly as he resumed pacing. “I shouldn’t have let this go on for this long…”

Spike snorted. “You aren’t to blame for any of this any more than me!” he pointed. “If anything, you’re more the victim than I am! Equestria is no ally of yours.”

“We have friends in Equestria, though,” Thorax pointed out gravely. “Fly Leaf, Ragg…”

“Yes, all individual ponies who are good ponies to be sure,” Spike agreed. “But they all answer to leaders who are not!”

Thorax watched Spike for a long moment, sensing Spike’s emotions for a moment, almost tasting the raw fury and aching pain for the betrayal he felt he had suffered. “Spike…you just want this as a chance to get back at her for what happened, isn’t it?” he deduced.

Spike scowled. “Her?”

Thorax nodded. “Twilight. This isn’t about Equestria, the changelings, or the bias that exists against me. This is about you being mad at Princess Twilight, because she didn’t give her support to you, and now you’re wanting to do anything you can to hurt her back.”

Spike’s frown deepened, but he didn’t deny it. “Don’t tell me she doesn’t deserve it,” he growled. “After everything she’s done, she’s proven she doesn’t care a shred for me, not truly! The Twilight I had always believed in wouldn’t have let this go so far! But now I know the Twilight I had believed in doesn’t exist…she never did. Twilight showed her true colors to me when she agreed to banish you.”

Thorax averted his gaze. “Twilight isn’t to blame for my banishment.”

“She’s totally to blame! She was the one in position to have tipped the scales if she wanted to, but she didn’t even hesitate to support the banishment, and—”

“I was the one who convinced Twilight to support my banishment.”

This stopped Spike short, who did a double take and stared at Thorax in shock. Thorax, ashamed, averted his gaze further. For a long moment, neither of them spoke, but then Spike finally asked the question. “…but why?”

“Because I was scared,” Thorax admitted, suddenly fighting tears. “Scared for you. You know I didn’t come to Equestria to cause any sort of trouble, but the longer I was staying, the more it seemed I was, and…I didn’t want to let it continue! I wasn’t seeing any hope of a peaceful solution, and I already knew Princess Cadance, Prince Shining, and Princess Twilight were discussing the possibility of banishing me. I knew from her emotions that Twilight had her misgivings about going through with it, but I thought that if I just relented and accepted the banishment and peacefully left, it’d…limit the amount of damage I’d cause…and spare you any further harm. After everything you had done for me up to that point…Informis Una mihi benedicat, I owed you that much.” Thorax started to approach Spike. “So…when you and I had both been thrown into jail cells after your attempt to break me out and Twilight came down to interrogate me…I told her straight up to go ahead and banish me. And…she listened. Obviously.” Thorax averted his gaze. “Neither of us had any idea at the time that you were only going to voluntarily follow me into banishment…nor did I know the others were going to let you go.”

Spike gaped at him for a moment. “You would’ve died if I didn’t, Thorax,” he reminded, tearing up himself.

Thorax nodded. “I know,” he said simply, his voice cracking a little as his emotions caught in his throat. He stopped to take a deep breath to try and regain his composure.

Spike’s gaze turned vacant and wandered off the changeling before him as he processed this revelation. “Why didn’t you tell me?” he finally asked.

“Why do you think, Spike?” Thorax replied. “I was afraid of how you’d react. I did it trying to protect you from harm, but just look at all the grief it ended up bringing you instead!” He shook his head. “I was afraid you’d only come to hate me for doing that, you, the only friend I had at the time…” he sighed, “…but if you should blame anyone for the banishment…you should blame me.”

Spike shook his head slowly and looked back his changeling friend. “I don’t blame you, Thorax,” he said. “How could I? You meant well, and…you were basically willing to die for my sake over that, and that’s…that’s big, Thorax.” He kept shaking his head. “But Twilight and the rest…their actions in all of this were nothing like that. Not even close to selfless like yours were.” His anger gradually started to return. “I am not about to just let that go! I don’t intend to ever let it go!”

“And see, that’s just it!” Thorax said, turning on the dragon again, but instead of anger, his face was etched with grave concern, so much so Spike almost felt it physically washing over him. “I’ve been sitting to one side and watching as this grudge of yours slowly eats you alive ever since we were trudging away from the Crystal Empire as newly made outcasts. I’ve continually been keeping silent about it, giving myself a whole mess of flimsy excuses to avoid bringing it up, that you’d resolve it on your own, that you were justified in your feelings, and so on!” He gazed at the dragon with utter resolve. “But I will do it no more now. You’ve thrown your life away for me and bent over backwards trying to ensure my happiness at the price of your own…so now let me return the favor, because I’m not going to just stand to one side and let you do this to yourself, not after everything we’ve been through and done together.” He reached out a placed one hoof on Spike’s shoulder. “Let it go, Spike. Please. If not for my sake…then for your own. It’s brought you nothing but grief…and it isn’t going to ever bring you anything else.”

Spike gazed sadly back at Thorax, moved by the changeling’s words, but still not swayed. “Even if I could, Thorax,” he stated sadly, placing a set of claws on Thorax’s hoof, rubbing it sadly against the cotton sleeve of the changeling’s jacket, “it’d only leave us open to the full wrath of the grudge they have been sporting against us.”

“Yes, and we ended up banished because the ponies couldn’t stop holding a grudge and couldn’t let themselves “forgive and forget” past grievances with a perceived enemy,” Thorax agreed. He gazed firmly into Spike’s eyes. “But you of all people should know better than to make the same mistakes they did.”

Spike frowned, shaking his head. “What good will it do at this point, Thorax?” he asked. “The damage has already been done. And it’s not going to just go away.”

“Yes it can,” Thorax stressed. “You haven’t stopped to think about the chance we’ve been given with Starlight and Trixie coming to us for help like this. By helping save Equestria, we have a chance to prove where our loyalties lie, to show that ponies like Princess Twilight don’t need to fear me or you, and maybe prove something to my fellow changelings too…and are you really willing to just let it slip by?” Thorax pulled back from Spike a pace, licking his dry lips. “You know it had always been my plan to try and bring change to both the changelings and the ponies, so they can could set aside their differences at last and be friends. I see this as a chance to do that…but it saddens me you’ve already rejected that vision altogether without even trying to obtain it.”

This struck a chord within Spike and he gaped at Thorax, a little offended. “I still believe and share in that vision too, Thorax!” he stated anxiously.

But Thorax sadly shook his head. “You did, once, in the beginning,” he relented, “but you’ve since stop believing in it a long time ago…and I think you and I both have known that for a long time now.” As Spike was still processing this statement, his eyes wide and stunned, Thorax hung his head with a sigh, and decided to draw the line. “Look Spike, it’s not going to matter what you think about all of this. I’m going to go help with this rescue attempt and help stop this invasion, because, as a changeling, I feel I’m morally responsible for the actions of my fellow changelings. And, again, I see it as a chance to prove to everyone that I am a good changeling, providing a better example for the other changelings to see and possibly paving the way for others to follow in my hoofsteps.” He leaned closer to Spike. “And because, above all else, it is the right thing to do.”

Spike gazed into the changeling’s solid blue eyes, feeling his heart ache as this last statement reminded him that he himself had said something similar when defending Thorax just before they became outcasts.

Thorax then straightened, taking on a formal stance as he continued. “And I know that if I go…you’re going to follow me regardless, because you’ve stuck by my side through all of these long four moons without fail. I know you’re not about to stop now; you wouldn’t be able to live with yourself knowing you had abandoned me to go off into danger without you.” He sighed, tilting his head at Spike. “But I don’t want you to follow because of all of that. I want you to follow because you actually want to, and because you know just as well as I that it’s the right thing to do.”

He gazed sadly but expectantly at Spike for a long moment, awaiting some sort of response. But Spike, sad and greatly conflicted, only stared back, at a loss for words. So, suppressing a sigh, Thorax then started to turn for the door.

“Thorax, I’ve been hurt by Twilight too many times before,” Spike abruptly stated sadly, his voice soft while starting to fight tears again as he said it. “I don’t want to set myself up only to be hurt by her yet again. I can’t. I…I still doubt that she wouldn’t do it again, or that she can ever be swayed to trust you or me, Thorax.”

Thorax paused at the door, and this time he didn’t bother to hide his sigh. “Spike, how could you ever expect them to befriend me…” he said, glancing back at the dragon sitting in his chair, “…if you can’t even befriend them?”

Concluding with that remark then, he then pushed open the door and slipped out of the room, closing the door again behind him and leaving Spike alone in the room to quietly ponder the matter to himself. He remained there for a very long time, thinking and debating in his mind all of his options. Tempers ran high, tears were shed, hearts ached, and depression staved off as far as he could during these tense minutes. Finally, he knew he had come to the only conclusion he could, and bracing himself for what he knew it was going to bring, he finally emerged from the back room again, stepping back out onto the Vergilius’s main deck. He found the others sitting or standing just outside the entrance to the craft’s deckhouse, talking amongst themselves. Hovering next to the airship was one of Ember’s escorts, Obsidian, and looked like he had returned to report in, and now they were discussing that report as they began pitching ideas about how to proceed from here. They all stopped and turned to look at Spike though when he approached the little gathering.

He looked sullen and sad, but above all resolute in his choice, raising his chin as he addressed them. “Hey,” he said gently. “Keeping, uh, keeping busy?”

The others glanced about at one another before their gazes all fell back on Spike again. “We were just discussing how we might rescue Twilight and the others from the changelings while also avoiding detection,” Starlight explained simply, but with a note of tension in her voice, fearing how Spike would react to this. She looked like she might say more, but instead trailed off, deciding to let Spike react to that much first.

But Spike simply nodded to himself, fidgeting sheepishly with his claws as he took a deep breath. “Okay,” he said, then with some hesitation, added, “I’m…I’m going to help rescue them too.”

Trixie expressed the most surprise of the group at this, tilting her head at Spike and furrowing her brow. “I thought you didn’t want anything to do with this,” she remarked aloud.

“I don’t,” Spike admitted firmly. His eyes met with Thorax’s waiting gaze. “But…it’s the right thing to do.”

Thorax slowly broke out into a pleased and proud grin at this. Heartened a little by this show of support, Spike sheepishly returned it. But then his gaze turned serious again and he turned to Starlight, pointing a claw at her.

“I have just one condition,” he told the unicorn, his voice stern. “If we actually pull this off, then after it’s all said and done, you MUST have Thorax entirely exonerated of all charges, and leave him and all he chooses to befriend henceforth alone. No more of this stupid chasing and attacking just because he’s a changeling.”

Starlight looked at Spike with a heavy gaze for a long moment, letting out a small sigh through her nose. “Spike, you know I don’t have the kind of authority to guarantee all of that,” she reminded gently. “No matter how much we all might try and support such a thing happening, you know the final choice ultimately isn’t up to me, but rather the princesses. They will always have the last say in the matter, so long as they are ruling.” She paused to let that sink in for a moment, then took a deep breath and turned resolute. “But by golly, I’m still going to do everything in my power try and make sure it happens anyway.”

Spike gazed at her for a long moment, his expression neutral and unclear if he would agree to that. But finally, he nodded. “All right,” he said, satisfied enough. “That’ll have to do for now.” He jabbed his claw at Starlight one final time. “But I will be holding you to that.”

Starlight nodded, grinning a little. “I don’t doubt that, Spike.”

Spike kept nodding too, not sharing in the grin. “Okay then,” he said, then turned and gazed at the others for a second. He finally shrugged. “Guess I’m in. I’m putting my life on the line for it, and I’m not entirely happy about that, but I’m in.

Ember made a small grin. “Well, there is a fitting dragon saying for this anyway,” she remarked. “You only live once.”

Trixie then immediately clapped her hooves together. “You heard the dragoness!” she declared with definiteness. “I guess we’re doing this!”

“But first, we still need to sort out the matter of those who are tailing us,” Ember interjected quickly, getting them back on the topic they were about to discuss when Spike turned up.

Spike groaned as he immediately caught on. “Oh, don’t tell me…”

Starlight nodded with a wince, and pointed a hoof at Obsidian. “Him and his partner found the trail of two others who have clearly been trailing behind me and Trixie for a while now,” she explained.

“That’s correct,” Obsidian confirmed in the rumbling voice typical of an adult dragon. “Their scent trail was fresh and heading in this same direction. Going by scent alone, they seemed enough like ponies…”

“…but it’s pretty clear to me that they’re changelings, trying to follow Starlight and Trixie,” Thorax finished with a sigh. “Garnet’s out covering the Vergilius’s rear in case they try something for now, but eventually they’re probably going to catch up with us and figure out their targets have hitched a ride, so we were trying to figure out what, if anything, we can do about it.”

“I still say we just outrun them,” Trixie remarked eagerly. “I have no interest in trying to fight them off directly.”

Spike sighed, remembering his promise to assist and bit back his complaints to try and look at the matter positively. “Well, fighting them actually might not be so bad,” he reasoned aloud. “If there’s really only two, we do outnumber them.”

“That doesn’t necessarily guarantee anything though,” Ember pointed out. “I mean, they did just send one changeling to attack us back in the Dragon Realms, and even though he didn’t succeed, he did put up a good fight, so I’d say he still stood a good chance.”

Thorax, however, suddenly perked up. “Wait a minute,” he said and turned to Obsidian. “You said you and Garnet didn’t actually see the pursuers, you just found their scent trail, right?”

“Right,” Obsidian confirmed, nodding his giant head.

“So they probably didn’t see you either, to the best of your knowledge, correct?”

“Right again…unless they observed us in secret, without our knowing.”

Thorax grinned a little. “Then, if we can just get you and Garnet out of sight for a little while, I think I might have an idea to ditch them.” He looked at the others though and his grin turned into a sympathetic wince. “But you all probably aren’t going to like it.”

Author's Note

I wonder how many of you remember the (much) earlier reveal that Thorax had urged Twilight into banishing him...

In other news, I officially finished with the revisions finally as of today, so I'm getting back into writing from where I had left off. The new posting schedule will remain in effect for now while I work to add to my buffer of completed chapters again (it's not quite about to run out, but it has thinned notably during all of this), but hopefully I can return to posting twice a week again once I've done that, maybe in another two or so weeks. :twilightsmile:

Stratagem

They found the airship flying along on its own at a steady clip, heading almost due south. They did not expect to see it here like this, but there it was. There appeared to be no guards stationed anywhere on or around the small craft, or any sign that anyone on it suspected trouble. It appeared for all the world to simply be flying along on a normal cruise. But as that didn’t confirm or deny anything for them, they went ahead and approached the craft, circling it once or twice so to survey it in full—not that there was all that much to see—before swooping in to come in for a landing on its empty main deck. The apparent pilot, seeing two male pegasi boarding the craft, left the helm and stepped out of the craft’s deckhouse to greet them.

“Hello boys,” the azure mare, wearing a pointed violet hat decorated with stars and moons, said as she strolled up to them. “What brings you here?”

The two almost immediately noticed something off about the mare though, so one of the two knowingly stepped forward to speak. “Nomina ipsum!”

The mare grinned. “Nomen mihi est Julio,” came the reply, then promptly dropped his disguise to reveal the changeling underneath, tossing the magician’s hat off his head and to one side. “It’s about time you lot showed up,” Julius continued as the other two changelings dropped their disguises and revealed themselves as well, satisfied Julius was an ally. “What, did you get lost?”

“You try to keep up with a pair of targets that keep teleporting about at random,” the changeling who had first spoken grumbled.

Julius rolled his eyes. “So just drop a few fire portals to keep up with them!” he reasoned aloud.

“Not all of us can perform the spell to create a fire portal, Julius,” the first changeling reminded firmly.

“What, you mean to say one of you two can’t?”

There was a momentary pause then the second changeling sheepishly raised his hoof.

Julius laughed mockingly at this. “How you even got to your rank without that skill then, I’ll never know,” he teased the second changeling.

The first changeling rolled his eyes and got back to more pressing subjects. “What are you doing here anyway, Julius?” he asked. “Your orders were to find the traitor, eliminate him, capture or eliminate any accompanying him too, and then wait for the targets to arrive so to trap them.”

“And I did!” Julius assured, before shrugging. “I just decided I didn’t want to wait for them to arrive, so since I had this airship at my disposal, I came to them. It’s faster that way. Doesn’t her highness want this matter sorted out ASAP?”

The second changeling shrugged. “I guess she does, doesn’t she?”

“So I take it you’ve already caught the targets then,” the first changeling summarized, not entirely in approval of Julius’s departures from the plan.

“Yup,” Julius answered smugly and tapped the deck of the airship with one hoof. “When they saw this puppy flying towards them, they thought help had arrived and came hurrying aboard, only to realize, too late, it was a trap!”

“And the traitor?” the second changeling asked.

“Deader than a doornail,” Julius promised. “Ditched the body overboard back in the Dragon Realms.”

“And there were no problems?”

“Well, the two dragons he had with him were a bit tricky to subdue, but since I still got the drop on them in the end, obviously I managed. As for the traitor himself…he really didn’t put up much of a fight, just like I expected.”

The second changeling smirked. “Well, thank the Informis Una for small favors.”

“So I’m assuming what you’re saying then is that you caught the targets and whoever was with the traitor and have them captive right now,” the first changeling summarized so to be particularly clear.

“Of course,” Julius confirmed, rolling his eyes in annoyance at the continued questioning then motioned for the two changelings to follow him. “Here, you can see for yourselves.”

He led them into the deckhouse and through the control cabin to the back room, opening the hatch and urging them inside. The room was originally a navigation room, but from its ceiling now hung four cocoons, two of which held the two mares that had been their targets, while the other two held two dragons, a purple runt and an older, cyan, dragoness, respectively.

The first changeling strolled up to one of the cocoons and poked it, watching the heliotrope colored unicorn within stir slightly, deep in the cocoon’s induced hibernation state. “You cocooned all of them yourself?” he asked, a little impressed.

“Took just about every ounce of gel I had in me, but I certainly did,” Julius said, leaning on the wall as he watched the two other changelings observe the cocoons. “They should keep nicely until I get them back to the hive.”

“Is that where you’re heading, then?” the first changeling asked.

“I’m heading in that direction already, aren’t I?”

“And the airship?” the second changeling inquired as he wandered through the cluster of cocoons.

Julius shrugged. “Ours for the taking, really. I figure Queen Chrysalis can find a use for it.”

The first changeling snickered at the idea. “Yeah, I bet we can find something interesting to do with it,” he agreed, considering some of the possibilities. “You know, I’ve never seen what happens when one of these things crashes…maybe we can stage one for it.”

“Now that seems a little bit wasteful, don’t you think?” Julius remarked.

The first changeling tilted his head at Julius teasingly. “Oh c’mon Julius, lighten up.”

“All I’m saying is that we can probably use this thing more practically for other things,” Julius went on. “Like a troop transport or something…I don’t know.” He shrugged. “It’s not really our job to decide things like that, now is it?”

The first changeling sighed. “You’re probably right,” he admitted reluctantly. “You’re still a spoilsport, though.”

“Ooh,” the second changeling suddenly remarked as he hungrily examined the cocoon holding the azure unicorn mare, the same one Julius had been disguised as when they first arrived. “This one’s certainly putting off a lot of yummy love!”

He started to slurp in some of the positive emotions, reaching out to touch the cocoon with one holed hoof, but stopped when Julius abruptly grabbed that hoof with his magic. “Now, now,” he reprimanded as the changeling grumpily yanked his hoof free of Julius’s aura. “Save some for the rest of us. There should be plenty to go around once they’re at the hive.”

“Yeah,” the first changeling agreed, giving the second a shove. “Your greedy gob isn’t the only one that needs filling!”

The second changeling gave the first a shove back. “I was just having a small taste, that’s all! Sheesh!”

“You two done?” Julius asked, interrupting the small spat.

The two turned to face Julius. “Well, you seem to have things handled here at least,” the first admitted. “Do we need to accompany you back to the hive?”

“Nah, I’ve got this, the ship practically flies itself anyway,” Julius assured. “Go ahead and fly on ahead or whatever. I don’t want to have to be staring at your ugly mugs the whole trip anyway.”

“Fine,” the first changeling concluded as they all filed back out onto the main deck, Julius closing the door to the navigation room on his way out. “We’ll fly back to base and report in, let the queen know you’re coming.” He nudged his compatriot. “C’mon, you.”

“Don’t eat all that love you’ve caught yourself, all right?” the second changeling demanded as the two moved for the prow of the craft.

“Bah, I couldn’t eat all that emotion on my own even if I wanted to,” Julius assured. “I’d sooner pop trying. Besides, I like my lean figure, and anyway, you could stand to work harder at getting one yourself.”

“Hey!” the second changeling objected, starting to turn back to deal with Julius for the insult, but was stopped by the first and pushed on for the nose of the ship.

The two then took to the air, reapplying as they left the pegasus disguises they had been wearing when they arrived, and flew away. Julius put back on his disguise as Trixie, retrieved her hat from where he had dropped it on the deck, and returned to the Vergilius’s helm to pilot the craft, setting the hat reverently to one side. He watched the two changelings in disguise fly away until they were gone from sight. It seemed clear they weren’t going to be coming back, but he nonetheless waited until well after a half hour had passed and he could be absolutely certain the two were not going to be doubling back suddenly.

That was when he really dropped his disguise entirely, this time revealing himself properly as Thorax, and slumped against the ship’s wheel in immense relief. “Well, that was nerve-racking,” he muttered aloud to himself.

He took a moment to recollect his nerves, but then finally straightened, pushed the throttle to full, then locked the helm’s controls so the airship wouldn’t veer off-course while unattended for a moment. Leaving the control cabin, he went out onto the main deck and walked around the deckhouse until he stood at the aft of the craft, climbing up the craft’s sternsprit so he had a clear view of the land behind the air yacht. Once there, he charged his horn of magic and fired a simple bolt of cyan energy in a straight line directly away from the airship. That bolt kept traveling for a few hundred feet before it slowly fizzled out without fanfare. He did it again a second time for good measure, then waited. He wasn’t waiting for long before Obsidian and Garnet came into view, the adult dragons having seen Thorax’s signal from where they had been discreetly following the airship, hidden and from afar, and now moving to fly along it again like they had never left.

When Thorax left the sternsprit to speak with them directly more towards the middle of the main deck though, there was still one more precaution to make. “Eaisht lesh dagh cleaysh…” Garnet began in prompting sternly.

“…eisht jean briwnys,” Thorax finished without hesitation, smiling to himself at how the ancient dragon words rolled off his tongue. According to Ember, it was an old dragon proverb meaning, when translated into Equestrian, “listen with each ear, then do judgment.” The saying was poetic enough, but to Thorax what was most interesting about it was the fact that it was in a language he had never quite heard the likes of; and this was significant coming from a changeling who had heard many different languages in his lifetime, both modern and ancient, and could speak a number of them decently. Unfortunately, the reason why this was so was because the language was always solely a dragon-spoken language, and even now it seemed to be dying out, as Ember admitted it was a language few dragons spoke anymore—she herself knew little beyond one or two more old sayings similar to this one proverb.

To Thorax, though, this was such a pitiful shame because even from just this small bit of it that he’d heard, he thought the language sounded beautiful and was taken with it almost immediately. He made it clear to Ember when she brought it up that he’d very much like to learn more if at all possible, and Ember told him she happened to know a drake back in the Dragon Realms whose grandmother was still fluent in the language. Once this was all over, she offered to arrange a meeting between her and Thorax, which Thorax eagerly agreed to. In the meantime, though, the proverb was serving as a code phrase to confirm that Thorax was truly him and not an enemy changeling posing as him. Garnet or Obsidian would begin by prompting with the first half of the phrase, and then Thorax would prove his identity by correctly filling in the second half.

And having done so, Garnet nodded his large head in satisfaction and maneuvered a little closer to the side of the air yacht so the two could communicate better. “You speak the words well for someone who only first learned them a mere couple of hours ago,” he praised in approval of the changeling’s pronunciation of his half of the proverb.

Thorax shrugged sheepishly. “Changelings are fast learners when it comes to language,” he explained simply.

“I trust everything has gone as planned, then?” Obsidian asked from where he flew along on the other side of the ship. “The pursuing changelings have been sent away successfully?”

Thorax turned and nodded at the other adult dragon. “They didn’t seem suspect a thing,” he said. “As far as they were concerned, I was an ally changeling who had caught their targets successfully and was now heading back for the hive with the spoils. That confirmed, they then flew off for the southeast, probably for one of the hive’s outposts that sit near the border to the Badlands, which we are not heading towards on our present course. Either way, they’re long gone by now. I don’t expect them to come back.”

“We should still be on the watch for trouble regardless,” Garnet suggested in warning. “No need to be reckless even after a small victory.”

“Agreed,” Thorax said with a nod. “Especially since all of this was just a prelude in comparison to what awaits us ahead.” He felt a small chill run down his spine at the thought, but he pushed it aside for now, keeping his attention focused on the two adult dragons. “Anyway, I’ve got the Vergilius on course and locked the controls. With how little wind there’s been, she shouldn’t drift very far off course and can safely go without a pilot for a little bit. Regardless, you two keep an eye on things while I go and…wake the others.”

The two dragons nodded their heads in agreement and set to the task immediately. Meanwhile, Thorax turned and headed back into the deckhouse and reentered the navigation room where his friends slept in their respective cocoons. Thorax hadn’t been fibbing when he said he had put them all in cocoons himself—that part had been complete truth, and it was no small task to do so, as it had completely drained his poor and now slightly achy gel glands in his mouth doing so. He was lucky to have enough gel in him to just accomplish the task and doubted he would able to squeeze any worthwhile amounts of gel out of them now for a couple of days until his body could finish producing more. But in some ways he was also a little proud at the feat, especially considering the trying circumstances…though it had helped the others had all begrudgingly, but voluntarily, gone into their cocoons. It was a pity, then, that the cocoons had already served their usefulness.

Nonetheless, closing the doorway to the room behind him, he lit his horn, carefully formed the right spell that could affect all four cocoons at once, and then fired it off, watching as the cyan magic spread out and interacted with the glowing bubble-structures located at the top of each cocoon. The yellow-green glow they produced flickered for a moment, then quickly turned to a more solid sickly yellow color as they shifted from producing fresh supplies of the slime filling the interior of the cocoons and instead started producing agents to counter the chemicals that were keeping the occupants of the cocoons in hibernation. Very quickly, each of them started to stir within as they drifted back out of the deep sleep they had been put in while Thorax watched anxiously, monitoring the progress.

Spike was the first to wake fully, suddenly jolting within his cocoon and looking around through the slime he was suspended in with wide eyes, struggling within his confines. Seeing this, Thorax hurried to his cocoon, motioning through its walls for him to keep still, before jabbing the sharp point of his curved horn into the top of the cocoon, piercing right through the semi-transparent material, then dragging his horn downwards, slicing the cocoon open in the process. Faintly green-colored slime gushed out as he did this, some spilling around Thorax’s horn and onto his head, but most just dribbled onto the floor, coalescing into a large puddle under the rapidly deflating cocoon. Thorax inwardly winced at the sight of the ooze pooling onto the wooden panel deck of his airship, but there was little he could do to avoid it right now, and knew that the puddle would soon be joined by three more.

Once this opening had been made and the slime rapidly draining out, Thorax thrust his holed hooves into the cocoon and latched onto Spike, dragging the little dragon’s slippery body out. The moment Spike’s head came free of the cocoon, he went into a coughing fit, hacking up the suspensive slime he had been floating in from out of his lungs and throat. Gently, Thorax lowered him onto the floor of the room and allowed him time to do this, knowing that the best thing to do was to allow Spike’s body to readjust to being outside the cocoon on its own. Still, he sat himself nearby to supervise, distractedly wiping slime off his limbs. He was inwardly glad he had taken off his jacket earlier so to more accurately pose as Julius, otherwise it would be soaked with slime now.

Eventually Spike had cleared his lungs enough to find his voice again. “You really sure saving Equestria is worth this?” he griped, panting, partly serious and partly not.

Thorax grinned and clapped him on the dragon’s bare back, Spike having taken off all elements of his trademark disguise prior to getting into the cocoon for the same reasons Thorax was glad he wasn’t currently wearing his jacket. “Quite,” he assured the dragon before noticing Starlight had awoken fully in her cocoon and moved to go liberate her too. “Just take it easy for a few minutes, you’ll readjust soon.”

He then did much the same thing with Starlight’s cocoon, using his horn to slice open the cocoon then reaching in to bodily pull the unicorn free of it, though he had help in that the moment she saw Thorax opening it, she scrambled to try and climb out of it herself, latching onto the opening with her hooves. Like Spike, she came out of the cocoon coughing, needing to clear her lungs of the slime.

“That was both nothing like what I thought it would be—” she stopped to cough briefly, as Thorax lowered her to floor, “—and exactly like what I thought it would be.” She proceeded to cough a few more times, recollecting herself, then gazed about, wiping slime out of her eyes. “There wouldn’t happen to be a towel handy I can use, is there?”

“Oh right, I almost forgot,” Thorax admitted, and with his magic grabbed a pile of towels from where he had stashed them in an out-of-sight corner of the navigation room in hopes the two changelings that had briefly boarded the airship wouldn’t notice them, and offered one apiece to Starlight and Spike as they both worked to wipe slime off themselves.

“Thanks,” Starlight said, using the towel to wipe off her face, still coughing sporadically. As Thorax moved behind her to get at Trixie’s cocoon, seeing she was the next to wake up fully, she turned to business. “So the two changelings tailing us…you were able to get them off our trail, then?”

“Yes, and they didn’t suspect a thing,” Thorax said as he plunged his horn into Trixie’s cocoon and started to slice it open. “Once they saw all of you in the cocoons, that was pretty much enough for them, like I’d hoped. They didn’t even try to go below deck, so there was no chance that they could’ve even found the real Julius in his cocoon.”

“And they’re not coming back, right?” Spike asked skeptically as he wiped himself off with his towel.

“I highly doubt it at this point,” Thorax assured as he reached into Trixie’s cocoon so to pull her free, struggling slightly as Trixie had started to panic and flail about. “Easy, easy, I’ve got you, Trixie,” he soothed aloud as he pulled the struggling and coughing showmare out of her cocoon.

“You’re sure?” Starlight urged cautiously. “We don’t exactly have room for error on this.”

“I was able to discreetly plant a subtle tracking spell on the hoof of one of the two changelings,” Thorax explained, recalling the changeling’s hoof he had grabbed with his magic when stopping him from poking Trixie’s cocoon earlier—it had given him the chance to slip in the tracking spell while making it appear he was merely using his telekinesis to hold the hoof in place. “With that, I was able to keep a frame of reference of where that changeling was after they left the Vergilius,” he continued as he held onto Trixie, who instead of letting herself be lowered onto the floor, latched onto Thorax tightly as she continued to cough up slime, slightly to his distress. Thorax had to raise his voice slightly so to be heard over her. “He’s since gone out of range for me to still detect that spell, but if they’ve both gone that far without doubling back for any reason once, it’s highly doubtful they’ll do so now. At any rate, Garnet and Obsidian are both outside, escorting us again while they keep watch.”

Having gotten the most of the slime flushed out of her lungs now, Trixie started to calm down by this point, only to realize she had Thorax in almost the equivalent of a bear hug, and with a start, pulled back in surprise, unsure if she was permitted to do that right now, given their presently awkward relations. Thorax took no offense (and in fact was a little relieved for much the same reasons) and instead floated another towel over for her to use.

She did, and as she was using it to wipe slime off herself, she looked around, spying Spike and Starlight already out of their cocoons and frowned. “Aw, what?” she bemoaned upon seeing this. “I volunteered to go into the cocoons first specifically with the expectation that I would be the first one to come back out again!”

Thorax smiled apologetically at her. “Sorry Trixie, I, uh, cast the spell for all the nutrient bath regulators to revive you simultaneously,” he pointed a hoof up at the bubble-like structure placed at the top of her cocoon, the light it produced now having faded to a faint glimmer, “but that doesn’t mean every occupant of every cocoon is still going to wake up at the same time,” he explained to her sheepishly. “It’s always a little different for every occupant in a cocoon.”

“Metabolic differences, most likely,” Starlight reasoned aloud, who found this explanation perfectly reasonable.

Trixie made a few sputtering sounds as she spat lingering slime out of her mouth. “Well, it still should’ve been,” she grumbled. She shuddered, wrapping the towel around her slimy and otherwise undecorated body as she, like all the others, had gone into the cocoon unclothed. “Still, I’m just glad the experience is over now. Getting into the darn thing and getting back out was both awful…though at least the part in the middle when I wasn’t awake for any of it wasn’t so bad…” she blushed a little, recalling the experience. “…I was in the middle of a, ah, pretty good dream, actually.”

“That’s the idea,” Thorax explained, watching as Trixie slumped her body against the nearby wall, waiting for her strength to fully return. “The cocoon is supposed to keep occupants in a peaceful state so they don’t accidentally harm themselves, and, for those that would be prey, generate good dreams so that the prey keep producing positive emotions to feed off of.” He noticed Ember waking up in the last cocoon and started to move towards it. “Anyway, I need to get Dragon Lord Ember out of her cocoon real quick.”

But before he could reach it, Ember suddenly thrust her fist into the inside of the cocoon, punching right through its filmy skin, then using her claws to force open the hole wide enough to shove her head through, hacking heavily as her mouth hit the open air again.

“…or she can just free herself, I guess,” Thorax mumbled to himself, watching in idle surprise as the dragoness slithered herself out of the cocoon and flumped flat onto the deck with a wet splat.

“You know, Trixie’s right, the dreaming while sleeping through all of that wasn’t so bad,” Starlight commented aloud, reflecting back on the experience while wiping down her forehooves and watching as Thorax levitated another towel over for Ember, lying flat on her back and still coughing. “I mean, I wouldn’t be eager to do it all again anytime soon, but at least the dream part was fairly enjoyable.”

“Yeah, I was dreaming about an all-you-can-eat bucket of ice cream that magically refilled itself when you emptied it,” Spike croaked aloud whimsically, having to stop and clear his throat of lingering slime after saying this.

“I dreamed of flying a kite in the park just for hours and hours,” Starlight admitted with a content sigh. “It was very peaceful, actually.” She glanced at Trixie. “Out of curiosity, what did you dream about, Trixie?”

Trixie, however, blushed profusely and balked at the idea of having to explain it to the others now, despite being the one to bring it up. “None of your business.”

Starlight, however, quickly had a good guess in mind after seeing from the mare’s reaction. “Why, did it happen to involve a stallion?” she asked in a teasing tone.

Trixie just blushed harder. Spike, meanwhile, couldn’t help but snort at all of this. “Weren’t you wet enough already in the cocoon, Trixie?” he quipped aloud.

Trixie groaned, covering her face with her towel. “That was uncalled for, Spike!” she bemoaned.

“Do we really have to be gabbing about this junk?” Ember suddenly criticized as she heaved herself up into a sitting position, having largely cleared her lungs of the slime she had been breathing inside her cocoon. She shivered, curling up into a ball as she draped her towel over her shoulders. “Quartz, it feels cold outside of that slimy cocoon,” she cursed to herself.

“That’s normal,” Thorax assured as he took the final towel for himself, wiping off the slime he had gotten all over himself freeing the others. “What you call slime stores heat, conserving your body warmth so you don’t accidentally catch a chill while stored inside.”

“Yeah, I noticed,” Starlight remarked, gazing up at her now drained and limp husk of a cocoon thoughtfully, having also noticed feeling the temperature difference upon exiting it. “Inadvertently though, between that and the wet slime, I can’t help but wonder if this was loosely along the lines of what being born must feel like…”

“Ew, Starlight!” Trixie complained as she tried to wipe slime out her mane. “Don’t make this any weirder than it already is!” She gave her head a shake only to have her wet mane slap her in the face, sticking to it. Sputtering, she wiped it out of the way again. “I mean, it’s bad enough I’m already covered in slime, I don’t need that mental picture connected to it, thank you.” She regarded her still slimy body for a moment in disgust. “What is this slime stuff, anyway?”

“Oh yeah, I guess you didn’t see because you were the first to go into a cocoon,” Spike realized as he sat on the floor, calmly trying to wipe himself off.

“If you really want to know, though,” Thorax offered, turning to face Trixie, “the nutrient bath is composed of mostly highly charged pre-digested positive emotion magically duplicated repeatedly until it fills the cocoon, laced with nourishing nutrients, a high oxygen concentration, a solution to aid in healing and sterilizing if needed, and a series of chemicals that induce and control the hibernation.”

Trixie however got caught up on one detail. “Wait, wait—pre-digested emotion? Where the hay did that come from?” Thorax averted his gaze instead of answering, but the gaze of Ember, Spike, and Starlight all pointedly and knowingly wandered to the changeling, having seen, unlike Trixie, precisely where it had come from. It was enough that Trixie quickly started to catch on. “Are you saying that I was basically swimming in changeling vomit just now?”

“…a…mong…other things…” Thorax relented slowly and hesitantly, ending it with a sheepish cough as he realized, really for the first time, just how all of that sounded.

Trixie involuntarily gagged to herself, sputtering as she worked to ensure her mouth was totally clear of the slime that had gotten into it while redoubling her efforts to wipe the slime off her body.

“Suffice to say, we should probably do something to clean ourselves up properly,” Spike reasoned aloud patiently.

“Yeah, please tell me you have a shower on this yacht of yours,” Starlight inquired, turning to Thorax.

“Well, not a shower, but we do have a tub in the main head for bathing,” Thorax offered, pointing a holed hoof in its general direction.

Trixie’s hoof immediately shot into the air. “I call first dibs!”

“Aw, darn it!” Starlight shouted, who had been just about to do the same thing.

“As interesting as all this is…” Ember chose that moment to butt in sarcastically, wiggling the end of her towel in one ear, “…I think there are a few more important things we should figure out first, like what we actually plan to do next now that I assume we’ve successfully chased off the changelings that were following us for the moment.”

“Ember has a good point,” Spike agreed, turning himself so to better face the others. “What are we going to do next? Where are we going to head?”

Starlight settled herself in to consider the matter, wrapping her towel about herself as she continued to sit in the puddle of slime that now covered most of the room’s floor. “I suppose that all depends on what we decide to focus on doing first; overthrowing the changeling control of the Equestrian government it’s obtained by replacing the royal family, or staging a rescue of the captured members of said royal family and liberate them from changeling imprisonment.”

“Assuming they are even still alive,” Ember remarked pointedly, being realistic.

But Thorax quickly ruled out any doubt as he sat himself down for the ensuing discussion himself. “They would all most certainly still be alive,” he assured them all firmly, wanting there to be no uncertainty about this. “They are no good to the hive dead, especially with how Starlight has described their plans.”

“Then with that in mind, rescuing the captive ponies would be the smartest course of action,” Starlight reasoned, “as doing so would not only liberate some very powerful allies, it would also challenge Queen Chrysalis’s control on Equestria and endanger her ruse getting discovered by those she would not want finding out about it. It’d also present physical challengers to those who had replaced the royal family, leaving the control the changelings have garnered all that more tenuous.” She glanced at the others optimistically. “And then with their control over Equestria so weakened, it’ll give the rest of us a better chance of stopping the changeling takeover altogether.”

“Well, when you put it like that,” Spike quipped sarcastically, rubbing his back with his towel, “you make it sound too easy. But of course this will be anything but easy.”

“Either way, all we need to know now is where to find the ponies the changelings have captured,” Trixie said, largely ignoring Spike’s quip in favor of the more comfortable ignorance to the dangers, and turned to Thorax for the answer. “I don’t suppose you’d know?”

Thorax knew exactly where they would be. “In the changeling hive, of course,” he explained matter-of-factly to the rest. “For the hive to make the best use of the love and other emotions they would be collecting off of the captives like this, they would need to keep them at the hive itself. It would also be the best way to keep the captives safe, protected, and away from those who would seek to try exactly what we’re plotting, where the vast majority of the changelings in the hive can be immediately called upon to defend against any arriving threats. In fact, it wouldn’t surprise me at all if the queen has had the captives placed directly in her throne room, one of the most secure rooms in the hive, so she can personally keep an eye on them.”

This all made perfect sense…but it was also not the best of news. It was clear on their faces that they all balked at the idea of trying to break into the very heart of the changeling threat with such few numbers and gravely limited resources.

Even Thorax paled at the very idea of doing it. “I have to admit though,” he continued on, “this is not at all how I had ever envisioned one day returning to the hive.” He paused for a moment, letting that sink in, then shook his head to clear the thought from his mind. “But,” he went on to also point out, “given their current location, even with the Vergilius flying nonstop at its top speed, we won’t arrive at the hive’s location in the Badlands until sometime tomorrow morning. That gives us time to come up with some sort of plan overcoming these problems.”

“Where are we currently flying right now?” Starlight asked, having already noticed the Vergilius was in motion through the navigation room’s window, just visible past the deflated cocoons hanging in the center of the room. “Have you already set that course?”

“I have,” Thorax confirmed with a serious nod. “A direct course for the changeling hive…I didn’t see a need to delay it any longer.”

“Much as I hate to admit it, that is probably a good idea,” Starlight agreed. “The longer we put this off, the harder pulling this all off is going to be.”

“So just how are we going to pull this off?” Spike asked, wanting an answer for this straightaway. “I mean, we’re talking about trying to break into not just the changeling hive, but the very heart of it no less.”

“I say we attack, hit them hard with everything we’ve got and can muster,” Ember volunteered eagerly from where she still sat next to her now-empty cocoon. Being the dragon she was, she was all for the brute force approach. “I could have a dragon army here before morning with a single command, ready to do battle,” she continued to explain confidently. “We’d then stand a much better chance of staving off whatever the changelings will have to throw at us.”

But the rest weren’t so keen to resort to such violence. “That sounds more like it’d only start a war nopony asked for,” Starlight reasoned gravely, leaning forward slightly to gaze at Ember. “And I’m not eager to be one of the ponies to cause that.”

“Frankly, I’d rather we try to avoid any bloodshed at all,” Thorax added, thinking of Julius still in his cocoon below deck and still in grave condition, though he had thus far remained alive. “Enough have already been harmed from this mess…I don’t really want to see anyone else be hurt over it too, be it dragon, pony, or even changeling alike.”

“Even the changelings?” Trixie asked in mild surprise from where she still leaned against the wall of the room, looking across the area to where Thorax sat not far from Ember, as he had never really left the spot after ensuring Ember had exited her cocoon okay.

“We may not be on the best of terms presently,” Thorax patiently explained to everyone regardless. “But we all are of the same species still. I take no joy in seeing my kind come to harm than I hope any of you would for your own.”

“Besides,” Spike added with a notable amount of snark, “starting a dragon-changeling war would sort of rob us of the advantage of surprise.”

“Spike’s right,” Starlight agreed with an approving nod. “I think our best hope is going to be using a bit more stealth.”

“Then I suppose my next idea is out, which was to use those two outside to fight our way in,” Ember hummed, pointing in the general direction where her two escorts flew alongside the airship. She leaned over slightly to prop her body up with one arm while she thought to herself for a moment. “Maybe, instead, we can use them as a distraction, by having them attack while the rest of us slip into the hive and stage the rescue undetected.”

Starlight considered the idea for a second. “It’s a start…unless anyone has any objections.”

“I have one,” Thorax said, “because while such a distraction probably would help us slip into the hive while everyone’s attention is on the two dragons, I’d like to point out this would only put the hive on full alert, making it much harder to navigate the hive undetected after we’re inside.”

“You think we can still get safely inside the hive without a distraction, though?” Spike asked with concern.

Thorax considered it for a second. “Assuming the hive doesn’t already know we’re coming…then I think so. And seeing that the two changelings I was able to throw off our trail will only be reporting in that everything is going according to plan, they shouldn’t be expecting trouble…”

Trixie winced. “No offense,” she said while she played with the slimy end of her mane, “but I kinda want a guarantee of that and not just a ‘I think so.’”

“I still say brute force is the way to go,” Ember stressed. “If it were me and the other dragons doing this, that’s exactly what we’d be doing at the very least. We aren’t afraid of a little bloodshed.” But seeing the disagreeing looks on the others, she went on. “But it’s also your leaders that need rescuing, not mine…so I guess I ought to let you ponies have the final say.”

“Then I say we avoid brute force, on the grounds that it’ll only cause more trouble than necessary,” Starlight said. “Really, we just need to rescue the royal family and get out of there. What happens to the changeling hive after that doesn’t really matter for now so long as the princesses are safe and back on their thrones in Equestria. We just need to figure out how.” She looked up at the roof of the room, thinking of the lifting envelope of the Vergilius keeping it in the air. “Maybe we can use the Vergilius somehow? Maybe fly in close to the hive, and…”

“We cannot,” Thorax immediately objected, interrupting. “The Vergilius’s engines will cease to function that close to the hive.”

All eyes turned to him. “Why?” Ember asked.

“No magic other than changeling magic works in close proximity around the hive,” Thorax explained. Seeing their questioning looks, he continued. “Queen Chrysalis’s throne is carved from an ancient dark stone that soaks up outside magic the same way changelings soak up emotions like love. It’s how she keeps the hive safe from general outside threats. But because the Vergilius’s engines are powered by magic, trying to fly her towards the hive would only drain the engines dry of power very quickly, if not instantly. In fact, there’s enough magic employed throughout the whole craft that I’m not even sure she could stay airborne for very long that close to the hive. To say nothing of the fact that the two changelings I threw off our trail know I’m flying the Vergilius towards the hive already and said they intended to pass word along, and there might be lookouts stationed awaiting our arrival anyway. So we’ll have to land somewhere nearby but still relatively out of sight, and walk the rest of the way to…”

“Whoa, wait, hold on a second, back up,” Starlight said, growing concerned as she attempted to piece together what Thorax was telling them. “This throne…it soaks up any outside magic?” she pointed to her horn. “Does that mean my magic, or any magic any of us have, isn’t going to work at the hive too?”

Thorax nodded. “Most likely, yes,” he confirmed.

Ember folded her arms grumpily, flipping slime about in the process. “Well, that would’ve been good to know a little sooner,” she grumbled.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t think to bring it up until now,” Thorax admitted apologetically, the problems this all brought up having not come to mind until now. “It hasn’t been a matter I’ve had to think about for some time now.”

“It’s all right bud,” Spike assured, scooting himself across the puddle of slime they all sat in, getting close enough to the changeling so to pat him on the hoof. “We’ll just have to manage without.”

“Speak for yourself!” Trixie objected, who looked terrified by this new development. “How are we ever going to pull this off without magic?” She looked at Starlight. “Please tell me you know a way.”

Starlight winced however. “Without magic, I haven’t the foggiest idea.” She looked at the others. “But…nopony else is going to be able to help us, so…somepony here had better come up with something.”

But the others all looked at her blankly, not having anything to suggest.

Starlight’s wince grew. “…anyone?” she prompted again hopefully.

“To be honest, you seemed to be the one with all the ideas on what to do,” Ember reasoned bluntly. “I’ve just been following your lead. Besides, like I said, they’re your ponies to rescue, not mine, so it’s probably better one of you ponies lead the way.”

“I really shouldn’t be leading anyone though, not with my past,” Starlight quickly reasoned.

“Like that is really going to matter right now,” Spike grumbled aloud.

“I told you my ideas, but you also pointed out the admittedly valid drawbacks in them already,” Ember added.

“Starlight, as much as you don’t want it to be, you still seem to be the brains of this operation now,” Trixie added with a small and apologetic grin, turning her head to look at her unicorn friend.

Starlight let out a weary sigh. “Okay, okay…” she mumbled, and reviewed the information Thorax had given them. “Thorax, about this throne,” she said. “You said it’ll soak up all of our magic once we enter its range. But let’s assume we manage to destroy it somehow…would that give us our magic back?”

“Uh-huh!” Thorax said with a nod.

“But how are we going to destroy it without magic?” Trixie asked, as she stopped playing with the end of her mane and was now trying to squeeze the remaining slime out of the cornflower blue hairs.

“Hey, who said you need magic?” Spike asked and suddenly turned smugly confident. “After all, you’ve got two firebreathing dragons right here!” And to prove it, he spat out a small ball of emerald flames from his mouth…which promptly landed on the one spot of wooden deck in the middle of their circle that wasn’t covered with spilt slime, starting to smolder to everyone’s alarm until Ember quickly reached forward and swatted the flame out.

His initial fear at the fire now passing, Thorax shot a disapproving look at the little dragon. “Spike, if you set my airship on fire again…”

Spike coughed sheepishly. “Sorry.”

Now Starlight scooted closer through the puddle of gunk so she could place a reassuring (and slightly slimy) hoof on the dragon’s knee. “Your little demonstration aside, I get the point you’re making,” she said. “If we can’t destroy the throne with magic, maybe we can use a dragon’s firebreath instead.” She glanced at Thorax. “The question that leaves us then…will the firebreath be enough?”

Thorax considered the question for a moment. “I’m not sure,” he admitted, “but maybe. I don’t think anyone has ever been in a position to try it before.”

“We have another problem with that though,” Ember spoke, slightly concerned. “A dragon’s firebreath is still magical in nature. That’s why it has properties to it that normal fire doesn’t.”

“Like how Spike’s fire just now was emerald in color?” Trixie asked, glancing away from the strand of mane she was wringing slime out of and at the dragoness.

“Among other traits, yes,” Ember explained with a nod. “In fact, it’s not so much breathing fire as it is more…commanding it at will. I’ve heard some elder dragons refer to it as speaking fire…though it’s not a perfect analogy.”

“Speaking fire?” Spike repeated, perplexed by this tidbit of knowledge. “Never heard it be put like that before.”

Ember gave him a smirk. “That’s what you get for being raised by ponies,” she teased, but then she shook her head. “My point is that a dragon’s fire is basically our equivalent of your magic; we can perform our own sort of “spells”—if you will—with it too. An example I assume all of you are already familiar with is Spike using his fire to send messages.”

“But if that’s all magical in nature…then your firebreath isn’t going to work much better than my horn will while we’re in the changeling hive, is it?” Starlight concluded.

Ember nodded her head. “I fear so,” she admitted. “Spike and I should still be able to produce small jets of just raw fire, I think…but probably not at the same strengths we normally would, nor with the same degree of control. I can’t guarantee how effective that’ll be, if at all, until we’re there and I can try it for myself.”

Spike looked to Thorax. “Is that still going to be enough against that throne?”

Thorax shrugged. “I can’t even be sure your firebreath working under normal circumstances was going to be enough,” he confessed. “I admit, I only know so much about the queen’s throne and what it’s made out of, and most of what I do know is by word of mouth. I’m afraid I can only tell you so much about what will or won’t work around it.”

Trixie made an exasperated groan. “That pesky throne,” she grumbled, giving up on her mane and flinging the wet strands out of her face. “It’s making all of this a lot harder than it ought to be. I mean, with no dragon fire and no magic…”

“Actually, as I see it, there’s one who would still have his magic,” Ember spoke up, and glanced at Thorax.

Thorax blinked, surprised. “Me?” he asked.

“Unlike the rest of us, you’re a changeling,” Ember reasoned. “And you said this throne soaks up non-changeling magic, but it leaves changeling magic alone still.”

“That’s right!” Starlight agreed, and looked to Thorax hopefully. “Thorax, do you think you could use your magic to destroy the throne?”

Thorax bit his lip, clearly unsure about the idea. “I…I don’t know…maybe…” he shook his head. “I’ve never heard of any changeling ever trying any magic on the throne before, so I have no idea how it’d react to it. I mean, if worse comes to worse, I’m more than willing to try, but… changeling magic isn’t entirely the same as pony magic. And with how little I know about the throne’s nature, for all I know, it might have a means of protection against even changeling magic and it wouldn’t make a difference if I tried or not.” He winced. “There’s also a good chance that the other changelings would more readily detect my magic and my attempts to use it to harm the throne, and thus be quick to try and stop me before I succeed.”

“So no guarantees that way either,” Trixie lamented aloud.

“No,” Starlight agreed. “But there’s still more promise there than anything else we’ve got.” She glanced at the others. “So here’s what I think we’ll have to do. Once we’re at the throne, our first course of action is to try and have Thorax destroy the throne with his magic. Then, if that fails, we’ll have either Spike or Ember, if not both, try and use their firebreath on the throne, because even with the magical elements of it removed, your fire might still be able to be used as a weapon enough to destroy or at least damage the throne, and that’s better than nothing, right?”

“In that case, you’ll probably want Ember trying that more than me,” Spike reasoned, motioning to the dragoness with a slimy set of claws. “She’s the bigger dragon, with the bigger lungs, and would probably produce the more effective flame than I ever could.”

“Two’s still better than one, Spike,” Ember pointed out.

“And that all assumes we even reach the throne at all,” Thorax observed. “I should remind you that this throne is the queen’s, actively used by her, and is going to be heavily protected even if we manage to not raise the alarm at any time while we’re in the hive.”

“Would it be smarter to just focus on freeing the captured royal family then?” Ember asked. “That is our real goal with all of this, not this throne thing.”

“That assumes we can reach the captives any easier than the throne,” Thorax added. “Don’t forget, there’s a good chance the throne and the captives are going to be kept in the same room. Like I said, Queen Chrysalis is probably going to want to keep a close eye on those captives herself, and for her, that’d be best done from within her throne room. It is one of the most secure rooms in the hive. I believe I already said that.”

“You did,” Starlight agreed with a nod. She considered the dilemma for a moment. “Thorax, do you think we all could successfully sneak that deep into the hive undetected?”

Thorax hesitated. “With a group of this small size, perhaps,” he cautiously replied.

“But much bigger than this, as it’s inevitably going to become if and when we free the captives…” Starlight prompted.

“…then it’ll start getting more and more unlikely, yes,” Thorax agreed, finishing Starlight’s deduction. “And getting in will probably be the easy part. Getting back out after the other changelings start to realize what’s going on is going to be much harder.”

“Which is why I think focusing on destroying the throne first is probably going to be our best option,” Starlight concluded. “Not only will it create a distraction as the changelings scramble to respond, it’ll also give us all a better edge as it’ll give us access to our magic again, not just for us, but the captured princesses too.”

“And just Princess Celestia alone is a force to be reckoned with,” Spike added, seeing Starlight’s reasoning.

Starlight nodded. “Destroying this throne is going to be imperative in staging this rescue, or I fear we’re just not going to have enough of an advantage to stand much of a chance,” she said, laying the situation out plainly for them to see.

“Not only that, but the captives are going to be unconscious and in cocoons when we find them, no matter where they’re at,” Thorax added. “And the longer you’ve been kept in a cocoon, the harder it is to recover again upon release.” He motioned to the others with one hoof. “You all have an idea of what that was like already. So if we just focus on freeing them and ignore the throne, we’re still going to have to deal with them fumbling about as they recover while we’re also trying to escape…except stealth will still be mandatory. With destroying the throne first, stealth obviously isn’t going to matter so much. So I agree that our odds improve if we remove the throne from this picture first.”

“Here’s a thought though,” Spike suddenly interjected. “What if the princesses and the others aren’t being kept in the throne room? Where would they be then?”

“The harvesting chamber,” Thorax replied automatically, clearly of the opinion that there was absolutely no room for doubt on that. “That is the room where all captured prey is stored for safe keeping within the hive where the emotions from the prey are periodically harvested at mealtimes to then to be disturbed throughout the rest of the hive, for feeding.”

“Sounds like a wonderful place to be,” Ember muttered aloud in a heavily sarcastic tone.

“It’s located in the lower levels of the hive, and like the queen’s throne room, it’s kept well-secured, for obvious reasons, I think,” Thorax continued to explain. “But, outside of mealtimes—which would be equivalent to the breakfast, lunch, and dinner of ponies—it’s generally fairly empty and scarce in changelings present beyond basic guards unless the alarm’s been raised. And unless it’s changed since I left the hive, I know of at least one entrance in and out of the chamber that would be relatively unguarded at such a time.” He grinned optimistically. “Assuming we arrive at the hive in time for one of these lull periods, which by my calculations should be likely, we can easily pass by and check if the princess captives are being kept there. If not, then they are certainly in the throne room, our next stop regardless.”

“And so on to the throne from there,” Spike concluded, which Thorax nodded to. “All right, that sorts out that then. The big issue that remains still is the throne.”

“Okay then, so for that, we get to this throne, have Thorax try to destroy it, then failing that, have Spike and Ember try and destroy it,” Trixie summarized. She frowned. “But what if that fails too?”

“Then I guess we resort to simple blunt force to try and destroy the throne,” Starlight decided with a helpless shrug. “Hopefully it doesn’t come to that, though.”

“I guess that part’s settled then,” Ember said, also shrugging. “But what about even getting to this throne? Just what is our plan for sneaking in and through the hive far enough to get at it without being detected?”

“And for that matter, how are we going to get back out afterwards?” Spike asked flatly, finding that matter a bit more important.

“If we destroy the throne first, I may be able to teleport all of us directly out of the hive, or close to it, giving us a head start,” Starlight replied, having already thought of this. “But as for getting in…” She then hummed to herself for a moment as she considered the other half of the problem, then again glanced at Thorax. “Thorax, you think can lead us safely to this throne without getting detected?”

“You all stand a far worse chance of actually getting there if I didn’t,” Thorax replied, seeing the matter did not even need to be discussed.

“You sure though?” Spike asked. “I mean…you have been away from the hive for a while.”

“Yes, but I was still born and raised there,” Thorax reminded, looking at his best friend. “I might be fuzzy on the finer details, but I should still remember the major landmarks enough to guide the rest of you safely to the throne room or anywhere in the hive really, barring no unforeseen complications. And trust me when I say all of you would never find the throne room on your own without a changeling to guide you.” He looked back at the rest of the group. “No, I’m more worried about how well we’d all be able to sneak in there. How many of you even have any practice doing this sort of thing?”

The group all looked at one another, frowning as they realized they all didn’t exactly share that skill.

“Surely you do though,” Spike reasoned, motioning to Thorax. “You served as an invader when you were still in the hive…you’d have the tactical and military training the rest of us wouldn’t, right?”

Thorax grimaced. “Only sort of,” he admitted. “Aggressores, or invaders, are not exactly highly specialized soldiers, and were never meant to be. They’re just a very low-standing, bottom-of-the-barrel, rank meant to fill in the unimportant gaps of the hive’s troops.”

“A ‘grunt,’ basically,” Ember remarked.

Thorax nodded. “In terms of training, I only ever got the minimal basics I needed to not get myself killed immediately in a conflict. And even then…I admit I’ve always made it a point to try and avoid actually using most of it if I could. It was never a role I enjoyed doing.” He looked to Ember and Spike. “As you may recall Julius noting when he attacked us.”

Ember sighed. “I guess, then, that means I’m the only other one who’s had any real tactical training,” she said. “But I think I’m not going to be very much more use than Thorax. I mean, I got all the training, and I personally don’t have any reservations about using it…” she rolled her eyes, “…but my overprotective father was always,” she made air quotes with her claws, “‘keeping me away from the action,’ and I haven’t been dragon lord long enough to change that myself, so I’ve never had any meaningful on-the-field experience using any of that training. Just the usual, you know, punch out the dragon who annoyed you and be done with it, which doesn’t really require much tactical training at all, just some brute strength. So everything I know would be more…” she trailed off, looking for the right way to describe it.

“…textbook and theoretical?” Starlight offered.

Ember shrugged. “One way of putting it.”

“Well good,” Trixie remarked, trying to look on the bright side. “That means I don’t feel like I’m the only one who’s so woefully unprepared for this. We all are, really.”

“Then let’s not continue to dwell on it,” Starlight suggested. She began studying her now-empty cocoon hanging beside her thoughtfully. “Thorax…I know none of us are going to be eager to do it again so soon…but sticking us in these cocoons for those changelings following us really helped to dissuade attention…what if we did it again to get us into the hive, right under the noses of the other changelings?”

“If you had suggested that before I pulled you all back out of your cocoons just now, then possibly,” Thorax relented. He rubbed at the upper jugular area of his throat, right where it met with the base of his jaw, feeling his sore gel glands that lay underneath. “But these cocoons are useless now that I’ve opened them up. If I could cough up enough changeling gel, I could repair and reset them, but I had to spend so much gel just making them in the first place, I’ve basically milked myself dry. I’d be lucky to be able to come up with enough gel to repair just one cocoon, let alone all four.”

“How long until you possibly could produce enough gel so to reuse these cocoons?” Starlight asked next, motioning at her spent cocoon with one hoof.

“Probably not for a couple of days,” Thorax admitted.

“Time we don’t really have to spare,” Ember noted aloud.

Thorax nodded. He sighed. “Besides, now that I think about it, those two changelings that had been following us are only going to pass word on to the hive to expect Julius with captured prey to house at the hive, and the moment I arrive with such cocoons filled with what would appear to be prey, the other changelings are only going to spring forward and all help take them away and into the care of the messores, the changelings responsible for the upkeep of the hive’s emotive food supplies and harvesting positive emotions from prey. That would effectively take all of you out of my hooves and where it’d be hard for me to get back to you, and where would that leave us?”

“Nowhere good, that’s for certain,” Spike observed. “Doesn’t sound to me using the cocoons to get into the hive is all that bright of an idea.”

“No, it doesn’t,” Starlight agreed thoughtfully.

“Now hold on,” Ember interrupted, and focused her attention on Thorax. “You said the hive is going to be expecting you to arrive in an airship with us as prey?”

“Well, more accurately, they’re expecting Julius to arrive in an airship with prey, but yes,” Thorax said, seeing why Ember asked already. “I know what you’re thinking Dragon Lord Ember, but I doubt that’s going to cause any more problems than what we’d already face without that even. All that means is that the hive will be on the lookout for the Vergilius, but only up to a certain distance. Lookouts stationed at the hive itself shouldn’t be able to sight us coming beyond the acorn grove surrounding the hive, and I plan to land us well outside the grove for that reason. There are changeling outposts placed around the Badland borders and along the outer edge of the acorn grove, but I’ve already got us on a course that will take us between them at a distance where they shouldn’t be able to see us…and even if they did, they’d know by then that it’s likely Julius and will be able to let us approach without much trouble. But my plan is to fly the Vergilius in close enough to the grove without actually entering it that we can safely proceed on to the hive on hoof without any changelings actually seeing us coming.”

“And you think we can safely just walk on into the hive that way?” Ember asked.

“We’ll have to take an underused side-entrance to avoid detection, but yes, I think we can,” Thorax stated confidently.

“But if the lookouts don’t actually see Julius and the Vergilius coming by tomorrow like they expect, won’t they start getting suspicious?” Trixie asked.

“Doubtful, as I never gave any changeling a clearly expected time of arrival,” Thorax assured. “Just that Julius would be arriving sometime tomorrow morning. If he didn’t show up right away when they expect, they’ll more likely just assume he’s running late and get ready to reprimand him for it once he did arrive at first. They wouldn’t actually start to think something might be up until closer that evening, and by then, I hope will have gotten this all wrapped up and already be well on our way out of there again.”

“So with a little luck, you’re saying we shouldn’t face any additional complications from that,” Ember concluded, satisfied with Thorax’s explanation.

“Now that I’m thinking about it, we have other concerns anyway,” Spike remarked, who had moved on to think of other things. He turned to Thorax. “Thorax, I know changelings can smell the emotions of their prey…”

“Wait, smell? Emotions?” Starlight repeated, baffled about how this could be possible.

Spike ignored her remarks though and pressed on without interruption. “…so once we’re at the hive, are our emotions getting detected only going to give us away to the other changelings?”

Thorax considered the question for a moment. “They could,” he admitted, but here he actually turned optimistic. “There is, in fact, a distinct difference between pony emotions and changeling emotions—subtle, but obviously something a changeling like me could detect…” he grinned, “…but only if we’re actively looking for it, in very close proximity to the source, or attempting to feed upon said emotions. Otherwise, even a changeling could miss it. And with the hive being so heavily populated, our emotions will likely just blend in with the rest of the ambient emotions put off by the other hive inhabitants. So as long as none of us are put in the situation where our emotions are so close to the changeling in question that they’re hard to miss, or permit ourselves to experience an emotion not fitting to the ambient emotions of that area of the hive, we should go unnoticed, emotion-wise.”

Ember smirked. “First good news we’ve had today,” she quipped.

Starlight had a concern, though. “Emotions not fitting in with the rest,” she repeated to herself. She glanced at Thorax. “Just what sort of emotions might those be?”

“It’ll be hard to predict the hive’s mood exactly until we arrive, but we probably to avoid anything like unbound love, profound sadness, or unrestrained fear,” Thorax reasoned, covering the emotions that struck him as obvious.

“Yeah, that might be a problem,” Trixie confessed, raising her hoof out of the puddle of slime she sat in so to draw attention to herself. “Because I have to admit just the thought of doing all this absolutely terrifies me.”

“Push past it,” Ember urged simply, like it was the easiest thing in the world. “Control your fear so it doesn’t control you. Make it your tool instead of your stumbling block.”

Trixie snorted. “All easier said than done.”

“I can sense all of your emotions so long as we keep together,” Thorax assured. “If need be, I can alert any of you if any of your emotions are getting too…obtrusive…and help to tone them down somehow.”

“I’m getting the sense that so long as we follow your lead then, we stand the best chance of actually pulling this off,” Ember noticed in a tone that suggested she had mixed thoughts about that.

Thorax sheepishly, but solemnly, nodded. “Admittedly…I am probably your best bet in succeeding. I don’t want to scare anyone…but none of you probably would stand a chance without me.”

Trixie shuddered involuntarily. “Not helping,” she whined.

Thorax winced. “Sorry, Trixie,” he apologized with meaning.

Trixie glanced up at him and locked eyes with him for a moment, calming down a little. Then, blushing a little, she averted her gaze again. Thorax quickly did likewise. Both continued on pretending as if it didn’t happen, but awkwardly avoided making eye contact again for the next several minutes.

“So that’s getting into the hive more or less settled, and we have a tentative plan on how to get back out of the hive,” Spike summarized, listing these points off on his claws. “But what then? I mean, I’m sure the changelings aren’t just going to sit to one side and let us do all of this and get away. They’re going to try and chase us, certainly.”

“Just come back to the Vergilius here and fly away before they can catch up,” Trixie suggested, like it was obvious, “Keep as much of a lead on them as we can.”

But it wasn’t quite that obvious. “But while the Vergilius is certainly fast, it can still only go so fast,” Spike retorted back. “Couldn’t those changelings still just catch up with us and swarm the airship?”

“Probably, but not right away, assuming we can get enough of a lead to take off and into the air,” Thorax replied. “The Vergilius can go just fast enough at full throttle that we can maintain that gap for a good distance.” He sighed. “But Spike raises a good point, because we still wouldn’t be able to outrun them forever, and there’s a bigger problem anyway.” He glanced at the others. “There’s enough magical charge in the engines that it will last long enough to arrive at the hive. But by then, it’ll be down to a third or less…not enough to fly back to, say, our present location. And once that charge runs out…we’re dead in the water, so to speak.”

“So basically you’re saying our getaway carriage has a broken wheel,” Trixie summarized with a frown.

“Or it will soon,” Starlight corrected, and tapped her chin with one hoof in thought. She quickly regretted it because, as it had been resting in the puddle of slime filling the floor, this got a wet blob of slime on her chin which she then had to rub off before continuing to think. She turned her head to Thorax. “How far could the Vergilius get before that happens?”

“It depends on how fast she’s going,” Thorax replied. “How fast that remaining charge of magical power runs out of course depends on how hard the engines are working to push her. But as we’d probably want nothing less than full throttle if we’re being chased, then I’d say…ten to fifty miles, maybe.”

Starlight’s eyebrows went up. “So that should still be far enough to get back inside the Equestrian border, right?”

“Yes, but that’s not going to matter much. That far south, where the population is still fairly sparse, the changelings are only going to keep pursuing without qualms. Besides, from Queen Chrysalis’s point of view, Equestria would still be her territory anyway, by right of conquering.”

“Yes, but the pony populace she’s still going to want to keep unknowing about the situation, or her whole ruse will unravel then and there, and then she’ll have an uprising on her hooves.” Starlight paused to consider the matter some more before turning back to Thorax. “There are still villages that far south though…could we possibly reach one of them? Like say, Dodge Junction? That’d be the biggest of the villages in the area and still along our flight path back into Equestria.”

Thorax considered it for a second. “Barely, at best,” he admitted, and didn’t seem entirely confident.

“Can’t we just set down somewhere and recharge the engines before we continue on with this whole scheme first, so it won’t have to be a problem?” Trixie asked with exasperation.

“Not when Equestria is already on alert searching for you, and those search parties could be easily being manipulated without knowing by changelings to carry out their dirty tasks for them,” Ember answered pointedly.

“And we can’t recharge the engines ourselves, not without certain equipment we simply don’t have aboard,” Spike added, who knew this much about the airship’s refueling process.

“Besides, even with a full charge on the engines, we’d still only get so far before the changelings catch up and overwhelm us, unless we do something to shake them off our tails first,” Thorax added, glancing in Trixie’s direction then back at Starlight, who he could see was still pondering on the dilemma. “I believe what Starlight is suggesting, though, is to arrive at a pony village such as Dodge Junction and hope they will be willing to help ward off the pursuing changelings long enough to take another course of action, if not end the chase then and there by force.” He winced. “But…that’d likely mean going to battle…something I wish to avoid if possible…and there simply won’t be that many ponies that far south we could count on to fight back anyway. The odds, at least in terms of hooves helping, will still be unbalanced.”

“Yes, but if all goes well, then by that point we’ll have four alicorns with us that can help even the odds a little,” Starlight reasoned before looking Thorax in the eye. “And I don’t like the idea of having to do a battle like that either…but if we can be perfectly honest and realistic with ourselves? We probably won’t have a choice by that point. Not unless some miracle transpires and changes the situation completely in our favor.”

“Or not in our favor,” Trixie added with skepticism.

“Knock on wood,” Spike murmured, rapping his claws twice on the slime-covered deck they sat on.

“As I see it then,” Ember remarked, jumping in to voice her own thoughts on the matter, “we don’t have much other alternative. We’ll have to stand and fight at some point, and I agree with Starlight, it’d be best to do that with as many allies as we can get. So I say once we leave the hive, we get to the closest pony-population we can, make our stand there, do what we need to so to chase off the changelings.”

Starlight nodded then rose to her hooves, slime from the puddle she had been sitting in unpleasantly dripping off her rump, and considering the matter settled for now. “Well, it’s still the best plan we’ve got, and we lack anything better for the moment,” she admitted. “But until we arrive at the hive, I challenge all of you to try and think of something better where you can between now and then.”

“‘Better’ being a relative term, of course,” Spike remarked pointedly, being slightly negative, which of course everybody still readily agreed to.

Trixie also rose to her hooves eagerly, seeing the discussion over now. “Does that mean I can go wash this cruddy slime off of me finally?” she asked with a hopeful look, more than ready to get herself cleaned up properly after her brief stay in the cocoon. “I’m starting to feel sticky all over thanks to all this gunk.”

Starlight looked to Spike and Thorax for confirmation, seeing it was their airship. Spike, standing up too, barely waited for that much as he waved Trixie on with an uncaring flick of his claws. “Yeah, go ahead,” he said. “Just don’t use up all the hot water.”

“Or all the water in general,” Thorax added quickly as Trixie immediately turned for the navigation room door. “Remember, we have only so much on board, and while most of that is regularly recycled, a certain amount still needs to stay in circulation at all times, especially for the water that serves as ballast for the air yacht.”

“I’m going to take a quick bath, not try and fill the Celestial Sea,” Trixie grumbled as she marched out the door.

Ember was the last to stand of the group, shaking slime that had accumulated on her tail off in the process. “Well, while all of you prissy ponies fret about how much you need bathing, I’m going to go press on with more important things than that,” she grumbled as she headed out the door, trailing after Trixie.

Starlight frowned and glanced at Spike questioningly. “What does she mean by that?” she asked, uncertain she understood what Ember’s intent was behind saying it.

“In the Dragon Realms, dragons generally don’t bathe,” Spike explained flatly, “at least not regularly in the same manner ponies do.”

Thorax frowned. “Then…how do they keep themselves clean?”

“They take a rollicking swim in lava,” Spike answered. “And not even with the explicit intent to clean anything, but rather just for the fun of it, because, to them, bathing is for wimps. Obviously, any dirt and grime they might bring into the lava pool doesn’t last too long in it. So basically, lava is the dragon form of bathwater, even though they don’t see it that way.”

There was a pause as Thorax and Starlight processed this. Then Starlight made a half-smile. “Sounds hot.”

She then glanced back and forth eagerly at Spike and Thorax, awaiting their reaction to her little play-on-words quip, but Thorax looked at her blankly, missing the joke, and Spike, unimpressed, just rolled his eyes and turned to exit the room too.

Starlight made a small sigh. “Never mind,” she said, and moved to follow, pointing a hoof ahead of her. “Other things to do, then.”

Among which included cleaning up the rest of the mess opening up the cocoons had left. Thorax was at first at a loss as to how to best do it with the limited cleaning supplies that were on board, but then Starlight jumped in by using her magic to scoop up the spilt slime into one big ball that she then simply tossed overboard. The cocoons weren’t quite so quickly removed though, as Thorax was hesitant to just toss them overboard like the slime; as they were clearly changeling and would still hit the ground largely intact, he feared they would only serve as clues to where they had been, should someone come here looking.

But this left him with few other alternatives. There was a way to recycle the material making up each cocoon that would then break it back down into the base changeling gel, which in the hive would then be bottled and stored for use on demand later, but they lacked the materials and tools needed to undergo this recycling process, or even the things needed to create a makeshift equivalent (Thorax explained that all changelings that served in any role that could potentially have them operate outside the hive at any time were taught how to build a makeshift recycler if needed) aboard the airship.

Now that they were drained of their contents, leaving the cocoons alone would mean they would eventually dry out and degrade on their own over time, but this could take days to weeks, too long for their purposes, and there wasn’t room on the airship to stash them in the meantime anyway. So finally, at Starlight’s suggestion, she and Thorax gathered up the four cocoons and dropped them overboard regardless, but carefully timing it so the cocoons landed in a small lake they were passing at the time. Open as they were, the cocoons would fill with water and sink to the bottom, where they would go unnoticed until they had decayed away on their own.

Meanwhile, during all of this, Ember was speaking with her two escorts (who had held misgivings about letting their leader be put into a changeling cocoon and were pleased to see Ember was no worse for wear from the experience), the three brainstorming on how the two adult dragons were going to fit into their plans, and what roles, if any, they could play. As they waited for their turn in the bath, Starlight, Thorax, and Spike eventually joined in, adding their own thoughts on the matter. Ember was still of the opinion that keeping them around was the smarter plan, possibly with the idea that they could provide an additional distraction while they’re escaping from the hive, or at least provide some sort of backup in case something in their shaky plan failed. But Starlight still had concerns they would only rile up the changelings even more in such a situation, not to mention risk undue harm to innocent lives.

And by then they had all come to agree that they really preferred to keep the bloodshed to a minimum as much as they could in this matter. Thorax was especially in agreement with this thought, stressing that he very much wanted to pursue it as a goal for as long as they could. Even Ember wasn’t necessarily keen to deal out needless injury for this, having to concede that she didn’t really see “the need to resort to that right this moment,” though like the others she didn’t rule out it needing to become necessary later whether they wanted it to be or not, nor was she afraid to have to resort to it if forced, which she made blatantly clear. A dragon like her wasn’t afraid of a “little fight,” as she termed it. Therefore, she continued to push to keep Garnet and Obsidian around somehow despite Starlight and Thorax’s misgivings.

But then Spike also firmly stressed that he didn’t want to do anything that could unnecessarily add to their risks and agreed that keeping the two dragons around ran such a risk. Thus, outvoted regardless of whether or not Trixie was present to voice her opinion too, Ember started relenting to their views on the matter. Thorax started to have concerns that the large size of these dragons was only going to cause them to get noticed more easily anyway, resulting in yet another strike against them, so Ember came up with an even better plan.

To the two’s great reluctance, not wanting to have to leave their dragon lord at any time, Ember ordered that one of them, Obsidian, would remain to escort them at a distance on towards to hive, until such time that they arrive and land. Then Obsidian would have to remain behind to stand guard over the Vergilius while the rest of them went on to infiltrate the hive…something Obsidian didn’t particularly care to do as it meant Ember would go into danger without him guarding her. Garnet had it worse though, because Ember ordered him to return to the Dragon Realms and inform the dragons there of the situation and her orders, then collect a small group of dragon defenders to bring back and wait somewhere in the Dodge Junction area, standing at the ready to come in a fight off pursuing changelings they expected to give chase during their planned escape.

But as part of a contingency plan, Ember gave final orders to both dragons that if no one heard back from her by the end of two days from now, the dragons were thereby permitted to stage their own rescue attempt to get her back. Ember did this fully expecting that such an event would result in a dragon invasion on the changelings and a war following immediately thereafter. But to use that to their advantage, Ember also ordered them that, should such a conflict arise, the dragons were to keep their attacks focused on the changelings and the changeling hive only, and to not engage any Equestrian forces at any time, should Chrysalis attempt to use her control of Equestria to interfere.

“It’s my hope that by so doing, that would either force the changelings to rely only on their forces alone, or, better still, risk the rest of Equestria finding out about the ruse, leading to you ponies staging a rebellion of your own and turning the war into a two-front conflict,” Ember reasoned aloud to the others. “I think that should help to level the playing field.”

“I strongly doubt the changeling hive could win in such a scenario, even with its present advantages,” Thorax was forced to concede. “Nonetheless, I still hope no such conflict will ever have to transpire, as I still wish to try and pull this off without seriously harming anyone, pony or changeling alike.”

“And even I’ll admit that I’m starting to have similar desires,” Ember admitted, though with some reluctance. “I’m fully aware that such a war would only result in many casualties on all sides, and even though I’m sure the dragons at least would rise to challenge gloriously regardless, I’m not interested in permitting that to happen if we can help it, not without a much better reason at least.” Her gaze then turned serious as she looked at the others. “Nonetheless…I recognize that the odds are against us enough that it’s still better to be prepared. If we fail for any reason, then we need to have at least someone prepared to step in and try and finish the job we’ve started.”

The others regarded each other for a moment. “Seems reasonable enough,” Starlight relented finally. “And Ember’s right—we probably should have some sort of backup plan in place, just in case. A lot could still go wrong, after all.”

“It’s not much of a plan,” Trixie remarked as she suddenly reappeared on the main deck, strolling out to join them as she finished straightening her now freshly cleaned mane before levitating her hat that she had found where Thorax had left it back onto her head like it had never left. “But I suppose it’s still more of a plan than we had before.”

Starlight looked at the freshly cleaned Trixie with surprise. “Done bathing already?” she asked aloud.

“Yeah, it wasn’t as hard to get all of that gunk out as I thought,” Trixie admitted with a shrug. “And it seemed there was still plenty of water left, so the tub’s free for whoever’s next.”

“I call the tub next, then!” Spike declared, raising his claws into the air.

“Darn it again!” Starlight shouted, who was again too late to claim her chance to bathe. “Then I claim the tub after Spike!”

“I really don’t see what the big deal is,” Ember grumbled, and rubbed one of her arms with her claws. “Look, after it dries, the slime just flakes right off, see?” Sure enough, the dried slime on her arms flaked right off as a faintly green and uneven powder.

“She’s not wrong about that,” Thorax added, who certainly didn’t find the slime comfortable on his body, but knew it wasn’t going to cause harm and would come off on its own quickly enough. “Admittedly, it’s not like the slime is causing any real harm.”

“Yeah, but unlike you two who don’t have a natural hair on your bodies,” Starlight groused, glancing at the dragoness and changeling and their completely hairless bodies, “I’m finding that this slime doesn’t mix so well with fur.” And sure enough, a quick glance at Starlight’s heliotrope coat showed the hairs had become sticky and matted as the slime still on her body dried.

Ember snorted. “Whatever,” she muttered. “You prissy ponies do what you think you need to, I don’t care.” She turned to Garnet and Obsidian. “Now, you two, you’re clear on what your orders are?”

“Yes, dragon lord,” both dragons chorused together.

“Though I still believe it unwise to leave you behind to go at this alone, dragon lord,” Garnet added, for the record.

“Bah, don’t worry about it you two,” Ember said, giving them a confident grin. “Things should work out fine, and I’m more than capable of looking after myself just fine without your protection. Anyway, I’m not alone.” She motioned to the others. “They’re an odd bunch…but they’re allies, and I hope friends I can count on too.” She turned back to the two escorts. “So I’ll manage just fine. You two just worry about carrying out your orders for now.”

And with that, the two dragon escorts nodded their heads and banked away from the Vergilius, Obsidian coming to continue following the air yacht but from a greater distance, while Garnet came about fully to fly back the way the airship had sailed, heading for his homelands. The others watched the latter dragon fly off, Starlight and Thorax wishing him well, while Trixie mumbled to herself that she had felt safer knowing there were two enormous dragons around. Once Garnet was gone though, leaving Obsidian, the Vergilius, and all aboard alone as they soared onwards for the Badlands, a heavy silence fell upon the group as they realized they were committed to this crazy plan of theirs now.

Seeing this and wanting to distract them from that, Thorax abruptly clapped his hooves together. “Well then, before Spike heads off for the bath next,” he said loudly so to get everyone’s attention. “We’re not going to reach the hive until tomorrow morning at any rate, which means we’re all going to have to spend the night here on the ship. So we’ll have to take turns flying the Vergilius through the night, and I’ll happily show all of you how later. But for right now, I think we should find sleeping arrangements for everybody. There should be just enough berths for everybody to have their own…”

Trixie’s azure hoof suddenly shot into the air. “Dibs on the stateroom!” she eagerly claimed.

Ember rolled her eyes. “Again with the dibsing,” she mumbled. “And here I thought dragons are supposed to be the competitive ones…”

Ignoring Ember’s grumbling, Starlight shot Trixie a look. “How do you know this yacht even has one?” she asked, incredulous. “You’ve never been aboard before today.”

Trixie smugly put a hoof to her chest. “I remembered Thornton describing it in his letters to me,” she explained in a haughty tone before adding, “besides; I saw where it was while I was below deck to bathe. You’re just jealous Trixie thought to claim it first.”

However, at Trixie’s mention of the letters, Spike shot Thorax a stern look of his own, causing Thorax to immediately avoid the dragon’s gaze, knowing exactly why he was getting that look. “I thought I told you to not tell her anything in those letters that she didn’t need to know,” the little dragon remarked firmly. “Just what have you been telling her?”

“So!” Thorax declared, ignoring Spike’s comment and moving to usher Trixie, Starlight, and Ember towards the deckhouse to head below deck. “Trixie’s already claimed the stateroom. I’d personally kind of like to keep one of the berths nearest to the stairs to the below deck, so I can get up top in a hurry if needed. After that, I’d imagine, for everyone’s comfort, it’d best to keep everyone with like genders, which would put Spike with me in the other bunk near the stairs. So, Starlight, Ember…that leaves the cabin with the two beds in the prow…do either of you have any issues with sharing that cabin?”

“Well, that depends,” Starlight remarked and looked at the taller Ember. “Do you snore?”

Ember frowned and folded her arms. “Absolutely not,” she replied crossly.

“Good, I don’t either,” Starlight replied and turned back to Thorax. “So that shouldn’t be a problem.”

“All right then, I’ll show you where to find your beds then,” Thorax said and hurried them on into the deckhouse, leaving Spike behind on the main deck, still giving Thorax his stern look.

As such, Spike wasn’t about to let the matter go…as Thorax found out when he returned above deck some minutes later and stopped to check the control gauges at the helm as he passed. He failed to notice Spike still hadn’t moved for the head to bathe or that he was moving to stand in the doorway leading out onto the main deck until the little dragon spoke. “Thorax, just how much have you told Trixie?” he asked simply but bluntly.

Thorax jumped and looked at the dragon for a moment. Seeing the look on his friend’s face made it clear he wasn’t going to be able to evade the question, Thorax instead averted his gaze. “Well,” he began with a little hesitation, “if we count the letter I sent Trixie literally as we were fleeing Vanhoover, then…everything.” Spying the look of disapproval Spike made at that, Thorax sighed. “I felt she deserved to know by that point. And it’s not like it matters anyway. She clearly knows now.”

“I know, I know, it’s just…” Spike averted his gaze for a moment, licking his lips as he collected his thoughts. “…why didn’t you tell me?”

Thorax glanced at him for a second, his expression faintly apprehensive, but then he returned his gaze the controls of the helm and proceeded to busy himself with them without answering. Spike realized he was deliberately trying to avoid giving one and his mind started to consider why. “Thorax…is there something going on between you and Trixie I should know about?”

Again, Thorax glanced at him for a second with the same expression, only now there was an added note of alarm in it. He then again tried to avoid answering by turning back to and busying himself with the airship’s helm controls, but when Spike didn’t show any signs of budging on the subject, he turned and moved to exit the control cabin and out onto the main deck, slipping past Spike in the process. “Excuse me, I, uh, want to go inspect one of the air scoops on the envelope,” he said distractedly. “I think it might have gotten clogged with something.”

Spike allowed him to leave without comment, but he turned his head to watch the changeling stroll out onto the main deck before buzzing his wings to fly up to the lifting envelope strung above them so to carry out the task. He continued to watch the changeling with a conflicted look, pondering on just what it was the changeling was deliberately keeping to himself.

Author's Note

So this chapter ended up being much longer than first planned.

Originally, there were no changelings pursuing Starlight and Trixie, so the chapter had just jumped straight to the group making their plans while sitting around the main deck of the airship, but when that changed, the bit of fooling the pursuing changelings into thinking they had all been captured and put into cocoons was added. I'm actually glad that happened, because it gave me a chance to detail how the cocoons work and what it was like to be in one, something I had planned to do elsewhere in the story but had gotten cut from that spot at some point, so this gave me the chance to do it here instead. :yay:

I also kept thinking up new details the group would logically need to discuss so to form the best plan they could and adding in contact accordingly, so that added to the length as well.

But if you think this chapter's long...it's got nothing on the next one...which also got long without meaning to be, but more on that when it gets posted. :raritywink:

The draconian proverb Thorax, Garnet, and Obsidian use as a code phrase is an actual proverb in the Manx language, and was so chosen because it had a clear spot to easily break it in half, and because the proverb happens to be loosely relevant to "Grief" on a whole. It will be replacing the "klutzy draconequus" code phrase used in the "To Where and Back Again" episode, in lieu of Discord's presence here. I had originally planned to not introduce this code phase until roughly the same place it gets brought up in the episode, and as a joke, would've still suggested the "klutzy draconequus" only for everyone to decide against it as a "bad idea." But again, the scheme with the cocoons added to this episode necessitated it be brought up sooner, and that joke was lost as a result, due to there being no relevant way to bring it up in context.

Garnet and Obsidian, Ember two adult escort dragons, were also going to depart entirely in this chapter, sent back to the dragon lands on Ember's order and wait there for further orders until the set time she told them to wait had passed and they and the other dragons could act on their own. But upon thinking about it further, I realized it did seem like it'd be a waste to bring them in and then not use them for something, so I came up with their roles as they stand now.

Otherwise, things are progressing as before. :twilightsmile:

Breaking the Ice

After everyone had bathed who was going to bathe (excluding Ember—who simply decided she didn’t need to—and Thorax—with far more occupants aboard now, he couldn’t fully guarantee his preferred privacy when bathing, so his old fear of getting caught in water in public and that he hadn’t gotten as much cocoon slime on him as the others led him to decide he could do without) and once everyone was settled in, Thorax gathered everyone back into the control cabin for a group meeting. There, he explained that in order to keep the Vergilius flying safely and on course through the night without stopping, they would each have to take shifts piloting it. For this, he needed to run through how to do that, teaching them the basics of flying an airship.

For Spike (now fully back in his usual disguise despite it being unnecessary), Starlight, and Ember, this went fairly well. Starlight’s sponge-like mind for absorbing information was able to get down the needed details fairly quickly. Ember, being a dragon capable of personal flight, knew enough of the aerodynamic principles behind it to be able to follow along with the rest and understand how to apply them for the airship. And Spike, having aided Thorax in flying the craft in minor ways since they left Vanhoover, was already familiar with the fundamentals, providing a sturdy foundation for the rest of the information to build off of.

Trixie, however, was another story. Unlike Spike and Ember, she had no prior background in the field of flying, and unlike Starlight, didn’t have an interest in learning because she was, of course, afraid of flying (or so Ember preferred to refer to it as. Trixie tried to explain that it wasn’t so much the act of flying that frightened her, it was more the danger of falling to her death if whatever was holding her up would abruptly cease, but Ember insisted that it was all the same thing). In fact, the idea of being the one responsible for flying the airship for any stretch of time left her very uneasy. It didn’t help that the more technical details just seemed to fly over her head and there was much she just didn’t seem to understand. Finally, Starlight volunteered to pull Trixie aside and talk it through with her in more generalized terms Trixie could understand. Thorax quickly (maybe too much so) agreed to that and allowed Starlight to do so while he took Spike and Ember out onto the main deck to show them how to maintain the airship’s suspension cables that tethered it to the lifting envelope keeping it afloat.

By the time he had finished doing that and left the two dragons working on some general upkeep on the tethering, Starlight had finished with Trixie, having successfully gotten the basics of flying the airship through to the stage performer enough that Trixie at least felt reasonably confident that she could keep the Vergilius in the air, on course, and away from anything it could collide with en route, which was really all Thorax was looking for right now. So Thorax then set about teaching Starlight how to upkeep the airship’s rigging like he did with Spike and Ember. Trixie was exempt from this at Thorax’s decision, as he knew her phobias would make participating in such a task highly uncomfortable for her, seeing most of the air yacht’s suspension cables ran along the edges of boat-like gondola, all of which Trixie had been making a point to stay away from the whole time she had been aboard. It seemed more courteous, then, to not force her into that task.

“Besides,” he reasoned, “altogether we’ll have four others who can maintain the rigging including myself, and on an airship of this size, that’s probably more than I’ll ever need.”

Indeed, Spike knew from their voyage immediately after leaving Vanhoover that Thorax was more than capable of maintaining the rigging entirely on his own if need be, and figured Thorax had only taught others more as a precaution and to give them something to do while they flew for the changeling hive. Nevertheless, Spike watched his changeling friend closely where he could during all of this and afterwards as they went about their individual tasks aboard the craft—not because of how Thorax had handled this crash course in flying an airship, but because he was still wondering about the questions he had asked that the changeling had deliberately avoided answering eariler.

Apparently this showed somewhat to others. Because while he and Ember worked with the rigging anchored to the roof of the deckhouse (as already noted, most of the rigging ran around the edges of the gondola as well as the bowsprit and sternsprit, but for added support and anchoring to the lifting envelope, a few were placed down the middle of the main deck, and as the deckhouse itself was more or less “in the way,” a couple had to be mounted to its roof), Ember finally made note of Spike’s concentrated gaze as the littler dragon gazed at where Thorax and Starlight worked at the bowsprit, idly chatting. “So just what is it that you’re thinking so hard about and what does it have to do with Thorax?” the dragoness asked simply.

Startled out of his contemplation, Spike glanced in her direction. “Oh, uh, nothing you need to be worrying about really,” he admitted. He smirked a bit to himself. “Actually, in the grand scheme of things, it’s probably not the most important anyway, considering where we’re going and what we plan to do there…at least for now.”

It was clear from Ember’s expression that it wasn’t the response she was looking for, but nonetheless she grunted in acknowledgement and returned to the block that controlled the suspension line they were adjusting. “Thought I’d ask, is all,” she eventually elaborated as if she felt obligated to, even though Spike hadn’t planned to press. “You just seemed pretty focused on it.”

“It’s a subject I’ll probably have to talk with Thorax in more depth once this is all over, but it can probably wait until then, I guess,” Spike admitted, though with a little reluctance.

“That’s assuming we successfully pull this off,” Ember responded, distracting Spike from his thoughts.

“Darn straight,” Spike grumbled, but no sooner had he said that, he couldn’t help but smirk a little as an appropriate counter-response immediately sprang to mind. “But if Applejack were here, she’d call that ‘stinking thinking.’” He then thought about how long it had been since he had really spoken with the apple farmer and sighed.

Ember glanced at him again. “You miss them, don’t you?” she asked pointedly, “Your pony friends?”

Spike frowned. “I think that ship’s sailed by now, Ember,” he admitted sadly.

Ember disagreed though. “I wouldn’t be so sure of that,” she said. “Back when she was explaining things, Starlight did mention that Twilight Sparkle was getting forced out of the search for you two, and she and her friends were helping Twilight see why. Personally, that suggests to me other ponies actually were starting to change their minds about you and Thorax, maybe even for the better, before this all went down.” She frowned, troubled. “Honestly, it surprised me a little…like you, I was starting to lose faith, and am still reluctant to put too much trust in them. But maybe…that was all premature…”

“Not necessarily. All of that just means ponies were seeing Twilight getting too obsessive and moved to stop her. They probably still won’t actually trust Thorax or believe me properly when I say to the contrary. Twilight certainly won’t.”

“Twilight is an idiot,” Ember agreed straight up, grunting as she struggled to get the pulley in the block to move. “The truth’s already there in front of her and she chooses to ignore it. But never mind Twilight. What about the others? I mean, Starlight’s here, isn’t she?”

“Yeah, but for an ulterior motive,” Spike replied very pointedly, and it was clear that despite his decision to participate in the rescue attempt, he still had clear misgivings about being involved. “She’s here to use Thorax, not so much because she sees a friend in him.”

Now Ember was the one to smirk. “Obviously I’m no expert,” she remarked, “but I think you underestimate Starlight Glimmer. Heck, I think I’ve underestimated her. I had taken her to be no better than Twilight before, but…since she got here…she’s been showing more of an open mind than I thought she would. I’ve been wondering if she’s more on your side than you give her credit for. And if she can do it, so could others, couldn’t they?” She grunted again as she worked with the block, which was proving to be more troubling than expected. “Anyway, you need the friends.”

Spike glanced at her in mild surprise. “Oh really?”

Ember didn’t reply right away as she continued to struggle with the block. When she did, it was with a bit of an embarrassed grimace. “Look…ever since meeting you and Twilight at the Gauntlet of Fire, I admit I’ve been thinking about friendship a lot,” she admitted slowly as she worked. “Mostly, I’ve been thinking about what I know about how ponies live and comparing it to how dragons live…and I do have to admit that I see a clear difference. On some things it’s a good thing…but on others…” she hesitated for a moment. “…I hadn’t really thought about it too much before, but…I look around at the dragons I rule over back home and…feel like something’s missing. An important something. Something that ponies have, but dragons don’t. Something that could bring a bit more…stability…to things, I guess? Something that I figure has to be friendship. I mean, what else could it be? It’s just…you know dragons don’t do friends. Not willingly, at least. I’m still uneasy about the whole thing myself.” She turned her head slightly to glance in Thorax’s direction at the prow of the airship. “But sometimes…I think Thorax has the right idea in doing what he’s done…and it’s left me worrying the dragons have fallen prey to the same problems Thorax sees in the changelings.”

Spike continued to regard her in surprise. “How would you know?” he finally and impulsively blurted out. “I can barely get you to even acknowledge that you have friends most days.”

“Which reminds me,” Ember added and sternly pointed a claw at Spike. “Tell anyone that we had this conversation and you’re a dead dragon.”

Spike grinned and shifted his own gaze back to Thorax. “And with that, the balance in the universe is restored again,” he quipped, completely unfazed by the threat. He knew it was empty.

Ember struggled with the stubborn pulley for another moment then slapped her fist hard into its side when it refused to budge. “Why do they anchor these things with ropes and pulleys anyway?” she grumbled aloud, frustrated. “Why not just use, I don’t know, metal poles to mount the balloon-thing to the craft with? That’d be a whole lot sturdier, and you wouldn’t have to go adjusting them so confoundingly often!”

“Thorax said it’s so the balloon can be easily raised or brought to the closer to the rest of the craft at will, depending on flying conditions and how you want to travel,” Spike replied automatically. “Something about how doing so affects how the airship flies…he could explain it better than I could.”

Ember grunted again, before letting out a victorious shout when she finally got the pulley moving as desired. Once it was adjusted accordingly, she glanced at Spike again, then followed his gaze over to where Thorax and Starlight were, out of their earshot, but clearly having finished their work at the bowsprit and were now caught up in conversation. “What do you suppose those two are talking about, anyway?” she asked.

“Oh, probably about Thorax’s banishment, Starlight’s role in it, and debating whether or not they can really trust each other or something like that neither of them should really even have to be asking each other,” Spike mumbled critically.

But as it turned out, Thorax and Starlight were presently talking about nothing of the such.

“So your stomach actually has two chambers to it?” Starlight asked, intrigued.

Thorax nodded. “The upper one is for processing emotive energy,” he explained. “The lower is for everything else, including more physical, traditional, foodstuffs. You know, like bread, apples, hay, ice cream…”

“Well, I suppose that makes sense, then,” Starlight commented thoughtfully. “Adapted and specialized organs for a specialized diet, but also allowing for more traditional consumption too…I assume this means you can safely feed both ways, then?”

“…kind of. I can still eat the same sort of foods you would, but they’ll give me barely any of the same nourishment emotive energy would. No, in order to not starve, I would still have to subsist on primarily a diet of emotions. I think the ability to eat other things is more for…appearances sake. You know, so we can interact fully with our prey in disguise with less chance of drawing suspicion by doing something they wouldn’t…like not partaking of their offered food.”

Starlight couldn’t help but wince a little. “‘Prey,’ huh?” she commented. “I guess that is what we’d come across as to you changelings, right?”

Thorax shrugged, sheepish. “I know the connotations of the word aren’t exactly…desirable, and I can’t blame you for that. It’d make me uncomfortable too…it does make me uncomfortable, in fact. But like it or not, there’s no denying that’s technically what it is, no matter what the intentions of the respective changeling are and whether or not they intend to feed passively, or overfeed and cause harm. Personally though, I’d rather see it could be as more of a symbiotic sort of deal. If anything, I’ve demonstrated that much by successfully living in Vanhoover with Spike for four moons like I did. That suggests changelings and ponies could safely coexist…if we’d just let each other try it.”

“Hmm,” Starlight hummed to herself, this giving her food for thought. For now though, her curiosity brought her back to their original subject. “So…this emotive energy…how exactly does a changeling manage to garner any actual nourishment from it?”

“So the way I understand it is like this,” Thorax began to explain. “All emotions are laced with a kind of energy that, once properly tapped, gives us nourishment. I’ve been describing it to you as emotive energy, but in the changeling language, we more properly refer to it as ‘amor.’ How this energy is laced with the emotion depends on the emotion. For example, I’d get more energy out of love than I would, say, guilt. But in its raw state, that amor is locked away and inaccessible, so the first chamber of the stomach converts it into a format where it can, transforming it into a sort of syrupy liquid, the amor still locked inside, but now where it can be more easily accessed.”

“A sort of…emotive chyme, then?”

“I guess…the changeling term for it is just pre-amor. But anyway, once it’s converted into that state, it trickles into the second chamber where it receives a bit more conventional processing along with whatever else the changeling might have eaten before moving on from there.”

Starlight’s brow furrowed. “So wait, you said traditional solid foods wouldn’t give you much in the way of nourishment, yet you indicate that they’re still broken down in the second chamber.”

“They are, much like how it would in your stomach, I’d think,” Thorax assured. “Chemically and mechanically speaking, I was taught that the solid food is all still broken down and processed in the same way, it’s just very little of it is in anyway absorbed into the body later on by the guts, save maybe water and a few select minerals. It’s just…along for the ride, so to speak.”

“Hmm, I assume that’s all just to aid in its passage through the gut then. It’s still broken down, it’s just little is actually taken away in the process.”

“So I was taught as a nymph.”

Starlight considered it for a second. “…wouldn’t that mean your guts would fill to capacity quicker with solid foods, then?”

Thorax nodded. “Yeah, and it doesn’t help that once the solids hit the second chamber of the stomach, it’s pretty much committed going the rest of the way. No backtracking.”

“So…if you were to eat more solids than your tract could handle in one go…”

“…then it gets overwhelmed, and hello stomachache.”

“And the pre-amor or whatever?”

“Continues on through the guts so as much amor can be extracted as possible and absorbed into the body pretty much exactly as you’d expect. Whatever’s leftover from that is then, uh, sent the rest of the way through.”

“Leftovers…so then, even on a purely emotive diet, I, uh, guess a changeling would still need to…”

“Ah, yeah, yeah we do.” Thorax forced a grin. “But I don’t think you really want to hear about that part.”

Starlight chuckled. “No, I probably wouldn’t,” she agreed. “Sorry, I guess Twilight’s thirst for knowledge rubbed off on me a bit more than I thought…I suppose that’s what I get, being her student and all.”

“Heh,” Thorax chuckled. “Well, at any rate, she hasn’t rubbed off on you entirely at least. You’ve still seem to have come around to the reality of things sooner than she has.”

Starlight frowned and averted her gaze. “That doesn’t excuse the fact that I should’ve come around far sooner than I did, Thorax,” she mumbled in shame.

Thorax’s smile faded. “At least you still did eventually,” he reasoned optimistically. “That’s what’s important in end.”

The sentiment managed to bring a small smile back on Starlight’s face. “I suppose,” she relented. She gazed slightly in the direction of where Spike and Ember could be seen working. “I just wish Spike could see it that way.”

Thorax followed her gaze for a second then turned back to her. “Something to work on once this is all over, I suppose,” he resolved.

Starlight’s grin grew a little more. “Yeah,” she agreed softly then straightened, changing the subject. “Anyway, thank you for humoring my curiosity in changeling biology a little, Thorax.”

“It’s okay, I’m just glad I knew enough to explain it adequately to you. I’m no biologist after all. Regardless though, I can understand why you’d wonder about it.” Thorax’s grin became a little more genuine. “It all probably seems a little strange to you, I’m sure.”

Starlight politely returned the grin. “Well, no offense, but compared to the ponies and other beings I’m used to being around, a changeling like you does appear a little…weird.”

“None taken,” Thorax assured brightly. “Back in my youth, when I saw a pony for the first time, I admit that I thought you were all weird-looking too. It didn’t help that the pony in question was an earth pony, so for a long while afterwards I thought ponies didn’t ever have horns or wings like changelings did.” He then shrugged. “But I grew used to it as I matured. Now I barely even think about things like that. It’s just how it is.”

“I suppose that thinking ought to be the same for us towards changelings then,” Starlight reasoned. “Still, now that I’ve learned more about your kind thanks to all of this, I can admit that changelings aren’t as weird as I first expected. I mean, you look insectoid, but from what you’ve told me, anatomically speaking you all sound like you’re basically mammalian like ponies.”

“We are mammalian,” Thorax confirmed matter-of-factly. “The female changelings nurse the young like a female pony would with their young, and so on.”

“Really?” Starlight asked, both intrigued and surprised by this. “But I thought you had said changelings lay eggs…”

“Yes, but that doesn’t mean we can’t be mammalian too, does it?” Thorax tilted his head at her. “I mean, doesn’t a platypus lay eggs? Yet it’s still technically considered a mammal.”

“That’s true!” Starlight conceded. “I had almost forgotten about that…but then, I confess I don’t know an awful lot about platypuses…”

“I’ve heard they don’t do much, you know.”

“Anyway, I guess I’m just surprised to find this out about changelings,” Starlight continued, “Because from what I’ve seen, I haven’t seen any of the traits that would actually confirm it.” She then rolled her eyes. “Of course, it’s not like I’ve ever actually met a female changeling before…closest I’ve ever gotten was seeing the few pictures ponies were able to get of Queen Chrysalis during the invasion at Canterlot. And yeah, they’re just pictures that can only show so much…but still, I didn’t see anything to suggest…”

“You…wouldn’t have anyway.” Thorax averted his gaze, a little embarrassed. “Uh, in changeling society, it’s not considered polite to leave such…traits…especially and specifically the, uh, gender-defining traits…visible in public, so we have a simplified version of one of the spells we use in forming disguises to, basically, hide such things from sight while in public. Just sort of melds them in with things around it so it looks like there’s nothing there to see.”

“Oh!” Starlight remarked, catching on, but also recognizing it was an awkward subject for a changeling to discuss directly like this and it, in turn, made her feel awkward. She cleared her throat. “That’s, uh…fascinating!”

Thorax tilted her head slightly at her. “I’ve always been doing it while undisguised too, so…honestly…I’m a little surprised you hadn’t already noticed, considering you ponies…” he blushed a little. “…don’t.”

Starlight laughed awkwardly, blushing a little herself. “Well, in pony society, it’s not considered polite to, uh, stare at such things, so uh…I really just hadn’t been…looking…so, um…”

They both shifted uncomfortably in silence for a moment, both desperately looking for a way to change the subject, and quickly.

“So!” Starlight continued finally with a forced cough, staring at the Vergilius’s bowsprit giving her inspiration for a new subject at last. “Anyway, I feel like I should apologize for pretty much just appearing aboard uninvited and forcing all of this on you and Spike without warning like this. I mean, after everything you two have been put through…” she averted her gaze. “…let’s just say I can understand why Spike was reluctant to go along with it at first.”

“It’s okay,” Thorax assured her calmly. “I don’t mind, at least. Spike’s just…bitter about a few things still.”

“Honestly, he has every reason to be,” Starlight’s gaze wandered back across the main deck to where Spike and Ember could be seen atop the deckhouse, chatting amongst themselves much like she was with Thorax. “I’ve come to realize we’ve all been pretty unfair with the both of you. And for Spike it’s…changed him.” She frowned sadly as she studied the dragon still habitually wearing the disguise he had worn for so long in Vanhoover. “I can still recognize the little dragon I remember when we first met, yet at the same time he seems like a totally different guy now…and I’m not sure what I want to think about that.”

“To be honest, I’m not sure he does either,” Thorax admitted. “I think…part of him is secretly thrilled to see somepony he knows like you again…yet at the same time he can’t push past…well…”

“…what happened,” Starlight finished simply. She sighed. She side-glanced at Thorax. “I’m sure it’s even harder for you, since we still don’t really know each other that well.”

“A little,” Thorax confessed, averting his gaze in mild shame, wishing it wasn’t so. He then perked up a little. “But it hasn’t been all bad. At least you brought Trixie with.” Then, catching himself, quickly proceeded to add, “Well, uh, because, uh…not to say I know Trixie that especially well,” he forced a nervous laugh at this, “though I guess…well, um…” he winced to himself, realizing he was only digging himself deeper, and let out a small sigh. “…it’s just Trixie…Trixie gets it better than most. That’s…that’s all.” He kept his gaze averted and pretended to be busy adjusting a suspension line they had already adjusted just a few minutes ago.

Starlight’s gaze wandered to the open door of the control cabin, where Trixie could be seen inside fiddling with the airship’s radio. At Thorax’s request and because she preferred to stay in the deckhouse where she was slightly less aware of the airship’s flight, she was listening for any new developments within Equestria that might affect their present situation, at least until they eventually went out of range (as Equestrian radio broadcasts stopped within the southern frontier, an area they were rapidly approaching). Thus far there had been nothing to report…which given the changeling threat, was both good and bad news.

But Starlight’s gaze turned to regard Trixie more because Thorax’s passing comments reminded her of another matter that needed addressing. “So just what’s the deal with you and Trixie, anyway?”

Thorax glanced at her in surprise that was only just barely concealing a greater shock at the question. He hadn’t known that Starlight was even aware of that. “…We’re just friends,” he quickly summarized and left it at that, turning his gaze to other things in hopes Starlight wouldn’t pry for more.

Perhaps a little too quickly, Starlight noticed. “Right, of course you are,” she agreed, but then glanced between the changeling beside her and Trixie inside the deckhouse, debating for a second. “You know, she was worried about you.”

Thorax paused. Slowly, his gaze went back to Starlight. “Really?” he asked.

Starlight nodded seriously. “After she got your last letter and found out about everything that had happened in Vanhoover, she was afraid you wouldn’t be able to keep safe. After I learned about all this too, it seemed to be a subject Trixie was always coming back to in our conversations.” Starlight tilted her head at the changeling. “She really didn’t like the idea of you being in danger.”

Thorax shuffled on his hooves uncomfortably for a second, unsure what to say. “…because that’s what friends do,” he concluded finally, shirking the full depth of the subject.

Starlight grinned reassuringly a little. “Yes, they do,” she agreed finally.

She intended to leave the subject there, but apparently it got Thorax’s mind whirring because not long thereafter he went on. “It’s not like we could be anything more than friends anyway, right?” he asked awkwardly. He was trying to sound casual and indirect about it, like it wasn’t at all an important question for him. He wasn’t really succeeding.

Starlight glanced at him, the reasons why he might ask that certainly not lost on her, and she found herself intrigued by the implications. “Why, do you think you two are becoming more than friends?” she asked, feigning innocence in her tone.

Thorax grew nervous. Starlight briefly wondered if changelings could sweat, because it seemed like that’s what Thorax should be doing right about now. “…No,” he finally answered.

Starlight tilted her head at him. She wasn’t the least bit convinced, not with the way Thorax was acting right now. There was something there, all right. The question was…was it real, or imagined? So for now, she decided to keep playing along. “Then why ask?” More or less play along, at least.

“Well…” Thorax hesitated, flustered as he attempted to put into words what he wanted to say without flat-out saying why this was important to him. He had clearly missed the fact that Starlight had already caught on to what this was likely about.

It amused her a little, actually. Up until now, she had thought they really were just friends. “Have you asked Trixie about any of this?” she asked next since Thorax wasn’t getting his thoughts out clearly yet.

“No!” Thorax immediately blurted out. “After everything that’s happened, it’s…all awkward now…I don’t think it’d be right, and now she knows, she knows my big secret, and…well…the fact that I even did keep such a secret from her ought to say a lot…right? Altogether it’s just a big mess that I don’t know if it can even be sorted out.” He sighed. “I mean…we’re not even of the same species…and I’ve kept secrets from her, concealed my true identity, and more.” He forced a shrug and an awkward, fake, grin. “With all that standing in the way…what else could we be, really? With all those secrets I’ve kept from her before…why would she even speak with me still?”

Starlight raised an eyebrow and suddenly got an idea that she knew was a little dastardly…not that it was going to stop her from doing it. “Oh, well, if that’s all…” she said then turned her head towards the open door of the deckhouse. “HEY, TRIXIE!” she called.

She got no further than that, as a terrified Thorax, no doubt suspecting what Starlight planned, had suddenly thrown himself onto her and wrapped one of his black, chitinous, hooves around her snout, holding it shut. Nonetheless, Trixie heard, and after glancing out the door in their general direction, she stepped away from the radio and stood in the deckhouse threshold. Seeing Thorax and Starlight in the positions they were in, she paused to stare questioningly at them.

“…Is something wrong?” she asked flatly, not appearing amused.

Thorax shook his head. Starlight, meanwhile, nodded her head. Thorax then promptly shifted his grip on Starlight to try and hold her head in place, keeping her from doing as such. The action only seemed to amuse Starlight, who was wearing a notable smirk. It also freed Starlight’s mouth again.

“We were talking about secrets,” the unicorn explained simply, sounding smug.

Thorax looked in alarm from Starlight and to Trixie repeatedly in rapid succession, but he didn’t seem to know what to do, because he didn’t speak nor did he try to stop Starlight from talking again. Trixie just continued to stare at them, baffled, and after glancing at the airship’s railing then warily and cautiously slipping out onto the main deck, promptly sliding towards the middle, she approached them.

“…so?” she finally asked as she drew near, not seeing where this was going.

Starlight’s smirk grew as she turned her head to look at Thorax, who cautiously looked back. “You think Trixie doesn’t have her own secrets that she hasn’t told you?” she asked, and then before Trixie could stop her, added, “Trixie is just a nickname. Her full first name is actually Beatrix.”

Trixie’s eyes went wide, and her face heated up in both irritation and embarrassment. “Starlight!”

Thorax blinked and went blank, head turning to Trixie. “Beatrix?” he repeated innocently as he released Starlight, lost in thought as he processed this.

Trixie pressed her forehooves to her face in frustration. “My mother’s idea,” she grumbled in dismay, before rounding on the unrepentant Starlight. “But I’d rather pretend that it doesn’t exist! You know I hate that name!”

“Yes,” Starlight agreed immediately and eagerly. “And now that I have blabbed about that secret, are there any others you want to tell Thorax about, or should I?”

“Why do we have to talk about my secrets at all?” Trixie retorted, not happy and not understanding why her unicorn friend was doing this.

But Starlight made her reasons clear soon enough. “Because Thorax here thinks he’s completely ineligible from interacting with you now because he’s kept secrets from you,” she explained simply. “So, I’m trying to show him that he wasn’t the only one who has kept a secret, and that having done so doesn’t mean you’re automatically unforgivable—everyone has kept a secret at some point.” She shrugged then, seeing she had caught Trixie off-guard by all of this and the mare momentarily at a loss for words, she went back to the original question. “Now, who shall come clean with the secrets, you or me? If you prefer, I can start with a simple one, like explaining why you have a fear of wheels.”

“She’s already told me about that one,” Thorax interjected suddenly.

Now it was Starlight’s turn to be surprised. “Really?” she asked. “When? And why?”

“The night we first met,” Thorax answered distractedly. He looked like he was mulling over something and had his attention split as a result. “We got to talking about fears, and she brought it up.”

Starlight looked to Trixie, half amused and half incredulous. “Just like that?” she repeated as she gazed at Trixie, who was annoyed, but was avoiding eye contact, knowing she couldn’t deny it. “You only told me after I practically twisted your hoof for the better part of a day.”

“The Great and Powerful Trixie is entitled to determining who she does or does not tell secrets to,” Trixie answered with an air of haughtiness, but then she turned serious and leveled her gaze on Starlight. “Besides, no matter how supposedly well intentioned this is for you, Starlight, that doesn’t mean you’re allowed to go blabbing about secrets I entrust to you to keep secret, so I don’t appreciate you just announcing for the world things like that my full name is Beatrix.”

Starlight opened her mouth to reply, but oblivious to this, Thorax spoke first. “Beatrix,” he innocently repeated, “a name of Middle Equestrian origins roughly meaning ‘blessed traveler.’” He then tilted his head at Trixie, who had stopped short as Thorax casually spoke, his fears of doing so suddenly forgotten. “I think it’s a pretty name at least…and in a way fitting, considering how much you travel in your line of work, of course.”

Surprised by this positive comment, Trixie just stared at Thorax, unable to formulate a response. Thorax gazed back at her, his gaze innocuous as he patiently waited. Though as what he said started to sink in fully, he began to shift awkwardly, realizing what he had done and was also unable to formulate any further response. Ultimately though, they were interrupted by Spike calling to them from the roof of the deckhouse.

“Hey Thorax!” he yelled. “Ember’s got a question about the rigging up here that I don’t know how to answer, and I’m afraid she’ll try something unwise if I don’t!”

Thorax looked in the little dragon’s direction, and then, turning sheepish, he nodded his head politely at the two mares. “Um, excuse me please,” he said then with a buzz of his wings, the changeling vaulted himself into the air and flew up to join Spike and Ember on the deckhouse roof.

Trixie vaguely turned her head to watch him depart, but her gaze remained largely unfocused and distant as she continued to mull over what just happened. Starlight watched her, bemused and still wearing her smug smirk.

Finally, Starlight started to trot off, giving Trixie a nudge as she passed. “You’re welcome.”

Trixie shot her a confused look. “For what?”

“Breaking the ice,” Starlight remarked back, head turned to look back at her azure friend, before trotting on across the main deck of the airship and for the deckhouse. This left Trixie sitting there on the deck, trying to process what had just happened.

As Starlight and Trixie hadn’t known how long they were going to be away when they left Ponyville and what their access to supplies was going to be like, they had brought a small amount of their own supplies apiece with which to sustain themselves at least until they had completed their goal of reaching Spike and Thorax. Though these supplies were far fewer and scanter in comparison to Spike and Thorax’s actually better-prepared stocks, to the point that they were actually sort of meager, Thorax had agreed with Starlight that they might as well merge the two stashes and gave her permission to carry out the task, and to gather any aid she saw fit if necessary.

Trixie became her first and only “volunteer”—having become available from radio duty because they had started leaving Equestria’s broadcast range leaving intelligible transmissions rare—as they were not joined by the others for one reason or another. Ember, desiring the practice, had volunteered to take the helm of the craft and maintain the ship’s course. Thorax gladly permitted her to do so and took the opportunity this freed him to work on other tasks. This just left Spike, but he, for reasons he kept vague, retreated into the navigation room and kept to himself there, writing something on a stack of papers he had brought aboard the airship. When asked about it, he avoided elaborating upon what he was working on, making it clear that he did not wish to discuss it aloud with others.

Observing all of this about the little dragon, Starlight determined that part of the problem was that Spike was still adjusting to their company, and this bothered her greatly. He’d readily interact with Thorax of course, and he seemed to get along well with Ember despite the dragon lord otherwise not being very good at socializing with the rest of the group. But Starlight hadn’t missed that he seemed to avoid herself and Trixie whenever circumstance didn’t force them to all interact together as a group, like they did when planning their strategy for the rescue mission or when Thorax was teaching them how the airship was to be maintained. She quickly reasoned that though Spike had agreed to cooperate and work with them for the greater good, he inwardly still wasn’t ready to fully trust either of the two unicorn mares, nor did he want to commit to changing that yet.

As she and Trixie set to work by bringing down one set of saddlebags down below deck to the ship’s little kitchen area, sorting them out and finding spots to stash them, Starlight took the chance to talk to Trixie about this problem weighing on her mind. She desired to do something to try and show Spike that he didn’t need to do that still, but without making their relations worse somehow. She initially brought the subject up with Trixie on the grounds of wanting Trixie’s input and suggestions in coming up with some kind of workable solution, but eventually it devolved to Starlight simply unloading her misgivings to Trixie as they worked to find places for the new items. Still, after some minutes of this, she managed to bring the matter back to her original question and turned to inquire to Trixie of her thoughts.

Only to find that Trixie, at some point, had gone back above deck to fetch the other saddlebags while Starlight had been distracted and never returned, and if Starlight’s suspicions were true, she had also likely missed most of what Starlight had said since then. This left her more than a little annoyed at Trixie’s failure to follow through on the task. So after waiting for a minute or so to see if Trixie would return on her own, Starlight went above deck again so to figure out what had delayed her friend and was soon arriving in the middle of the control cabin, not far from the helm.

Starlight glanced in the direction of Ember manning the ship’s wheel, the dragon’s back turned to her. “Hello, Ember,” she greeted timidly.

Ember glanced back at her briefly. “Hello,” she responded back simply and returned her attention to steering the air yacht.

“I don’t suppose you saw where Trixie got off to,” Starlight continued as she approached the dragoness.

Ember didn’t reply verbally and instead pointed with one claw out the control cabin’s forward viewport at the main deck. There, sitting along where the row of the lifting envelopes tethering cables ran down the middle of the deck, sat Trixie with the saddlebags and what remained of the supplies she hadn’t yet transported. Trixie’s back was to them, but as Starlight came to stand beside the helm to watch, she could clearly tell that she was eating something.

“She’s been like that for a few minutes now,” Ember noted aloud.

Starlight frowned, figuring out what had delayed Trixie and sighed. “She’s found the peanut butter and crackers, hasn’t she?”

“I can’t see from here,” Ember admitted. “But I have caught the scent of peanut butter every now and then, so it would seem safe to assume she at least has that much.”

“Then there will be crackers too, there always is,” Starlight muttered but with a slight smirk as she moved to exit the control cabin and onto the main deck. “…though I still wouldn’t put it past Trixie to eat the peanut butter straight out of the jar.”

Approaching Trixie though, she found that she was right in her assumption; there were indeed crackers, Trixie levitating them out of their box one at a time but at a fairly rapid pace, dunking each one into an open jar of creamy peanut butter so that each cracker received a heaping scoop on top, then popping it right into her mouth, munching away. She did all of this while appearing to be in deep thought, her eyes looking concerned about something.

Though she looked up at Starlight with a mixture of guilt and surprise upon noticing the other unicorn’s arrival, this did nothing to slow Trixie’s consumption of the nutty snack. “Hello,” she greeted Starlight simply after a moment’s silence.

Starlight sat down and folded her forehooves knowingly. “So, feeling nervous, are we?”

Trixie frowned. “Who said I was feeling nervous?” She popped another peanut butter-ladened cracker into her mouth.

“Well, you’re not one to pass up eating peanut butter crackers at any time, but even I know you only ever binge-eat them when you’re feeling nervous about something,” Starlight pointed out, knowing Trixie’s habits on this matter well.

Trixie chewed thoughtfully as she considered this. Finally, her frown deepened and she shrugged. “Fine, so I’m nervous, is that so wrong?” she relented, pulling out another cracker from the box she had sitting beside her. “And can you really blame me? I’m flying along on an airship—and you know I hate flying—knowing that there are changelings that are seeking us and would like to do us harm who are also taking over the Equestrian government as we speak, and to somehow try to stop them, we’re flying right towards their hive and center of operations with a far-fetched plan and poor numbers and poorer odds of success…who wouldn’t be nervous?”

Starlight smirked. “True,” she relented, and moved to sit beside Trixie. “But then why are you only resorting to the crackers now?”

“Because I only found them again just now,” Trixie replied, giving Starlight a look before kicking Starlight’s saddlebag with one hoof. “You had taken the peanut butter and crackers away from me on the way here, remember?”

Starlight rolled her eyes. “Okay, fair point,” she relented. She watched as Trixie dunked the new cracker into the peanut butter and started to bring it up to her mouth, but Starlight then gently blocked it from getting there with one hoof. “But let’s be honest…this isn’t about just all of that, is it?”

Trixie scowled and glared at the cracker that had been blocked entry to her mouth. “…maybe a little,” she finally relented with reluctance.

“Trixie, just go and talk to Thorax already. You clearly want to, yet you two have been avoiding talking with each other one on one since you came aboard.”

“But can you blame me? Just what do I talk to him about, anyway?About how I barely understand who he is anymore? How I can’t begin to know how to react around him? I mean…I don’t get where this has left him and me, where our friendship is at, even if it still exists…”

“Then tell him all of that and not me.” Starlight placed an encouraging hoof on Trixie’s shoulder. “Look, I know it’s awkward. I get that. It’d be awkward for me too if I were in your horseshoes. But you aren’t stopping to think that it’s in all likelihood going to be just as awkward for him as it is for you, and that he doesn’t know how to broach the subject either. But you both want to, and you both need to, so you really ought to get it sorted out now rather than later, for everyone’s greater good. Otherwise you’re both going to be of little use when we’re infiltrating the hive because you’re so distracted with your own problems.”

“It’s not that easy, though!” Trixie whined, throwing out her hooves in frustration. “This really isn’t the time or place to be working it out for starters, not when we have far bigger problems and a changeling hive to somehow infiltrate without being caught.” She ducked her head around Starlight’s hoof and snatched the blocked cracker out of her magic with her mouth, stopping to chew it for a second. “And then I’m deeply afraid that if I do confront it, then no matter what I did, it’s only going to end in disaster. And I don’t want that.”

“Trixie, I don’t think it’s going to be as bad as you make it out to be,” Starlight soothed. “You two are still friends, right?”

“And see, that’s what I don’t know! Are we? Or has everything that’s happened ruined that?”

“Well, judging from how Thorax has been acting around you, I’d say you are,” Starlight stated with a comforting grin. “When I was speaking to him about the subject earlier, he acted exactly as you are now. He wants to continue that friendship…but he’s not sure how to do it, or if you’re willing. It seems to me that you are, though, or at least interested in trying. So show him that.” She sighed then gave Trixie a pat before pulling her to her hooves. “At any rate, you two need to talk it out. One on one.”

Trixie sighed. “Okay, okay, I’ll try,” she relented. She turned to face Starlight fully. “But can I at least have some time to get my thoughts in order first?”

“So long as you don’t use it as an excuse to put it off forever, then do what you need to, Trixie,” Starlight said. Then, as Trixie, heartened by this, moved to resume dunking crackers in peanut butter, Starlight took them away with her magic. “But I’ll be taking these.”

“Aw, but why?” Trixie complained.

“Because if I don’t, you’ll eat all of it now, and then you won’t have any comfort food to stuff your face with later when we’re arriving at the hive,” Starlight called back with a teasing smirk as she headed for the control cabin, the confiscated snacks in tow.

So, lacking in peanut butter and crackers now, Starlight volunteering to finish putting away their supplies herself and leaving her free to think, Trixie went back to the radio, listening for transmissions. It was pointless now—they had gone outside Equestria’s broadcast range—but it still gave Trixie something to do while she mulled upon how she wanted to proceed from here. She knew Starlight had a point; she did want to get it sorted out, and she knew it needed to be done…it just intimidated her, fearing the consequences if Starlight was wrong and it only ended badly. But Starlight seemed to have faith that it wouldn’t, and as she had conveyed, doing nothing would likely only make the problem worse with time…time which they didn’t have. And with that in mind, Trixie knew her friend, as usual, was right. It still took her some time gathering the nerve to commit to it, but finally she did, leaving the radio and went looking for Thorax.

As there were only so many places he could be on the air yacht, it didn’t take long to find the changeling at all. She found him below deck, and as it had been every time previous since coming aboard, she was jarred to see the shamelessly undisguised changeling sitting there. Also as before, her first instinct was to inwardly tense up at the creature pony society had taught her to fear. But she forced herself to suppress that fear, knowing that it had been well proven by now that this changeling meant her no harm, and had done nothing to do so the whole time she had been on the airship despite having ample opportunity. Spike had been colder towards her than this changeling in fact.

He didn’t seem to notice Trixie was there anyway, too preoccupied in what he was doing, which was sitting outside the closet the injured changeling Julius was being kept in his cocoon, doing some sort of routine check-up. Trixie timidly and quietly moved to watch. She had only seen the cocoon and its occupant once before, when Thorax showed them it as an example when explaining his plan to put them in cocoons long enough to throw the changelings chasing Starlight and Trixie off their trail. The yellow-green glowing cocoon itself was fairly unremarkable in the sense that it was the same in shape, purpose, and function as the one Trixie had briefly been in, but like the first time she saw it, it was the occupant visible behind the cocoon’s semi-transparent skin that caught Trixie’s attention the most.

The first thing that struck her was the changeling’s burns that covered the majority of his body’s left side. They were partly covered up by changeling gel Trixie was told Thorax had applied so to serve as a sort of bandage prior to placing Julius in the cocoon, but not enough to hide the terrible and unsightly burns entirely from view. They were quite serious—Starlight had expressed surprise that Julius was even still alive when she first saw him, knowing that these same burns would’ve quickly killed a pony from the trauma alone. Thorax reasoned in reply that Julius’s changeling chitin, somewhat thicker and more durable than pony skin, had probably offered just enough protection to prevent precisely the same from happening to Julius. And yet, despite that, Julius was still in grave condition, and not even Thorax knew if he would eventually recover.

But the second thing that struck Trixie about the cocooned changeling was that, looking past the burns, he looked massively similar to Thorax in appearance. This was to be expected, as changelings typically all bore similar appearances to each other, and it was well known to the changelings on a whole that this rendered them difficult to distinguish as individuals in pony eyes…which, according to Thorax, suited the changeling race just fine. Yet, despite that similarity and the fact that Julius was quite unconscious, floating limp in his cocoon, Trixie still found him very aggressive and hostile in appearance, very unlike Thorax. She didn’t doubt for a second that this changeling had tried to attack Thorax, Spike, and Ember, with intent to kill at least Thorax, as a result. She merely needed to look at him to realize the great danger keeping him aboard, even wounded, potentially could be to all of them. If he were to somehow and suddenly awaken and escape from that cocoon without their noticing…

And that what was mystified Trixie the most about it all. Despite knowing this better than all the rest of them, Thorax had still chosen to not only keep Julius aboard, but also do everything in his power to save his life. Thorax had no motivation to—this changeling wanted him dead, after all—and yet he had done it anyway, and without hesitation. Thorax still seemed to have no hesitation about this choice now, firmly standing behind it without any wavering to speak of. To him, there simply was no alternative, and Trixie couldn’t help but be a little impressed by that dedication. It made her realize just how much of a kind heart Thorax actually had to show not only aid, but great concern for the health and well-being of his enemies.

She could see that kind heart at work now on Thorax’s face as he interacted with the cocoon in some manner with his magic, brow scrunched with genuine concern and even empathy. Trixie assumed he was using a spell to check on the other changeling’s status, bearing such worry for Julius and determination to help that Trixie couldn’t help but feel some of her own in her heart. “…how is he?” she suddenly asked aloud.

Having not noticed that Trixie was standing there watching until she spoke, Thorax bodily twisted around to look at her in surprise, furrowing his brow and tilting his head slightly at her, a motion that also strongly and jarringly reminded her of Thornton, and Trixie had to remind herself that they were both one and the same. After a second of taking Trixie in though, Thorax’s expression softened and he turned to face Julius again. “Well…he’s alive still, so that’s something,” he reported simply. Trixie was struck by the familiar voice sounding precisely like the stallion Thornton she had unknowingly first met him as. It still seemed so strange hearing his voice come out of so an unfamiliar looking creature though, and Trixie hadn’t yet figured out how to quite overcome that disconnect.

Nonetheless Trixie forced a soft grin. “That’s always good, isn’t it?”

Thorax sighed, and smiled a little himself. It wasn’t very sincere, though. “Yes, I suppose so,” he relented as Trixie moved closer, coming to stand beside where he sat on the floor. His brow furrowed with worry again.

Trixie felt her heart clench. She could almost sense Thorax’s grief and concern for the injured changeling and gave him a look of concern of her own. “Think he’s going to recover?”

Again, Thorax sighed, and this time his uncertainty was very clear in his voice. “I don’t know,” he admitted heavily. “His injuries are showing small signs of healing, so the cocoon does seem to be helping…but he’s not in the clear just yet. Honestly, at the moment, I can’t be sure if he’ll even stay alive for much longer.”

Without even thinking about it, Trixie put a comforting hoof on the changeling’s shoulder, feeling the warm and firm chitin beneath her hoof. She tensed at this, aware she’d just committed herself and couldn’t turn back now. But she took in a deep breath and let it out again in a slow, calming, exhale before pressing on. “You’ve done all you can,” she pointed out softly. “That’s far more than most would’ve, given the situation.”

“It’s not enough,” Thorax murmured, very troubled by this. “He really needs far more medical attention than any of us have the knowledge or materials aboard to give him, and it really bothers me that I can’t give it to him at this critical time when he needs it the most.” But at the same time, he knew Trixie had a point and had to relent to it. “But…as much as I want to do more, I have concede that it’s just not possible.” He sighed a third time. “I’m just…not okay with that.”

Trixie sat herself down beside the changeling, removing her hoof in the process so to tap it with her other hoof, mulling over the dilemma Thorax faced, and wishing she knew what to say to make it better, or at least make it easier to bear. “Well…the cocoon’s supposed to keep him alive, right?” She regarded the moist structure, the yellow-green glow it cast upon them, and the open closet it hung within. “Could it keep him alive long enough so to get him to that medical attention he needs?”

Thorax had to think about it before he replied, and the fact that he had to do so already made clear his obvious doubts. “Possibly,” he decided with notable hesitation. “But the cocoon can only do so much. It’s merely an aid for healing, after all…not a replacement.”

They both regarded the cocoon and its occupant for a long moment, silently pondering the matter. During this, as Trixie took in the details of the cocoon again, recalling her own semi-unpleasant experience in one, she started thinking about the details of how it worked as she presently understood them. This eventually led her to reach a decidedly unrelated thought, but once it had entered her mind, it refused to go away until she had an answer.

So eventually she voiced the irregular question aloud. “What if he has to use the restroom?”

Thorax blinked in surprise and turned his head to look at her questioningly. “I beg your pardon?”

Trixie nodded her head at Julius in the cocoon as she repeated her question. “What if he has to use the restroom while he’s inside of that thing?”

Thorax glanced at the cocoon for a second, then back at her. For a second, she thought he was going to refuse to answer, but then he proceeded to give a response. “Well, first of all, do remember that the cocoon is keeping him in hibernation, meaning that his metabolic rate has slowed down considerably…”

“Yeah, but it still hasn’t stopped, right?” Trixie pointed out in return, turning her head to look at Thorax. “So his organs are still chugging away and doing whatever it is they do during all of this, right?”

“…Right…”

“So…wouldn’t the need for a bathroom break still arise now and then? I mean, he is practically breathing liquid, so he’s still getting hydrated…hay, overhydrated, if anything. So wouldn’t that still result in at least a full bladder after a while of floating in that thing?”

Thorax frowned and tilted his head at her again, but he conceded her point. “Infrequently, yes…”

“So…what happens when he has to use the restroom?”

Thorax glanced at the cocoon again, before finally pointing a hoof at the bubble-like structure that sat at its top, the source of its yellow-green glow. “Well, the nutrient bath regulator’s job is to recycle and refresh the contents of the cocoon regularly, generating more if need be even, and that includes filtering out any impurities, toxins, or…any wastes.”

Trixie furrowed her brow as she caught on and looked back at the cocoon, pulling a face for a moment. “You know, no offense Thorax…but these cocoons of yours really are kind of…gross.”

Thorax chuckled gently. “I suppose they are,” he relented. He then shrugged to himself. “I guess after you grow up around them all your life, you just stop thinking about it after a while and it never even registers anymore. A quirk of the changeling culture, I suppose.”

Trixie snorted, a little amused. “I guess you’re going to tell me now that there’s something in pony culture that seems gross to you changelings then,” she remarked.

She didn’t think Thorax was actually going to respond to this, but he did. “Sunscreen,” he said with a small grin while continuing to gaze at Julius’s cocoon.

Trixie glanced at him, surprised. “You think sunscreen is gross,” she repeated with slight incredulousness.

“Well, it is,” Thorax stressed. “It’s wet, oily, you have to smear it all over, and it leaves you feeling all greasy and sticky for hours afterwards that it just doesn’t seem worth the trouble to me.” He chuckled again, then admitted, “Though it, uh, might have to do with the fact that changelings don’t seem to sunburn.”

Trixie rolled her eyes, smirking. “Well, lucky you.”

They fell quiet for another long moment, both gazing at Julius’s cocoon and watching the injured changeling float in the slimy fluid within. Eventually, Trixie started to recall why she had come down here in the first place and knew it was time she committed to it. She sighed. “Look,” she said. “We, uh, we need to talk. One on one.”

Thorax sighed and lowered his gaze. He started to nod his head in agreement. “Yes…yes, we probably do.” He returned his solid blue eyes on Trixie and got right to the point they had both been avoiding. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you the truth sooner, Trixie.”

Trixie made a casual snort. “Oh, forget it,” she pressed sheepishly. “I’ve already put a lot of thought into that matter, and…” she averted her gaze. “…and I get why you did it.”

Thorax blinked. “…You do?”

Trixie nodded. “And…to be honest…if it had been me…” she looked at Thorax again, “…I probably would’ve done the same thing.”

Thorax started to roll one of his dark-colored hooves back and forth on the floor, mulling upon what she said. “…so you weren’t mad?” he asked finally.

Trixie grimaced a little, recalling her initial reaction when Thorax’s confession letter had arrived. “I didn’t say that,” she admitted slowly and reluctantly, knowing she couldn’t deny that. “At first, I felt…very mad when I read your last letter…as well as betrayed, confused…” she hung her head a little, “…and a little sad. It was, to say the least, all a bit of a shock to me.” She breathed a heavy sigh. “I’m actually glad you didn’t have to be there for it…you didn’t deserve that emotionally driven furor I was facing at the time.”

Thorax frowned in clear disagreement. “Yes I did. I lied to you, when I was…” he hesitated, looking for the right way to put it, “…looking for your friendship.”

“But you really don’t deserve that,” Trixie pressed. “All you were doing was looking out for yourself, and…seeing where we’re both at now…you had more than just cause to feel the need to keep it a secret.” She then waved her hoof dismissively. “Besides, I’m through that part now. Talking it over with Starlight while we were heading for her village and back helped to put things in perspective, actually. I was really just mad because…I wasn’t prepared for it, you know? Here I was thinking I had made this great acquaintance, and then I got your confession, and…suddenly…it was all up in the air. I didn’t know if it had been real or if it had been fake, and…it was just a lot to take in.” She gazed at Thorax sadly. “It still is a bit now, in fact. I mean, I had time to brace myself, I knew what I was going to see when I came here, but…seeing it for myself…it just makes it all the more real, and I just can’t help but question it all, ask myself just how far do the lies go?” Trixie then averted her gaze, ashamed. “But that’s not entirely fair for you either. The point is that I get it, Thornton, I really do. It just…it’s left me confused on where to go now…but putting it off longer still just because it’s uncomfortable like I had been doing isn’t going to fix it either.”

“I suppose not,” Thorax agreed, and he gazed down at his hooves for a few moments, staring at the familiar holes in them marking him as the changeling he was. He suddenly felt a little ashamed about it. “But if it helps…I never liked lying to you like that at all.”

Trixie glanced at him again, intrigued. “You didn’t?”

“No, I really didn’t.” Thorax bit his lip for a moment. “You know, I nearly told you the night we met,” he confessed finally. “Looking back, I probably should’ve still…but I didn’t, because…well, like you said, I was afraid for my safety, because I knew other ponies didn’t always react well to knowing I was a changeling, and…more importantly…I was afraid of how you’d react…” he averted his own gaze, “…and if you’d even still want anything to do with me afterwards, and…I…I…” he took a deep, unsteady, breath, “…I like your company, Trixie.”

Trixie stared down at the floor, running one hoof over the floorboards of the deck. “I do too,” she admitted finally, the words feeling hard to force out, but made her feel a little lighter saying them. “But…if you had told me that evening…I honestly don’t know how I would’ve reacted. Maybe I would’ve been okay with it…heaven forbid, you were giving me all the hints that evening.” She locked eyes with him and couldn’t help but grin a little. “I mean…all that talk about whether or not a changeling could be repentant…you were so trying to clue me in, so much so it seems so obvious now…in a way, that was your way of telling me, I’d just…missed it.”

She shook her head a little, getting back on topic. “But my point is…maybe I would’ve been okay if I had learned the truth that evening…but a big part of me fears I wouldn’t have, and…done something reckless. And then…where would you be? No, as much as it hurts to think about…you were probably right to hold off telling me.” She shook her head again. “When Starlight figured out things shortly after I did…we talked a lot about this. And that really helped me understand all of that, and I get that part now, enough that…I really can’t blame you.” She then shrugged her shoulders. “But basically, Thornton, I just didn’t understand where this will all lead us next. And I still don’t know now. That’s what I want to talk to you about.” She gazed at him forlornly, gazing long and hard at the changeling, but forgetting for a moment that he was a changeling. “I have no clue at all about it myself, and it’s left me with a lot of hard questions I don’t know how to answer. Where do you and I stand on this? What’s going to happen next? Are we still friends? Can we still be friends?”

Thorax frowned, concern clearly etched on his chitinous face. “Can’t we still be friends?” he asked slowly.

“I don’t know!” Trixie bemoaned. She threw both hooves out at the changeling. “I feel like I barely know you anymore! I look at you now in that changeling body, and it’s so jarring…I keep thinking that you’re not anything I know at all…but then you talk and act like that stallion I had met all those weeks ago, and it gives me this really disorienting sense of déjà vu! You’re not the pony I thought you were, you’re not even a pony at all, and yet at the same time you are!” As if suddenly exhausted, Trixie slumped her body downward some and hung her head heavily. “I can’t tell where the lies end and the truths begin anymore, Thornton…sweet Celestia, that’s not your real name even…it’s left me wondering if I ever really knew you at all…if that kind stallion named Thornton was ever real…or was just part of the fabrication.”

She trailed off, staring at the floor bathed in the glow from Julius’s cocoon in a mixture of shame and sorrow. Beside her, Thorax continued to sit there, his own emotions running high in similar ways, but he was hiding them a little better. He thought over what Trixie had said to himself for a long moment, not speaking. The longer the silence dragged on, the more Trixie started to think she was right, and she really didn’t know this changeling at all.

But then Thorax lifted his gaze to look at her and calmly smiled a little. “The Menagerie,” he said simply.

Trixie raised her head to stare at him questioningly, not understanding. “Huh?”

“The Menagerie,” Thorax repeated with an encouraging nod of his head, still smiling. “Give me an accurate plot summary for The Menagerie.”

Trixie continued to stare at him for a moment, but then comprehension for what Thorax was doing started to sink in, and she grinned broadly, understanding his intent…and heartily approving. “The Menagerie,” she repeated, rolling her eyes upwards as she recalled the details. “Let’s see…unless I’m mistaken, that’s the one where the first officer way back in the early entries of Sky Trek hijacks the airship so to undergo a mission to take his critically injured former captain to a location that had been forbidden to be accessed years ago on penalty of death. Most of the story was about the first officer then explaining why he must be permitted to do this via a series of transmissions sent from within the forbidden location itself. An intellectually intriguing story, but not especially exciting, action-wise.”

Thorax tilted his head at her, his grin turning into a smirk. “I don’t know if I can agree with that last bit, but otherwise an accurate enough description,” he relented. He then nodded at Trixie again. “Now it’s your turn.”

Trixie’s grin grew, pleased and relieved by the familiarity of their little game. “All right then,” she said and thought for a moment. She smirked herself. “Let’s try…Broken Bow.”

“Ooh, that one,” Thorax said, brightening eagerly. “As it happens, I read that one fairly recently. That was the one that shifted the timeframe of the series, jumping back to the very early days of Skyfleet and how they evolved into the organization known in the other entries in the series. Beginning with this entry, after a griffon goes on a small rampage chasing an unknown target in a backwater Equestrian town, Skyfleet rushes the launch of their newest airship capable of—”

“My gosh, you’re even further ahead in the series than last time by several dozen books!” Trixie cried aloud, interrupting Thorax’s summary with her amazed and enthused outburst, forgetting the misgivings she had been talking about just moments earlier in her excitement. “And that was barely a moon ago—how do you READ so fast?”

Thorax shrugged casually, but he was grinning softly still. “I guess I just don’t beat about the bush when I read,” he replied.

Trixie rolled her eyes in good-humor. “You must be getting close to all caught up with the most recent entry in the series if you’ve already passed Broken Bow,” she noted. “Just how far are you into the series now?”

“Most recent entry I’ve read is Daedalus,” Thorax explained, which surprised Trixie again because it made her realize just how very close to caught up he really was. “I was already in the middle of reading it when Spike and I were forced to leave Vanhoover, and luckily we were able to bring the book with. But I’ve since finished it, which is a shame, because obviously right now I can’t move on to the next entry.”

“Aw, makes me wish I could’ve brought my own collection of the books with me,” Trixie remarked, thinking of her copies of the series stored in her wagon back in Ponyville. “If I had known you needed more to read, I would’ve brought some for you.” She then shook her head, chuckling. “But dang…you’re very close to the end, at least until they get around to publishing the next entry in the series.”

“Indeed,” Thorax agreed, and his grin grew. “I’m actually eagerly looking forward to the latest published entry, These Are the Voyages…it sounds like an intriguing entry.”

Trixie however wrinkled her snout and waved the title aside. “Actually, I found it to be a very half-baked and weak tale altogether…it’s like the writers weren’t even trying.” But she then jabbed a hoof at Thorax, excited. “But…wait until you get to In a Mirror, Darkly…thatone’s wickedly good.”

Thorax chuckled. “Hopefully I’ll get the chance to read it here soon,” he commented.

“Hopefully.” Trixie gazed at the changeling before her for a long moment, realizing suddenly that they were conversing now like they had the night they met…like nothing had changed. She shook her head slowly. “It really is you, isn’t it?”

Thorax nodded slowly, turning solemn but hopeful. “I confess that the pony you knew as Thornton was only a mask, outwardly,” he explained. His grin returned slightly as he raised one hoof to tap the side of his head. “But the mind behind it has always been one and the same.” He went quiet for a second, but then went on. “It is good to see you again, Trixie. I was…starting to fear we had parted ways for good.”

Trixie sighed, and grinned a little herself. “It’s good to see you again too,” she agreed. “I just wish it was under better circumstances.”

“Likewise.” Thorax studied Trixie for a moment. “But otherwise, now that we’ve talked about it a bit…are you…feeling better about this?”

“I…think so. But uh…” Trixie looked the changeling up and down for a moment, taking in his natural form in detail for really the first time. The midnight blue jacket he wore helped a little, but there was no denying he was of a very different species from her. She shrugged. “Well…befriending a changeling…it’s definitely a new experience for Trixie.”

“I hope it’s still been a worthwhile one for you.”

Trixie smirked at him a little. “It just might’ve been,” she agreed. But then she sighed. “Still…it’s jarring as all hay, seeing you like this. I mean, I know it’s you now, really you, especially now that you’ve proven it to me, but…” she shook her head, tapping her chin in careful consideration. “…you don’t look like you…at least the you I knew best.”

“If it helps, I can put on the Thornton disguise again,” Thorax offered idly, like it was no big deal. For him, it probably wasn’t.

And Trixie considered it for a moment. But eventually she shook her head. “No, I really shouldn’t ask that of you,” she confessed slowly. “That still wouldn’t be the real you, and that wouldn’t be fair for you.”

“Are you certain?” Thorax pressed gently. His face turned a little troubled. “I can tell my natural form is…disconcerting for you…and I’d feel better if I could do something to make you more…comfortable.” Seeing Trixie still seemed hesitant, he stood up. “You know, it doesn’t have to be Thornton. We can start from scratch, build a disguise fitting for both our tastes.” Trixie averted her gaze slightly for a brief second at that, but Thorax missed it as he proceeded to turn himself so to face her fully, the performer turning herself so she was facing him too, so to watch him closely. “A changeling’s disguise can be done in full, or it can be done with only small details. So let’s start simple. Tell me what little things about my natural form are bothering you, I’ll change them however you want, and we can build up from there.”

Trixie hesitated still. “I don’t know…” she said as she looked the changeling up and down.

“C’mon, I don’t mind Trixie, I really don’t,” Thorax persisted earnestly. “Just tell me what is most disconcerting for you to see.”

Trixie bit her lip, debating. “Well…” she began with much trepidation, “…I suppose the fangs are a bit unsightly, but—”

Before she had even finished speaking, there was a small flash of cyan, and the fangs were suddenly gone off of Thorax’s changeling form, leaving him with a more normal looking mouth. Trixie blinked at both the suddenness of it, and how much of a difference it did seem to make. That alone seemed to make him a bit less…intimidating.

Trixie hesitated for a second longer before continuing, looking Thorax up and down for another second, but then conceded one more little change couldn’t hurt, right? “Those holes in your legs are a bit weird to look at too…”

Again, there was a flash of cyan light, bigger this time, so much so Trixie was able to pick out the mystical flames of the changeling magic. But once it had passed, the holes in Thorax’s limbs were gone. He had even taken it a step further and removed the holes and notches in his sparkling, gossamer, wings as well as his ears and fin-like tail. The ears especially made a difference, as once whole they appeared more like extra slender pony ears.

Trixie was starting to get curious now, spurred on by the success of these changes. “Could you possibly give yourself more normal eyes?” she asked. “It’s…kind of hard for me to tell what you’re looking at otherwise…”

Another flash, and Thorax’s eyes turned into more familiar pony eyes, the irises colored a familiar ice-blue that Trixie recognized as being the same eye color he had when disguised as Thornton. It warmed her heart a little to see those eyes again, but more importantly, all of these changes had made him appear much more equine, even though there were still obvious anatomical differences…but these Trixie was finding she could probably live with regardless, and besides, she was quickly finding herself considering other possibilities.

Even though a thought in the back of her mind was cautioning against it, Trixie impulsively went on to try it and see what resulted. “Maybe make yourself a bit taller?” she asked, raising up one hoof to motion out a little added height to Thorax’s form. “Possibly about an inch?”

Another burst of flames and Thorax seemed to rise slightly in height, now making him just slightly taller than Trixie. Trixie shifted her gaze slightly to accommodate and found her breath caught in her throat for a split second. Despite being perfectly aware where she was going with this and the voice in the back of her mind still announcing its misgivings, she pressed on.

“And…how about adding a little…muscle?” she asked slowly, and a little softly, as if embarrassed to be saying it aloud.

Thorax didn’t seem to think twice about it though, and just as quickly as all the other changes, swiftly applied this one as well. This resulted in him taking on a more well-defined body, with subtly pronounced musculature that was certainly not extreme, but still…chiseled. The resulting effectiveness this had on Thorax’s appearance caught Trixie by surprise, her eyes widening slightly and her face heated up, ears turning red as her pulse quickened.

Thorax noticed the sudden change in Trixie’s emotions, but was puzzled by the ensuing mixture and didn’t understand why they had suddenly appeared. “…Trixie?” he prompted questioningly, perhaps concerned. “Is there a problem? Should I make a different change?”

Trixie opened and closed her mouth a few times, unable to form any sort of response, and continued to stare at Thorax, suddenly unable to pull her eyes off of him.

It was then that Starlight Glimmer suddenly came down the steps and entered the room, causing both of the occupants to turn and look at her. “Thorax, Ember says a little light has turned on the helm and we can’t figure out what it…” Starlight trailed off as her eyes focused on the sight before her, taking in everything from Thorax’s new and improved form the changeling was innocuously sporting to the blushing Trixie as she immediately dropped to the floor and wrapped both hooves over her face in utter embarrassment.

Amusingly, Thorax seemed utterly oblivious to the implications. “Hello,” he greeted Starlight innocently.

Starlight gazed at the changeling blankly for a second. Then, starting to understand what had happened, shifted her gaze to Trixie, regarding the mare with a bemused look. “Trixie…”

“I was just curious!” Trixie declared in response.

Starlight raised an eyebrow at her. “Mm-hmm,” she hummed mostly to herself then turned her attention back to Thorax. “Anyway, a light’s come on the helm up there and we don’t know what it means. We figured you’d want to come take a look.”

“All right,” Thorax said, trotting forward for the steps without changing his current appearance any. “It’s probably just a status light for one of the intake valves…”

“Wait, Thornton!” Trixie called quickly, urgently motioning for the changeling to stop, balking at the idea of him going out like that for everyone else to see. “You don’t need to keep wearing that disguise! Let’s just…forget everything about it and have you go back to the way you were before, okay?”

Thorax paused at the door, glancing back at her in puzzlement. “Are you sure?” he asked so to be certain. Trixie nodded vigorously, so he shrugged, still not seeing to see the significance. “Very well, then,” he said, and with a flash of flames, he restored his normal, natural, changeling form. “But the offer still stands, if you like.”

“Offer?” Starlight repeated, shooting Trixie another teasing glance.

Trixie only buried her face in her hooves again.

Luckily, Thorax didn’t inquire about it. “Excuse me, then,” he said as he slipped past Starlight and above deck.

Starlight lingered behind though, watching Thorax head up the steps, before turning her gaze to look at Trixie once again, smirking.

Trixie winced under the gaze, seeing that Starlight understood perfectly what Thorax had not. “I really was just curious, that’s all it was!” Trixie insisted to her unicorn friend. “I mean, wouldn’t you be?”

Starlight’s gaze didn’t waver in the slightest, clearly not deterred.

“Really!” Trixie repeated anxiously. “That’s all it was!”

“Mm-hmm,” Starlight hummed again knowingly, before turning to leave, heading up the steps too.

Trixie got the distinct impression she didn’t believe Trixie in the slightest. “No wait, Starlight!” She called as Starlight exited, but the mare didn’t stop and continued on up the steps, soon disappearing from sight. “Starlight! Starlight! AUGH!” Left alone in the room again, Trixie did the first sensible thing that sprang to mind, which was to bury her face into her hooves in utter embarrassment again.

Thorax proved correct about his assumption on the status light that had come on—it was merely indicating that one of the intake valves had automatically engaged, taking in a small amount of outside air to add and use as part of the air yacht’s supply of air-based ballast, as a sensor had detected a faint fluctuation in said supply. Thorax reported that this was perfectly normal; the valve engaged sporadically on its own, and so long as it wasn’t on for longer than five or so minutes, it wasn’t cause for concern. He went on to indicate that it would likely switch off again pretty soon, and no sooner than he had said so, the indicator light on the helm switched off again. Nonetheless, while he was above deck and thinking about, Thorax decided he might as well go and do some routine maintenance on the engines so to ensure they continued to run smoothly, and after he departed the others went back to their respective tasks as well.

For Ember, this meant staying at the helm and piloting the craft as she had originally volunteered to do, and was perfectly content to do for a while more still. True, it wasn’t the most exciting task to do, but it was giving her good practice on how to pilot the craft, and she was pleased at how routine it was starting to feel now. When it came time for her shift piloting the airship later tonight, she felt she would be perfectly ready for it; part of the reason why she had volunteered to do this in the meantime anyway. At any rate though, she remained there in the control cabin manning the helm, alone with her thoughts, of which were focused on nothing in particular for now.

That changed when Spike suddenly stepped out of the navigation room behind her for the first time since he had locked himself in there, a piece of parchment and a quill in claw. “Hey Ember,” he called, his gaze focused more on the parchment than on the dragoness. “How do you spell, ‘incredulous?’”

Ember turned her head around to look at him, brow furrowing. “Incredulous?” she repeated, a little confused and annoyed by the mundane question.

Spike didn’t seem to notice that, though. “Yeah,” he repeated, glancing at her through the false eyeglasses he still habitually wore. “You know, like: ‘she was incredulous to hear him say that.’”

Ember raised an eyebrow at him cynically. “No,” she finally stated bluntly. “I do not know how to spell ‘incredulous.’ Why in Equestria are you asking me?”

“Well, normally I’d just look it up in my dictionary that I have for this very purpose,” Spike explained touchily. “But as it happens, I forgot to bring it with when Thorax and I fled with the Vergilius, so it’s basically still in the drawer of my desk way back in Vanhoover…unless Twilight’s confiscated it for some reason when she was no doubt searching our room after finding out we had been staying there…don’t know why she would, but at this point, it really wouldn’t surprise me, all things considered.”

Ember just rolled her eyes. “Whatever,” she said. “Look, you’re asking the wrong dragon for this.”

“Well, you were right there, so I’d thought I’d at least try,” Spike remarked as he strolled closer, closing the gap between him and where Ember stood at the helm.

“Why don’t you go ask Starlight?” Ember suggested. “She seems like the type that’d know.”

The resulting scowl Spike made at this was hard to miss. “No,” he stated bluntly, turning his attention back to the parchment Ember presumed he had been writing on.

Ember gave him a long and critical look. “Why not?” she asked wearily.

Spike glanced up at her, peering at her over the rim of the false glasses he wore. “I think you know why not,” he replied.

Ember frowned, but turned her attention back to the helm. “You’re not going to be able to avoid her forever.”

“Watch me.”

Ember snorted. “No,” she replied, glancing back at him. “The only thing I’ll watch you do is you talking with her.”

“I’ve talked with her already.”

“Genuinely talk with her, I mean. And I think you know what about.”

“And just why do you care? You wouldn’t talk about such things yourself with anyone…at least not without also threatening them into keeping it completely secret…”

“I don’t, but she would, being the pony. Ponies talk about stuff like this. And so do you. Because you’re always trying to get me to talk about junk like this…” Ember was quiet for a moment before going on. “…and, admittedly, it does seem to help so…you really should talk to her about this…get this sorted out between the two of you.”

“What for?” Spike said sharply, glancing up at Ember. “She’s only here for an ulterior motive, not because she’s here to seek forgiveness. She made that very clear when she first came aboard and barely touched the subject.”

“To be fair, though, she did have a few other things on her mind at the time. Besides, she’s still going to be your best bet for spelling in…in…incredee…whatever that word was you wanted spelled.”

“‘Incredulous,’” Spike repeated, folding his arms grumpily, but finally he rolled his eyes, seeing Ember’s point. “But fine. Where is she, anyway?”

“I think she’s in back, helping Thorax checking over the engines.”

“Oh.” Spike’s scowl changed so that it was still a scowl, but now there was a look of concern in it, and he averted his gaze suddenly. “Then never mind.”

Ember glanced back at him in silence for a second. “You know, Thorax seems to have forgiven her.”

“Thorax is like that.”

“Yeah, and it seems to work pretty well for him, too.”

Spike rolled his eyes. “I just need a word spelt, Ember,” he grumbled.

“Fine, go ask Trixie, then.”

“Trixie’s worse.”

At this, Ember had to snort in sarcastic humor. “At this rate, though, you’re going to have to learn to put up with her pretty soon.”

Spike glanced at her, annoyed still, but now puzzled. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Oh c’mon, don’t tell me you haven’t noticed what’s going on between her and Thorax,” Ember said, in precisely the manner as the word Spike happened to need spelt.

Spike sighed, pinching the bridge of his snout in frustration. “Yeah, yeah, I get it, they’re clearly friendly, I see you caught onto that too,” he said then sighed. “You know, I try not to tell Thorax what to do whenever I can because he deserves that kind of freedom, so I know how this is going to sound…but I was kind of hoping her finding out the truth was going to put a damper on all that. Clearly not, although…”

“Oh, but they’re getting to be a bit more than friends,” Ember observed aloud, interrupting.

Spike looked at her for a moment, eyebrows going up in alarm. “Nuh-uh.”

“Oh, yeah-huh. It’s pretty obvious, Spike, you’ve had to have noticed something.”

Spike groaned and gazed heavenward. “Thorax did ask some questions pertaining to the subject once not long after they met…but he flatly denied it was anything more than simple curiosity as far as he was concerned, so I figured it was just Trixie expressing interest in him, not the other way around, and that was back when she thought he was really a pony, so…”

“Oh no,” Ember assured, “It’s two-way. Trust me.”

Spike frowned at her. He moved to stand beside her. “And how do you know?”

“The lovey-dovey smell,” Ember answered, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

Spike just gave her a perplexed look though. “The whatty-what-what?”

“The lovey-dovey smell,” Ember repeated, glancing down at the littler dragon. “C’mon, you have to know what that is, at least.”

Spike shrugged helplessly, lost.

Ember groaned. “Look, I know you like being around them, but living with those ponies clearly hasn’t been doing you any favors, Spike, especially when it comes to actually using that nose of yours,” she grumbled. “It’s not just for decoration, you know.” But seeing this didn’t help explain it to him, she sighed and thought for a second. “Okay, so how do I explain this?…all right, so you know when a guy and gal start getting all lovey-dovey around each other? There’s a smell that goes with it. It, uh…oh rocks, how do I describe it?…it’s kind of musky, with a hint of the saline-rich smell of sweat, but kind of an almond-y undertone to it…”

“Wait, is that what that is?” Spike interrupted as he abruptly recognized the scent Ember was describing, but having never before identified what it was and what caused it, or even really thought that much about it. “So that’s why I was always picking up that smell whenever I’m around Big McIntosh! Half the mares in Ponyville have a crush on him it seems like. Hay, even Rainbow Dash admitted once that she had fancied him for a while before finally deciding he wasn’t ‘cool’ enough for her.”

“Yes, that’s the lovey-dovey smell,” Ember confirmed with a pleased nod. She watched Spike closely as she waited for him to finish putting two with two, and smirked when she saw his eyes widen as he did so. “And yup, that’s right, that means exactly what you’re thinking.”

Spike put his claws to his temples in near dismay. “No,” he breathed aloud. “They…they don’t…not Thorax and Trixie…”

“Oh, yes they do,” Ember confirmed with another nod, “Both of them. Thorax has it especially bad.”

Spike sputtered about for a second at this realization, starting to pace aimlessly back and forth as he flustered about for any explanation other than Ember’s. “But…but they can’t!” he objected aloud. “He’s a changeling! And she’s…not!”

“So?”

“So?” Spike hissed. “There’s no way it’d work, could it? They’re too different!”

“Didn’t seem like that was stopping you when you were around that pony Rarity during the Gauntlet of Fire.”

Spike’s face immediately heated up. “Wh-what? N-no, that’s not…I’d never…”

“Lovey-dovey smell!” Ember interrupted in a sing-song voice.

Spike blushed harder and scowled, folding his arms. “Darn lovey-dovey smell,” he muttered, then shook his head, getting back to his original point. “Look, I know Thorax, and…” Spike grimaced to himself, “…and he’d probably go ahead and do it anyway no matter what I said—but the fact still remains…I just don’t think she’d be a good match for him, and I worry that because of that, it’d only end in tears, that’s all. They’re probably better off not even going that route at all, yet I feel like she’s just been egging it on.”

“Well then, don’t just stand there griping about it, do something about it,” Ember advised.

“You know what?” Spike said with confident determination, pointing a claw at Ember. “I think I will! I will tell her straight up that I’ve got an issue with it!”

“Then get ready for your big chance,” Ember remarked, glancing behind her, “because here she comes now.”

“Here who comes now?” Trixie repeated aloud, only catching part of Ember’s last statement as she suddenly finished mounting the steps leading into the control cabin, looking questioningly at the two dragons.

The two dragons looked back at her for a moment of silence. Then Spike’s eyes narrowed determinedly and he handed the parchment and quill in his claws to Ember to hold before marching right up to Trixie. Trixie, not understanding what was going on, only watched him approach blankly and with clear befuddlement.

“Trixie, I’m only going to say this once,” Spike told the mare sternly, staring her down. “You watch your step around Thorax, because if you do anything to hurt him in any way, Celestia help me, I will light your butt on fire!”

Trixie pulled back a little, blinking a couple of times and unsure how to react or respond. “Uh…” she began.

“Oh no you don’t, don’t go playing oblivious to me,” Spike continued on, jabbing Trixie repeatedly with one claw. “I know what you’re doing, what you’re trying to accomplish here! You’re darn lucky that I don’t just step in and end it here and now before disaster strikes, but I’d never hear the end of it if I did, so you just watch your step. One wrong move and I will make sure you regret it, and so you’d better think long and hard about where you’re taking things before you get yourself in too deep.”

Trixie just continued to stare at him blankly, not really understanding what this was all about, but was certainly becoming intimidated by the little dragon’s unexpected ire. “Oooh-kay!” she finally remarked warily as she continued back up away from Spike until her left rear hoof slipped on the top of the steps she had just come up of only seconds before. She quickly started to turn around to head back down them now. “I’m…I’m just going to go back downstairs and…and do…something…so uh…good talk?”

Spike didn’t reply, he just folded his arms and watched Trixie retreat with a snort. Seeing he didn’t seem to intend to stop her or chase after him, this only spurred Trixie’s retreat onwards as she scampered off. Spike kept watching her until she vanished from view, then with a roll of his shoulders, satisfied with his display against Trixie, he turned to head back to Ember so to retrieve his quill and parchment that he had handed her.

Only to see that while he had been confronting Trixie, Ember had begun to quietly read to herself what Spike had written on the piece of parchment. “…‘and we flew the airship continuously on its perilous quest, well aware of the dangers that awaited us, and as such, you could feel the tense nervousness running rampant aboard’…” She mumbled aloud to herself while she read the words with a furrowed brow, before raising her gaze to look in confusion at Spike as he approached once again. “Just what is this that you’ve been writing, Spike?”

Spike answered by snatching the parchment back from her. “None of your business,” he retorted grumpily, and turned to head back for the navigation room, stopping only once so to turn back and snatch back the quill he had nearly forgotten to retrieve from Ember, before locking himself back in the room yet again.

The Vergilius had thus far performed very well in what was still technically its maiden flight after it’d come into Thorax’s possession ever since it had departed Vanhoover. Its changeling owner both hoped and expected it would continue to do so for the remainder of its prolonged journey ahead of them, both before and after their planned arrival at the hive. Nonetheless, Thorax knew that he had been pushing the engines to their max, keeping them largely at full throttle, most of the whole time it had been airborne, and fretted that the strain would eventually catch up to them. This was his main reason for opening the trapdoor in the main deck covering up the engines and the compartment containing them, all located in the aft of the craft and by the sternsprit. He wanted to do some general maintenance to ensure no catastrophic failures from the continuous stress were imminent and could be avoided entirely.

Starlight wasn’t especially familiar with the engines of an airship though, so when she found out that Thorax was out doing this, she went to join him, looking both to render assistance, and to get a chance to both see the engines up close and learn a few things about how they worked. Though he could’ve handled the whole task himself easily, Thorax accepted the help, and with his instruction, the two spent about an hour doing upkeep on the engines, Thorax answering a few of Starlight’s questions about the engines as they worked.

It was through this that Starlight learned, for example, that the engines were powered by a magic matrix of a certain complexity operating on a certain frequency that required a specific charger system in order to recharge them, a system they didn’t actually have onboard (few airships of the Vergilius’s type and size did, as the system was too large to adequately house onboard). This was why a unicorn such as herself couldn’t just pour a supply of magic directly from her horn and into the engines, otherwise Thorax said he would’ve done precisely that himself already, well aware of the charge beginning to dwindle on the engines. Nonetheless, he was confident that there was enough charge to get them to hive and still have some leftover for escaping afterwards if need be, although he still had his doubts about how far they would actually get before that charge finally ran dry. It was agreed that since there was only so much they could do about it though, it was better to focus on bigger problems for now.

Working on the engines wasn’t exactly tidy work, as the oily engines still got grime on their hooves while they handled them, but Starlight found she didn’t mind that so much. It helped that Thorax had become increasingly approachable around her and was pleasant to talk to. In their conversation, she even managed to pick up a few things she hadn’t known about the changeling, such as the fact that he was apparently a cheese aficionado and had dabbled in cheese-making prior to leaving Vanhoover. He’d even had, somewhat unintentionally, invented his own kind of cheese at one point. Starlight expressed interest in trying it, but Thorax had to lament that he and Spike had been forced to leave their only supply of the so-called “Thornton Cheese” behind in Vanhoover, which he then went on to bemoan was probably going to waste now, as he was certain Fly Leaf was in no position to be using it at present.

At any rate, she found that if Thorax held any lingering resentment for Starlight’s roles in his outcasting, he didn’t outwardly express them in any way at all. Indeed, it seemed very much like he had already shrugged it off as “water under the bridge,” and basically forgiven Starlight of the matter. The fact he had done so this quickly or at all greatly impressed Starlight. It took a unique person indeed to be able to so readily do such a thing after everything he had been put through. Looking back, it was hard to see how anyone, let alone Starlight herself, could’ve believed this changeling was any foe at any time…a belief she now deeply regretted ever being involved in.

And while Thorax may have been more than ready to overlook past deeds, she knew that was just one of three altogether, the remainder not being so quick to forgive and forget as Thorax. Ember, for example, seemed to believe Starlight was on their side now, and would interact with her freely and without much restraint, yet Starlight could still sense that Ember was hesitant to put too much trust in her due to Starlight’s past involvement in Spike and Thorax’s woes. And there was of course Spike, with whom Starlight found especially distant, and when he did directly speak to Starlight, there was usually an underlying bitter tone in his voice. It had become clear to her that of all of them, Spike appeared to have been hurt the most, and worse still, she feared he had no interest in trying to correct this now, preferring to linger in his concealed hatred for those that had wronged him and Thorax. Nonetheless, save for his outburst and near-rejection to help stop the changeling invasion when Starlight and Trixie first came aboard, Spike seemed to be at least trying to keep this grudge more to himself for the benefit of the others, perhaps recognizing that now wasn’t the time to stress the matter.

So when Starlight went below deck after finishing helping Thorax with the engines so to clean the collected grime off her hooves, she was surprised to be approached by a nervous Trixie claiming otherwise.

“He threatened you?” Starlight asked in surprise from within the main head, the restroom’s door open while Starlight scrubbed her hooves.

“Yes, and it was all out of nowhere!” Trixie persisted anxiously, pacing back and forth outside the little room her friend was in. “I don’t even know what brought it on or why, but he implied he’d do…bad things if I wasn’t careful.”

“Like…what sort of bad things?”

“Like lighting my butt on fire, for starters.”

“Ooh.” Starlight frowned as she dried off her hooves and exited the head to join Trixie. “Yeah, that’s definitely not good…what did you say to him in return?”

“I…didn’t, really,” Trixie admitted with a sheepish shrug. “He just caught me by surprise so much, I wasn’t sure how to respond…so I ducked away as quick as I could. I’ve been hiding down here until you showed up, in case he wanted to do it again when we next cross paths.”

“But why you?” Starlight inquired, puzzled by this much. “I mean, if he had said all of this to me, I’d totally understand why, considering how I was involved in the banishment that got all of us in this mess…but you didn’t have anything to do with that. If anything, from what you’ve told me, you’ve been on their side for far longer than me, so you’d think he’d be more okay around you…”

Trixie could only shrug. “I must have done something,” she conceded. “I haven’t the foggiest what though. But that’s why I’m talking to you about it. I was hoping you might be able to figure something out.”

“Well, there’s got to be a reason,” Starlight reasoned, tapping her chin with one hoof while she reviewed the facts as she knew them. “Did he give any clues to you as to what this might be about?”

Trixie’s eyes rolled upwards as she reviewed the encounter in her mind. “Well, he did indicate that it had something to do with Thorax, but…”

“What’s this about me?” Thorax interjected as the changeling suddenly strolled into the mid-ship room, curious.

Trixie made a small yelp at his sudden appearance, looking at him with uncertain eyes while her face turned red again. Starlight couldn’t help but smirk a little to herself as she quickly figured out why while watching Trixie quickly excuse herself out of the room. “Uh, nothing, just a, ah, small matter, just uh…excuse me, I, uh, need to go do…something…” she then quickly slipped past the befuddled changeling and out of the room.

Thorax watched her go, brow furrowed and not understanding the mare’s sudden apprehension, so Starlight took it upon herself to enlighten him. “Don’t mind her, Thorax, she’s just embarrassed still about that little custom disguise she had you put on earlier today.”

“Oh that,” Thorax remarked, starting to follow, though only so far. “Yes, I’m still not sure why she reacted with such unease to that…”

“I know, that’s what makes it so funny,” Starlight quipped, amused by the changeling’s continued obliviousness on that matter. She then sighed and turned serious again, drawing the changeling’s attention on her again. “Spike threatened her out of the blue earlier.”

Thorax’s eyes widened slightly in surprise. “What, why?” he asked, stunned.

“That’s what we were trying to figure out when you came in,” Starlight explained. “Apparently, it might have something to do with involving you. Beyond that, it really just seemed to be out of the blue.”

Thorax frowned, displeased by this news. “I’ll talk to him about it,” he promised.

Spike had continued to remain in the navigation room where he privately worked on whatever it was that he was writing, and seemed to have little interest in leaving anytime soon. But he was eventually ushered back out of the room again when Thorax came knocking on the door, asking him to step out for two claimed reasons; one, he wanted Spike’s input on something, and two, after they were done with that, Thorax wished to retreat into the navigation room and study maps of the region, refamiliarizing himself with the terrain and plot any course changes he deemed necessary so to continue to avoid detection on their course for the hive. Relenting to this, Spike collected his things and exited the room finally, finding Thorax waiting for him at the door. Ember and Starlight were standing at the helm, conversing, but they didn’t seem to be paying attention to the changeling and dragon.

“All right, then” Spike said as he exited. “What’s up?”

“Here, I’ll show you,” Thorax said, motioning for Spike to follow as he headed down the steps into the below deck. “I’ve been thinking about the long term and what might follow this whole deal with the hive.”

“Yeah?” Spike said, listening as they arrived in below deck and headed into the air yacht’s kitchen area across from the main head.

“Yeah, and I was thinking that, should things end up so that you and I, or at least I, end up staying on the Vergilius long term afterwards, I kind of want to keep going with my cheese making, and wanted to discuss how to set up the kitchen area here for it,” Thorax explained, motioning at the kitchen area as they came to stand just beside it.

Spike started forward to look it over, setting aside his writing supplies that he had brought with him out of the navigation room. “Well, to be honest, I don’t think this is really going to work too well for—”

He was cut short when Thorax abruptly picked him up with his magic the moment he turned his back to the changeling, and with little effort, carried the surprised dragon into the main head, shutting and locking the door behind him before placing Spike down on the toilet seat to sit. Thorax’s cordial manner was now gone, replaced with a disapproving look as he folded his hooves, sitting down between Spike and the door so to block the only exit out of the little, but private, room.

“Now, what’s this I hear about you threatening Trixie?” he asked sternly and seriously.

Spike groaned, understanding what this was really about. “Oh, she blabbed, didn’t she?” he asked then scowled at Thorax. “All that talk about the cheese making was really just to get me down here to discuss this, wasn’t it?”

“Yes,” Thorax pressed, then continued. “I know your temper has been running high today Spike, and with good reason, but that’s no excuse for threatening anyone, especially not Trixie. What’s she ever done to you?”

“Nothing, yet, and I was trying to ensure it stayed that way,” Spike explained. “I was just making sure that she didn’t do anything to hurt us, especially you, Thorax.”

“And so you threatened her?”

“No, I just made it clear that there would be consequences if she didn’t treat you with respect.”

Thorax rubbed his brow in frustration. “Spike, I’d understand this if you had done this to someone like Starlight…”

“Been considering that, actually.”

“Please don’t. Anyway, I just don’t understand why you’d choose to do this to Trixie of all ponies. She’s made it very clear now that she’s a friend.”

“She’s not my friend.”

“Well, she is mine, and I don’t like seeing my friend getting threatened by another of my friends for no good reason.”

“You’re reading way too much into this Thorax, it’s not like I was actually going to do anything to physically harm her. I just wanted her to know that I didn’t want her to do anything to harm you.”

“And why do you think she will?”

“Trixie sort of has a past history of it.”

“One she’s trying very hard to move past from I might add, in case you didn’t know.”

“Be that as it may, I was just being cautious. With half of Equestria no doubt still wishing to cause you harm if given the chance, Thorax, we can never be too cautious.”

“Yes, I’m sure Princess Twilight has told herself the same thing.”

Spike’s scowl narrowed, but he was also surprised and a little hurt. “Now that was uncalled for.”

“Was it?” Thorax challenged. “Because I personally think your attitude towards to Trixie is uncalled for too, and frankly unnecessary. If you’d actually take the time to get to know her like I have…”

“Did it ever occur to you that this might be what I have issue in all of this?”

“What, that Trixie and I are friends? Why?”

“I’ve been hearing rumors, Thorax…”

“What rumors?”

Now Spike seemed taken aback. “You mean you don’t know?” he asked. His brow furrowed, suddenly feeling suspicious. “Just what is Trixie to you anyway, Thorax?”

Thorax stopped to consider the question briefly. “A friend, first of all.”

“I already got that much, especially after you ran off to see her show behind my back when she was in Vanhoover last.”

“I thought you said you were going to let that go?”

“A lot’s changed since then, Thorax. She knows you’re a changeling now, after all, and she didn’t then.”

“Yes, but it hasn’t changed her views of me all that much, and we already talked about all that…something I’m thinking you need to try too.”

“I’m good, thank you. I have no interest in having to deal with the almighty ego of the Great and Powerful Trixie.”

“She’s really not that bad once you get to know her, Spike, honest, and I don’t understand what your problem with her all of the sudden is.”

“Well…why are you so taken with her, suddenly?”

“Like I said, Trixie is a friend. A good friend, and that’s very important to me. I would think you out of anyone would understand that the most. Wasn’t part of the whole reason we got in this mess was because we wanted me to find friends I can trust?” Thorax sighed, turning concerned. “Look, Spike, she at least is understanding, willing to try and comprehend the situation we’re all in, and she’s already gone above and beyond trying to do so already, so—”

But he trailed off as Spike, sniffing the air, suddenly regarded Thorax with wide eyes. “My gosh, Ember was right, you do have the lovey-dovey smell bad!”

Thorax gave him a bewildered look. “The lovey-dovey—?” he shook his head, deciding he didn’t want to know. “Look, just…get off Trixie’s back for me, all right? She genuinely wants to help us however she can…so it pains me that you’re returning her kindness with silly threats all of a sudden for no reason other than you don’t want to take the time to trust her.”

“Do you trust her?”

“With my life, Spike.”

This made Spike pull back in surprise. “Oh,” he murmured, cowed a little.

Thorax’s stance softened a little too, turning a bit gentler. “I won’t ask you try and befriend her too, Spike, or try and make you put your trust in her, either. That’s all your business, not mine, and I must respect that. I’d just like you to show me the same courtesy, and as for Trixie, all I ask is that you pay her the kindness she’s due and treat her friendly. So no more threatening her…or anyone on this airship, please?”

Spike sighed, and opened his mouth to comment further, but was interrupted by a sudden knock on the door to the little restroom.

“Hey, any reason why you two are locked in there together?” Ember’s voice called through the closed door.

Spike and Thorax both glanced in the direction of her voice. “We’re just talking,” Thorax answered gently.

“More like getting reprimanded,” Spike retorted glumly.

“Like I said, we’re talking,” Thorax reiterated smugly.

“Well, can you hurry up with the talking?” Ember asked in annoyance. “I need to poop.”

Spike snorted in laughter at Ember’s utter lack of tact while Thorax rolled his eyes. “Can you go use the other head in the stateroom?” the changeling asked aloud.

“No, Trixie’s in there, and I really shouldn’t have to wait for this anyway…or is that something that Equestrians do? How would that be in anyway better? Wouldn’t it just be smarter to go now when you first need to, so you don’t accidentally…”

“Just give us another minute, Ember, please,” Thorax interrupted, not interested in hearing the rest of Ember’s thought, before turning back to Spike. “Now…are there going to be any more problems between you and Trixie?”

Spike regarded Thorax for a moment. “I’m thinking I’m expected to answer no to that,” he noted.

“There better not be,” Thorax said, and again turned concerned. He placed a hoof caringly on Spike’s shoulder. “I don’t like having to be the mean one here, Spike. I hate having to be the mean one at all, ever, you know that. But I don’t think you’re being at all fair to Trixie here, and…I just don’t want you letting your temper getting the better of you for no reason, okay?”

Spike sighed, and the fight seemed to drain out of him a little. He placed his claws on Thorax’s hoof, rubbing them against the changeling’s midnight blue jacket sleeve. “Okay,” he said. “I promise to back off on Trixie.”

“Good,” Thorax said, then pressed on with one more thing. “And while we’re at it…can I also ask you to at least try to make some amends with Starlight Glimmer too? It’d at least be to the benefit of us all if we’re not ripping each other’s throats out while we’re trying to infiltrate the changeling hive.”

Spike sighed again. “For you, Thorax, I’ll…I’ll see what I can do.” He glanced up at Thorax, pained by the hurt he still felt towards ponies like Starlight. “I can’t make any promises on that, though…this…this cuts deep for me.”

“I know,” Thorax said softly, and pulled the little dragon into a hug. “I wish I could do more to make it easier for you, bud.”

Spike shuddered, squeezing his eyes shut as his emotions tried to surface. He forced them back down, though. “Me too.”

The touching moment was ruined by Ember suddenly banging on the door again. “Your minute’s up!” she called through the locked door. “So you’ve got three options! You either let me in now, tell me to go fly off and find a tree of which there aren’t that many outside at the moment, or I’m squatting down right here and now!”

“All right, all right,” Thorax said, letting go of Spike and turning around to unlock and open the door.

He and Spike then filed out, Ember watching them exit in annoyance. “About time,” she grumbled aloud. Thorax didn’t reply though, he just walked on out of the room, heading for the steps leading back above deck. Spike, meanwhile, just leaned against the wall adjacent to the bathroom door, arms folded as he, too, watched Thorax leave.

“So what was that about anyway?” Ember asked him as she started to slip into the vacated room.

Spike frowned. “Trixie,” he answered simply.

“Ah,” Ember said, putting on a smug grin. She paused closing the door long enough to whisper into Spike’s ear. “Still picking up the lovey-dovey smell on those two, by the way.”

“Yeah,” Spike mumbled to himself as Ember shut and locked the door, leaving him outside. “I know.”

The Vergilius trudged ever onward in its journey, bringing them ever closer to their destination, and as the close of the day started to draw near, it started to sink in just how close to a potentially very dangerous location for them all they were getting. It was enough that a faint sense of fear started to permeate the airship, it’s passengers starting to grow tense in the face of that danger. Yet for Starlight, having wandered out onto the main deck as she finally ran out of things to do and leaned on the deck railing, staring out at the scenery as it slowly slid by, she found that wasn’t what was bothering her the most. It was the fact that she had an unresolved matter still that she sensed she needed to sort out now while she had the chance…but she didn’t know how to best go about doing it.

And it was something she very much didn’t want to get wrong.

She was still thinking deeply about it when Ember strolled out of the control cabin, stretching and popping her back as she went. Spying Starlight, she nodded in the unicorn’s general direction. “Hey.”

Starlight tore her vacant gaze off the scenery surrounding the air yacht and glanced back at the dragoness. “Hey,” she replied back. “I thought you were piloting?”

“Yeah, but I decided I needed a break, get some fresh air, maybe get a status report from Obsidian,” Ember remarked as she strolled up to join Starlight at the railing, pointing at the escorting adult dragon flying along the airship from a distance as she did so. Starlight had almost forgotten he was even still there, she had heard and seen so little of him during the course of the day. “So Thorax took over for me.”

Starlight glanced back at the deckhouse, and could just barely see Thorax manning the helm through the forward viewport. She had to grin a little; the changeling did look oddly at home at the controls like this.

“So…why are you out here?” Ember asked next, leaning on the railing and deciding she might as well make small talk.

“Oh,” Starlight grunted, turning her gaze back out at the horizon, “Just thinking.”

“Mm.”

They were quiet for a moment.

“Ember, can I ask you a question?” Starlight asked suddenly.

“Hey, don’t even bother asking if you can, just ask the question already,” Ember replied.

“Oh, well, I just wanted to make sure you were okay with me doing so…”

“Nah, no need for that. I generally decide if I want to answer the question or punch the asker in the face after I’ve been asked whatever it is, anyway.”

This gave Starlight pause for a second. “Oh.”

“So what’s this question?” Ember prompted casually.

Starlight hesitated. “…it’s about Spike.” She started playing with the tip of her mane. “Specifically…how he’s been…cold towards me.”

“Yeah, he hates your guts,” Ember agreed without hesitation, restraint, or concern.

Starlight frowned at her bluntness. “Tell me, do they have any concept of a little white lie in the Dragon Realms?”

Ember turned her head to look at her blankly. “A what?”

“Yeah, I thought so,” Starlight mumbled to herself, but she couldn’t help but grin a little. Sadly, the grin was short lived. “I know Spike isn’t…happy with me…and frankly he’s not wrong to.” She slumped down so that her head was resting on the railing glumly. “Like all of us, I should’ve listened to him from the start.”

“You probably should’ve,” Ember agreed, again being blunt.

Starlight chose to not take it personally, though. “I don’t want it to have to stay that way, though,” she continued. “I’d like to do something to try and make amends, I just…”

“You don’t know how to do it,” Ember concluded.

“Well…not what the best way to do it is, at least.”

Ember snorted, amused. “So you’re asking me for advice?” She turned herself to face Starlight, propping her head up with one arm. “You know my solution would usually be to just punch the offender until they listen to me, right?”

Starlight smirked a little. “The thought did cross my mind for some reason. But I don’t think that’s going to work in this case. Just a hunch, though.”

“Well, it’s still true. I don’t know why you’d think I’d say anything different.”

“I just…thought you might have some insight others wouldn’t.”

“Because I’m a dragon, and he’s a dragon, right?” Ember concluded, and shrugged. “Yeah, all right, I’ll buy that.” She stopped to ponder the matter for a moment. “So something you can try other than punching him…”

“Preferably. I mean, I haven’t seen you punching him when you talk to him.”

“Haven’t needed to yet.”

Starlight blinked to herself a couple of times. “I’m not sure I like the implications of—”

But Ember interrupted. “I guess you could try saying you’re sorry.”

Starlight glanced at the cyan dragoness for a moment. “Apologize, you mean?”

“Yeah, you ponies do that all the time, right? Tell him you’re sorry for getting him banished.”

Starlight winced. “Well, not to quibble, but technically, I wasn’t the one who banished him…”

“No, but you didn’t stop it either.”

Starlight stopped. “Touché,” she relented. She sighed and slumped further. “No, you’re absolutely right…I do owe him an apology. A big one.”

“And I haven’t seen you try to give him one of those yet.”

Starlight grunted glumly. “It’s because I’m not sure he’ll let me.”

“Yeah, Spike can be pretty stubborn.” Ember gazed out at the horizon for a second, then snorted, amused. “Actually, it’s thanks to his stubbornness that I’m even here,” she admitted. “When we first met, he was determined to make me his friend…no matter what it took or how much I resisted.” Ember’s gaze softened. “I’m kind of glad he did, honestly.”

Starlight studied Ember for a long moment, touched by the unusual and gentle confession from the dragoness. “What made you decide to befriend him anyway, if I may ask?”

Ember hesitated. “Don’t ever breathe a word of this to anyone,” she began sternly, but that said, her tone softened again. “But…I was stunned by…how selfless he was doing…well, everything, really. In the Gauntlet of Fire, all the other dragons were doing it for the grab for power and for their own personal glory…myself included. But not him. He was only in it because he wanted to use it to keep his pony friends safe. He didn’t even want it beyond that…and I’ve never heard of any dragon capable of winning the gauntlet voluntarily passing up claiming rule as the dragon lord before…until he did. Handed it over to me, made me dragon lord, and it was all his idea. He didn’t even think twice about it. He just figured I would be the best one for it, who could make both sides happy.” Ember folded her arms on the deck railing and then rested her head atop of them. “So that’s why I befriended him. Spike’s weird for a dragon. He doesn’t do things for himself. He does them for others. And…I realized there was something to that.”

Starlight was quiet for a moment, running her hoof along the wooden railing they sat at. “He’s been doing the same thing for Thorax, too,” she observed. “We ponies were just too…foolish to see it.”

“Yes, you were,” Ember agreed, glancing at the unicorn. “But it’s not just that. You ponies are all so big on friendship, but then you turn around and only befriend other ponies, and are slow to befriend anything that’s not a pony. Then you have Spike, the lone dragon living among those not of his kind…he already has to befriend things that aren’t dragons like him. So he sees that if a dragon can befriend a pony…why not befriend everything else too while he was at it?”

Starlight grinned a little at Ember’s flattering description of him. “Have you told him any of this?”

For the first time ever, Starlight saw Ember blush in embarrassment. “No, and let’s just keep it that way, okay?”

Starlight chuckled. “Won’t breathe a word,” she promised. She then sighed, realizing just how much she and her own friends paled in comparison to Ember’s views of Spike. “We ponies haven’t been doing a very good job at the befriending thing lately…have we?”

“Nope,” Ember replied with her usual bluntness. “It’s your so-called princess of friendship who’s the biggest offender, though. How did she become the princess of anything anyway?”

Starlight played with her mane again. “Believe it or not, Twilight still knows a lot about friendship, more than most.” Her gaze turned distant. “She’s taught me a lot about friendship herself, in fact.” She then shrugged sadly. “I guess there’s just a lot more to friendship that we both need to learn still.”

“Yeah, so probably shouldn’t have made her princess just yet.”

Starlight, despite everything, had to chuckle a little. “Unfortunately, it doesn’t work like that,” she explained. “No one becomes an alicorn because of you or me…it’s because of natural magic which decides the time is right. And so far, I don’t know of anyone who can deny magic of having the final say in this matter.”

Ember grunted, unmoved. “Dumb magic doesn’t know what it’s doing.”

Starlight chuckled again. “Either that, or it knows more than all the rest of us put together…sees something we all don’t…more of the bigger picture, that we all have our roles in filling in, and that it puts us there in those spots for a reason we can’t see from our angle. I can only assume that it’s the same with Twilight.” She went quiet, letting that sink in for a moment. Ember didn’t speak during that stretch of time. “So…apologize to Spike, huh?”

“It’s a place to start.”

“And if he won’t let me?”

“Spike’s stubborn. So be stubborn back, or he’s just going to mow you over.”

Starlight nodded her head in agreement. “All right, then.” She glanced at Ember and placed a hoof on the dragoness’s shoulder. She flinched a little at Starlight’s touch but otherwise didn’t protest. “Thanks…your thoughts were rather…enlightening.”

Ember seemed a little taken aback by this compliment. “Huh,” she remarked to herself. “Never been told that before.”

Starlight smirked. “I’d believe it.”

Ember gave Starlight a critical look. But there was no missing the hint of a grin that tugged at the corners of the dragon lord’s mouth.

Starlight found Spike in the airship’s kitchen, rooting through the foodstuffs that had been stashed in one of the cabinets. He didn’t notice Starlight coming in and for a moment she left it that way, leery of proceeding and unsure how Spike would respond, if he would respond at all. But she knew putting it off any longer wasn’t going to help, so she finally made her presence known by speaking up. “Whatcha doing?”

Spike suddenly looked up from the cabinet in surprise, but that surprise rapidly faded when he saw it was Starlight. “Oh,” he mumbled as if disappointed. He turned back to the cabinet. “I was just getting hungry, so I was thinking about getting something to eat for dinner.”

This reminded Starlight that she was getting a bit peckish herself. “That’s probably a good idea, getting dinner going for everybody. I’m sure everyone’s starting to get hungry.”

“Well, except maybe Thorax,” Spike thought out loud as he worked.

Starlight realized what he meant and wasn’t sure what she thought about it. “How often does he, uh, need to feed on emotions anyway?”

“He’s probably been discreetly doing it all day without your noticing,” Spike responded. “He’s gotten good at that…I barely notice him feeding anymore these days myself.” He then frowned. “Not that you’d care about that much, I guess.”

Starlight was quiet for a moment, watching as Spike pulled out a few food items out of the cupboard before moving to close it again. “I care more than you think,” she stated.

Spike snorted critically at this, gathering up all he and pulled out in his arms and started to carry it to the saloon table, turning his back to Starlight. “Like you’d ever take the time to actually show it, anyway.” He started placing the items on the table as he continued speaking. “What I think doesn’t matter to you either way, as you’ve made that abundantly clear by now. You’re just here for your own needs, really, here just to use me and Thorax only because we happen to know—”

“Spike, I’m sorry.”

Spike stopped. It wasn’t immediately apparent why. His expression didn’t change, his body didn’t tense or relax in any visible way…he was, in fact, momentarily unreadable, his thoughts or reaction to this hidden perfectly. As far as Starlight could tell, he had simply stopped, freezing in the middle of setting down an unopened can of food on the table. But he didn’t move further, voice any thoughts, or do anything to object to Starlight or stand in her way, so after a moment or so of cautiously watching him, the unicorn proceeded carefully.

“I’m sorry for everything,” she continued, elaborating. “I’m sorry we put you into this situation when you did little to ask for it, and I’m sorry we’ve done so little to support you or listen to you since. You were right. You were always right…we were just…too stupid to see it. We’ve been…tremendously unfair to you and Thorax. And I know apologizing doesn’t begin to make up for it…but I truly am sorry. And I’m trying to find a way to make amends to you Spike…” Starlight tilted her head at Spike sorrowfully. “…but you haven’t been letting me.”

Spike placed the remainder of the foodstuffs in his arms on the table with a half-hearted thump, then turned and sat himself on the edge of the bench seat that wrapped around three-fourths of the table. “You don’t know what it’s been like, Starlight,” he murmured softly. “Knowing you couldn’t count on hardly anyone, and certainly not those who had once been longtime friends…always looking over your shoulder in fear…waking up every morning not knowing whether or not that would be the day it would all unravel…I’m just so very tired of all that Starlight…so you’re not wrong. An apology isn’t what I want.”

Starlight took a cautious step closer. “So what is it you do want?” she asked.

“Just to be left alone,” Spike responded, turning his head to look at her firmly, but his gaze was sad. “I don’t really care if you believe me and Thorax or not anymore, even. I just…want us to be left alone. Let us go and live life in peace, how we want, and without fear. No more chasing. No more prying. No more hiding. No more secrets. Just…leave us be, Starlight. Please.”

Starlight felt her mouth go dry, realizing that this was the truly hurt side of Spike the little dragon was expressing. For a moment, she was uncertain how she should respond. She licked her lips and took a deep breath. “If that’s what you really want,” she agreed with a slow, but reluctant, nod of her head. “But you’re also not wrong…I do need your and Thorax’s help…we need your help. I don’t know what we’d do without it.”

“Well, you’ve already got Thorax’s help,” Spike muttered, looking away. “So you’ve got my help for now too…it’s more afterwards I’m concerned about anyway.”

“Then if you want us to leave you alone, to go away and not come back…then we can do that,” Starlight assured. She heaved a heavy sigh. “But…please know that we don’t want to have to do that if we can. I know you don’t want to believe it…but we do care for you, Spike…and we’ve all missed you. We’d like to have you back, if we can.” She paused then added, “And I’d like it if we could all get to know Thorax as well as you have, too.”

But Spike shook his head. “It’s too late for that, Starlight,” he said. “The damage is done.” He gazed forlornly up at her again. “I don’t think I could ever trust any of you again. Especially Twilight.”

Starlight bit her lip, but didn’t protest this. She knew there was no reason why Spike shouldn’t feel like that, as much as it pained her to acknowledge it. Again, she had to ask herself how they had all let this get so bad. “I still hope that perhaps we can rebuild that trust once again, someday, if you’ll let us,” she noted. “Though I wish I could, I can’t speak for everyone else…but know that I certainly want to try. And…by saying all of this now, this is my way of trying to start.”

Spike was quiet for a second. “Okay,” he murmured simply. He sighed. “I make no guarantees though…and this absolutely excludes Twilight too. There’s nothing between us now.”

Spike’s words and his calm way of stating it sent a chill down Starlight’s spine, and for a moment she pitied both Twilight and Spike, and did not envy having to be the one at the center of Spike’s animosity. “Spike, I know she has done a terrible job showing it lately, and know I can’t support what she’s done at all anymore…but know that she still does very much care for you.”

“No she doesn’t,” Spike retorted with another snort. “If that were the case, she would have never allowed this to have ever happened. She would have never sent me away.”

“You chose to leave,” Starlight reminded firmly, drawing the line in her relenting at Spike trying to distort facts. “No one made you do it.”

“And she didn’t stop me.”

That, Starlight couldn’t deny. But she had a good idea why now, and she closed the gap between her and Spike, dropping down low so to be on the same eye level as the little dragon. He made no motion to stop her, but he again averted his gaze from her. “Spike,” she began, placing on hoof on his knee. “You need to understand…she never once meant you any deliberate malice in doing that.”

“Then why did she let me go? Why did she let me follow Thorax into banishment? I could’ve died out there, Starlight, just as much as Thorax could’ve! And even that didn’t give you all pause.”

“I know, but you have to understand Spike, have to see it as we saw it at the time…we were all very wrong to assume so, but we really thought Thorax wasn’t acting on his own at the time, that there would be other changelings encamped in secret nearby that would give you both adequate shelter to keep you alive…and if that had been true, you would be more use to the changelings alive than dead, even you would know that, so they wouldn’t want to do anything to harm you. Hay, I myself had even figured at the time that since Thorax was trying so hard to stay on your good side, they’d even try to make you comfortable out there.”

“That’s all wrong.”

“I know it is now, Spike, that this was all a false assumption of the biggest sort, but at the time…we really thought that.” Starlight hung her head in shame. “We were wrong to do so…but we did. We were too blind to the idea that Thorax could really be acting on his own to believe that he was, and we assumed you were too naïve to see past what we thought could be lies…so we foolishly assumed a story that fit what we believed…or at least what we wanted to believe.” She glanced at Spike again. “But if it helps…once we found out you and Thorax had fled the Crystal Empire by train…that was when all of that started falling apart. That was when we realized Thorax probably didn’t have others assisting him…and as such, we had just risked both of your lives unnecessarily trying to fight a threat that didn’t exist. That was when we had to start facing the reality that we messed up. And, misguided though it obviously has been, everything we’ve done since has all been in an attempt to fix that original mistake. Spike, we’ve really been trying to sort this whole mess out ever since, this whole time, we just couldn’t find you soon enough to do it.”

“Then explain why Twilight chased us out of Vanhoover,” Spike argued abruptly, his gaze narrowing darkly. “Why she forced us to have to fight our way out. Why she nearly started a war over this! She doesn’t care, Starlight! She never cared about anything except herself, and proving that she was right!”

“And you know why?” Starlight suddenly snapped back, removing her hoof from Spike’s knee. “It’s because this is all tearing her apart just as much if not more as it is for you and she doesn’t. Know. How. To handle it! I am quite convinced now that she very well knows deep down just how seriously she’s messed up, but it terrifies her to DEATH having to face that, and she’s desperate to avoid the pain she very much fears would have to come in facing that fact, and owning up to it!”

“So you see?!” Spike cried, feeling vindicated, suddenly standing up on the seat as if trying to make himself appear bigger than Starlight. “She is doing this for herself! She’s doing it because she’s too much of a coward to face reality!”

Starlight opened her mouth to reply, but found there was no good way to deny Spike’s point. This chilling realization made her stop short, unable to overcome it.

Spike, meanwhile, thumped himself back down into a seating position. “And you still haven’t explained why she let me go in the first place. If she really cared for me so much, she would’ve made me stay.”

“But would you have hated her any less?” Starlight abruptly replied back, in the spur of the moment. “On this matter, I know exactly why she did it, because she’s already told me. She only let you go at all Spike, because by that point, you were so adamant about it that she feared that if she did try to make you stay…it would’ve only pushed you further away.”

“She pushed me away just as well letting me go.”

“So in a way, Spike, you didn’t leave her any alternative.”

“Yes I did. I told her then and there that we could’ve have ended everything AND avoided all of this…if you would all just listen to me and trust that I was telling the truth that Thorax was, and is, trustworthy.” Spike averted his gaze yet again. “But you didn’t. So I left. You all let me. And now the damage is done. Good luck trying to fix it.”

And with that, he twisted himself around in the seat so his back was turned to Starlight. Starlight fell quiet for a long moment, fearing that Spike might be right, and this all really was unsalvageable. But she remembered Ember’s advice to not give in so easily, so she sought some new approach in hopes she could get Spike to listen to her again.

“Spike, I won’t pretend to try and justify Twilight’s actions,” she conceded finally, slumping onto the floor so that her back leaned heavily against the end of the beach seat. “What she has done is inexcusable in many ways. But that’s Twilight. What about the rest of us? What about me? Spike, I deeply regret that I was in anyway involved in putting you in this mess at all, and I very much would like to correct it in some way, any way, I can.” Tears started to form in her eyes. “And I’m trying. Trying hard. Doesn’t that count for something? And it’s not just me. What about Fluttershy? Applejack? Rainbow Dash? All of the other girls? They weren’t supporting Twilight in what she was doing anymore either, and they will all want to try and make amends too. Are you really going to just push them away too? Because we may not have been willing to listen before…but we are now. You have the chance to voice your concerns, and we will listen, I swear to you that much. Are you really going to rob yourself of that chance? Or take it away from Thorax too, just because you’re bitter?” She squeezed her eyes shut, trying to hold back more tears that were forming in her eyes, but they started to leak out regardless. “And it’s not just us, even. I’ve only seen them once since this all began, but Princess Cadance deeply regrets what happened, and you can clearly see the drowning waves of guilt about this in Shining Armor’s face every time you look at him. They know they messed up, and that troubles them greatly. That’s why they’ve been staying out of this mess, and it’s why it’s been only Twilight that has been pushing this. And there’s Princess Celestia and Princess Luna, both very eager to speak with both of you, to do what they can to try and make this right again. They were searching for you hard before the changelings came along with their invasion…but you’ve only been making it harder for them to do so however you can from what I’ve heard. Do you even want to fix this? Or are you really content to just leave it, allowing it to fester and get worse?”

Starlight opened her eyes to try and blink away the tears that had formed, and in so doing, was startled to see that Spike had quietly turned back around to face her again without her noticing, face etched not with anger, but with concern and sadness. He seemed momentarily at a loss for words, and just gazed at Starlight, stunned. Starlight gazed back with her tear streaked eyes, quietly pleading for the little dragon to stop resisting her attempts to try and begin repairing the damage. Eventually, in a moment of sympathy, Spike turned around to grab a napkin that was stashed in a nearby cabinet and silently handed it over to Starlight. Grateful, Starlight accepted it to first dab at her eyes, then, throwing restraint to the wind, used it to noisily blow her nose.

Finally, after a long moment of silence, Spike finally spoke again. “I’m sorry, Starlight,” he admitted humbly. “I…I never meant for any of this to happen. I…I was just so determined to prove that I was the one who was right…I guess I never stopped to think that I might’ve already succeeded.” He took in a deep and shuddering breath, and Starlight could almost see some of that long-withheld anger flow out of him…but only some of it. “But you have to understand my side of things too…this isn’t something I can just overlook. What happened has cut us all deep…and no matter what we do…there may be no changing that now. There will always be that rift between the likes of me and you on this matter. And what I said before hasn’t changed in at least one aspect…I’m not sure I can ever forgive Twilight for what she’s done. Can you understand that?”

Starlight was quiet for a moment, straightening so she sat more upright, balling up the napkin in her magic and tossing it into a nearby trash can. “I can,” she confirmed. “But…that doesn’t mean we can’t still try, can it?”

Spike was quiet for a moment. “Do you really think it will make a difference?” he asked.

Starlight thought about it for a second then gently lifted his chin with one hoof, giving him a small and hopeful smile. “How about we try and find out together, huh?”

Spike managed to return the grin a little, and it was in that moment Starlight saw some progress had indeed been made. “Okay.”

They were quiet for another moment or so, sheepishly looking around and unsure what to do or say now. Then Starlight’s eyes fell upon the food Spike had brought out and set upon the table. With her magic, she picked up one of the cans, noting that it contained baked beans. “You know,” she began slowly. “I’m no expert cook…but I do still know my way around a kitchen a bit…I bet you that with a little thinking, we could come up with a decent enough meal for everyone to enjoy.” She glanced at Spike. “You wanna help?”

Spike thought about it then took the can from Starlight, jumping to his feet. “Aw hay, why not?”

Author's Note

So, long chapter is long, and because it was so long and took longer than usual to give it the customary final edit-though, it's also a little later getting uploaded than usual...even though I had taken that into consideration and had started the editing earlier in the evening that usual.

Originally, I had planned all of this not as one single chapter, but as broken apart into several smaller chapters, but then I realized they all circled around a central theme of each other all trying to break through the preexisting tensions that have grown between them and each other's reactions to that, and I decided it made sense to, instead of breaking them apart into separate chapters that would only drag out the story, merge them altogether into one long chapter so we can get it all over with and out of the way in one go.

So I did.

And I actually like how it turned out regardless, because it feels like every key character got a moment to shine in some shape or form, and further, as part of an accidental theme, focuses a lot of two characters talking one on one, circling through until nearly every possible combination took place (by my count, correct me if I'm wrong, we're only missing Ember talking with Thorax one on one and her talking with Trixie one on one).

Perhaps my favorite moment was Starlight and Spike's conversation at the end here, which was a relatively late addition to the chapter, but such a needed and rewarding one...you actually can feel a bit of mending happening between them throughout that conversation, and I am well-pleased with how it turned out. I had originally gone into it thinking it would end inconclusively (I had loosely planned an annoyed Spike just walking off from Starlight, nebulously saying something like "Twilight's an idiot...but then, maybe so am I" leaving Starlight wondering what he meant by that) but instead I saw some much needed healing begin to take place...though to be sure, there is far more needed to be done still.

Starlight and Thorax's discussion about changeling digestion came about because I had realized, waaaay back when Thorax had fallen ill, he had promised Spike he would explain what he knew about the subject, but then never did in-story. And since I had already devised some world-building about the subject and figuring Starlight would be interested, I threw it in here while I could.

Originally, the chapter was to be titled "Just Curious," in reference to the scene where Trixie is allowed to devise a custom disguise for Thorax (only to embarrass herself with the results), but then changed it to it's current one once I had caught on to the greater ongoing theme the whole chapter had taken on, thinking this title was more fitting.

I presently don't foresee any other chapters coming anywhere close to matching the length of this record breaker, so chapters here on for the foreseeable future should be back closer to more usual lengths now. I know these super-long chapters can be a serious chore to read, after all. :twilightsmile:

Foreboding

The day wore on, and it wasn’t long before nightfall drew near. According to Thorax, they had covered a lot of ground thus far, and now the Vergilius was cruising over the more sparse looking lands of the southern outskirts of Equestria, with plant growth not being entirely absent but certainly much thinner in number. It was expected that they would arrive at the Badlands as planned tomorrow morning, which made the daunting tasks still ahead of them loom ever nearer. Though there had been some batting about of new ideas for their plan to rescue the captured ponies within the changeling hive, none of them had really stuck for one reason or another, and as such there had been little enhancements to their standing plan. It was becoming likely that they would just have to commit to that plan largely as-is and hope for the best, barring any on the spot improvisations that changes in circumstance may yet require.

But in the meantime, they continued going about their respective businesses aboard the small air yacht, though even that was starting to wind down as the evening started to fall upon them. Especially since they would all be taking turns piloting the Vergilius on through the night, Starlight urged them to try and get as much sleep as they could after their makeshift dinner, with the hope that they would all be adequately rested by the time they arrived at the hive tomorrow. They also had determined who would be taking what turns piloting during the night, determining that Thorax would have the first shift, helped by the fact that he was already piloting the craft now.

But at the moment Spike’s attention wasn’t on his changeling friend, but on that of Ember as he strolled out onto the main deck to speak with her, finding her standing near the prow of the vessel and gazing out at the sunset. “Hey Ember,” he greeted politely as he approached. He was admittedly feeling in a bit better mood now than what he had started out today with, though to be sure still not without the usual underlying troubles. But for the moment, they weren’t overpowering and could be set aside for a second. “Keeping busy?”

“Mm,” Ember grunted back, her only response. Her gaze did not stray any from the sunset she was watching.

Spike took it as an affirmative and pressed on. “Well, so you are aware, Starlight’s been working at putting together a meal for all of us below deck and it’ll be ready soon. Figured you’d probably want some.”

“Depends,” Ember responded. “What is she making?”

“Well, considering our food supplies, nothing too complex,” Spike admitted with a shrug. “Basically, she’s popped open a few cans of baked beans we had on board and heated that up, as well adding a few other miscellaneous things we had on hoof to try and add some additional flavor. I’d call it chili…except it’s not really, so…I guess it’s still baked beans then, just…enhanced in flavor a bit.”

Ember made a face, sticking out her tongue in disgust and not finding the described meal appealing.

“Now don’t give me that,” Spike retorted. “You wait, baked beans really aren’t that bad. It’s not my all-time favorite pony dish personally, but it’s definitely still high on the list. I think you’ll like it too.”

“If you say so,” Ember replied noncommittedly. She didn’t seem especially convinced.

She also didn’t move from her present position, so Spike followed her gaze. “What are you doing out here, anyway?” he asked, when he didn’t see anything of note in the dragoness’s line of vision beyond the unremarkable terrain except Obsidian, the adult dragon visible while following along with the airship at a distance still, as he had been told to.

“Puzzling about something,” she remarked, her gaze still not wandering, but she did look like she was perplexed about something.

Spike was quiet for a second, squinting his eyes as he attempted to figure for himself what it might be. He only ended up giving himself mild eyestrain from staring too hard at the setting sun visible on the horizon. “Like what?” he asked finally, at a loss.

“That,” Ember replied in mild frustration, motioning with her claws at the horizon.

Spike looked out at it and again only saw one thing worth noting. “The sunset?” he asked, confused.

“Yes,” Ember persisted, like it was obvious. “Correct me if I’m wrong…but your Princess Celestia is the one who raises and lowers the sun, right?”

“Yeah…”

“Then, if she’s really been captured by changelings like Starlight says…then how is that happening?” She again motioned to the setting sun.

Spike looked from her to the setting sun and back again a couple of times. “Oh, that,” he remarked and rubbed the spines running down his back. “I suppose that is a good question…”

“Exactly!” Ember declared. “How can the sun set if the almighty Celestia isn’t there to do it?”

“Well, just because Celestia’s the only one who does it now doesn’t mean she’s the only one who can,” Spike explained, turning to face Ember fully. “I guess you wouldn’t know this, but Celestia wasn’t always around to move the sun, nor was Luna. Back then, Star Swirl the Bearded and a few other unicorns working together used their combined magic to move the sun and moon.”

“So?” Ember said, now her turn to not quite follow.

“So, that means the changelings could probably do the same thing,” Spike reasoned. “They all have magical powers roughly equivalent to that of unicorns, even though their magic isn’t quite the same as that of a unicorn’s, or so Thorax has told me. One alone probably couldn’t do it, but a group of them working together probably could.” He shrugged. “Most likely that’s what they’re doing, at least. I can’t think of a better way to explain it right now. Either way, they’d have to have figured out a way to do it just to maintain appearances, or they wouldn’t have been able to get this far with their little secret takeover.”

Ember thought about this for a few moments. “That would mean there were more changelings involved than just the two who are no doubt replacing Celestia and Luna presently,” she observed.

“Yeah, but that wouldn’t surprise me, really,” Spike admitted. “One doesn’t just overpower the royal sisters. The only way the changelings could’ve done it without getting their butts handed back to them is through well outnumbering the princesses, subduing them that way.”

Ember nodded to herself, agreeing with this assessment. “I suppose it would also be useful to have extra changelings on hand in the event of emergencies, or for the purpose of replacing other ponies and thus tightening their control on Equestria, or at least Canterlot, further still.” She frowned. “And if they have other higher-ups replaced as well, it would be less likely that somepony would discover the scheme taking place, because the higher-ups can just manipulate the nosy into looking away.”

Spike sighed, depressed at the thought. “Well, we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it,” he decided. “Right now…let’s just get through successfully rescuing the princesses first.”

They stood at the prow watching the sun continue slipping behind the horizon in silence for a few minutes.

“So…” Ember began again, “…you were helping Starlight prepare a meal?”

Spike shrugged indifferently. “A little,” he admitted. “Why?”

“I just thought you didn’t want anything to do with her.”

Spike snorted at that. “You were the one who said I needed to forgive her.”

“Ohhhh no I didn’t, I never actually said you had to forgive her,” Ember corrected quickly. “Actually, I can totally understand why you wouldn’t, given circumstances. Even I haven’t forgotten the fact that she messed up in all of this just like a lot of other ponies you hang with.”

“Then why did you want me to talk with her?”

“Because whenever the subject of Starlight came up, you looked like a slingtail with a rock shoved up its butt. It was clearly bugging you, so you needed to do something to try and get it to stop bugging you so much. I figured, then, that talking it out would probably help, if only to let you two vent. At the very least, that seemed to have worked for you in the past. So…have you talked to her about it?”

Spike averted his gaze. “Yes.”

“And? Did it help?”

Spike hesitated then sighed. “…Yes.”

“Ha! Point for the dragon lord!” Ember pumped her fist in victory. Then, as she thought about it a little longer, turned back to Spike. “Wait…since you brought it up…are you saying you have forgiven Starlight since that talk?”

Again, Spike snorted. “I wouldn’t say I’ve forgiven her exactly,” he admitted. “There’s still plenty for me to take issue about her views on things.”

“Like what?”

“Well, for one, she kept claiming that she’s been trying to make amends with me from the start when she clearly hadn’t really up until we started the conversation, she was very slow to even try to apologize for anything, she claimed she wouldn’t try to defend or justify the actions of Twilight and the others only to then turn around and do precisely that, and I don’t think she actually gets just how much misery she and the others have actually put me through.” Spike fumed for a moment, but no longer, as soon his fury quickly cooled again and he turned dejected. “But…she did show that she at least gets it more than I first gave her credit for…plus she’s at least seriously trying to make amends now, and…” he hesitated briefly, “…and she is right about one thing. Regardless of whether or not she had actually been trying to smooth things over with me before then…I probably wouldn’t have wanted to let her actually do it. At least up until she pointed it out. It made me realize that, maybe, I did owe her at least a chance to say her piece, hear her out, and actually allow her to at least try once…and she surprised me, I guess.”

“So…” Ember prompted, “…it went well, then?”

Spike didn’t smile, but his expression still lightened some, taking on a slightly cheerier look. “She’s at least managed to take some of the edge off,” he relented. He then shrugged and nodded his head at the land ahead of the flying airship. “Besides…where we’re heading, we’re all going to have to set aside a few grievances and work like a team, or else. And frankly…I’d rather we avoid the ‘or elses.’”

“Me too,” Ember agreed.

They fell silent again for a moment, continuing to watch the sunset while the airship flew ever onward.

“Do you think this plan is actually going to work?” Ember asked suddenly.

Spike frowned and averted his gaze, scowling a little. “I’d be lying if I didn’t admit I have a few…misgivings.”

Ember nodded her head solemnly. “Then you are not alone.”

Spike glanced at her, peering at her through his false eyeglasses. “You have doubts we can pull this off too, huh?”

Ember took a deep breath. “It’s more than that,” she admitted. “I…don’t quite know how, or if I’m just imagining it, but…” she shifted her gaze in the direction the Vergilius was sailing. “…I can’t help but fear something terrible is going to befall us if we try this…that this is not a good idea at all.”

Spike titled his head at her, questioning. “Then…why are you coming along?” he asked curtly. “No one’s making you. Hay, you have a good reason to not to, considering you’re the dragon lord and everything.”

“But I have no more of an alternative plan to enact besides this one than you do,” Ember replied. She sounded almost distant, lost in her thoughts. “At least, none that don’t immediately start a war…and while I would of course fight in such a war as bravely and valiantly as any other dragon, totally without fear…I find myself increasingly forced to agree that war, at least on this occasion, will not be the answer. It’d only get everybody hurt that didn’t need to be.” She turned her head to look at Spike. “Besides, I cannot in good conscience allow Queen Chrysalis to continue with her takeover of Equestria. If I did, the changelings would only turn their attention to the Dragon Realms in the end and seek to conquer the dragons too. And as the additional power of Equestria would be at her full disposal by that point, I know the dragons would not be able to resist them in the end. Obviously, I can’t allow that to happen.”

Spike harrumphed to himself and turned his gaze away from Ember. He seemed discontent by that answer…and it wasn’t hard to guess why.

“Spike, why are you coming along?” Ember challenged. “It’s obvious to everyone that you’d really rather not.”

“It’s the right thing to do,” Spike replied automatically.

It wasn’t answer enough for Ember. “That didn’t stop you when Starlight first came aboard and pleaded for our help. So what changed?”

Spike’s frown grew, but he answered honestly. “…Thorax raised some good points that I couldn’t deny,” he admitted reluctantly.

Ember harrumphed to herself. “Of course he did,” she said. “You sure seem to like letting him tell you what to do.”

“Who, Thorax?” Spike blinked in surprise. “Thorax isn’t an idiot, Ember, he knows what he’s talking about. And…often times he’s right. He is this time, at least.” He looked up at Ember again. “And after hearing you and the others talk about your own motivations…it only reminds me more that…it’d be foolish and idiotic of me to not help pull this off somehow.”

“And yet…” Ember prompted, sensing there was an unspoken continuation to this.

“And yet…” Spike continued with a sigh, and he shook his head. “…I’ll be honest with you, Ember. I’m not doing this for Equestria.” He gazed forlornly out at the darkening landscape the airship was flying over. “It’s scorned me one time too many lately.” His glare slowly started to morph into a hurt look. “I’m only doing this at all…because despite everything, I still have a conscience…and the knowledge that ridding myself of that conscience would…only bring more harm to an existence that’s already been harmed enough. It doesn’t need me adding to it.” He let out his breath in a dissatisfied exhale. “But I hear what you’re saying too…I’ve got a nagging feeling that us going to the changeling hive is only going to throw us out of the frying pan and into the fire, as it were. And I do deeply fear who might get hurt in the process that never deserved to be.”

Ember was quiet for a long moment, watching the sun turn into a mere sliver of light as the sunset finished. “You know, it’s not usually in our nature to want to put the needs of others before your own,” she softly remarked finally. “But every now and then, that trait pops up even among rough and tumble dragons like us. And they often turn out to be the bravest and most heroic.” She placed her claws on Spike’s shoulder in a reassuring motion. “I know deep down this isn’t what you’d like to do. But I think you’ve made the right decision in coming along regardless. And whatever troubles that await us at that hive…at least know that we’ll all be facing them together.”

Spike didn’t react at first, but unable to not take some comfort in the dragoness’s words, he slowly started to grin.

“Soup’s on!” Trixie suddenly called out from the door of the control cabin. “Well, it’s not really soup but…look, the food’s ready! Come get it while it’s hot and…you know…there.”

Spike smirked a little and bumped Ember on the arm with his fist. “C’mon,” he said, urging his fellow dragon to follow. “I’ll go introduce you to your first bowl of baked beans. You just might be surprised.”

“Oh, we’ll see about that,” Ember promised firmly, but she was smirking too as she followed after the littler dragon.

As dinner wound down and the night began fully, Thorax obligingly kept his position at the ship’s helm, taking the first shift of piloting the craft as agreed and was content to remain there, likely alone while the rest went to bed, until he was relieved from his shift by the next pony in line, who was consequently Trixie. However, Thorax hadn’t been manning the helm long when Trixie came up to join him.

“Hey, there’s still some baked beans leftover if you want them,” she offered the changeling a little timidly as she reached the top of the steps that led down below deck. “At least there are for the moment. With the way Spike and especially Ember have been going at them, they’re probably not going to last much longer…”

Thorax chuckled. “Spike’s always had a bit of a soft spot for baked beans,” he admitted without looking away from what he was doing. “I’m not terribly surprised Ember would too.”

“Trixie’s point is that you’d better come get some before it’s all gone,” Trixie stressed as she approached the helm Thorax stood at.

“Nah, I’ve had my fill,” Thorax said, waving off the offer politely. “Let the others have it if they want.”

“Are you sure?” Trixie asked, moving her head so she could look the changeling in the eye despite him keeping his gaze focused ahead and on where the airship was flying. “I couldn’t help but notice you didn’t eat very much of it at all when you were down there with the rest of us.”

“Didn’t need to,” Thorax assured her warmly, glancing at her out of the corner of his eye. “Remember, changelings like me subsist on primarily emotions, so we don’t eat much in the way of solid foods. Indeed, eating too much would only give me a stomachache, and we can’t have that, now can we?” He shot Trixie a small, but embarrassed, grin. “Besides…baked beans make me gassy.”

Trixie snorted, amused. “Don’t they for everybody?” she asked pointedly.

Thorax seriously considered the question for a moment. “They don’t seem to for Spike…” he observed aloud. He shrugged. “But then a dragon like him would be built to eat far coarser things than baked beans without problem, so suppose that shouldn’t be a surprise.”

“All right, true, a dragon probably would have a stomach of steel,” Trixie conceded. She sat herself down beside Thorax and turned her gaze at the night outside the airship. “So are you going to be okay up here on your own like this?”

“Certainly,” Thorax replied. “It gives me time to think.”

“Oh. Whatcha thinking about then?”

“Well, at the moment, what we should we do if we arrive in the throne room at the hive, and Queen Chrysalis is there in the room too.”

“I thought we were thinking that we didn’t want to cross paths with any changelings, queen or not, while in the hive.”

“Yes, but I got to thinking that, in all likeliness, the queen will be there in the room anyway. I mean, it is her throne room. So I thought it would be wise to at least be prepared.” Thorax sighed. “Unfortunately, it’s been occurring to me that this all depends on how things are going with our plans at that present time. Best case, I can simply disguise myself as one of her aides and go in to tell her that she’s needed somewhere else in the hive so to get her out of the room long enough for us to continue. But that all assumes everything up to that point goes as we’ve planned and have not alerted the hive to our presence in some manner. If that happens, circumstances would be different, and it could be harder to get her out of the throne room. I fear we may have to be forced to directly confront her in that instance…and that could end in any number of ways that I can’t plan for. If there’s one thing I can say about her highness, it’s that Queen Chrysalis can be unpredictable in the heat of the moment.”

Trixie averted her gaze, folding her hooves. “Hmm,” she grunted dejectedly. “Yet another potentially grave problem for me to sleep on tonight.”

Thorax sensed Trixie’s emotions briefly, and detecting one in particular allowed him to quickly pick his next response. “Speaking of,” he said, “aren’t you supposed to be going to bed right now?”

“Couldn’t sleep,” Trixie admitted sheepishly.

“Mm,” Thorax hummed, nodding his head. He decided to be more direct. “You’re nervous, then.”

Trixie scoffed the remark in annoyance, but she still nodded her head in acknowledgement. “Can you blame me?” she asked a little incredulously. “As we speak, we’re basically flying right into the unknown.”

Thorax was quiet for a second. “It’s not unknown to me,” he mumbled quietly.

Trixie glanced at him, trying to read his distant expression. “Then what’s it like in the hive, anyway?” she asked finally.

Thorax took a deep breath. “In its present state…it could be better,” he admitted vaguely. “Basically…I would much rather be in Equestria.”

Trixie gazed out at the night outside the forward viewport in front of them. “And yet, we’re flying right for it,” she murmured in apprehension.

Thorax glanced at her. “Do you have a better idea?”

Trixie lowered her gaze. “I wish I did.”

Thorax sighed, sympathizing. “So do I.”

They were both quiet for a long moment, gazing out the viewport at the night sky while Thorax calmly continued piloting the airship through it.

“Look,” Trixie began suddenly, changing the subject. “About earlier today, when we were talking…”

“It’s okay,” Thorax interrupted, believing he already knew where Trixie was going with this. “I did not understand at first, but I get now why you reacted the way you did.”

“You do?” Trixie asked, slightly dismayed and feeling her embarrassment return.

“Yes, but it’s nothing to be ashamed of, really.”

“Really? I…I would’ve thought you’d think it weird.”

Thorax shook his head. “It’s not really that weird at all. Actually, I suppose it’s a rather natural response.”

“Well…maybe, but it’s still all sorts of awkward,” Trixie persisted, which got Thorax to chuckle again as Trixie pressed on, “because, well, you’re a nice guy and all, but really, why should I be attrac—”

“I suppose I would look a little awkward in that half-pony, half-changeling disguise I was wearing, right?” Thorax interrupted about halfway into Trixie’s remark, not realizing that there was more she was about to say until too late.

Trixie blanked out for a moment, suddenly unsure she and Thorax were thinking of the same thing. “…huh?”

“Earlier, when you were giving suggestions for a new disguise I could wear that would be more…approachable for you,” Thorax explained like it was obvious. He grinned in good humor. “Obviously I never got a good look at it myself, but I imagine I looked quite embarrassingly ridiculous as a curious mix between pony and changeling when Starlight entered when she did.”

Clearly they were both thinking of the same event, but Trixie was now starting to become certain Thorax was viewing it completely differently from her. “…embarrassingly ridiculous?” she repeated, uncertain.

“Yeah, but it’s okay, Trixie,” Thorax said and he put a reassuring hoof on her shoulder. Trixie dimly thought the holes in the limb felt odd when pressed against her hide like that. “You didn’t need to feel so embarrassed for my sake.”

Trixie blinked a few times then suddenly understood what Thorax was saying. “Oh. Oh!” she cried, then eagerly started nodding in agreement so to hide she had actually been embarrassed for completely different reasons. “Yes! That’s totally what it was about! It was certainly, absolutely, nothing but that! I was—I was feeling embarrassed about how ridiculous you looked and certainly not because…for anything other than how ridiculous you had looked. Yup. That’s all.” She forced a nervous laugh.

Lucky for her, Thorax’s obliviousness to the real truth withheld. “Yeah, that first attempt was a dud,” he agreed, laughing a little himself. “We’ll have to try a different approach later.”

Trixie’s gaze went distant for a moment. “Yeah,” she began slowly. “Trixie’s actually been thinking about that.”

Having caught on by now that Trixie’s use of the third person was often a habitual attempt to hide her discomfort for something, Thorax turned his head so to give her his full attention. “Yes?”

Trixie took in a deep breath to steady her nerves. “Trixie appreciates the offer you take on some shape that’s more…ideal for her, but, um…she’s going to have to turn it down.”

Thorax’s brow furrowed, confused and clearly not expecting her to do this. “But why?”

“Because it’s not right!” Trixie declared, whipping her head around to look Thorax in the eye. “You pretending to be something you’re not is what got us in this situation in the first place, and that’s not fair for you!” She closed her eyes for a second and let her tension unwind a little first before continuing. “Look…I know you think your natural form disturbs me, and you want to make me more comfortable by hiding it, letting me pretend it doesn’t exist…but what about you? What’s more comfortable for you?”

Thorax looked at her blankly for a long moment. “…whatever makes the rest of you more comfortable,” he reasoned simply but unsure of his answer. “Because if all of you are comfortable, I know I am safe from fear or harm from you and thereby can be comfortable too.”

“Yes, but you’re thinking too much like a changeling with that answer,” Trixie pointed out. “If that’s how you approach it, then you’ll always be living the lie, and never giving the rest of us the chance to even try to accept you for who and what you are as-is! Maybe the answer you’re looking for to be accepted by ponies is to try harder to be who you really are, and let them see that, so there’s no need for them to have to wonder if it’s real or false.” Her gaze softened. “And I’d much rather see you stop living that lie anyway. You just be you. The rest of us all ought to be able to accept that, not try and turn you into something you’re not.” She motioned to the changeling’s natural form, unobscured save for the jacket he wore. “This should be good enough for us.”

Thorax stared at Trixie for a long moment, considering her words, and then shifted his gaze back to the viewport behind the helm in front of him. He thought long and hard about it. “The only problem with that,” he conceded finally, “is that there is a very real inherent danger to it. I’d be risking bodily harm presenting myself undisguised to someone that did not agree with you.”

“A problem we’ll both have to try to correct,” Trixie agreed. “But hiding yourself from it won’t change it either. How can anyone accept a changeling as a changeling if you never give us the chance, huh?” Trixie then hung her head, a little ashamed. “In fact, I feel like I should owe you an apology.”

Thorax frowned. “For what?”

Trixie turned herself away slightly. “For not being able to accept you for who you are sooner.” She then grinned slightly. “It’s like you said before. You may have disguised yourself outwardly to me in the past…but inwardly, your personality was always the same, without taint or disguise. I should’ve recognized that I had already gotten to know you, the real you, just from talking with you…especially in our letters.” She sheepishly stared at her hooves, rubbing them together idly. “So…sorry for…doubting you.”

Thorax was quiet again for another moment. He chuckled dimly under his breath. “And I am sorry I did not trust you to trust me sooner,” he added then tilted his head at the mare. “Perhaps we have not been going about this…interaction…as well as we should’ve.”

Trixie snickered weakly. “Maybe not.”

“Then perhaps we should start over again from the beginning.” Thorax stuck out his hoof, offering it to Trixie. “Hello, I am Thorax.”

Trixie regarded the extended and chitinous hoof for a second then, grinning, took it in her own azure hoof and shook it. “Hello, Thorax” she greeted, playing along. “I…am the Great and Powerful Trixie! I’m a traveling stage magician and illusionist.”

“And I’m a changeling,” Thorax offered back in response.

Trixie giggled, and nodded her head. “Yes, I can see that.”

They both laughed, and then proceeded to catch up with one another, resuming the friendly relations they had first started out with as if nothing had happened and anything had gotten between them. Most certainly not the fact that one of them was a changeling.

As night settled upon the Vergilus while it continued on its roughly southerly voyage for the changeling hive, most of its occupants were expected to be heading for bed, save for Thorax taking the first shift piloting the craft. Ember was among them, the dragoness ready and anxious to get some shut eye, hoping to be sufficiently rested enough for her own turn at piloting the craft in the early hours of the following morning. However, as she was also the last of the airship’s informal crew to take a turn at the wheel, she was also the one who was likely to get the most uninterrupted sleep, so she still took the time to undergo a normal nighttime routine for herself—polishing her bloodstone scepter that had marked her rise as the newest dragon lord.

The scepter, of course, was purely ceremonial and symbolic. Though it had some magical properties, it was always meant to be more decorative than anything, and it certainly wasn’t the only one in existence either, thus making it far from unique. She knew her father Torch had kept one just like it for himself after stepping down as the previous dragon lord. Most dragon lords barely did anything with the bloodstone scepter once they had claimed the title for themselves. Ember, however, liked to keep the scepter with her whenever she could since her ascension as leader of the dragons, especially when traveling like this, for a couple of reasons. One was that the scepter made for an excellent makeshift weapon in a pinch. Two was that carrying it around just generally made her look awesome. And third, she took it as a reminder of how and why she ultimately came to be the dragon lord…and therefore she had admittedly taken a sentimental liking to it. And as such, a special possession required special treatment, as well as attentive care, keeping it looking nice.

Besides, it made her look even more awesome when she was carrying it freshly polished.

Using a special gem-polishing cloth most dragons generally used for treating keepsake gems for their individual hordes, she had retreated into the airship’s main head to polish the scepter, but only because Starlight, as she was proceeding for bed herself, noticed the cloth tended to kick up a fine ash-colored powder while being used. As such, she suggested to Ember that, to minimize mess, the dragoness should to do the task in the head where it could be contained. Ember had done so only to prevent a fight, but upon finishing concluded the privacy this granted her was sort of nice, allowing her to think about a number of things that had been bouncing around in her mind for most of the truly eventful past day. And when she exited the head with the freshly polished scepter in her claws, she was quickly reminded of one of those matters when she noticed Spike had not yet gone to bed himself, and instead still sat at the saloon table. It had been cleared of the dinner dishes for the evening and now had atop it two stacks of parchments, one notable in size, with a single piece of parchment laid in front of Spike as he quietly wrote upon it. He seemed engrossed enough in his writing that he appeared unaware of Ember’s presence.

Deciding she wanted to discuss a few final things before bed—and partly out of simple curiosity—Ember quietly set aside her scepter then gently approached where Spike was sitting at the table, conveniently positioned so that his back was to her, and leaned herself over so to hang her head above his shoulder, peering at the parchment he was writing upon and briefly skimming through the words written upon it. “Just what are you working on, anyway?”

Spike jumped. “Ack! Ember!” he exclaimed, throwing an annoyed swat at the dragoness, who dodged it by playfully darting out of reach again. “It’s private, all right? Nothing that concerns you!”

“Oh c’mon, what could be so important to merit such secrecy?” Ember retorted as she circled around and leaned over the other dragon to again try and steal a peek at his writings.

Spike noticed this time and, greatly annoyed, flipped the parchment over so to hide what he had written from view. “I mean it, Ember,” he repeated in a warning tone.

“Oh, fine, if you won’t show me…” Ember noticed one sheet of parchment that was sticking out from near the middle of the larger of the two stacks Spike had on the table and darted forward, snagging the edge in her claws and pulling it free from the stack. “…then I’ll just show myself!”

“Hey!” Spike shouted and twisted around as he tried to grab the parchment back from her.

Being considerably taller than Spike though, Ember merely straightened to her full height, easily keeping the stolen page of parchment out of his reach. “‘Of course, the news came as a great shock to me,’” Ember began to overdramatically read aloud as Spike jumped around at her feet, trying to snatch back the parchment. “‘Who wouldn’t be shocked with news such as this? But because of that shock, it was momentarily difficult to think about what to do next. Though at that moment, my much greater concern was if this was finally the moment I had long dreaded, the moment where everything came unraveled, that this game of potentially deadly cat and mouse had reached an end, and we just lost.’” Ember’s melodramatic and teasing tone faded away and into a more serious one the further she read, her brow furrowing in puzzlement as the text’s serious tone sank in. “‘That fear had never become more real up to that point in time until that moment, the moment I had heard the sudden and blunt news that my so-called coconspirator as well as greatest and only friend in the world had been arres—’ Spike, just what is this that you are writing?”

She hadn’t even finished speaking this final sentence when she heard a heavy thump of something rebounding off the wall immediately behind her and Spike suddenly soared right in front of her head, snatching the stolen piece of parchment right out of her surprised claws as he flew past. She then turned her head to follow him as the littler dragon landed atop the saloon table, slid across it in a practiced and controlled skid, trying to stop, before he ran out of table and leapt from its far edge and into the wall immediately past it. He bounced gently off it by using one arm and leg as a means of absorbing the brunt of the impact before, having lost most of his momentum, plopped down into the bench seat that wrapped around that end of the table.

Ember gaped at him for a second, her empty claws held before her as if they were still holding the piece of parchment Spike had just snatched back. “How did you do that?” she asked. “What was that?”

“It’s called parkour,” Spike replied flatly, giving the dragoness an annoyed glare as he hopped back up onto the table and walked across it until arriving at the spot he had been sitting and writing until Ember interrupted him. “I took a class on it in Vanhoover about a moon back.” He shook his head as he sat himself down back in his seat, leaning over to flip through the stack Ember had stolen the sheet of parchment from. “But never mind that, this—” he held up the piece of parchment in his claws, “—is nothing you need to be concerned with, and is private. You had no business trying to pry into it, much less stealing pages of it without my permission.” He growled to himself as he sought the proper spot in the stack the parchment had been yanked from. “And these were all ordered by number, you know. Now I have to flip through all of these until I find the right spot to slip this back into.”

Ember stood there and watched numbly, finding herself a bit guilty suddenly. “I’m sorry,” she apologized genuinely, the words spilling out of her mouth without her needing to think about it. “I was just curious as to what you were working on.”

“This is a project of no importance to anyone other than me,” Spike replied with a sigh, shooting Ember another annoyed look, but the dragoness’s apology had managed to soften the expression some. “I don’t really expect it to ever see the light of day.”

Ember mulled upon that for a second. “It sort of did just now though, didn’t it?” she couldn’t help but point out in a small moment of teasing defiance.

Spike refocused his attention on sifting through the stack in search of the proper spot the removed piece of parchment needed to be returned to. “Technically, it’s nighttime right now, not day,” he quipped back in response.

A small grin tugged at Ember’s lips. “But it was day when I read that piece of writing you had when we were discussing what you intended to do about Trixie. That was from this too, wasn’t it?”

Spike scowled as he found the right spot and stuffed the parchment back into its spot, unable to argue that point. “If you really must read something, read this one.” He shoved the second, smaller stack of parchments gently in Ember’s direction. “That’s the one I expect will actually go somewhere someday, assuming I can ever get back in Equestria without being immediately arrested or something.”

Ember picked up the first sheet off the top of the stack and started to read through the writings upon it. It was distinctly different from the other work though, clearly a work of fiction and written in third-person perspective in contrast to the first-person the other had used. “This is a story, then?” she asked aloud.

“Yeah, I’ve occasionally been working on it in my spare time,” Spike explained as he resumed writing once again on his original piece of parchment. “It’s sort of my hope that, once it’s complete and I can do some more refining, I can maybe send it in to a publisher and maybe get it published…but we’ll see.”

“I didn’t know you were that serious into the whole writing thing, though.”

“It’s a relatively new thing I’ve picked up I guess, but I haven’t been broadcasting it much for obvious reasons. Not much point discussing it if it’s still a work in progress and there’s still a chance of it never happening. So I’ve been keeping it to myself.”

Ember glanced up, peering at him over the top of the parchment she was reading. “Since when did you become such a secretive dragon?” she asked.

Spike’s scowl returned. “Ever since I was chased out of the Crystal Empire and my survival as well as that of my best friend’s depended on it,” he retorted bitterly.

Ember grunted and chose not to comment on that, instead continuing to read the rest of the piece of parchment in silence. Upon finishing it, she leaned forward to return it to the top of its stack, opting not to take up the next sheet so to continue reading. “I liked the writing in the other one a bit better,” she admitted as she did this.

Spike paused in his writing for a second, then side-glanced curiously at her. “…Really?”

Ember nodded. She pointed at the larger stack of parchments that Spike wanted kept secret so much. “That one feels more…raw and…honest.”

Spike glanced at the stack with a furrowed brow for a second. “But…to be honest, Ember…that one I’ve only been writing for the practice, and…to vent.”

Ember shrugged. “Hey, I’m just giving you my opinion,” she stated. She lowered herself into a seat across the table from Spike with a heavy thump. She watched him write for a moment, and decided to press on with the subject that had originally drawn her here. “Does Thorax know about these writings of yours?”

Spike hesitated, not looking up from his writing. “Sort of,” he admitted. “He knows that I’m writing things, but unlike you, he respects my want to keep them private until I’m ready to share them and hasn’t tried to steal any peeks, so he wouldn’t know much about them.” He tapped the stack of parchments containing the secretive writings with one hand. “I don’t think he even knows about the existence of this one.” He kept writing for a second, then paused and glanced up at Ember. “Why do you ask?”

“Actually…it’s an attempt to try and shift the subject onto Thorax, because I’ve been…thinking about something that’s been troubling me off and on this evening.” Ember leaned forward, folding her arms on the side of the table separating them. “Look, you consider him a friend, right?” she asked.

Spike’s brow furrowed in puzzlement, not understanding where she was going with this. “Yeah…”

“And he considers you a friend, right?”

“I certainly hope so.”

“Then…why do I feel like you two are more at odds than either of you have been admitting?”

Spike straightened, setting down his quill. His expression was hard to read, but he didn’t seem pleased by this statement. “What brought this up?”

Ember sighed. “I’ve just been thinking about our conversation earlier this evening, right before the baked beans were served.”

“You mean the one where we were talking about why the sun was setting if the changelings had captured Princess Celestia?”

“That wasn’t the only thing we talked about…remember, we also talked about how Thorax had talked you into agreeing to participate in this rescue plan we’re doing.”

Spike tilted his head at Ember, his expression shifting into something between a scowl and a look of puzzlement. “What of it?” He frowned. “Are you saying you have an issue with him urging me to help in the rescue?”

Ember hesitated. “Spike, you need to know that I have no malice towards Thorax,” she began as a disclaimer. “And know that I don’t enjoy pointing this out, but it’s important enough to me that I think I need to, and I’ve been thinking about it a lot since this first came up earlier this evening.” She sighed. “But what I have an issue with is the fact that you appear to just be doing everything he tells you to do, even though you don’t really agree with doing it. I mean…you’ve made it clear to me you don’t actually want to do this rescue thing.”

“Yes, but you and I both agreed it was still the right thing both of us needed to do.”

“That’s not what I’m getting at though. The fact is that you just do what Thorax tells you to do, and I’m starting to wonder just how much you let him do that. Or even not just Thorax, but a lot of others as well.”

Spike’s frown deepened. “So?”

“So, I know you’re smart enough that you don’t need to do that, and that you’re smart enough to come up and act upon your own plans of action. Yet when Thorax comes along and tells you otherwise, do you even resist?”

“Why would I?” Spike challenged. “Thorax isn’t just a friend, he’s my support, my moral compass, and more. He’s the one that sees and tells me when I need to draw the line, and he’s usually right too.” He sighed, suddenly depressed. “And…he’s often the one who can…ground my temper…or else I would’ve flown off the handle moons ago.” He shook his head. “Somedays Thorax was all that was keeping me sane, Ember.”

Ember frowned at this sudden revelation. “Well, in a way I’m glad he managed to do that much…an insane dragon is a danger to all and itself…and I wouldn’t want that happening to you, of course.”

“Of course,” Spike agreed, allowing himself a slight smile.

“But that doesn’t mean Thorax is always right,” Ember pressed on. She glanced across the table at Spike. “More to the point, I know you can think independently, have seen you think for yourself, and yet…it seems like you’d still prefer to just let others tell you what to do all the time.”

Spike’s expression morphed into a repelled frown that wrinkled his snout. “I’m not always right either, Ember,” he retorted. “Nor do I always know what to do. Sometimes it’s helpful to have that guidance from someone else.”

“You’re missing my point,” Ember stressed. “It’s not that you’re getting outside input that’s the problem, it’s that I worry you’ve become solely reliant upon it, viewing the opinions of others as always overruling your own.” She leaned further across the table. “Look, back when you and Thorax were chatting in the head today…he was telling you to leave Trixie alone, wasn’t he?”

Spike’s frown deepened. “So what if he was? It’s not any of your business. That is between me and Thorax.”

“Exactly, and you don’t like him hanging around Trixie, so why are you letting him talk you out of it so incredibly easily?”

Spike’s frown now transformed into a scowl and he turned his head, twisting his body away. “There’s far more to that matter than just Trixie, Ember.” He sighed wearily. “Besides, what difference does it make? I’m quite certain now that Thorax is going to pursue Trixie anyway, I just know it. He’s done it before anyway, so why would he stop now?” He sighed again, only this time deeper and wearier still. “And Thorax…after everything he’s been through…Thorax deserves the chance to make his own choices, to have the freedom to decide for himself. I know that. I’ve been trying to encourage that. So me trying to oppose him on his own choices simply because I don’t personally agree with that choice…sort of defeats the point. But…look, after he and I talked about it, I feel I was wrong to act as I did…and I just shouldn’t be getting in the way of that anyway, telling Thorax what to do just because I disagree with it.”

“But neither should he,” Ember pressed. “Look, I like Thorax too, and I want to see him succeed too, but that doesn’t mean he’s allowed to always get his way and you don’t.”

“He’s not.”

“Is he?”

“No.”

“Then you’re going to let him pursue Trixie, even though you clearly think it’ll be a mistake?”

“It’s got nothing to DO with Trixie, Ember,” Spike suddenly snapped. But it wasn’t out of anger; his expression was rapidly turning troubled, anxious, and afraid. “Trixie just happens to be the easy target to attack it through. No, no, no, I mean it’s true, I don’t like her all that much, but honestly? It’s really got nothing to do with her specifically. It’s all more about what would happen with Thorax if he did, and…” he squeezed his eyes shut and turned away from Ember. “I don’t want to talk about it, Ember. It’s none of your business anyway.” He sniffed and rubbed one arm across his eyes quickly before, his composure restored, he turned and faced her directly again as if nothing had happened. “Besides…what’s it to you, anyway?”

“Because your opinions matter too, Spike,” she stated seriously. “And yet, the way I see it, I’m starting to fear you’re letting your opinions be suppressed simply because those such as Thorax tell you not to pursue them and you don’t challenge that. Spike, a dragon doesn’t just give up on their opinions, they make them known DESPITE outside pressure to just shut up and do as you’re told.”

“My opinion was to turn my back to everything and let the changelings have Equestria,” Spike pointed out. “Allowing everyone including friends and allies such as Fly Leaf, who even I agree don’t deserve it, to a horrible fate…and for no reason other than petty revenge, Ember.” He scowled darkly at her. “Surely you didn’t actually want me doing that, right? Because what Thorax pointed out to me was that was basically like how Twilight threatened to start a war with you and the dragons just so to have her way.” He averted his gaze, ashamed. “None of us have the right to be gambling the lives of innocents over grudges such as that.”

Ember licked her lips for a second. “My point, Spike, is that I worry you’re letting him rule and dictate your life, because he wants to pursue things his way, and good intentions or not, it’s only suppressing your freedom to be an individual, keeping you from having a say in what are truly your affairs. Yes, turning your back on Equestria is a horrible idea, but that’s all your choice, and you should be free to make it, regardless of what he thinks. And it’s not just that matter of helping Equestria, there’s also the matter of Trixie. You don’t want him doing anything with her, made it clear to me that you weren’t going to let it happen, took the time to tell her upfront all of this, and yet at the first sign of resistance to that from Thorax, you backed off completely. And the more I think about this—and I have for most of this evening—the more I fear this is just the latest of a long series of such events. Spike, he may be your friend, and I don’t doubt he means the absolute best for you, not for a second, but as far as I can see, you’re letting him walk all over you, and he’s basically dictating your life for you, and what’s worse is that I don’t think he even realizes it.”

“You know why I don’t question Thorax on things like this?” Spike suddenly snapped, whipping his head back around to face Ember again. “It’s because he’s still right. It’s not Thorax that’s ruling my life, it’s my anger, and it’s only leading me to do things that will only make things worse. I was wrong to threaten Trixie and to try and tell him what to do. I was wrong to try and shun Equestria simply because I was too angry at Twilight to try and even raise a claw. I was wrong about of a lot of things that Thorax has had to sit me down and set me straight over these long four moons, and there’s probably far more he could’ve done that he didn’t out of respect for me! I wasn’t exaggerating when I said Thorax was all that’s kept me sane, Ember. You don’t know just how furious and upset I am at things, how much I’ve wanted to let that blind me and take control and just tear everything apart just to try and get this fury the hay out of me. But Thorax…Thorax understands that, yet knows that if I don’t keep myself in check, I’ll only hurt myself more.” He started to tear up. “And by golly, I’m hurting far more than I can handle already. I have been for much, much, too long. He knows that, and he’s trying to help however he can to help me get over it, but darn it, I’m just too stubborn! I just can’t let go of my hatred of the misdoings that have been brought upon us both, and I’m not stupid, Ember, I know it’s holding me back, because just look at Thorax! He’s let go of all of this, and he’s gone on to get all these wonderful things, building a promising life and friendships and opportunities for himself because of it, and if we actually pull this crazy plan of ours off, he’s got an absolutely wonderful future ahead of him! He’s moving on. He’s got peace, happiness, love, success…a veritable dream come true coming for him, and yet here I am, wallowing in grief and unable to bring myself to join him on that path to success because I have a hatred gnawing away at me, holding me back, tying me down, that I can’t even bring myself to even try to swat away, and sometimes I don’t think I even want to.” He sank back into the seat, eyes squeezed tight as he tried, unsuccessfully, to hold back tears, his little body shuddering from the very effort. “But it doesn’t matter…I will not allow my personal grievances stand in the way of his success. Not ever. If I can succeed at doing anything worthwhile myself now…it’s seeing to it that Thorax goes on to live happily ever after. After that…who cares about me?”

He broke down and openly wept after that. Stunned by this passionate display of emotion, Ember awkwardly sat there, unsure what to do and what the right thing to do would be in this situation, and watched her fellow dragon and friend pitifully sob and not liking it one bit. She wanted to do something, but this wasn’t normally the sort of thing a dragon had to deal with. Usually dragons kept this to themselves and were left alone by others, but that seemed like the absolutely worst thing to do in this instance.

So instead, Ember decided to not do it the dragon way.

Leaving her seat, she padded around the table and knelt down beside where Spike sat, weeping still. She hesitated awkwardly for a second, but then pulled him into a tight hug, wrapping her arms around him. “I care,” she whispered softly.

Spike didn’t verbally respond, but he wrapped his arms around her tightly, savoring the hug, and continued to cry into her shoulder. They remained like that for some time until Spike had cried himself out and just quietly sat there in Ember’s embrace.

Eventually, exhausted from the emotional strain the conversation had unexpectedly wrought upon her and seeing the same tiredness settle onto Spike’s face, she decided it would be better to save further discussion on this subject for another time and to sleep this off for now. “I think,” she said slowly and softly, “it’s time we both went to bed.”

Spike nodded his head in agreement. “Okay,” he whispered.

They pulled apart. Spike gathered up his papers. Ember assisted without drawing protest from Spike. She then escorted him to his bunk and helped him into it, watching as he collapsed into it. He was soon fast asleep. Ember watched him fade into slumber for a moment, then wearily turned and headed off for bed herself, picking up her scepter from where she had left it as she went.

Author's Note

As promised, a notably shorter chapter this week.

A couple parts of this one are just to fill in a couple of gaps in things, but most of the rest is more to "set the scene" for later discussions in the story...a sort of "part 1" for more things along those same topics coming soon, some right away, a few not until much later.

As those who follow the comments in full may have noticed, I have been engaged in discussion with some readers about how I've been handling the Spike/Thorax dynamic and whether or not it has gotten "off," a matter that I do indeed plan to address directly very soon, but first, I felt it was important that you all understand why Spike lets Thorax have things his way so often. From his point of view, it really is his remaining chief goal in life, so to speak.

Also, I was a bit disappointed that there were no comments about the blurb on Spike's writing last chapter, so seeing that a subtle hint didn't seem to work, maybe I'll just club you guys a bit more directly with it this time. :raritywink:

Hope and Fear

The night wore on and hours passed, with Thorax and Trixie were still making friendly chatter in the Vergilius’s control cabin, though now their conversation had moved on to more inane topics.

“All right, Mr. Jar Catcher,” Trixie remarked with a smug grin. “Let’s have you try…uh…Hope and Fear.”

“Oh, uh,” Thorax murmured as he worked to recall the details while still mostly focused on steering the airship. “Let’s see…isn’t that the one where they come across the super advanced airship with the high-tech and super-fast new type of propulsion system that they think is one of theirs at first, but only to later discover it was actually an elaborate trap to catch and eliminate the crew?”

“Yes!” Trixie said with a nod. “And it was a pity, because that new airship sounded actually kind of cool.”

“It really did,” Thorax agreed with a nod. “All right then, my turn…let’s see…how about…A Private Little War.”

“Ooh, ooh, what was that…that was one of the early ones again, wasn’t it?” Trixie mumbled to herself as she sought to recall the entry in the Sky Trek series. She then smirked, having noticed a trend in the entries Thorax named. “You do like those early entries in the series, don’t you?”

Thorax simply shrugged nonchalantly and instead motioned for Trixie to continue.

Trixie nodded and resumed thinking. “Right, let’s see…uh…A Private Little War…wasn’t…wasn’t that the one where the griffons are providing some primitive natives with weapons more advanced than what they were supposed to have…?”

Thorax nodded in confirmation, glanced at her slightly without turning his head away from the forward viewport he was facing. “And how did it end?”

“I believe with, seeing that some of the natives were using the weapons to make war against those who did not have them, the crew providing them similar weapons of their own despite their better judgment, in hopes that would restore something of a balance of power between the natives,” Trixie said with hesitation. “Or something like that. One of those really cerebral things, really.” She tilted her head at Thorax. “You seem to have a soft spot for such tales.”

Thorax shrugged again. “It makes me think,” he replied simply, before motioning at Trixie. “Anyway, your turn again.”

“Okay then,” Trixie said, considering her options. Having caught on that Thorax was a little more fluent in the whole series than her (probably because he was a more recent fan and thus had the details of the many books in the series fresher in his mind), she sought an entry that was a little more obscure. “Let’s see if you can sum up…Desert Crossing.”

Thorax’s brow furrowed, and Trixie smirked a little as she quickly saw that the changeling couldn’t immediately recall it. “Desert Crossing,” he mumbled aloud to himself, taking one of his holed hooves off the ship’s wheel to rub the underside of his chin thoughtfully. “Desert Crossing…Desert Crossing…well, I assume that has them crossing a desert at some point…”

“Obviously,” Trixie replied, her smirk growing.

Thorax frowned, shifting his gaze off the forward viewport fully as he lowered it, eyes distant as he thought on it further. “Crossing a desert…crossing a desert…” he then rapped his hoof on the ship’s wheel suddenly, perking up. “That one…that one was the one where the crew assists this one guy…I forget his name…but they assist this one guy with his little airship and help him get back home, and he invites some of them to a…I think it was a sports event…only for them to learn he was actually a rebel and something of a terrorist fighting against his government, and was trying to rope them into aiding him. The crossing the desert part came into play when the encampment is bombed, and they end up having to cross through the treacherous desert in search of safety while with few supplies.” Thorax shook his head. “I had almost forgotten that one…it wasn’t especially memorable, honestly.” He glanced at Trixie. “But that’s the one, isn’t it?”

Trixie nodded. “Completely,” she said. “But for a second there, I thought I had you stumped.” She gave Thorax a smug look. “Let’s see if you can do the same for Trixie.”

Thorax thought for a moment, then named the title of his selected entry abruptly. “Contagion.”

Trixie blinked, but was immediately struck by the sense she knew which one that was. “Oh! Uh! Uh!” she cried to herself as she attempted to recall enough details to actually speak them aloud. “Ooh, ooh, that was the one where they, uh, they find the really ancient magic portal thingy!”

Now Thorax smirked. “And…?” he prompted, searching for additional details.

“And…and…” Trixie muttered, bouncing eagerly on her hooves as she worked to force the remaining details off the tip of her tongue. “…and because the airship was exposed to some corrupted data or something related to it, they were suffering from a whole bunch of system problems that were risking their safety!”

Thorax laughed at Trixie’s eagerness. “Close enough!” he declared. “Your turn again.”

“Okay, what’s another good one…” Trixie said aloud, letting her gaze wander upwards in search of an answer. “How about…For the Uniform.”

“Oh, that one,” Thorax said flatly. “That was the one where the captain relentlessly chases after the former crewmember who had gone rogue, to the point it became something of a personal vendetta.” He frowned. “I actually didn’t like that one so much…it was a little…too close to home for me.”

Trixie frowned herself, realizing the eerie similarity to his and Spike’s predicaments. “I’m sorry, I didn’t think of that. I suppose it would make you uncomfortable given everything that’s happened.”

“It’s okay, I wouldn’t expect you to make the connection,” Thorax assured her.

Trixie wasn’t assured though. “I’m just sorry there has to be any parallel at all.”

They both fell silent for a moment, a solemn lull falling upon them that distracted them from their little game for a while. Trixie’s gaze turned thoughtful as she gazed out the forward viewport and up at the starry late night sky. Thorax, meanwhile, kept piloting the airship while mulling upon things, turning them over in his head a few times and debating whether or not pursuing the subject further was going to be worthwhile. Deciding he wanted to be involved in cheerier things though, he was just beginning to come up with a new entry to name and continue their game when Trixie spoke again.

“Do you think we’re actually going to pull this crazy plan of ours off?” she asked suddenly.

Thorax glanced at her for a second. “I don’t think we have any alternatives but to do the crazy plan,” he reminded gently.

“I know,” Trixie replied, clearly distressed as she played with her forehooves. “But do you think we’ll pull it off?”

Thorax returned his line of sight to the forward viewport, and sighed. “I don’t know,” he confessed, deciding to be truthful.

Trixie bit her lip for a moment. “…and if we don’t?” she prompted next.

Thorax considered the question for a grave minute. “Then at least we tried,” he concluded.

Trixie frowned and averted her gaze, involuntarily shivering. “Thorax, I’ll be honest with you,” she admitted finally and with clear dread. “I’m absolutely terrified…if not flat-out petrified…of what might be waiting for us in that hive of yours.”

Thorax nodded slowly. He kept his gaze on the forward viewport and not Trixie, as if respecting the fact she didn’t like letting this frightened side of herself show. “I know,” he murmured aloud nonetheless. “I can sense it.”

“Of course,” Trixie said, rolling her eyes at herself. “You’re a changeling…you can probably read me like an open book…” she then made a weak snort of a laugh, “…and considering how fast you read…”

Thorax chuckled, but then he shook his head. “Emotions are not as telling as one might think, though,” he pointed out. “They are merely more…clues that at best only suggest one’s state of mind…but they rarely reveal it perfectly. You’d be surprised how often one’s emotions don’t match up with what it is that they are thinking or doing.”

“But I’d imagine I’m still pretty straightforward to figure out at the moment,” Trixie persisted, gazing out the forward viewport at the dark night outside the airship, the night appearing more ominous suddenly. “Because I’m not joking, Thorax…I’m so scared right now, and it hasn’t been getting better. The closer we get to this hive, the more scared I feel.” She shook her head, her face etched with concern. “Frankly, I’m stunned that I haven’t had a flat-out panic attack yet, or tried to bail from the ship in terror.”

“You’re afraid of heights,” Thorax reminded matter-of-factly. “I’d imagine that fear is more than enough to keep you from trying such a reckless feat while the Vergilius is in flight and currently maintaining an altitude of…” he paused to check the relevant gauge on the helm, “…about six hundred feet.”

Trixie winced as she thought too hard about just how high up that was. “Not helping.”

“My apologies, Trixie,” Thorax atoned. “But if you are really that terrified,” he glanced at her with a knowing look, “then why did you come at all?”

Trixie shrugged half-heartedly. “I guess…because I still wanted to help,” she admitted. “I mean…no matter what I feel about this kooky plan of ours, the idea of just rolling over and letting the bad guys win seems even more terrifying.” she shrugged again. “So I guess I’m going with the lesser of two terrifying things. If that makes any sense. Still scared out of my wits, though.”

“You’ve been hiding it reasonably well, then,” Thorax noted aloud. “Outwardly, it doesn’t show very clearly most of the time.”

Trixie made a weak, frightened, chuckle. “That’ll probably change once we’re there,” she assured. “I’m actually very concerned I’m just going to freeze at the mere sight of that hive…” she glanced at Thorax. “What does it look like anyway?”

“Probably not unlike what you’d expect,” Thorax admitted. “Best way to describe it is it appears as a cluster of blue-green spires with…holes.” He held up one of his holed hooves as a reference.

Trixie peered at his hoof for a second then let her eyes focus on Thorax’s face seen through one of the larger holes in his hoof. “So…like swiss cheese after it’s melted a little and then gotten all moldy?”

Thorax laughed at the comparison. “I suppose there is a passing resemblance to that, yes,” he relented, lowering his hoof back down to grip the ship’s wheel. “But appearances aside, it’s still home for most changelings.” A pause, then he added, “myself excluded, of course.”

Trixie kept watching him for a moment, watching his facial expressions and trying to read his mood like he clearly could do for her. “Does it scare you to be heading back like this?” she asked.

“Completely,” Thorax replied without any hesitation.

His blunt and quick response surprised Trixie, and she took a step closer to him. “You don’t seem like it,” she admitted, brow furrowed.

Thorax grinned slightly, but it was a sad and false grin. “I’ve had more practice controlling it,” he said.

Trixie’s gaze wandered back to staring out at the darkened lands they were sailing over, envisioning the changeling hive rising up from over the horizon. The thought sent a chill down her spine. “I know it’s not going to help any asking this,” she began by way of a disclaimer. “But assuming our plans do fail…what happens to us then?”

“Depends on whether or not we still escape capture.”

“If we do?”

“Then I guess we either go somewhere to regroup and try again, or, absolute worst case, go and find someplace peaceful to live out our lives in defeat.” Thorax frowned. “I doubt Queen Chrysalis would allow either, though, after trying to jeopardize her plans like that. She would hunt us until she deemed the threat we presented was properly…neutralized.”

Trixie winced at the thought, but in some ways was grateful for Thorax’s blunt honesty. It told her precisely what to expect and what she would need to do to prepare. “And if we don’t escape?” she prompted. “What happens to us then?”

“Well, you and the others would be more useful to the hive alive than dead,” Thorax pointed out. “So most likely you would simply join the princesses in captivity.”

“…Until?”

“Until you’re no longer useful anymore. But…truthfully Trixie, you most likely would no longer care by that point.”

Trixie gulped. “And what about you? You excluded yourself from that.”

“I would be considered a traitor, likely of the highest regard, to changelings everywhere in the hive,” Thorax replied simply. “And Queen Chrysalis has no tolerance for such traitors.”

Trixie felt her face pale a little as her heart skipped a beat in fear of what Thorax was implying. “No wonder you’re terrified too.”

Thorax nodded slowly but did not comment further.

Trixie studied him for another moment, amorous of his lack of outward reaction to this threat, quite confident she was in no way coming even close to mimicking it. “You’re being very brave coming along like this then.”

Thorax sighed. “I have to, Trixie,” he assured. “Someone has to stand up and show the others of my kind that there’s another way.” He turned his head to look at her seriously. “If I don’t…who will?” He returned his gaze to the forward viewport. “Besides…I am a changeling just as much as they are. We are all of the same species. Thereby I feel just as responsible for their actions too, even if I had no part in it originally.”

“So even if Starlight and I hadn’t come along, would you have still gone back to the hive to protest once you found out about their plans?” Trixie asked, curious.

“I would’ve gone back eventually even if they hadn’t carried out this plan, or anything like it,” Thorax assured determinedly. “That was always my intent, Trixie. I had always planned to go back and share what I had learned of living a life with friends, to introduce them to the good that friendship could bring, something I’m afraid they sorely lack right now.” He shook his head, sadly. “But not like this. I had wanted to get myself settled and accepted into Equestria first, build as strong an argument for my side as I could, and then gradually distribute what I had learned with changelings in passing until I had made my presence and intents clear enough in general to the hive…then I would return to make my case in person…hope they listen to me this time. Sink or swim.”

He sighed, and Trixie saw he was disappointed this plan didn’t get to come to fruition. “But everything that’s happened has only forced you to make this move before you were ready to…didn’t it?” she guessed.

“Quite,” Thorax agreed. He shook his head. “I don’t feel ready for this Trixie…I don’t feel like I can convince them of anything at this time, and if we are caught…” he trailed off, letting the implications hang in the air, unspoken. “But…there’s not any other choice that I can see. Equestria at large may have been slow to accept me as a changeling…but it still deserves a better fate than what my queen has planned for it, and so does my hive. I owe them that I at least try. So I will.”

Trixie thought about his words for a long moment then looked up at him again, giving him a warm smile. “You really are being very brave about this,” she said again. “I…admire that.”

Thorax glanced in her direction, returning the smile. “You’re being pretty brave coming with yourself, Trixie,” he assured her softly, but with meaning. He clearly believed this.

Trixie didn’t quite herself, but she was both touched and heartened by the changeling’s show of faith in her abilities. “I’m trying at least,” she relented. She considered the matter for a few moments longer, but finding this wasn’t helping her to steel her nerves any, and knowing that and wanting to, she opted to start thinking about other subjects. Eventually, she started thinking positively about the rescue plans they had all helped to devise and the hoped outcomes that would follow. “What about if and when we do succeed at this rescue attempt?” she asked next. “What happens then?”

“Then Equestria is saved, and we all go back to our regular lives, I suppose,” Thorax conceded. “Simple as that.”

“No, not simple as that,” Trixie argued. “And you should know that. If we do pull this off, we’ll…” she winced, aware this was going to sound brag worthy, “…we’ll be heroes.” She looked intently at Thorax. “So what would be our ‘regular’ lives at that point if we’re pretty much national heroes?”

“You assume you would actually receive such strong recognition for that,” Thorax reminded, his way of urging her to not be too optimistic.

“And why wouldn’t we?”

“I’m not saying our efforts wouldn’t be recognized in some manner,” Thorax clarified. “But even Twilight and her friends did not achieve much of a celebrity status after saving their country single-hooved on more than one occasion. As I understand it, they all go back to their normal lives after such events as if little had changed. Even Princess Twilight lives much as she always had before since her ascension, or so Spike has conveyed to me. But most importantly, they seem perfectly content with that.” He glanced at Trixie. “So should we.”

Trixie harrumphed faintly, but silently conceded to his point. “I guess what I’m really trying to say then, is…after saving Equestria from invasion from the changelings…what do we all do with ourselves then? I mean something would still have to change.”

“I’m counting on it,” Thorax agreed. “It is my hope that by aiding in this rescue attempt, Spike and I can prove our loyalties once and for all to the princesses, or at least enough of them that they will choose to leave us in peace at last.” He was quiet for a moment, before adding, “That’s the most I’m hoping for at this point.”

Trixie watched him for a moment, agreeing that if anyone deserved such a thing at this point, it was him. “And if you get it? What are you two going to do then?”

“I suppose that depends on whether or not Twilight Sparkle is swayed sufficiently too,” Thorax deducted. “At which point, I’d imagine Spike would return to her company as before, the two hopefully having made peace again, and I will be permitted to visit as a friend.”

“Which would be wonderful,” Trixie agreed. “Though, knowing Twilight…”

“Spike would be in agreement with you on that,” Thorax said, interrupting, though his tone made it clear he did not approve of that negative attitude to the problem. Regardless, he knew better than to deny it as a possibility. “It would be an uphill battle for the two of them to resolve either way, no doubt.”

“But what will you do with yourself at such a point?” Trixie asked. “You really haven’t made that clear yet. I mean, assume things do work out, and you’re accepted as the friend and ally to Equestria as you always should’ve been…that’d leave you free to do…basically whatever you wanted with your life.” She tilted her head at him. “So what would you do with it?”

Thorax thought about it, but then shrugged, having not really thought about it yet. “Go back to Vanhoover and work for Miss Fly, I suppose,” he admitted. Seeing Trixie’s look, he added, “I’d be more than content with that, Trixie. I don’t wish to ask for much from life. Just…a little friendship and happiness, is all. Things I haven’t been able to find very well elsewhere.” Now he tilted his head at her. “Why, what do you plan to do after this is all over?”

Trixie shrugged. “Go back to show-business,” she stated. “Hope saving the world generates a lot of new interest in my act. Maybe get a formal, high-profit, tour deal out of it. Beyond that, life as I was living it before, I guess. I’m content enough with that, and performing for the world has always been my one, true, calling in life.”

Thorax grinned. “You’re certainly better at it than I am,” he admitted.

Trixie averted her gaze for a moment, sheepishly rubbing her forehooves together. “…you could come with me,” she said then glanced over at him again. “Join my act…then I could teach you.”

Thorax glanced back at her, a little surprised, and raised a questioning eyebrow at her.

Trixie shrugged, but stood her ground. “I meant it last time when I offered you joining my show, Thorax,” she said. “You have a knack for the illusionary magic that my show’s all about. And now I know why, and I’d guess that, if anything, you were holding back before so to hide your true nature. So you’d be quite welcome to come with.” Her tone softened as she continued in a meaningful tone. “I’d think you’d be great at it. Besides…Trixie could use a travel companion.”

Thorax gazed at her for a long moment. “This all assumes I do make peace with the royal family and am exonerated of their charges, you know,” he pointed out finally, needing to ensure this is clear. “If for some reason they don’t, and they still continue to chase me, with the hope of arresting me, then me going with you would only rope you with a criminal changeling which being around would only incriminate you as well, if we were ever caught.” He paused, then added, seriously, “That was one of the biggest reasons why I declined last time you offered me this, Trixie.”

Trixie only nodded. “I know,” she said. She then smirked. “And I don’t care. Outcast or not, you’re welcome to come with. Hay, Spike can come too, if he has nowhere else to go either.”

Thorax narrowed his eyes a little, but he smirked too. “I’m not certain Spike would get along very well with you,” he confessed.

“Probably not,” Trixie relented casually, having not forgotten the dragon’s apparent grudge against her. But she didn’t seem to mind that…and she was a little surprised at herself for it. “But…I don’t care about any of that Thorax. I…really don’t. You could be Tirek reincarnated for all I care at this point, it really doesn’t matter to me.” She shrugged. “Besides, life as a traveling performer isn’t so bad. You make your own hours, see the land…there’s rarely a dull moment. And you’d be constantly moving around, be hard to track, so if you were still on the run by that point, you’d be less likely to be caught by surprise like what happened in Vanhoover.” She dared to take another step closer towards Thorax. “Look, what I’m getting at is this…I…know that when I first came aboard this ship I was being a little…hesitant around you, not knowing how to behave, but…after talking with you all this evening and gotten not just to know you again, but know you even better than before…you being a changeling doesn’t matter so much to me. It’s really not the important thing about you. I like your friendship, Thorax.” She nodded her head out the forward viewport, motioning in the direction of the changeling hive they were traveling towards. “And no matter what happens out there…” she took a deep breath, “…I’d like that to continue.”

Thorax gazed at her for a long moment, quiet as the gears in his mind slowly chewed on all of this. Finally, he grinned warmly. “So would I, Trixie,” he agreed, and nodded his head. “I will have to keep your offer in consideration then.”

Trixie brightened considerably at that, and, grinning, she went quiet as she turned her gaze to look out the forward viewport almost eagerly. Amused by this reaction, Thorax returned his gaze to piloting the Vergilius onwards through the night, and a long moment of silence fell during which they merely enjoyed the company of the other. Eventually though, Thorax noticed the high position of the moon in the sky and realized the late hour of the night.

“You know,” he commented aloud after the silence had gone on for several minutes, “I believe it has gotten late enough now that my watch piloting the ship has long ended, I should be in sleeping, and you should be manning the helm now Trixie, as was agreed earlier.”

“Really?” Trixie asked, appearing surprised at this. She didn’t think it had really been that long until she leaned forward to note the position of the moon through the forward viewport and realized Thorax had a point. “Huh…guess you’re probably right. The time really flew by.” They exchanged glances for a moment then Thorax, grinning warmly, stepped partly to one side and offered the ship’s wheel for Trixie to take. “Oh no, no, no, you can keep at it yourself,” she told the changeling. “It’s probably for the better you keep piloting the yacht anyway.”

“I already explained how to fly it earlier,” Thorax reminded. “And Starlight assisted you even—you had said afterwards that you thought you could keep the Vergilius in flight on your own.”

“Yeah, but that doesn’t mean I still feel that confident flying the darn thing,” Trixie remarked, running her hoof along the edge of the ship’s wheel, but still not moving to take it despite Thorax still offering it to her. “You’re the one with the more experience.”

“Yes, but seeing it’s my airship, I have an unfair advantage in that regard,” Thorax reminded. “Besides, I had to learn how to do this once myself, and the only way to do that is through experience.” He gently wrapped one hoof around Trixie and pulled her into position in front of the ship’s wheel. “Besides, it will be easy. The terrain’s going to be quite level for several miles still, so there will be little to risk running into. All you need to do is keep her on course and level. And with this fair weather this evening, you should have no trouble doing that. I’ve barely had to do much to keep her on track.”

Trixie winced, but at Thorax’s prompting, she gently reached out and took ahold of the ship’s wheel with her hooves. “If you say so…” she mumbled as she did this. Her eyes wandered over the complicated gauges and controls that made up the helm. “Don’t remember what half these things are or do, but…”

“This controls the rudder and thereby the ship’s heading,” Thorax reminded, patting the ship’s wheel Trixie now held with a death grip in her hooves. He then pointed a hoof at the other controls on the helm surrounding the wheel. “That is the compass, and as you can see, I’ve already marked a little note indicating the direction we need to be pointing in, so long as the compass is still pointing in that direction, you’re doing fine. That lever controls altitude, that one controls pitch, and the gauges above them tells you what each presently is, respectively. That gauge tells you our speed, which should remain constant at near her top speed, but if that changes, this lever controls the engine throttle. These gauges to the side here tell you how much lifting hydrium gas there is in each of the envelope’s gas cells, and the switches under each gauge control venting the gas from each cell if need be. Those levers adjacent to them control the ballast and how much is dropped or taken in at a time. One on the left controls the water ballast, the other controls the air valves for the air ballonets inside the envelope. I’ve already got her at static equilibrium for the evening, so you shouldn’t need to worry about any of these unless the gas levels suddenly and drastically change, in which case, I will probably need to take over. That gauge tells you the magical charge remaining in the engines, those two the amount of ballast aboard, and that one the amount of spare gas in the ship stores.”

Trixie’s eyes blankly went from each control and gauge back and forth, already losing track of which was which. Even though they were all labeled, not all of them were labeled in terms she understood and even when she did, she wasn’t sure she understood how to interpret the data they were giving her. “It’s a bit of an information overload,” she muttered then glanced incredulously at Thorax. “How do you keep them all straight in your head?”

Thorax laughed. “Practice,” he admitted. “Look, for right now, focus on just the ship’s wheel, the compass, the pitch and altitude gauges, and what’s directly outside the airship. For now, that’s all you should need.”

Trixie mentally picked out the relevant controls and gauges in her head, memorizing their locations, then with a nervous gulp, turned her head up to look out the forward viewport. She gripped the ship’s wheel tightly as she kept the air yacht on course. She tensely jumped if the needle on the compass before her even so much as wavered and was quick to jerk the wheel in the needed direction so to shift the needle back to the desired spot. She tended to overcompensate in these jerks, leading to the airship to wobble on its course a little, but she’d quickly get it restored back on course soon enough.

Nevertheless, she was incredibly tense about it. Wanting to reassure her, Thorax gently placed a hoof on her shoulder, causing her to jump. “You’re doing fine, Trixie,” he assured her quietly but approvingly. “Just relax.”

“Trying,” Trixie replied in a staccato manner through clenched teeth, “Can’t.”

“Yes you can,” Thorax assured her, starting to rub his hoof into the tense muscles of her shoulder, trying to coax her into unwinding a little. “Don’t think of her as a fallible machine. Think of her as a big bird that you’re riding on the back of. Feel her shift and move under your hooves…feel her lift as she floats through the air, as she sails through the sky. Trust her, and she’ll trust you if you let her do her part of the job.” Feeling Trixie unwind a little, he leaned closer so to keep whispering advice to her. “Let her feel like a light feather floating in the sky…know how a feather in the air will go out of control when hit with sharp motions? It’s the same here. Don’t jerk the controls. Nudge. Gently. Just tap her into the directions you need her to go.” Trixie suddenly let out a soft sigh as the tension wound out of her and she started to relax her grip on the ship’s wheel to more natural levels. “Yeah, there you go. Just relax Trixie, and breathe easy. There’s nothing to panic over.”

He trailed off, letting Trixie quietly fly the airship while he stood just behind her, his head leaning in close to watch over her shoulder while one hoof continued to rub circles into her other shoulder in hopes this would still help to keep her calm. It did, but eventually Thorax started to become aware of the mare shifting awkwardly, and warmth as first her body then especially her face started to heat up. He noticed her ears had turned red and turned his head to glance at her curiously.

“What?” he asked innocently, not seeing what the problem was.

Trixie, meanwhile, was finding it hard to look him in the eye. “…you’re awfully close,” she murmured softly after a brief pause.

Thorax looked down at himself and Trixie and realized with a start she was absolutely right; he had begun to lean awfully close to the mare without even realizing it, and blushing a little himself, saw how that would be awkward. He removed his hoof from her shoulder. “I’m sorry,” he apologized, embarrassed and starting to straighten so to correct his lack of consideration. “Is that a problem?”

Trixie didn’t reply right away. She twisted her head around to look at him, which wasn’t hard considering how close they already were, and studied him for a moment. Thorax could see she was debating how to respond. “…you know, oddly, I don’t think so,” she admitted finally.

They continued to look at each other for a few moments in silence as they stayed in this particular position, both wondering what the other was going to do. Trixie’s head started to lean closer, inching ever so gradually closer to Thorax’s. Noticing this and seeing that their snouts were already almost touching as it was, he pulled back faintly at first, thinking Trixie was doing this accidentally. But Trixie gradually kept moving her head closer, and gradually Thorax slowed his own actions and kept his head still, letting her come closer. That telltale ache in his chest was back suddenly, and it left his mind a flurry as he began wondering just what this was building up to, and if Trixie was doing this unknowingly or not. Either way, they really were getting awfully close now.

“Ahem.”

Trixie yelped in a loud and startled squeak, literally jumping into the air before immediately backpedaling away as the two promptly pulled apart, the mare backing into the Vergilius’s gas board that sat next to the helm while twisting around to face the unexpected new speaker. Thorax, likewise, jumped back, only to quickly lean back and grab the ship’s wheel when Trixie’s sudden release of it started it spinning freely, not wanting to let his airship fly far off course. That done, he then whipped his head around so to face the new speaker too.

Spike, fully dressed in his usual disguise, was standing in the doorway of the steps that led below deck. Naturally, he was eyeing the pair closely with a neutral, but clearly knowing, expression. “Am I interrupting something?” he asked calmly once he saw he had the attentions of both of them.

“No,” Trixie and Thorax quickly assured him, chorusing together while they both blushed in embarrassment.

Spike slowly nodded his head, his expression not changing and making it hard to tell just what his thoughts about what he had walked in upon were. Thorax, however, who until then had his whole attention on Trixie and was now scrambling to include Spike as well, started to pick up conflicting emotions from him and feared that he might press the matter. “What are you doing up, Spike?” he asked. “I thought you would be asleep by now.”

“I was,” Spike responded simply. “But now it’s time to change shifts, so I got up to replace Trixie at the helm.” He nodded his head at the showmare, who was hyperventilating and had one hoof to her beating heart, trying to calm down again. The dragon then glanced at his changeling friend. “Didn’t think you’d still be up too, bud.”

“Uh, no, I suppose not,” Thorax mumbled, rubbing the grey fin that ran down the back of his head as he sought an adequate explanation to use as a cover. “But uh…uh…I was…”

“I, uh, got up early to ask Thorax where some heavier blankets were at,” Trixie suddenly offered, the idea just springing to her.

“Right!” Thorax said, jumping on the idea. “And I told her where to find them in the cabinet above the stateroom bed, but then we…uh…”

“We were talking,” Trixie added.

“Yes! And…uh…”

“…lost track of time?”

“Right… and then…I was helping Trixie…fly the airship.”

Spike kept nodding his head slowly. “…Right,” he said slowly, not sounding convinced.

“Well, at any rate, I got my answer, and my shift’s up anyway, so here I go, off to bed!” Trixie remarked quickly and marched for the steps heading down below. Spike stepped aside to let her through. “Wish the great and powerful Trixie a good night!”

“Good night, Trixie!” Thorax called as she vanished through the doorway then winced as he saw Spike’s eyes fall back on him. Shifting uneasily as the dragon strolled up to the helm, he quickly changed subjects. “So you remember how this all works, right? What works the rudder, what works the altitude…”

“I remember, Thorax,” Spike assured him as he, being the shortest, pulled a stool in front of the ship’s wheel so he could stand on it and see clearly over the top of the wheel before taking control of the helm.

“You sure? Because I can give you another run through real quick…”

“I’ve got it, Thorax.”

“Of…of course you do.” Thorax forced a grin before deciding he’d better leave while he had the chance then. “Well, good night then!”

He got as far as putting his hoof down on the first step leading below deck when Spike spoke again. “So…you and Trixie, huh?”

Thorax winced and squeezed his eyes shut in embarrassment and dread. “It’s not what you think,” he said.

“Mm-hmm.” Spike sounded less than convinced, and worse still, his neutral tone from before was rapidly fading now that Trixie had left.

“Look, I’m sorry for not saying anything to you about it,” Thorax said, turning to face the dragon again. “But you hadn’t been very approving of Trixie, especially today, so…”

“Bah!” Spike interrupted sternly with the wave of his claws. “You’re right, I don’t approve, and I won’t lie, Thorax, I don’t particularly like Trixie, and I still think any business with her is going to end in trouble whether she actually meant to cause it or not…but you also told me to back off and trust you…and it’s also not my business to judge anyway, now is it? It’s your choice, not mine, so since you’ve clearly decided to pursue it anyway, I’m certainly not getting myself involved now.” As Thorax, surprised by this, just stared at him blankly for a moment, Spike then turned his head to look back at him. “At the very least, I just hope you’re prepared to deal with that massive ego of hers.”

Thorax blinked at him silently for a few minutes. “Actually, I think the ego’s just an act.”

Spike’s eyebrows went up. “Oh really?” he asked, and to Thorax’s even greater surprise, he made a slight nod of approval. “Well…maybe there is hope for her yet, then.” His gaze turned strict though. “But you be careful, Thorax. I want you to be able to be happy, and to live a happy life, so I’ll be greatly miffed if Trixie in some way messes that up, okay?”

Thorax was hesitant for a second. “…and if that doesn’t happen, and things go smoothly?”

Spike gazed at him for a second, his eyes suddenly turning slightly but inexplicably sad to Thorax. “Then do what you need to, Thorax.” He then turned back to the helm and didn’t speak further.

Thorax continued to stare at him for several moments then slowly he nodded to himself as he turned and continued for bed. He assumed he was to take this to mean that Spike had more or less relented into giving him permission to proceed then. If so, Thorax thought he should be relieved that this sticking point between them was getting set aside finally.

So why was it he felt he should be very bothered by this?

Author's Note

More Thorax and Trixie stuff, mostly. In case you haven't caught on, my intentions behind most of this is more to give the reader a better idea of what Trixie thinks of all of this, seeing we already know Thorax's stance on the matter fairly well.

This chapter was originally planned to be titled "Terrified," but I realized later that there was also a tone of optimism mixed in, so I opted for the title "Hope and Fear" instead (getting inspiration for this from the same title of the corresponding Star Trek episode [Voyager, if you don't already know, and one of my favorites] referenced in this chapter), as that seemed more fitting.

Speaking of Star Trek, excepting the animated series and the new Discovery series of course (as it hadn't aired yet by the time I wrote this, and as it happens, I still haven't actually watched an episode of Discovery yet, so no spoilers for anyone that wanted to discuss it), every entry of Sky Trek Trixie and Thorax reference is referencing an episode from each television series of Star Trek. For Deep Space Nine's, I originally was intending to use some other episode (I can't remember which, might not have actually settled upon one yet, but probably one from somewhere in the Dominion War storyarc), but then a reader observed some chapters back that the DS9 episode "For the Uniform" had a strong similarity to aspects of Spike and Thorax's situation, and I thought it'd be amiss if I didn't squeeze it in as a result.

While I'm thinking about it, apologies to anyone that is getting tired of all the talking and are wanting the gang to just get to the hive and get on with things already. With precisely that in mind, I had wanted to get through this section of the story as quickly as possible and not get too drawn out with the talky-parts, but found as I was writing it there was a lot more that I wanted or needed to address first, and this is the absolutely last chance I have to get it addressed in the story, so bear with me as I tie up these remaining loose ends and scene-setting. If it helps, I am trying to get them out in as large of chucks per chapters as I can, where it is logical to do so, while also trying to avoid too many super-long chapters like "Breaking the Ice" was (which, again, I made an exception for only because all of its material happened to relate to each other nicely in theme).

For those that are enjoying the talky chapters though, or at least the subjects they're bringing up, well...thanks, I suppose. :twilightsmile:

Informis Una

The berth Thorax had claimed for himself aboard the airship was, as he had requested, one of two directly across from the steps that led above deck, granting him quick and easy access back up those steps and into the control cabin should there be an emergency. To aid in that ability even further, Spike had agreed to take the upper of the two bunks on the grounds that the upper bunk’s position was slightly harder to get in and out of, even with Thorax having the benefit of wings, allowing the changeling to have the somewhat more easily and quickly accessible lower bunk. So Thorax didn’t have to go far to reach the bunk or do much to clamber into it. Nonetheless, Thorax paused to check on Julius in his cocoon one more time for the night, noting no significant change in the injured changeling’s present condition, before heading for bed.

And yet, as he shed his midnight blue jacket and clambered into the bunk, he couldn’t clear his mind enough to find sleep, instead finding it flooded with a wide array of thoughts, ranging from his oncoming return to the hive, worry about that return as well as the safety of his friends and by extension that of Equestria on a whole, the feeling that this meant their safety was on his shoulders and the realization of how great that weight was starting to feel, his interactions with Trixie that evening and the ongoing process of trying to piece together the massive puzzle that felt like, and finally his parting comments with Spike just moments ago right before he came to bed.

It was these comments that bothered Thorax the most, and reflecting back on the brief conversation, he was left feeling greatly worried. It was true that at first glance, Spike seemed to be easing up on things, but Thorax feared it was for all the wrong reasons. It seemed like he was doing it more out of great reluctance and purely out of a sense of duty to Thorax, and he feared this was only going to lead the dragon to bury his feelings once more only to have them boil over yet again as the cycle inevitably repeated…and that time it might be far worse. Even more troubling was how Spike’s final remark in regards to he and Trixie seemed so sad, not just in emotion but in expression as well. The very idea of Thorax going through with anything with the showmare seemed to depress Spike greatly, and that was something Thorax was not okay with. Worse, he didn’t clearly understand why that would be so, not to this great degree. Spike’s disliking of Trixie just didn’t seem to be enough to explain it or justify it.

Thorax wondered if there was perhaps more to the matter than Spike had been telling him, or perhaps what he had been telling them all, if not tying into a much greater and profounder problem still that Thorax worried he may not understand as well as he first thought. He knew his draconic friend had been through a lot and was deeply hurt, scarred both emotionally and mentally, by the events of the past four moons and not without reason, but he had thought up until the events of today that Spike had managed to put himself on at least a stable path that was certainly not perfect and very far from ideal, but still enough to prevent things from turning worse.

But today there was Spike’s outburst and initial swearing of abandoning Equestria entirely to its fate at the invading changelings, regardless of the consequences he knew were far bigger than either of them, followed by a general loathing to the likes of Starlight and Trixie and even letting it come to a head by unexpectedly threatening the latter for reasons Spike never was able to elaborate to him. When Thorax confronted him about all of this, Spike was rebellious and curt even towards him. He chose to play along in the end, but only begrudgingly and despite acknowledging it really was the better thing for him to do, at least for the present time. Then now, Spike seemed to have suddenly about faced on this stance and relented, but not because he was coming around to an agreement, but more like…

…like he had simply given up fighting it.

This scared Thorax, fretting that his hopes that Spike would come around were instead backfiring, and if so…where would that leave Spike? Nowhere good, he decided. Instead of his emotional, if not mental state, maintaining at least a stable point, or even starting to improve like Thorax had hoped and wished for, he was chilled to consider that Spike seemed to be degrading further still. Whatever the case, perhaps even more terrifying to him was that it seemed to be driving a wedge between them, forcing him further and further away from his first and greatest friend…a blow that Thorax wasn’t sure he could handle, but never mind him—he trembled to think that if such a thing happened, that could be the last straw that utterly destroyed Spike.

Making him agonize that Spike might be closer to the brink than he had previously thought.

It was all enough to keep him awake, lying in his bunk and curled up in a ball, but it also didn’t help that he, as usual, was finding the bunk not quite comfortable enough to be able to relax and let sleep come anyway. He longed for his sleeping nest he had so painstaking tweaked to perfection back in Vanhoover, and wished he could return to it for a good night’s sleep again. But as it turned out, the fact he hadn’t gone to sleep ended up being somewhat favorable, as after only a few minutes of him lying there and restlessly trying to get to sleep, the door to the stateroom bedroom, attached to the far end of the small mid-ship room, opened a crack and Trixie poked her head out, having swapped out her magician’s hat that she had been wearing all evening with a nightcap covered with similar star designs as her usual hat.

She seemed surprised at first to see Thorax there, but that was quickly thrown aside as she went on to speak in a harsh whisper; “Thorax…are you asleep?”

Thorax sighed a little to himself and sat up, turning his head to look in Trixie’s direction. “No,” he admitted simply. “Shouldn’t you be?”

“Oh good, and no, I can’t sleep, but that’s actually why I’m up, and I know you’d know,” she said, taking another step through the door. She made a sheepish grin as she went right to the point. “So it turns out that extra blanket we talked about just a minute ago does really seem to be a good idea after all, so I was hoping you could…remind me…where you said it was I could find one.”

Thorax had to chuckle a little at the irony of this. “In the cabinet in there, above the bed,” he told her as he stepped off the bunk.

Trixie glanced back into the stateroom. “Which cabinet?” she asked. “There’s, like, a bajillion in here.”

“Above the bed,” Thorax repeated patiently, coming to join her at the door so he could see too.

The stateroom, somewhat ironically, was not the biggest cabin on the Vergilius, and in fact, if one included the stateroom’s private master bathroom in the right corner beside the door, it was about the same size as the compartment including the two berths Thorax had just vacated. What really set apart the stateroom was the sense of exclusivity it gave off, as once the hatch leading into it was closed, it was more or less sealed off from the rest of the ship, thus granting ample privacy. It included the master bathroom as already noted and although it did not include a small washtub for bathing like the general use head located in the middle of the craft, the stateroom did have solely exclusive access to it. It also included the largest bed; all the other beds on the airship were twin-sized, whereas this one was a queen, large enough to fit two if needed and placed sideways along the rear wall. All in all, it was the best place to sleep on the air yacht. One couldn’t blame Trixie for being so quick to claim it.

But Thorax instead turned his attention to the many cabinets the room seemed to be lined with. Most were meant for storing things like clothes or other personal affects belonging to whomever was staying there during a trip, but there were also some that were simply meant for general storage use. Among them was a row of cabinets hung in a line directly above the bed, and Thorax, upon ensuring he had Trixie’s attention, pointed his hoof at them.

Trixie wasn’t satisfied with that, though. “Yes, but which one?” she pressed as she strolled up to the bed, glancing up at the cabinets. “There’re five. Do they all have blankets?”

“No, no,” Thorax said as he slipped into the room after her, nudging the door closed with his flank lightly so to grant Trixie her privacy. He had meant the motion to still leave the door open ajar, but winced slightly when he instead heard the click of the latch fastening. Oh well. He decided he’d open it again in a second and proceeded to join Trixie at the side of the bed. He actually couldn’t recall which cabinet exactly contained the spare blankets, but he was reasonably certain it was one on the left end of the row and picked a cabinet at random from that side. As luck would have it, the first one he tried was the correct one. “Here we go,” he said aloud as he pulled one of the fleece blankets out with his magic and offered it to Trixie.

Trixie took it up with her own magic and pressed it into her front with her hooves. She nodded in approval. “Ah yes, this’ll work perfectly, thanks Thorax,” she said in satisfaction as she then started to unfold it so to drape it over the usual covers on the bed. After a pause in speaking, she then, somewhat warily, glanced in Thorax’s direction again. “Since you’re right there…did, uh…Spike say anything more after I left the control cabin earlier?”

Thorax hesitated, unsure how to best sum up the remarks Spike had made to him without sounding too presumptuous. “Well…” he began, “…he stated the obvious.”

“Obvious?” Trixie repeated, pausing what she was doing so to turn and face him fully. “And just what is the obvious?”

Again Thorax hesitated. “Well…obvious for him, of course,” he corrected.

“But…not obvious for you and me.”

“…I’d assume not.” Thorax looked at Trixie for a second. “…is it?”

“I don’t know, that’s why I was asking you.”

“Well…I don’t know either.”

An awkward pause passed between the two. Thorax then shook his head.

“Actually, I guess what Spike really said was that he wasn’t going to meddle in the matter…” Thorax averted his gaze, clearly troubled. “…but…he acted very depressed about it…it’s left me a bit worried about him, honestly.”

Trixie eyed him sympathetically for a moment. “You two really are good friends, aren’t you?” she asked.

“The best, Trixie,” Thorax stated, but then winced as he felt his resolve behind that claim quickly cave a little. “But I fear we’ve foolishly allowed things to…start to stand between us.”

Trixie frowned. “Like what?”

Thorax merely gazed at her knowingly for a long moment, waiting for her to make the connection herself. Eventually she did, and she glanced down at herself. “Oh,” she murmured, and averted her gaze in discomfort for a moment, mulling on the troubling fact that she was playing an unknowing part in Spike and Thorax’s friendship troubles…which only raised yet another matter that she felt needed resolving just as much too, so finally she sighed. “Look,” she began, “we can’t ignore it forever, so…I’m just going to come out and ask.” She focused her gaze on Thorax, but in doing so, seemed to have lost her nerve because she continued to hesitate for a very long moment, working her mouth up and down as she tried to get the words out. “Where…do you and I…uh…stand on things…between us?”

Thorax hesitated. There was more than one way he could answer that. Ultimately, he chose the safe, non-answering, deflection. “I’d been hoping you could tell me that.”

“Well…” Trixie shrugged her shoulders in frustration. “One of us has to know something.”

“Then one of us really should say something about it.”

“Yeah!”

They both regarded each other in silence for a very long moment after that, suddenly neither of them wanting to be the one who said it. It was clear what they were both thinking about though, as both of them recalled what had been taking place between them in the control cabin…and now they were both wondering what might have happened if Spike hadn’t interrupted when he did. Unfortunately, neither of them quite knew what to make of the implications…and for fear of getting it wrong, neither of them wanted to be the first to make the ‘obvious’ assumption in case the other didn’t view it the same way. But that wasn’t getting either of them very far.

Finally, Trixie sighed again. “Look, I guess all I need to know is…is Spike going to be a problem because of what…what happened?”

Thorax hesitated. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “I think he’s trying to leave…well…us alone, but he’s still very much bothered by it.” He paused, then added: “Whatever it is.”

“Whatever indeed,” Trixie agreed, willingly latching on to the deliberately implied vagueness. She sat down and played with the tassel of her nightcap for a moment. “Look, Thorax…I don’t want to be the one standing between you and Spike, so…if you want, I can…” she swallowed heavily, troubled by the fact she was finding it hard to get this out, “…keep my distance.”

“No, no,” Thorax replied immediately, shaking his head in disapproval of the idea. “What’s happening between me and Spike shouldn’t…doesn’t…” he hesitated, also unable to get the words out. He licked his lips and tried again, speaking honestly. “…I like your company too, Trixie. I don’t want it to have to be a case of choosing between a friendship with Spike or a friendship with you.”

Trixie sighed once more and reluctantly nodded in agreement. “Honestly, you should still be able to have both, really,” she admitted. “Unless my understanding of friendship is totally off base…which given my track record, that could easily be the case.”

“…it still feels like that’s how it should work, though.”

“…yeah.”

Trixie frowned, concerned by how troubled Thorax looked and took an involuntary step closer. “I’m sorry, Thorax, I wish I could think of more to help.”

Thorax snorted. “I just wish you didn’t have to get mixed up in all of this too.” He glanced up at Trixie. “But…it’s not just Spike we’re afraid of…is it? We’re worried what some of the others might think about our…” he faltered briefly, “…friendship.”

Trixie was forced to nod in agreement. “Yeah,” she concurred, and inwardly balked at the idea of Starlight finding out about this…she’d probably never hear the end of it. So she forced herself to settle on what she figured was the obvious choice. “Well then, given the circumstances we’re in at the moment with interpersonal troubles and a changeling hive to somehow infiltrate and get back out of alive, it’s probably a matter we best set aside and…left alone for now.”

Thorax straightened. “Agreed. Let’s not worry about it for now and continue with things like they normally were before. If we don’t pursue things further, the others shouldn’t either.”

“And that way, they won’t…” Trixie shrugged, “…you know…”

“…pry?” Thorax offered.

“…I…was going to suggest something else.”

“Oh. Never mind, then.”

Trixie shook her head and turned back to the blanket she was placing on the bed. “Well, whatever the case, we’re leaving it alone for now, right?”

“Right,” Thorax agreed with a nod. He watched Trixie straighten the blanket for a second. “So…you’re good for the night, then? Got everything you need?”

“Everything I could expect, at least,” Trixie replied, giving the changeling a warm grin. “Thanks for your help fetching the blanket.”

“You’re welcome,” Thorax said with a nod of his head and turned for the door. “Good night again, Trixie.”

“Yeah, you too,” Trixie chorused automatically as she used her magic to ensure the extra blanket was in position to her tastes. She then paused and glanced back at him. “You…are going to be able to sleep well tonight, right?”

Thorax stopped halfway to the door and bit his lip. “Well, honestly…I’m too worried about…well, everything that…I’m finding it a little difficult to sleep.”

Trixie snorted as she turned back to the blanket she was putting in place while she mumbled under her breath not quite low enough for Thorax not to overhear, “You and me both.”

Thorax gazed at her knowingly and turned back around to face her fully. “It’s not because you needed a blanket that you can’t sleep…is it, Trixie?”

“…No, I guess not,” Trixie said, choosing to be upfront and admit it, but she still averted her gaze slightly in shame. Seeing Thorax wasn’t satisfied with that though, she reluctantly proceeded with an explanation. “It’s just…” she sighed, “…you know, I’m…still pretty nervous about what lies ahead tomorrow…and I know, I know, it’s pointless but…I’m just not sure how well I can sleep with all that hanging over my head, so…”

“Oh, well, sounds like you just need something to help you to relax a little,” Thorax reasoned aloud, trying to be helpful while he watched Trixie climb onto the bed. “Maybe I can help come up with something to assist.”

“Well, I’m open to any suggestions, then,” Trixie snarked as she turned herself around atop of the covers so to face the changeling still in the room. “Maybe it’ll help you to sleep too. So give me your best one, Mr. Jar Catcher.”

Thorax stopped to consider his options, but was a little embarrassed to find his mind had suddenly gone blank. “Well…” he began hesitantly before finally going forward with the only suggestion he could think of, aware that it wasn’t the best. “…I’ve…heard a calming lullaby is supposed to help one relax and sleep, but, uh…”

“A lullaby?” Trixie repeated with a snort, amused but also a little indignant at the suggestion. “For the Great and Powerful Trixie?” She tossed her pale cornflower blue mane with vain pride. The motion was dampened a little by the purple tassel on the end of her nightcap comically flopping about in sync with the motion. “Trixie does not need a lullaby to go to sleep.” Then, setting aside her ego again, she looked at Thorax with a smug grin. “Besides, with my luck, you probably have a horrible singing voice, don’t you?”

“On the contrary,” Thorax said, stepping closer as now it was his turn to grin with pride. “I don’t mean to brag, but all changelings have perfect pitch.”

Trixie raised a critical eyebrow at him. “Oh really?”

“Well, it makes sense when you think about it,” Thorax pointed out with a casual shrug. “We changelings can disguise ourselves as anypony, which means we can emulate any voice we hear with near perfect pitch or tone.” He tilted his head at Trixie and, with a sly smirk, impulsively continued speaking in a voice very familiar to Trixie but was most certainly not his own. “Otherwise, not having the right voice to go with it would make the disguise seem a bit…peculiar, don’t you think?”

Trixie’s eyes widened at the sound of her own voice echoed so perfectly back at her. “Wow,” she murmured, taken aback by Thorax’s spot-on emulation. “That’s…that sounded weird!” She continued to stare at him just long enough to cause Thorax to wonder if maybe he overstepped a boundary, but then she broke out into a sly grin of her own. “Do it again.”

Thorax’s grin grew and happily he obliged. “Behold, the Great and Powerful Trixie, magician mare extraordinaire, here to wow and amaze you all with her spectacular magical powers of unparalleled magnitude, never before seen at any time in the history of Equestria, and never will appear again for the remainder of history!” he declared in Trixie’s voice, now adding in her own manner of speech to the imitation.

It was impressive enough that it sent the more than amused Trixie into a fit of ecstatic and loud giggles, infectious enough that Thorax couldn’t help but join in. Well aware that there were others trying to sleep elsewhere on the otherwise quiet airship though, they both tried to suppress these giggles to keep it semi-successfully quiet and not risk alerting the others, proceeding to shush each other back and forth. The shushing didn’t seem to help with the fit of giggles at first and if anything only spurred them on, but finally the two started to calm down again and a relative sense of silence descended upon the pair again.

Trixie regarded Thorax for a moment during this brief spell of silence, then with a grin, found she couldn’t resist. “Now do Ember.”

Thorax again obliged. “I am Dragon Lord Ember, proud leader of the dragons, and I am always grumpy and rude, because it is the dragon way to be grumpy and rude, so there!” he remarked in the dragoness’s voice, mimicking the sarcastic and critical tone the two had both so quickly come to be familiar with from the dragon lord.

This again sent them into a fit of giggles that they had to hurry and suppress before they got too loud and disturbed someone.

“Ooh boy,” Trixie remarked as they calmed down yet again, wiping tears of laughter from her eyes, “Are we ever tired if we’re this amused by this!”

“Very,” Thorax agreed with a nod, and again turned for the door. “In which case, we should try to get some sleep. I don’t wish to keep you up too long.”

“Yeah, probably a good idea I do the same too,” Trixie replied with a nod of her own. She grinned a little. “But at least that all helped to…lighten the mood a little.”

Thorax had to grin a bit himself, finding she was right. “Are you going to be able to get to sleep okay, then?” he paused to ask, nevertheless still concerned about that.

Trixie waved the matter aside though. “Aw, well, don’t worry yourself on my account, I’ll still manage fine in the end, promise,” she assured, and she certainly sounded confident…though she couldn’t hide the scent of her own concern from the changeling. Thorax found it was faint enough though that he opted not to comment on it this time, allowing Trixie to continue speaking. “You just make sure you do the same. So have a good night, Thorax.”

“And you,” Thorax returned as he stood at the door, looking back at her. “Informis Una bono somno tibi tribuit.”

Trixie furrowed her brow at the unfamiliar phrase. “Huh?”

“Oh,” Thorax said, realizing his error, putting one hoof to his mouth as he faced her fully, turning away from the still-closed door. “Sorry, I let myself lapse into my native language for a second there.” He was actually a little surprised at himself for it. He generally only did so in the presence of Spike, seeing the dragon was aware of Thorax’s true nature, or when grumbling under his breath…neither of which quite applied here.

Trixie didn’t seem to notice this in her own surprise though. “Wait, so, Equestrian isn’t your first language?”

“Oh no, but it’s not surprising for a changeling to be multi-lingual. Obviously, when outside the hive we generally just try to keep that to ourselves so to maintain our own cover.” Thorax grinned. “I’ve taught Spike a few phrases though…so I suppose I’ve just gotten in the habit of slipping into the language around trusted friends, especially when not in disguise.”

“Aw,” Trixie teased, catching the implication that Thorax considered her a trusted friend.

Thorax merely grinned at the gentle jab before pressing on, a bit more serious now. “I really should know better than to do that though, as not everyone I meet is going to know linguae mutationis obviously, and a good changeling would know better than to slip up like that in public. It would only risk giving them away to potential foes.” He shook his head. “But at any rate, it was just my way of wishing you good night, that’s all.”

“Yeah okay, but, what exactly did you say?” Trixie asked. “Because that wasn’t just you saying ‘good night,’ was it? It sounded like there were too many words for that.”

Thorax let out a single, soft, chuckle. “There were. The approximate translation is, ‘the Shapeless One grant a good sleep to you.’”

Trixie tilted her head at the changeling. “Shapeless One?” she repeated, curious. “Who or what is the Shapeless One?”

Thorax, surrendering to the fact that their conversation wasn’t over yet after all, decided to leave the door (still closed) and again approached the side of the bed Trixie laid upon. “You know, I was actually wondering if anyone was ever going to ask me that,” he admitted as he walked. “Not even Spike’s really asked, and I’m certain he’s heard me mention the Informis Una more than once before. But I suppose he’d know enough of the language now that he could’ve pieced out the basics for himself out of the context…” Noticing Trixie’s rapt attention, he tilted his head back at her. “This interests you?”

“Kind of, yeah,” Trixie admitted, though she sounded unsure of herself, like she wasn’t sure why it had caught her attention. She shrugged. “It’s a clue about your nature, the ever mysterious changeling culture, and I suppose I’m just trying to learn more about it, for my own benefit. In a way…I’m sort of learning more about you…in a roundabout sort of manner. But I guess Starlight and her studies with Twilight might’ve rubbed off a little on me, too. I did overhear Twilight remark once that the best way to understand someone is to understand the culture they hail from, and, for once, I have to admit she had a point with that.” She paused, considering the matter, but then added, “Well, either that or it’s because of Sky Trek. You know they do this sort of thing all the time in the books.”

Thorax chuckled. “I suppose they do,” he said. “I’m just surprised, is all. No one’s shown interest before.”

“Then Trixie will be the first,” the showmare decided with a note of pride. She settled herself into a more comfortable position on the bed. “So who is this Shapeless One, or In-foam-miss Oonah?”

Thorax frowned at her mispronunciation of the changeling words. “Informis Una,” he corrected. “And according to legend, she is the one who brought about the creation of the changelings, in addition to most other life.”

Trixie perked up as she caught on. “You mean it—or she—is some kind of deity?”

“Of a sort, I suppose,” Thorax conceded, but it sounded like he generally didn’t think of it that way.

This only piqued Trixie’s curiosity further. “So…how and why did the In…Inforum-mis Una…” she wrinkled her snout as she struggled to pronounce the foreign name, “…create…well, everything?”

“There’s a bit of a tale to that,” Thorax explained, and the changeling considered how to best convey it to the magician in terms she could understand. “I suppose the best way to explain it would probably be how I was taught back when I was a hatchling, with the aid of visuals.” He turned his head to scan the room idly. “I just need a good, flat and level, surface to cast the images on…” Unfortunately, because so much of the free space in cabin was utilized as much as possible in some manner for use on the airship, namely that of cabinets or drawers for storage space, he wasn’t finding such a surface flat enough to project the desired visuals on. That is, until he thought to look down at his hooves the smooth floor of the cabin he stood upon. “The deck will have to do,” he said and now turned to look for someplace to stand or sit so he himself wouldn’t be in the way while Trixie watched. He glanced back at the bed and decided getting up on it would be the best option. He proceeded to mount the edge of the mattress so to hop atop of it, but then paused and glanced at Trixie already atop of the bed. “…if you don’t mind.”

“Nah, knock yourself out,” Trixie said in an indifferent tone, and scooted closer to the far edge of the bed so to give the changeling plenty of room.

Once she had, Thorax jumped up onto the bed and turned himself around so he faced the rest of the cabin like Trixie did, keeping himself at the other far edge of the bed and leaving a respective space between himself and Trixie. Once he was settled, he turned his attention to the floor and lit his horn. Soon his magic was shaping cyan-colored images projected onto the floor in front of them, the first taking the shape of a regal-looking changeling queen. Trixie, intrigued by the spell Thorax was using, immediately started to think about the sort of things she could use such a spell for in her magic shows, but was quickly distracted from that line of thought as Thorax began to speak with a tone of reverence.

“According to legend,” Thorax began while Trixie watched the magical projections on the floor, “Informis Una, the Shapeless One, is the very first changeling, the mother and creator of all subsequent changelings, and a queen of limitless age and untold power, far more powerful than that of Princess Celestia or Princess Luna combined. An extreme adopter of changeling nature, she has no definite shape, no permanent physical form, and instead was continually changing shape and form to become anything she wished on demand.” As he said this, the image of the changeling queen started to shift, transforming into a variety of new shapes at random every few seconds. “It is said there are no limits to her shapeshifting abilities, and she could turn into and be literally anything she wants, even become the mountains, the seas, or the stars in the sky, if not the sky itself, as she desired.” The shapes the image projected on the floor was making started to become increasingly and increasingly more complex or immense in scope.

“Hence the name,” Trixie said, catching on. She moved her eyes off the image to glance at Thorax for confirmation, “Shapeless One.”

Thorax nodded, returning the glance briefly, before moving his attention back to the magical projections he was casting so to continue the tale. “In the beginning, many millennia ago,” he went on, the image returning to the shape of a changeling queen, “the Shapeless One had the whole of the universe to herself, free to use as she desired, but she was also very alone. She found that all she could do was of no worth unless she had someone to share them with.” The image of the changeling queen started to zip around the open space of the floor, as if looking for something. “She searched every corner of existence for some kind of companion, but found none. Therefore, she decided that if she couldn’t find any companions, she would make her own. And knowing they would need someplace to live, she transformed herself so to take on the shape of the very world we live upon now.”

As Trixie watched, captivated, the cyan image cast on the floor centered itself in the middle of the surface before turning into a side view of a vast stretch of terrain, looking like it was a rough approximation of Equestria. “So wait,” she interrupted, wanting to make sure she understood this right. “According to the changelings, the entire world we’re living on right now, is actually a super powerful changeling queen that has simply assumed the shape of that world?”

Thorax grinned at Trixie’s slightly incredulous tone. “Quite,” he answered simply, and pressed on with the tale. “Once she had become a lush and habitable world good enough to support her eventual creations, she proceeded to weave her magic and from the land sprang up the life we know now.” One by one, shapes of common living beings started to appear on the land the image had taken shape of. “The ponies, the griffons, and so on…she made all of these and more so to populate the world she had created, and for them to help shape the cultures in the desired realms as she wanted. However, out of all of these, only one was created bearing the gift of being able to change shape like her.”

“The changelings,” Trixie filled in, watching entranced as the other creations on the land displayed in front of her were pushed aside so the shape of a general changeling, not unlike Thorax, could appear in the center of the lineup.

Again Thorax nodded, and now the image all cleared away leaving only the shape of a single nut—an acorn. “It is said that for the changelings, the Shapeless One prepared a special kind of acorn blessed with her magic and planted it into the fertile soil of the world she had become.” The image of the acorn descended suddenly until it vanished into the depth of a patch of earth. “Under her nurturing care, that acorn sprouted and grew into a towering and healthy plant that, upon maturing, cracked open and from that plant the first changelings on this world sprang forth and joined the population.”

As the image cast on the floor before her played out all of these events, Trixie furrowed her brow. “The first changelings came from a plant?” she asked.

“An extremely special one,” Thorax confirmed with a nod. The image on the floor reset back to the original acorn. “The first acorn, of course, was filled with the Shapeless One’s magic and love—said to be part of the reason why we changelings must still feed on such love to survive—but all acorns are believed to be carriers of an aura of wisdom and knowledge, gifts from the Shapeless One meant to help guide the changelings she had created through their lives so they can fulfill their full potential. According to legend, the especially blessed can even receive prophecies from the acorns.”

Trixie studied the image of the acorn cast on the floor, taken aback by the sincerity of Thorax’s words. It was clear to her that he really believed there was truth to this legend. She scooted a little closer to the changeling, closing the gap between them some. “They’re that important to changelings, huh?” she asked in a soft tone.

“They’re sacred,” Thorax assured gently, who didn’t react to Trixie moving closer. The images kept shifting as he spoke, showing changelings collecting and then scattering acorns. “We changelings hold all acorns in high regard, because we never know if one of them might be blessed to bring forth a new generation of changelings like that first acorn had. So when they fall from the trees that produced them, we collect them and, yearly, go forth and scatter them as far as we can, in hopes they will become planted in the earth and possibly receive the nurture they need to grow either more acorns blessed with the aura of enlightenment, or more changelings still as the first had.” The image changed again to show a whole valley of oak trees, all bearing more acorns. “The hive has a whole grove of acorn trees located nearby that we maintain and care for, partly for that purpose, and partly to give us a place to go to meditate and ponder. Some even pray. Before I left the hive, that grove was always my favorite place to visit…a place to find some peace and calm, escaping the trouble and ridicule I routinely faced in the hive.” Thorax’s expression took on a solemn look. “There were days where I wished I never had to leave that grove and the peace it brought me.”

“Wow,” Trixie mumbled, humbled slightly by Thorax’s words. She had never thought before that the changelings might be in any way religious, and was now upon learning that they were found this put them in a whole new light for her. She gazed at the image of the acorn grove cast on the floor for a long moment as she mulled upon all of this information. Eventually, she found she had a question. “You said the Shapeless One granted the ability to change shape only to the changelings,” she noted aloud. “As if that was something she did deliberately.”

“Indeed,” Thorax said, nodding his head as the image changed back to the view of the land populated by the changelings and the many other creatures that lived upon it. “The belief is that she so blessed the changelings like this for a great purpose, with the intent that they would use those abilities to help bring about change among her creations she had set upon this world in accordance with her plans for the future.”

“What sort of plans?”

“That depends on who you ask,” Thorax’s tone turned firm while weaving his magic around the image in preparation to change it. “Most of my fellow changelings are of the belief that this means the changelings are meant to be the superior creation, and are supposed to, in time, obtain dominion over the world and all other life placed upon it, seizing full power and sole control over them.” As he spoke, the image shifted so that more and more changelings appeared in the land until all the other creatures were pushed out of sight and only the changelings remained. The image sent a chill down Trixie’s spine, shuddering at the implications of such a thing. “They see things like the fact that we are limited in power because we must feed on emotion as a sort of test to surpass and prove our worth and strength to the Informis Una by overcoming those limitations and overpowering the rest.” But then Thorax went on as the image reset back to the original view of the world, grinning slightly to himself. “But you can’t get peace that way, not a true and lasting, eternal, peace, at least. So, I’ve come to wonder lately if, instead, that purpose is to bring about unity with that ability, to be the ones that can be the…missing link in getting all these many races and species on this world to interact and relate with one another.” The image shifted to show the changelings turning and interacting with the other races instead of trying to overpower them. “Sometimes I wonder if that was why the Informis Una made us so we must feed on emotions…so we have to keep the others close, because we need them to survive, give us a chance to work with them and get to know them as companions. After all, it would be so much easier if we could get that sustenance voluntarily, without their fear…so why not make them allies, so we can all work, coexist, and cooperate together as equals?” Thorax’s grin grew. “Like friends…as what I’ve seen the ponies do, and what I wish the other changelings could do too.”

He gazed longingly at the images he projected at the floor as the changelings intermixed with the other life in the world, befriending them. “It was partly that thought that was one of my inspirations to leave the hive in the first place, to come to Equestria in search for friends of my own. I thought that if I could learn how it worked for myself, I could bring it back to my fellow changelings and then they could see the benefits, to see we didn’t have to steal, and lie, and destroy just to get by when we could all live as one…and help each other…and all have the chance to thrive…and in peace. It was my hope that they would then be motivated to try and make all of this a reality.”

He motioned to the images he cast on the floor, but just as quickly proceeded to shake his head, turning wistful. “Can’t you picture it? The friendship, the love, the peace…we would no longer need to be enemies with each other that way…and if you have no enemies, you can always be guaranteed peace, true peace. Think of the things we could accomplish then, working together! Just look at myself and where I’ve gotten…I would not be here now without the scant few friends that I’ve made, I may not even be alive still…yet despite everything and the dangers I still face…here I am. Alive. Despite everyone saying it cannot be, that no changeling could befriend another…I’ve done it. And the rewards are…staggering…it’s…hard to see how I could have ever have survived without them…it leaves me baffled that so many are so…blind that they fail to see the bigger picture of what we could be doing and achieving. It’s a vision that is so far from becoming a reality and yet I have still managed to taste it, and it is beyond description. And I just want to…share that. So we can all see, so we can all taste of this good, so we can all receive the same benefits…and more.” He gazed longingly at the images he cast on the floor, wishing they were real. “I see a world that could be free of conflict and foes…where it’s all for each other, the wealth shared and equal, so we all benefit…where we can all coexist and be friends, neighbors, who help each other, who don’t war with each other because there’s no reason to.”

He shook his head slowly. “And I just can’t believe the Informis Una, after she herself so selflessly has done so much for us, would want us to settle for anything less than that. It’s all well within our reach…we just have to stop trying to always one-up each other and instead help each other to get it. I’ve thought about it long and hard, and as far as I can see, it is only that one thing that is keeping this from becoming reality.”

He continued to gaze at the images he continued to cast in the floor, the movements looping so they repeated, lost in such deep thought while regarding this vision, that for a moment he forgot all about where he was and who he was with. But it was all brought jarringly back to him when he suddenly felt Trixie gently leaning her head on his shoulder, gazing at the images still herself. A glance down at her and he was surprised to see she was blinking back tears.

“That was beautiful, Thorax,” she whispered softly, moved by the changeling’s words.

Thorax gazed down at her, sensing her stirred emotions, unaware that Trixie could likewise sense some of Thorax’s own passion for the subject. He was momentarily at a loss for words, pleased yet stunned he had such an unintended effect on the mare. “Thank you,” he murmured finally, the only thing he could think to say.

There was a pause then Trixie continued. “I can see why you’re so bothered about Spike, then…you two haven’t really been getting towards that goal much lately, have you?”

Thorax averted his gaze sadly and didn’t reply. But he also made no effort to deny it.

Trixie, meanwhile, was lost in her own thoughts, shocked and moved by just how expansive a vision for the future Thorax had. And it was indeed a wonderful vision…in that moment, stirred as she was, it was hard to see how anyone wouldn’t want that and how it hadn’t already been made to come to pass. She tilted her head up at the changeling, whose gaze had gone back to the dancing images he continued to cast on the floor, lost in his own thoughts. It occurred to her this wasn’t just any changeling. Thorax was different…truly unique, perhaps. She wondered if he was even aware of just how significant he actually was, how important he and what he sought to do was.

Her mind then proceeded to wonder about her own interactions with this changeling as well, and she was finding herself somewhat ashamed that she had ever thought that him being a changeling altered things. This was clearly the same exact person she had met by pure chance, bumping into him in the store and in the spur of the moment deciding to invite him to one of her shows. She was immensely glad she did too, and found herself wondering where they’d all be if she hadn’t. At any rate, she decided she’d be a fool to think any less of Thorax just because he was a changeling. That fact simply didn’t even apply to the matter.

So then she wondered about just what Thorax was to her.

She frowned as she felt her cheek resting against Thorax’s chitinous shoulder. She had figured that the chitin would be hard and cold, like resting one’s head against a dinner plate, but in reality, it was certainly firmer than skin, but not so hard that it didn’t give and bend just enough under the weight of Trixie’s head to make it comfortable. It was also warm, and Trixie was surprised to notice she could just barely feel Thorax’s pulse through it, a thought that gave her pause. She glanced up at the changeling’s face again, studying it, especially his solid blue eyes. It certainly occurred to her that, being two very different species, they had very little alike. So what was it about Thorax that made him so…endearing, despite all that?

Trixie decided she had changed her mind about holding off on broaching the subject. “Thorax,” she began softly. “Just…what are we, you and me?”

Thorax was quiet for a moment, internally debating while not moving his gaze away from the magical images projected on the floor. “We’re friends,” he answered, not daring to speculate further.

“Well, of course we are,” Trixie said with a smirk, as if it didn’t even need discussing. It heartened Thorax some to hear her say that. “But…are we just friends?”

Thorax again took his time before he replied. His gaze turned especially distant during this, but also conflicted. “I don’t know,” he admitted finally. “I wish I did…but I don’t.” He glanced down at Trixie leaning on his shoulder. “Do you?”

Trixie thought about it for a long moment, and was frustrated by the lack of an answer she uncovered. “No,” she said, almost sadly. She shook her head slightly. “It’s just…all felt like it’s happened so fast…I didn’t even get a chance to register what was happening until I was already in knee-deep.”

Thorax blinked his eyes a couple times as he considered that, finding with a sigh he was in agreement with that assessment. And it was with that in mind that he decided to say something he was actually a little surprised to feel so compelled to say. “Then perhaps we need to just leave it at that for now, not just for the sake of the others but ourselves as well…so to give us time to…figure it out some more first.”

Trixie turned the idea over in her head, and knew he was right. “Yeah,” she agreed. “Yeah, a little more time is what we need. That’s a good idea.” She went quiet for a second, but then added, “Just so long as we’re still friends.”

Thorax grinned to himself. “I wouldn’t have it any other way, Trixie.”

“Darn straight you wouldn’t,” Trixie agreed with a jesting grin of her own.

They fell silent again as they continued to watch Thorax’s magical projections on the floor, lost in thought. That is until Thorax heard a faint snore and glanced down to see that Trixie had dozed off while still leaning on his shoulder. He grinned a melancholy smile to himself.

“Informis Una bono somno tibi tribuit, Trixie,” he murmured aloud to himself, continuing to gaze at his magical projections while peacefully permitting Trixie to continue to rest against him.

Author's Note

So first off, I want to acknowledge the ongoing comments about the pacing at present in the story. In the end, the views on this matter seem to have roughly averaged out at about half and half. Half seemed to take issue with it, half seemed to support it as-is. Regardless, I've read through, and in some cases re-read, all of these comments and kept them in consideration pretty much the whole time since I posted the last chapter last week. I agree with the assessment that the pacing in the story at the moment is not very ideal, at least not with mind for the climax it is supposed to be building up to now, and as such, I did indeed consider editing out potentially whole chapters from the story in an attempt to try and hurry things along.

But ultimately, I have opted not to cut out anything, and instead continue posting as I had originally planned regardless of the pacing issue, and there are a number of reasons why I chose this. The next three chapters have been a...real effort to write, and have taken constant editing to get into a state I was satisfied with, generating a lot of frustration, to the point that I've been working on them for so long now, I'm just done trying to work with them any further, and I'm ready to just move on writing-wise and continue on writing the rest of the story, which hasn't been progressing as much as I'd like because of all of this. This left me in no mood to go through and undergo potentially lengthy edits again for the sake of trying to speed the story along a little.

Another reason is that in reviewing the material I could cut, I was finding little I could cut without compromising a chapter's entire reason for existence, and after spending so long editing them, I loathed cutting out whole chapters as that meant weeks of work that would ultimately have been for nothing and thus a waste of time. Not very good for my morale, frankly, and I was getting very stressed about this matter. And ultimately, I had to step back and tell myself I didn't need to get so stressed out about it, because ultimately it's just a fanfic, will always be a fanfic, and never will it be anything but that, and in the grand scheme of things, it wasn't likely to bring about big change no matter if it succeeded or failed. It wasn't really worth fretting so much about it. And as it was increasingly becoming clear to me that these chapters probably never will be fully "perfect" no matter how much I tried, I felt that maybe it was better to just cut my losses, admit the mistake, and just press on, hoping I can still make up for it further on in the story once we've moved past this lull point in the story.

Further still, I had to remind myself that my buffer of completed chapters has been running thin because of this prolonged period writing and editing this one section of the story, and I realized that if I DID have to cut things out, that would only further deplete that buffer, and most likely would've left me with only one chapter left, one that wasn't even yet complete at the time, and that meant I'd either have to put the story on another hiatus--something I've been trying to avoid--or kill the regular posting schedule I've so proudly maintained thus far and just post whenever there's a chapter ready...neither very desirable, so as I saw it, it was a lose-lose situation for me anyway.

But above all, in reading all of these comments on the matter, I still walked away with a sense that most, even the criticizers, were willing to accept whatever choice I made on this matter, even if it wasn't a choice they personally agree with, with a number figuring that most of you would probably keep following the story regardless because, in their words, "it's just that good," apparently. And this willingness to support and trust me as a writer has certainly helped, and it was probably rather passionate comment on the matter that I read just today that helped seal my choice...I would proceed as I originally planned, because given the circumstances, that just seemed like the best thing I could do right now. Not the perfect choice, but the best I can give right now.

Apologies to those that don't care for this choice and rather I cut to the chase, but I hope you'll stick with me regardless. We don't have much longer on this lull point in the story to go, and once we're past this, I think (or at least hope) the pacing will fix itself and things will progress better and more to everybody's liking. We still have big things that are yet to come in this story, after all. :raritywink:

As for the chapter itself...I've mentioned this before, but the whole Thorax/Trixie thing wasn't really planned, and as I've gone about writing it, it has continued to not go as I had originally expected it, and as such have stopped trying to force it to meet my expectations, and instead let the characters direct where it goes. In the past, this has led the Thorax/Trixie thing to just get bigger and bigger...so I was a little surprised to find Thorax and Trixie basically choosing to friendzone themselves in this chapter...but we'll see if it lasts.

On the subject of the Informis Una, I kept expecting somebody to ask at some point for a greater explanation about that, especially as I know for a fact that not all of you have taken the time to translate the Latin. :raritywink: But nobody ever did (hence Thorax's comment about wondering if "anybody would ever ask about that"). So I figured I'd bring it up in-story, and it worked out well for me, because it also gave Thorax a chance to open up, and I mean really open up, about his thoughts and views and what sort of future he hopes to help bring about someday, and let him be fully passionate about it for a change, and demonstrating that, really, he's been holding back all this time. And as a result, it feels like this gives power to his vision, making it feel like a real and tangible thing that, maybe one day, could really be achieved. And that just seemed touching.

Finally, this chapter does also sort of "set the scene" for the next chapter...which I imagine can't be too hard to guess how... :raritywink:

Good Morning

As it turned out, Ember really didn’t snore; instead, she talked in her sleep.

In fact, she more of mumbled in her sleep, which frustrated Starlight sleeping in the bed across from the dragoness all the more, because then Starlight couldn’t ever quite make out just what it was Ember was saying. And since the mumbling was always just enough to lull her awake on more than one occasion through the night, it was admittedly a bit annoying. Starlight didn’t dare try to wake Ember and alert the dragoness of the problem, though. She knew better than to bother a sleeping dragon that probably wouldn’t take kindly to being woken up. So instead, she gritted her teeth and bore through it.

But despite this setback, she did manage to get some sporadic sleep in, enough that she was rested enough to be sufficiently awake when arising and replacing Spike at the air yacht’s helm when it came time for her shift sometime around midnight. When asked if anything of note had taken place during his shift, Spike simply and curtly replied that it was “nothing you need to worry about,” so Starlight took that to mean his shift was largely uneventful and proceeded to find her own was likewise unexciting. The Vergilius mostly flew itself so long as it was kept on the right heading, which was simple enough for her to do. By the end of her shift sometime in the early hours the morning (when it was still too early for it to be rightfully called “morning”) though, Starlight was starting to feel the need for sleep press heavily on her again and was struggling to keep awake. She was fearing she might doze off at the helm when Ember, awake and alert as she had been before she went to bed, arrived to take over. Thus freed of that obligation, Starlight promptly went back to bed, and now that there wasn’t a sleep-mumbling dragoness in the bunk directly across from her, she slept undisturbed and like a rock.

And apparently that was sleep enough, because she only slept in a little later into the morning than she normally would’ve, her internal clock eventually spurring her to wake up and arising only a half-hour to an hour after her usual waking time. Feeling rested enough for now, but still working at waking up fully, she decided she might as well get up and start the day, stretching her limbs as she clambered out of bed and out of the little cabin in the prow of the airship. Entering the main mid-ship room of the below deck containing the craft’s kitchen and saloon, she wasn’t especially surprised to see there was no one in here, suggesting the others were likely still sleeping. For now she decided to leave it that way, but anticipating them waking up later, she went through their supplies and found packets of hot chocolate mix. Figuring the drink might help wake some of them up, herself included, she put some water on to heat up.

Afterwards, she decided she might as well find Thorax and inquire about how much longer it’d be until they were arriving at the hive, since their arrival there was now going to be imminent. Figuring he was still sleeping, she headed into the next cabin to check the bunk she knew he had claimed for himself. She was surprised, then, to find not Thorax in it, but rather Spike, the little dragon still out like a light and looking like he had simply collapsed into the bed from exhaustion as he hadn’t even undressed himself or properly put himself under the covers. As the bunk was apparently vacant at the time, his tired mind must have thought it was more appealing than the upper bunk hanging above it Starlight had thought was supposed to be his.

But then that raised the question; where was Thorax? He wasn’t in the cot she was expecting, and a quick look revealed he wasn’t in the upper one instead. She hadn’t seen any sign of him elsewhere below deck, and as the door to the head had been ajar and the room beyond vacant, it seemed clear he wasn’t there either. She thought that perhaps he had arisen early after all and decided he must be above deck, maintaining his airship. Heading up the steps and into the control room, she found Ember was still manning the helm, not looking the least bit tired, though she did appear bored. The view out the forward viewport showed the start of what appeared to be a deceptively beautiful morning though, so that at least was heartening for Starlight to see, but she didn’t focus on that for long in favor of her larger concern.

“Morning Ember,” she greeted the dragon as she arrived, glancing around briefly for the missing changeling. “Is Thorax up here?”

“He is not,” Ember replied briskly, not taking her eyes off piloting the airship. “I’d thought he’d still be in bed.”

“I thought so too, but he’s not in his bunk,” Starlight agreed with a frown as she peered about the cabin and into the navigation cabin it adjoined with. Thorax was in neither of these locations. “You’re sure he’s not up here and, I don’t know, doing something like working with the rigging or something?”

“Positive,” Ember pressed, glancing back at Starlight. “I would’ve seen him if he had, and I haven’t seen him at all since I took up the helm at the end of your shift. I’ve been waiting for him to come up here for a while now, actually.”

Starlight’s frown deepened and she wondered where else the changeling could possibly be. “When you got up for your shift, do you recall seeing if he was in his bunk then?” she asked, trying to rule out possibilities.

“I do not,” Ember admitted. “I didn’t look as I was passing by.”

Starlight sighed. “I didn’t either, really,” she admitted, recalling she was so tired and focused on getting back in bed that she had walked right past the bunks without it registering who were in them at the time. “Hmm,” she hummed to herself, puzzled. “Well, he’s got to be around here somewhere…guess I’ll check again to see if he’s downstairs.”

“I’ll shout if I see him up here,” Ember offered as Starlight headed back below deck.

Starlight checked the two bunks Thorax was supposed to be sleeping in one of again for any clues, but again only found Spike sleeping in the lower and the upper still vacant. In fact, the upper looked like it had been barely used. She decided to check the head again after this, this time more thoroughly, but the little restroom was clearly vacant. She stopped to survey the mid-ship room again in puzzlement before recalling the changeling Julius and his cocoon contained in the closet in that room. The door to said closet was closed, and Starlight suddenly had a fear that perhaps something with Julius had gone awry during the night. Cautiously, she pulled open the closet door and peeked at the faintly glowing cocoon inside, half-expecting it to be either broken open, empty and vacant, or Julius having been replaced with Thorax as its occupant instead. She was relieved, then, to see that the cocoon was intact and unchanged from when she last saw it, and Julius still safely inside and still in a deep sleep suspended within the cocoon’s nourishing fluids. But there was still no Thorax.

By then, the water she had put on came to a boil and she paused to tend to it, proceeding to make herself a cup of hot chocolate to thoughtfully sip, pondering the matter. Finally, she could only shrug. The changeling must be somewhere aboard the ship as she could think of no reason why he’d leave. She decided to check on Trixie in the stateroom, see if she was up yet. Maybe she would have an idea, or at least would be willing to help…assuming she was even awake yet. Trixie wasn’t exactly an early-riser. Regardless, Starlight went to the stateroom door and quietly pushed it open so to peek inside.

She then immediately paused in the doorway, surprised by the sight before her.

On the upside, she found Thorax. He was lying on his side on the stateroom bed, peacefully asleep.

Stretched out mostly atop of him was Trixie, also asleep.

“Hmm,” Starlight hummed numbly to herself, the most response she could give at first.

Otherwise, she just stared at this sight for a long moment, both trying to figure it out and not figure it out, with consideration for the implications. Thorax and Trixie were both oblivious to this, continuing to sleep on. Thorax seemed especially asleep still, doing little moving except for his chest rising and falling with his breathing and his gossamer wings occasionally twitching in his sleep. Trixie, however, seemed like she was stirring slightly. She might be waking soon, leaving Starlight wondering what, if anything, she should do now.

But finally she decided she did indeed want to see how this was going to play out. So since it seemed Trixie might wake soon, she was going to assume that was the case and retreated out of the room, latching the door again, and went back to the saloon to sit at the airship’s little dining table, positioned so she could look back down the length of the air yacht and at the stateroom door, just barely within her sight. She passed the time by sipping her mug of hot chocolate, the warm, sugary, drink slowly shaking the cobwebs out of her mind and only making her all the more intrigued by this new development.

Luckily, her assumptions proved correct and she was not left waiting long, for soon, the stateroom door opened again and Trixie came stumbling out. She had clearly just gotten up and as such wasn’t fully awake…though the squinted and tired eyes she was using to blearily look at her immediate surroundings made that perfectly clear. Half-heartedly pulling the askew sleeping cap from off her head and blindly tossing it back behind her and into the stateroom, she pulled the door shut with her magic and slowly shuffled through the airship into the main cabin where Starlight was. She didn’t seem to notice Starlight at all though, and instead upon entering the cabin turned and proceeded into the head, shutting the door behind her. When she emerged again a few minutes later, she still didn’t notice Starlight as she then turned as if to head back for the stateroom, but she did seem a little more awake now.

So Starlight decided to announce her presence. “Good morning, Trixie.”

Trixie jumped at the sound of Starlight’s voice and spun around to stare at the unicorn, noticing her for the first time. “Starlight!” she declared in surprise. “I didn’t see you there!”

“I noticed,” Starlight said with a grin and took a sip from her mug. She hefted it up in Trixie’s direction afterwards. “Would you care for a drink to help wake up with?”

Trixie studied Starlight hesitantly for a second then pointed her hoof at her friend’s mug. “Please tell me that’s coffee, then.”

“Unfortunately no, it seems Thorax and Spike only have hot chocolate onboard, but it is still hot at least, and it still kind of jolts the sleep out of you.”

Trixie debated to herself for a moment then moved to join Starlight at the table. “Eh,” she shrugged as she approached. “The sugar rush is better than nothing, I suppose.”

Smirking, Starlight took that as an approval and, using her magic, mixed together a second mug of hot chocolate then levitated it over and into Trixie’s waiting hooves as the magician sat herself across the table from the unicorn. Trixie immediately accepted it and started drinking the hot beverage as much it would permit her to do without scalding herself. Immediately, she did seem to perk up a little, the lingering sleep in her eyes starting to fade away as she became more awake.

Starlight let her enjoy a few sips from the mug in silence for a couple of moments. “So…did you sleep well?” she then asked Trixie casually.

“Yeah, actually,” Trixie replied. She seemed a little surprised by this. “All things considered, I really can’t complain to that.”

“I suppose not,” Starlight relented, pausing to take another sip from her own mug. “But there wasn’t anything else…unusual to mention? Nothing out of the ordinary?”

“Not…really…” Trixie admitted, brow furrowing a little as she didn’t understand why Starlight would ask. “Just…me getting a good night’s sleep.”

“Mm,” Starlight hummed to herself, looking pensive.

Trixie studied Starlight in faint confusion for a second. “Did…you sleep well last night?”

“As well as could be expected, I guess,” Starlight relented, thinking about Ember’s mumbling during the night, but figured Trixie didn’t need to know about that in the fear there would be trouble should Ember find out. “It really wasn’t that eventful of a night though…was it for you?”

“…no?” Trixie replied uncertainly, still not following why Starlight was asking. “Why, should it have been?”

Starlight made an exaggerated shrug. “I’d thought it might.”

“I really don’t know why you would.”

“Mm.” Starlight nursed her mug of hot chocolate for a moment. “Well then, that does leave me with a pressing question I want to ask you.”

Trixie motioned for her to continue as she raised her mug to her lips for another sip. “Shoot.”

Starlight took another sip from her mug as well before setting it down on the table between them and pushing it to one side, folding her hooves on the tabletop and leaning closer. She made a knowing smirk slightly. “What’s it like to sleep with a changeling?”

To Trixie’s credit, she managed to keep her reaction from showing on her face a great deal, clearly forcing herself to remain calm and nonchalant at this sudden question. Nonetheless, she still froze, her pupils shrinking slightly as she stared at Starlight for a moment. “…I-I wouldn’t know.”

Starlight feigned surprise. “Oh really?”

“Nope…why would I?”

“Just thought you’d be the one to ask.”

“Well…Trixie isn’t the mare to be asking.”

“Hm.” Starlight leaned back in her seat before nodding her head knowingly in the direction of the door for the air yacht’s stateroom. “Guess I’ll just have to ask Thorax when he leaves your little stateroom too, then.”

Trixie stared at her for a long moment, frozen in the middle of sipping her drink again. Her eyes darted to the closed stateroom door for a moment then darted back to Starlight. Starlight, meanwhile, kept her gaze level, but raised a knowing eyebrow at Trixie after a second. Trixie’s eyebrows pulled together slightly in barely concealed frustration, before finally she closed her eyes in defeat and sighed. She set her mug down on the table with a gentle thud. “It’s not what you think.”

Now both of Starlight’s eyebrows went up in teasing doubt. “Oh, it isn’t now?”

“No, it isn’t! Nothing happened—we just stopped to talk, and as it got late, we eventually just…fell asleep.”

“Both of you.” Starlight concluded.

“Yes.”

“…in the same bed.”

Trixie winced to herself. “…yes,” she admitted reluctantly, knowing what it sounded like.

“…all sprawled out on top of one another,” Starlight continued on with a renewed teasing smirk.

Trixie blushed. “We were not sprawled out on top of each other,” she hissed.

“You so totally were!” Starlight cried out with jesting glee. “You were practically draped all over him! It was actually kind of adorable.”

Trixie just groaned and pressed her hooves to her face. “You saw,” she bemoaned into the azure appendages in conclusion.

“I think I’ve already made that abundantly clear by now, yes,” Starlight reminded gently as she picked up her mug to take another sip from it.

“Starlight, I swear to you, absolutely nothing happened,” Trixie pressed firmly, removing her hooves so to look her friend in the eye. “I know how it looks, but we really just fell asleep, chatting. Nothing more.”

“Okay, okay, I believe you, but you have to admit, you’ve totally set yourself up for this,” Starlight remarked with a wave of her hoof, but still wearing her teasing grin.

Trixie groaned. “All right, all right, fine, I didn’t mean to and neither did he, but yes, maybe I have set myself up for this,” she relented reluctantly. “But let’s still not go distorting what really happened, mmkay? Which, for the record, was nothing.”

“Okay, then. If nothing really happened, then I believe you, Trixie.”

“Good.”

The two went quiet for a moment, the pair sipping from their respective mugs sporadically.

“So…just what were you and Thorax talking about when you two…fell asleep?” Starlight inquired abruptly.

Trixie frowned and narrowed her eyes slightly at the unicorn, but she nonetheless blushed a bit again. “None of your business.”

Starlight raised her eyebrows knowingly again. “Mm-hmm,” she hummed as she sipped from her mug.

“It’s really not, and anyway, it’s nothing like what you’re thinking at the very least,” Trixie continued to insist. “We’re still just friends after all…I can certainly confirm that much.”

“And the parts you’re thereby implying you can’t confirm?”

“…are still none of your business. I don’t know what you’re trying so hard to prove, Starlight, but whatever it is, Trixie asks you at least respect her privacy.”

“All right, all right,” Starlight conceded, backing down. She couldn’t help but smirk. “It’s just…when I found you two like that when I got up…it did get me wondering.”

Trixie grumbled something inaudibly to herself for a moment. “I suppose it would, out of context…”

“Right. So really, all I’m wondering is just what the deal actually is between you and Thorax.”

Trixie set down her mug heavily, gaze turning distant as her frustration transformed into one of unease. “Honestly, Starlight?” she admitted finally. “I don’t really know anymore. Things have gotten…” she trailed off, searching for the right word.

“…strange?” Starlight offered.

But Trixie shook her head. “…deep, more like.” She started to blush. “You’re probably going to think this sounds totally bizarre, but…the more I get to know Thorax as a changeling now…the more I’m finding myself…not bothered by the fact that he is a changeling.”

Starlight frowned, not following. “But isn’t that a good thing? If there’s any lesson to be learned from all of this, it’s that being a changeling doesn’t affect who someone is…a lesson we all probably should’ve learned well before now.”

“Well, yeah, obviously, it’s just…I mean we’re friends, but…” Trixie trailed off and averted her gaze, embarrassed. “…it just feels all awkward now…like different from before…and I don’t know if I know why. We’re just friends, so…I just don’t know why…why it feels like this.”

Starlight started to catch on though. “I’ll tell you why, then.” She set down her mug again, smirking. “It’s because you say you don’t know what’s going on, but I think the only one you’re fooling here is yourself. I think it’s plenty obvious what’s going on between you and Thorax.”

Trixie’s eyes narrowed, but her brow also furrowed slightly in concern. “And just what is going on, if you’re so sure?”

“That’s just it, I think you already know, Trixie, you just haven’t been willing to face it yet. But while I can’t vouch if the others have figured it out yet themselves, at the rate things are going, it will only be a matter of time before they do. So whatever is happening…you two are going to need to figure it out soon because ponies—like me—are only going to be starting to ask more and more questions about it like this.”

Trixie frowned. “Dare I ask what sort of questions?”

Starlight sighed. “Trixie, let’s not beat about the bush on this anymore,” she said and leaned closer. “You and Thorax are not just friends anymore…are you?”

Trixie winced. “I don’t know…maybe…” she swirled her mug in her hoof, watching the hot chocolate inside spin.

Starlight turned sympathetic. “You want to talk about it?”

“I don’t know…probably not really…especially if you’re going to keep insinuating that there’s supposed to be something romantic between me and Thorax, because we don’t know if that’s actually the case yet.”

“You’re thinking it’s a possibility still though, aren’t you?”

“Well…” Trixie hesitated, not yet willing to give a definitive yes or no to the question. “If it is…I don’t really know what I want to think about it…and until I do, I’m not…comfortable admitting it…at least…not aloud.” Her wince deepened. “Maybe you’re right about me not wanting to face reality…but it just…seems really weird to be thinking about…this…in regards to a changeling…and worse, that makes me feel bad about it, because…well…it’s Thorax. He doesn’t deserve crap like that. He deserves better.” She harrumphed aloud before going quiet for a moment, mulling upon the matter. The longer she did so, however, the more concerned her expression became. “Even if there is something like that between us anyway, it’s not like it’d actually work, would it?” she said at last, giving voice to some of her inner thoughts. “I mean…I’m a pony, and he’s…” she winced almost apologetically, “…well…”

“…not?” Starlight offered, smirking to herself as she noticed this was becoming similar to what Thorax had said to her on the subject just yesterday.

Trixie shifted uncomfortably in her seat. “…yeah,” she admitted. “I mean, sure…I certainly do like the guy—as a friend!” She added this hurriedly so to ensure Starlight didn’t get any ideas. “But…there’s still so much different between the two of us that I don’t know how to respond to…and besides, there are still so many ponies out there that don’t hold changelings like him in high regard, and not without good reason…plus Spike’s made it absolutely clear that he doesn’t approve, and that he feels that way so strongly about it bugs Thorax to no end. Look, assuming we even did try something like what you’ve been suggesting…wouldn’t it be…you know…problematic and…well…weird?”

“Why, because you’re not both ponies?” Starlight asked. When Trixie nodded sheepishly, Starlight went quiet as she considered the matter for a moment, swirling the remaining hot chocolate in her mug. “Have I ever told you that I dated a griffon during my last two years of high school?”

She clearly hadn’t, as Trixie looked up at her in surprise. “Really? You and a griffon?”

“Yup…we were going pretty steady for a while there, too.”

Trixie needed a long moment to process this to herself. “Well…clearly it didn’t work out, because you aren’t now,” she observed pointedly.

“Yes, but that didn’t have anything to do with him being a griffon and me a pony,” Starlight explained. “Actually, it only ended because I eventually realized that he was in it more just for the…benefits, and…I wanted our relationship to be more than that.” She shrugged somewhat sadly. “More than he was willing to give me, unfortunately, so by the time we graduated, we ultimately decided to break up…otherwise it’s easily possible we would’ve been still together even now.” She made a whimsical sigh as her gaze turned distant, recalling the experience. She smirked a little. “A pity too, I suppose…he was a bit of a looker…”

Trixie regarded Starlight for a moment, taken aback. “I didn’t know you were into griffons.”

“It’s more that I’m just not that particular about what he was,” Starlight corrected. “What I’m more interested in is finding the right significant other for myself one day, and as such that could be a griffon, or a stallion, or something else altogether, maybe. It doesn’t really matter to me, so long as he’s someone I like and think he’s right for me, all on who he is, not what. That’s why I got involved with a griffon in the first place, because at the time I thought he might’ve been the one. Sure, it turned out that he wasn’t…but the important thing was that I didn’t let the fact that he was a griffon stop me, and it very nearly did work out. I wouldn’t have known all of that for certain if I hadn’t tried to find out for myself, though. That’s the point I’m making with all of this.”

Trixie let out an exasperated sigh, nodding her head slowly. “And you think it’s going to be the same sort of thing for me and Thorax,” she concluded.

“I’m positing that it could be a very real possibility that you shouldn’t rule out recklessly or too quickly, at least. Not without being absolutely certain that doing so is really what you want first. So you’re a pony and he isn’t…stranger things have still happened. So long as it feels right for the both of you, then what else matters, really?” Starlight stopped to sip from her mug again before continuing. “Look, I’m not trying to tell you what to do, Trixie, but I am trying to give you what I think is good advice and what might be worth your while keeping in mind.”

“So you really think something like me and Thorax could work?”

“Do you?”

Trixie bit her lip and didn’t reply right away. “That’s the thing Starlight…even if that is true…and I’m not saying it is…I’m not sure I’m comfortable with the idea of it right now.”

“Then don’t pursue it for now,” Starlight said with a shrug. “The choice is yours and yours alone. No one is forcing you into anything with Thorax.”

Trixie frowned, lowering her gaze. “You make it sound so…impersonal, though. And no matter what’s happening, the idea of treating Thorax like that…just doesn’t sit well with me.”

Starlight raised a knowing eyebrow at this. “Well, then, if it’ll make you feel better and if you’re not going to do anything to pursue it, since that’ll all leave Thorax available…maybe I’ll try my luck with him.”

Trixie’s head snapped up at this, her expression a mix between incredulous and annoyed. “You? What interest could you possibly have in Thorax?”

Starlight shrugged, raising her mug to take another sip from it. “He seems like a nice enough changeling, so…”

“Yeah, but you barely know him! Hay, barely just a week ago, you still thought he was a flipping national enemy! How could you possibly be able to give him the treatment he needs, huh? Before you go making any moves on him you need to be in a hay of a better position first, make sure you actually can respect for who he is, and I highly doubt you’re in anyway capable of meeting that right now, at least certainly nowhere near the sort of respect I probably could give him, seeing I know him better than you do, and if I have my doubts about me doing it, you ABSOLUTELY do not have that ability yet, and…” she trailed off, noticing the knowing look Starlight was giving her over the rim of her mug, and frowned, realizing what was going on. “…and you weren’t actually serious about making a move on Thorax, were you?”

“Nope,” Starlight admitted with a shake of her head, moving to continue taking a sip from her mug. “I just said it to see what your reaction to it would be.” She lowered her mug again, smug. “Got my answer, too.”

Realization started sinking in on Trixie, and her expression turned genuinely shocked. She dropped her head into her hooves with a groan. “Oh Celestia,” she cursed. “This is for real, him and me, isn’t it?”

“Well, there’s certainly something there. Now I’m just curious if either of you are actually going to enact upon it.”

Trixie raised her head slightly, just enough to glance up at her friend. “Do you think I even should?”

Starlight set down her mug again and folded her hooves. “Do you think you should? What others think isn’t what’s going to change things, Trixie, that’s all what you and him think about it, because that’s ultimately the only two who can make it happen or not. The ball’s in your court, Trixie. What will your next move be?”

Trixie hesitated to answer, biting her lip as she debated for a second, nervously tapping one hoof on the edge of the table. “At any rate,” she finally said, shirking the question, “I’m not so sure there’s actually anything to consider right now. I at least know we’ve both been thinking that we’re just friends right now and…and we’ve not said much more on the matter beyond that, so just that much leaves me thinking there’s nothing more to it than that…”

“But…” Starlight prompted.

“But…” Trixie continued, and again she hesitated. “…that’s just for right now…and maybe that’s what bothers me about it…I don’t know if that’ll still be the case later, and…I just don’t know what I want to think about that…the future’s blank either way, and…and I guess the not knowing bothers me a little.”

Starlight hummed to herself as she gave the matter a bit of consideration before replying. “Well…at least you’re giving the matter careful thought,” she relented finally. “It’s not a matter you’re taking lightly—you appreciate the weight of the situation and know the outcomes can be serious.” She tilted her head a little and gave Trixie a sympathetic grin. “But you should also consider that, whatever the outcomes are, they can still be positive ones. This needn’t be the worst moment of your life. On the contrary…it could be the absolutely greatest time you ever experience…if there really is something…we’ll say big for now…between you and Thorax.” She looked into her mug briefly, but the unicorn’s attitude was still bright. “I know I might seem like I’ve been prying a little bit, Trixie…but it’s mostly because…I can’t help but feel a little excited about the possibilities this could mean for you.”

Trixie mulled upon that for a second, then glanced up at Starlight, grinning a little. “You really think so?”

“I do.”

Trixie brightened a bit by this positive comment, but the glow in her face was soon dampened again with misgivings. “I just wish I knew how the hay to proceed from here…I…I don’t want to mess this up.”

“Understandable, but perhaps you just need to look at this from another perspective.” Starlight went quiet for a second as she considered her words. “Trixie…just how do you feel for Thorax? Truthfully?”

A poignant silence followed. Trixie went back to her mug for a second, taking another sip from it, as did Starlight, who wasn’t surprised at the lack of an immediate response and wasn’t really expecting one. She instead moved her gaze and thoughts to other things as promised. But Trixie kept eyeing her closely like she hadn’t, shifting anxiously as if uneasy. Then finally, Trixie sighed heavily. “All right fine,” she groaned. “You remember when we were discussing what we were all dreaming while we were in the cocoons?”

Starlight raised a questioning eyebrow, but understood Trixie’s line of thought with this. “You never did say what exactly you dreamed about while in the cocoon, Trixie,” she reminded. “But…I’m guessing I wasn’t far off with my guess it was of a stallion…wasn’t I? It’s just that stallion…also wasn’t technically a pony.”

Trixie nodded slowly, starting to blush again.

“…so I’ve now also got a pretty good guess as to who…don’t I?”

Trixie didn’t respond for a moment, but then she sighed. “Okay, okay,” she said, lifting her head again. “I admit it…I…don’t know how it happened, but…Thorax is…” her blush deepened, “…kind of growing on me in a way…more than just…as a friend.”

Starlight set down her mug and pumped her hoof victoriously. “I knew it!”

“But don’t tell him that!” Trixie urged in an anxious hiss. “I’m still trying to figure out just what this all means to me, let alone him! I don’t want to rush into this without having at least thought it through some more a little, so for now let’s just keep this between ourselves!”

Starlight set down her mug once more and gave Trixie a wearied look. “You know, while I can understand why you’d want to do that, you’re still going to have to actually talk to him about it eventually.”

“And I will! When I’m ready to.”

“And when do you think that might be?”

“I don’t know…I’ll figure it out, but for right now, I don’t want to talk about this anywhere within his earshot until then.”

Starlight’s smirk suddenly returned. “Hmm,” she hummed, to Trixie’s annoyance. Then, as she lifted her mug up to her lips for another sip, her eyes moved to look in the direction of the stateroom door. “Good morning, Thorax.”

Trixie’s eyes suddenly shot wide and she twisted around in her seat to look back at the door in time to see Thorax, realizing he was caught trying to sneak out of said room, timidly close the door and take a few steps towards them. He did so avoiding Spike, still asleep in the bunk that stood between him and the saloon, and he didn’t speak until he had at least passed the sleeping dragon. That was when he locked his eyes on the two mares, his wince deepening. Unlike Trixie, he saw no point in trying to shirk directly addressing the matter. “This, uh…this isn’t what it looks like,” he said softly, motioning one hoof back at the stateroom door.

“Yes, Trixie was just telling me about that,” Starlight remarked before taking another sip from her mug.

Trixie and Thorax exchanged glances, both wincing greatly at each other. “So that I’m clear,” Thorax continued, “the truth is that we just fell asleep while chatting during the night and nothing more…right?”

“While you were both in the same bed, yes, like I said, Trixie has already gone through all of that with me,” Starlight confirmed with a nod.

This didn’t help to reassure either of the two, though. Trixie anxiously turned to face forward in her seat again, starting to blush again and fearing what Thorax had overheard before Starlight acknowledged he was there. “How long were you there within earshot, Thorax?” she finally asked, afraid to directly look at the changeling.

Thorax rubbed the fin on the back of his head for a second, still wincing as he considered the question. “Not especially long actually, I only just got up and exited the room,” he admitted slowly while he grabbed with his magic his jacket from where he had left it hanging and slipped it back on. “I wasn’t really listening until Starlight said good morning.”

Trixie visibly relaxed, relieved. “Oh good,” she mumbled to herself.

“…but um…I guess I did maybe hear a…thing or two still.”

Trixie tensed right back up again, and paled a little. “Oh.”

“So, uh,” Thorax coughed to clear his throat and strolled up to the table, brow etched in concern as he opted to focus on the greater issue. “At any rate, I’ve got the feeling that maybe this is a conversation I should still be a part of,” he mumbled aloud.

“Probably,” Starlight agreed with a nod, and held up her mug. “But before all that…do you want some hot chocolate too?”

“Yes please,” Thorax said immediately with an eager nod. “The chocolate might at least help calm my nerves a little.”

“Don’t bet on it,” Trixie muttered under her breath, who hadn’t gotten such a benefit from the drink in her own mug.

Nonetheless, Starlight made a third mug for Thorax with her magic, much the same way she did for Trixie, and levitated it onto the table near where the changeling stood. “Go ahead and have seat then, Thorax,” she urged politely.

Thorax hesitated, looking at Trixie, unsure. Seeing what the issue was, Trixie scooted over in the bench seat until there was a nice comfortable gap for Thorax to fill and the changeling took it, though he stayed as close to the edge of the seat as he could without falling off. Nonetheless, despite the attempt to grant each other as much space between them as they could, Thorax and Trixie still ended up pretty much sitting side by side to each other. Starlight watched this all with an amused look, clearly seeing the anxious and nervous tension between the two. Trixie noticed and shot the unicorn an annoyed look.

Thorax, meanwhile, had turned his attention on his mug of hot chocolate, downing easily half of the mug in one long swig. He let out a satisfied exhale as he lowered the mug again. He shuddered slightly, as if acclimating to a new temperature, looking more content now. “That definitely helped me, at least,” he murmured, pleased.

“So I’m guessing the fact that there’s only hot chocolate on this tub and not a proper latte to be seen is your doing, then?” Trixie observed, shooting a stiff glance at the changeling beside her and still faintly miffed her preferred drink could not be had despite everything else.

Thorax wrinkled his nose at the very thought, though. “I don’t know how you ponies stand that coffee stuff, honestly,” he objected. “Just the smell of it makes me nauseous after a little bit. Back in Vanhoover, Miss Fly didn’t make it too often, but I could always tell when she did from the smell alone.” He shuddered. “I’d much rather have the hot chocolate…though, admittedly, any changeling probably would. Chocolate is probably one of the extremely few solid foods a changeling can safely eat in large amounts without much ill effect. Plus it tastes good.” He took another swig from his mug, again halving its contents. He smacked his lips a little afterwards.

This drew an involuntary giggle from Trixie, who had been watching him. “Chocolate in high demand in the hive, then?” she surmised.

“Acorns, there’s a whole black market for it,” Thorax replied whimsically. “It causes enough trouble that Queen Chrysalis keeps trying to ban it from the hive…except rumor has it she has a soft spot for it herself, so it keeps getting in anyway.” He winked at the two mares. “But you didn’t hear that from me.”

Trixie snickered again, but her grin fell as she turned back to her own mug and noticed Starlight giving the both of them that amused look of hers still. “What?” she demanded flatly.

“It’s just funny how much you two can’t see how obvious it is,” Starlight replied.

Trixie rolled her eyes and instead focused on taking another sip of her hot chocolate.

“Anyway, glad the hot chocolate has your approval then,” Starlight continued, nodding her head at Thorax. She then leaned closer to the two. “But…we weren’t talking about that, were we?”

“I wish we were…” Trixie muttered as she sipped nervously from her mug. “I’d feel a hay of a lot better if we were to just talk about hot chocolate all morning instead of…well…”

“…things that feel a bit…personal and…uncomfortable to talk about,” Thorax summed up aptly.

“Yeah, yeah, in fact, you know what?” Trixie said as she latched onto that thought. “Thorax is right. Let’s not go any further into this, on the grounds that it’s personal, and neither of us really wants you prying into it, Starlight.” Trixie smirked determinedly, inspiration striking her suddenly. “Or shall I start prying into things you don’t want to talk about either?”

Starlight regarded Trixie for a second, unintimidated. “Oh really? Like what?”

“Well, how about that box Spike was talking about him finding under your bed yesterday, hmm?” Trixie teased, now her turn to lean towards her friend smugly. “You wanna to tell us what’s really in that box?”

Starlight blushed only slightly, but she otherwise furrowed her brow together. “Why, what do you think is in the box?”

“Something you didn’t want everyone else finding out about, and something Spike clearly thought you wouldn’t want brought up, so I’m guessing something scandalous,” Trixie surmised with a growing smirk. “So if we all must do some prying, do tell…what’s in the box?”

Starlight gave Trixie a leveled look. “Kite blueprints.”

Thorax couldn’t help but snicker a little while Trixie pulled back in surprise. “Kite blueprints?!” she repeated, incredulous.

Starlight nodded, and made a sheepish grin as she tapped her hooves together. “So you know how I like kites? Turns out I really like kites, and like to keep an archive of all the blueprints for every kite I ever build.” She chuckled self-consciously. “But it seems like such a…nerdy thing to do, so I don’t really like other ponies knowing about it and I try to keep it to myself. Spike’s known that after he found out about the box as I asked him to keep it to himself, so that’s why he brought specifically it up, because he knew I’d squirm over it being mentioned in public.” She rolled her eyes. “He thought it was hilarious I was getting so worked up over blueprints at the time, though.”

Thorax was grinning politely. “It actually kind of is, no offense,” he admitted.

Starlight chuckled and shook her head. “Yeah, I suppose it is.”

Trixie just shook her head in dismay that her attempt to end the matter backfired and instead used the chance to get back on subject “Look, the long and short of it is this…Whatever is going on between me and Thorax right now, it’s not going to just suddenly become a thing because you keep prying, Starlight, no matter how hard you try. Isn’t that right, Thorax?”

Thorax blushed and tapped his hooves together awkwardly. “Well, admittedly, it’s…not a subject I’m very keen to openly discuss like this, no,” he admitted truthfully. “Frankly, I-I don’t think it’s right time or place for it right now…”

“Exactly!” Trixie agreed. “Starlight, you’re basically assuming too much, too soon! We’re not ready to discuss this openly.”

“Okay, fine!” Starlight said, putting her hooves into the air to convey innocence. “So what you’re both saying is that despite everything, you two currently don’t have that sort interest in each other, no current interest in possibly changing that someday, and no interest at all in trying to pursue it between the two of you further right now, correct?”

Absolutely silence followed. Thorax and Trixie just looked at her blankly for a moment, turned to glance at one another, before looking back at Starlight, both unable to reply.

Starlight’s smirk returned and she rapped one hoof on the tabletop between them. “And see, that’s why I bring the subject up—because even though neither of you want to admit it…there clearly is an interest, isn’t there?” she concluded as she scooped up her mug again to take a drink. But before she did, she licked the tip of her hoof and marked out a point on an imaginary board for herself. Trixie groaned, leaning her head back on the bench seat she sat in with dismay. Thorax, meanwhile, awkwardly sat beside her and continued to tap his hooves together, avoiding eye contact. Starlight patiently remained silent, waiting for one of the two to make the next comment.

Finally, Thorax sighed and glanced at Trixie. “Actually, I changed my mind. To be honest…I don’t really want to talk about it…so…can we…if possible…not go into this at all right now, if I may ask? I mean…I thought we had agreed to…to leave it alone for now anyway.”

Starlight blinked at this as she set down her now-empty mug and met Trixie’s eye again, who realized what Starlight was going to say and averted her gaze, sheepishly. “What did you two talk about last night, anyway? You still haven’t told me.”

Thorax and Trixie exchanged glances briefly. “Should I…?” she prompted the changeling, nudging her head in Starlight’s direction.

Thorax sighed again, but shrugged his shoulders and nodded. “I guess you might as well.”

“Right.” Trixie nodded her head and turned back to Starlight, but she still hesitated for a second longer before she resumed talking. “Look…as it happened, we did talk about…things a little last night, me and Thorax…” Starlight’s eyebrows went up at this, but Trixie motioned for her to keep quiet and not interrupt. “…but we both decided that, whatever is going on…it was a path we didn’t want to go down just yet and so we’re…gonna back away from it for now.”

Starlight’s eyebrows went up even higher now, this time in genuine surprise. “You friendzoned yourselves?” she asked.

Trixie nodded slowly, lowering her gaze. “It’s for the best, Starlight.” She took a deep breath. “We…I…need more time to…figure this out first. We’re not…ready…yet.”

Starlight nodded her head to herself. “Yet,” she repeated aloud, observing that was a critical adverb.

Thorax fidgeted with his mug uncomfortably. He took another—smaller this time—drink from it. “I…guess we’ve left the possibility of it open to us still…” he side-glanced at Trixie, “…haven’t we?”

Trixie swallowed heavily. “Guess so,” she replied softly. She turned her head to look at Thorax, yet kept her eyes turned so they were still glancing at Starlight, as if wary of her unicorn friend. “Are…you comfortable with that possibility?”

Thorax fidgeted with his mug for a moment again. “I…I don’t really know,” he admitted. He made a weak chuckle. “Honestly…this is all sort of…new to me. But…”

“…but you want more time to think about it, the both of you, don’t you?” Starlight finished knowingly.

Thorax nodded, and seeing a possible end to the uncomfortable conversation, Trixie jumped in, trying a different approach. “Look, Starlight, I know you don’t mean any intentional harm and all that, but there’s nothing more to really talk about, and, well…” she trailed off, looking at Thorax beside her, who patiently looked back, before she decided to change her approach. “…the point is that, for right now, we see us as simply friends. And…I think…that’s all we want for right now.”

“And there’s nothing wrong with being just friends either,” Thorax added, turning to Starlight as he proceeded to back Trixie up. “Especially considering that it wasn’t so long ago that I didn’t really have friends of any type.”

Starlight sighed, grinning a little sheepishly as she saw Thorax’s point. “True,” she conceded. She made a sad sigh. “And I daresay you need them at this point.”

“And even if we are becoming more than friends…” Thorax continued.

“Not saying that we definitely are,” Trixie quickly added, which Thorax nodded in agreement to.

“…it’s probably not likely to work very well anyway,” the changeling went on to finish. “I mean, I like Trixie, I do…but, I have to acknowledge that…well…she’s a pony, and I’m a changeling, and…and we still don’t have especially much in common.”

“Yeah!” Trixie agreed.

Starlight snorted at this. “No offense you two, but I can think of quite a few things you have in common. You’re both masters of illusion, fans of Sky Trek, can clearly relate to each other…”

“Yes, but that’s not everything,” Trixie reasoned.

“It doesn’t have to be.”

“I know, but my point is that we’re bound to have different tastes in plenty of other things that just won’t mesh, like…like music!” She motioned to Thorax with one hoof. “I mean, I’m more of a classic rock fan, and he likes…uh…” she began to trail off, realizing she didn’t actually know.

“Disco,” Thorax offered helpfully as he saw Trixie get hung up.

“Yeah, dis—wait, disco?” Trixie regarded Thorax in surprise. “Really?”

Thorax shrugged casually. “It sounds cheery to me.”

Trixie gave him an incredulous smirk. “You think disco sounds cheery,” she repeated.

Thorax regarded her innocently for a moment. “Yeah, why?”

Trixie thought about it for a second, still smirking. “It’s just not a term you’d think to describe disco with, not to mention I never took you to be a disco fan.”

“Is there a problem with that?”

Trixie’s grin turned genuine. “Well, it’s maybe a bit of a dated genre of music, but other than that, no, I guess not.”

Thorax returned it. “Oh, well…good.”

They grinned at each other for a second then slowly remembered Starlight was still present and turned to look at her again, seeing that she was eyeing them both with a knowing smile once more.

“You two really are adorable, you know that, right?” she quipped.

They both blushed and avoided eye contact with the other. Trixie took over the conversation again. “Starlight, assuming he and I were to do this…”

“Which we aren’t saying we are,” Thorax added.

“…think about just how weird it’d be, for everypony! What would others think? Would they even be willing to accept such a thing?”

“They ought to,” Starlight retorted.

“Yes, but if there’s anything I’ve learned from the past four moons, just because one ought to do something, doesn’t mean they actually are going to do it,” Thorax responded resolutely, staring distantly into his mug. He thought of Spike. “And I worry there will be those…who don’t.”

“And I mean, seriously, a changeling and a pony?” Trixie went on. “Is that even done?”

Thorax suddenly coughed and shifted awkwardly. Both mares noticed and looked, surprised, in his direction, even though he had suddenly found something very interesting to stare at on the wall on the other side of the room, keeping his gaze on it instead of them.

“Thorax…” Starlight began slowly in a knowing tone, recognizing what the changeling didn’t want to come forward on. “…has that actually happened before? A changeling and pony getting into a relationship?”

Thorax winced, but now that he had been asked directly, he felt obligated to reply, even though he clearly didn’t want to. “Sort of,” he answered with much reluctance and without turning around to face them again. “It’s…something that’s not really encouraged in the hive, for obvious reasons. But…I have heard of instances of changelings working out in the field that were getting…shall we say…intimate…with some of their, uh, prey?” He blushed. “I mean, it works out in the end…the changeling gets well fed, and the pony is often either none the wiser or can be trusted not to sell out and safeguard the changeling’s cover for whatever reason…but…yeah, basically it’s happened before.”

“It’s…not a long term thing, though, right?” Trixie asked with a little trepidation. “I mean, they just have their fun for a one-time fling and that’s it, right?”

“…only a few do keep going back for more, actually,” Thorax admitted quietly. “I mean…I don’t know if it’s out of actual romance per se, but…I guess it does suggest it might still be possible now that you’ve mentioned it…so…” he trailed off, leaving the rest of his thought only implied.

Trixie stared at Thorax for a long moment, slowly processing this. Then she pressed her hoof to her forehead. “So wait…you’re telling me that a changeling and a pony can still get it together entirely without issue? No…compatibility issues or anything like that?”

“Well…” Thorax shrugged awkwardly, feeling a little more uncomfortable. “…yeah, not…not for the actual…uh…act of it at least…”

Trixie tilted her head at him, turning skeptical. “But how? I mean…aren’t you…well…I mean, a pony and a changeling are two entirely separate species!”

“Well, yes, but ah…” Thorax tapped his hooves together as his face heated up, and he avoided eye contact with both mares, unable to look them straight in the eye as they continued to talk about the awkward subject. “…anatomically speaking, all the uh…required parts are still there…it’s ah…just uh…” Embarrassed as he was, Thorax started stumbling over words and coughed to try and clear his throat.

Meanwhile, Trixie’s brow wrinkled as she struggled to comprehend this. “But…”

By now, however, Starlight had realized what Trixie’s confusion was about. “Uh, if I may…?” she butted in then, and focused her attention on Trixie. “Yeah, so from what Thorax has explained to me the other day about changeling culture, unlike ponies where it’s all visibly there andwe just choose not to look, they see it as more proper to subtly use magic to hide their, uh, gender-specific parts from public view entirely. That’s why you’re a little thrown off because you haven’t noticed any visible signs of said parts, Trixie.”

Thorax, slow to make the connection, blinked and his gaze turned distant and confused. Trixie, meanwhile, shot Starlight a glare, one that lost power due to the fact that her face had also turned bright red. “Are you insinuating that I’ve been peeking?”

“Yes,” Starlight replied without hesitation, and couldn’t help but smirk a little as she moved to take another sip from her mug.

“Now…wait…” Thorax interjected here, his confusion growing. “…slow down for a second, I, uh, I think you two have lost me here…”

“Thorax,” Trixie said gently, placing a hopeful hoof on his shoulder. “Please do me a favor, and, for just this one instance, stay lost.”

He did, though not intentionally as his brow only furrowed in confusion further. “…huh?”

Trixie, meanwhile, noticed Starlight was giving her that knowing look of hers again. “And don’t you give me that look!” she snapped. “This still doesn’t mean it’s a smart idea to even pursue it! Thorax said it himself that the other changelings don’t try to encourage, and when you think about it, it makes sense! For the changelings, that’s probably like you or me making out with a hayburger!” Starlight had to laugh at this analogy, but Trixie ignored it. “And anyway, assume for a second we were to take this pony and changeling deal all the way to the logical conclusion. Consider the implications that would ultimately follow it! I mean…what the hay would the eventual foals look like?”

“But that’s the catch, there wouldn’t be any foals, ever,” Thorax injected suddenly, twisting around to face the pair again.

Trixie and Starlight regarded him in surprise for a moment. “What do you mean, Thorax?” Starlight asked. “You just said that a pony and changeling are clearly compatible enough for it, so…”

“Well, in the sense that they could mate as many times as they want easily, yes, but that doesn’t mean anything would ever become of it,” Thorax replied, being straightforward despite it clearly making them all feel the more awkward. “It wouldn’t matter whether the participating changeling was the male or the female, no offspring would ever be produced from the relationship. The female just wouldn’t ever conceive. There have been enough instances of it that we changelings can be absolutely certain of that much.”

An awkward silence fell during which Trixie and Starlight spent most of it staring at Thorax, processing this.

“Oh,” Trixie finally said, blushing once more.

“Huh,” Starlight hummed, then, of course, started to think about it analytically. “I suppose it probably has to do with the fact that changelings lay eggs and ponies do not…” she mumbled aloud, not helping with the awkwardness of the matter. “Still, though,” she turned and restored her gaze on Trixie, “I should remind you that there’s much more to a relationship than all of that anyway.”

“Well, of course there is,” Trixie agreed curtly, as if this didn’t even need saying. “Assuming Thorax and I pursue any sort of relationship such as that, I want it to be about more than just the physical aspects of it, anyway.”

Starlight nodded in approval. “And that’s a good perspective to have. I know from experience that focusing just on that one aspect can only leave things feeling…shallow. Remember what I said about the griffon had I been dating?”

“You were dating a griffon?” Thorax asked, intrigued by this idea.

Starlight seemed ready to relate the whole tale again for the changeling. “Yeah, for the last two years of high school, but then…”

“No, no, please don’t repeat that whole spiel again,” Trixie interrupted in exasperation. She sighed. “Starlight, look…I get what you’re trying to do, and you’re just trying to help…but really…you’re starting to feel a bit…pushy…now. It’s really not helping anything, and it’s just making this all feel even more awkward.” She gazed pleadingly at her friend. “Can’t we please be left to figure this out on our own, at our own speed, now?”

Starlight looked at the pleading look of her friend softened, half-grinning in sympathy. “Fair enough,” she conceded with a nod, waving her hoof as if she was sweeping the matter away. “Consider the matter dropped.”

“And can we keep all of this just to ourselves?” Thorax asked, and jerked his head without turning to look in the rough direction of Spike’s bunk. “I…don’t really want all of this…you know…getting around just yet.”

Starlight hummed thoughtfully to herself. “Well, as I was telling Trixie earlier, if the others haven’t noticed that something’s going on yet, they’re going to start here very soon…you are quite likely going to find yourselves getting asked these sort of questions whether you’re ready to answer them or not, you know.”

Trixie and Thorax exchanged side-glances. Neither of them seemed to really like the idea of this, but at the same time they seemed to recognize that Starlight had an undeniable point, and there was only so much they could do to try and control it. “Well then,” Thorax relented, tapping his hooves together as he considered the matter, “I guess maybe we’ll just have to be prepared to explain it the best we can still anyway.”

Starlight grinned. “Oh good,” she said.

“But,” Thorax went on, turning urgent. “I have to insist that we keep Spike out of the loop on what we’ve discussed here for now…he’s…not been taking this well, and I worry…I worry him finding out might…make it worse…the very last thing he needs right now.”

Here, Starlight winced a little. “That…uh…might be a problem.”

Trixie raised an eyebrow. “How do you mean?”

Starlight replied by turning her eyes in the direction of the doorway leading into the saloon. “Good morning, Spike.”

Thorax and Trixie’s eyes both shot wide and they quickly twisted around in their seats to look at the door they had been keeping their backs to, seeing Spike sleepily yawning as he clambered out of his bed, stumbling towards the door separating his cabin from the saloon.

“Morning,” he mumbled back in response to Starlight, stretching and popping his back before pausing in the doorway, realizing with a frown that everyone was looking at him, Thorax and Trixie with notable alarm. “Were…you guys talking about something?”

“No,” Thorax and Trixie immediately and anxiously answered in near perfect sync with each other.

“Okay…” Spike said, giving them a wary look for a second. He pressed on despite his apprehension. “It’s just I thought I heard an ongoing conversation there as I was getting up, so…”

“Did you actually hear anything of that conversation?” Trixie asked hurriedly, her alarm growing.

“Huh? Oh, no, not really, actually, wasn’t really paying much attention.” Spike rubbed at his tired eyes before placing the false eyeglasses he still perpetually wore as part of his disguise onto his snout again. “I mean, I just woke up and all…it wasn’t really high on my attention, you know?”

Thorax abruptly let out his breath in an almost exaggerated sigh of relief before proceeding to drain the rest of his hot chocolate down his throat.

Starlight noticed and focused her attention on the little dragon now entering the room. “Would you like some hot chocolate, Spike?” she asked politely and gently.

“Sure, I could go for some hot chocolate,” Spike mumbled as he stretched each of his arms in turn while walking up to join the rest of them at the table.

Starlight whipped together a fourth cup of the sweet drink with her magic and levitated it over into Spike’s waiting claws. “Here you go.”

“Thanks.” Spike blew on the hot liquid then took a grateful sip. “Mmm,” he hummed to himself, appreciating the drink. He then turned his attention onto the mare that had given it to him. “So, you sleep well, Starlight?”

Starlight shrugged, deciding again she needn’t get into too much detail about her night. “Well enough, I suppose. You?”

“Meh,” Spike grunted, seesawing one set of claws back and forth in indecision. “But I guess so long as I still got enough sleep altogether, that’s what’s important, right?” He took another sip from his drink, gave Thorax and Trixie, who were still watching him closely, a distrustful glance then suppressed another yawn. “Anyway,” he said, turning to leave again, taking the cup with him. “I’m going out onto the deck, get a bit of fresh air.”

He proceeded to walk off again, curiously without verbally acknowledging Thorax or Trixie. This struck Starlight as a little peculiar and found she couldn’t ignore it. “Aren’t you going to ask if Thorax and Trixie slept well too?” she inquired to Spike.

“Nah,” Spike answered with a wave of his claws while proceeding to mount the steps that would take him above deck. He rolled his eyes, clearly annoyed. “From what I saw before I went to bed last night, the two of them looked like they were sleeping just fine.”

He then vanished up the steps while Thorax and Trixie eyes grew even wider in alarm as just what Spike was saying with that statement sank in, realizing they had already been caught.

Meanwhile Starlight, despite everything, nearly kneeled over trying not to laugh.

Author's Note

A somewhat more light-hearted chapter today, which I thought worth squeezing in as a lot of the upcoming chapters will be more serious and intense (obviously). A lot of you saw this scenario coming given the set-up from last chapter.

We've gotten a lot of details about Thorax's thoughts and feelings about the whole him/Trixie deal, but not a lot from Trixie's point of view save some general basics, so I used this as a chance to get deep into her line of thought on it, and what might be keeping her back on it. It proved to be fun, as it was also a chance to characterize a little not just for Trixie, but Starlight as well, exploring their friendship a little. I've always viewed it as having a lot of playful teasing like this, so I'm glad I got the chance to explore it, even if just in passing. It took a few tries and a lot of shuffling around to get it right (and I still fear I've overlooked something in all that editing), but hopefully it paid off.

This chapter also ended up being a bit of my own commentary on common shipping practices that I see. As I've indicated in the comments in the past, I'm not really much of a shipper, often only using romance as a mere side-plot in a story and often never straying outside established canon, so much so that this whole Thorxie deal is a bit irregular given my past practices. That said, I don't have much problem with shipping, but I do take issue with how I see many just throwing A with B almost randomly together without taking into consideration social stigmas that would surely be on the minds of all involved. It is true that what others think might not always be important in the case of love, but let's be honest with ourselves--we always keep it in consideration in our real life affairs regardless. So when deciding to give in to the Thorxie ship, I wanted it very much to be marred with that social stigma trouble, as that just seemed more natural, and thereby, realistic.

Another common shipping troupe I take issue with is the fact that I see shippers pair two different species together and immediately get crossbreed offspring without any problems out of it. And, yes, in the magical world of Equestria, you can hand-wave it and get away with it easy, but to me, magic still doesn't strike me as it'd be quite enough, not in the more passive way Equestria applies it at least, and I just can't see a pony and a changeling being able to conceive and produce any viable offspring, as their two species are just...too different, biologically speaking. And I wanted that to be the case for Trixie and Thorax here, something else for them to consider. I had debated going into more depth on that topic, but never found a natural spot to do it in, so it never happened. That's probably for the better, in retrospect, as it's not likely to be too relevant for the rest of the story, but you know...

Also cut from this chapter was plans for a lengthier discussion on Thorax's taste for disco, in which he actually sings select lines from a number of famous disco songs, but as that whole tidbit was shoe-horned in enough as it was, I figured adding this would only push it over the edge.

A more back-to-roots in tone Spike and Thorax chapter coming up next week. I think you all know the subject matter to be discussed by this point (it seems readers can discuss little else lately, not that I'm complaining).

Terrified

Starlight was the only one who could find amusement in the matter, though. Trixie was heavily embarrassed that she had been pretty much caught in such an awkward situation that was no longer so secret. Thorax felt the same, but was much more concerned about how much all of this bothered Spike. Clearly, he was trying to keep it more or less to himself now, but as a changeling, Thorax could perceive more about Spike’s feelings on the matter than most and knew it was a matter that still deeply troubled him…and yet he was now choosing to effectively turn a blind eye to it, or at least attempting to. Odder still, there was also a sense of reluctance in Spike’s emotions like this wasn’t something he really wanted to do but still felt he didn’t have a choice. It left Thorax somewhat baffled—why was Spike trying so hard to stay out of it now when he had shown so little restraint in not doing so before, even after Thorax had requested Spike try not to be so venomous about it to Trixie at the very least, especially when it clearly seemed he still wanted to?

Unfortunately, clear answers were not forthcoming quickly, as Thorax noticed shortly thereafter, while assisting Starlight in preparing a light breakfast, that Spike was trying to avoid him, or at least as much as one could on an airship this small. More accurately, he was avoiding speaking directly with Thorax. He would permit being the in same room as Thorax when necessary, but he was clearly avoiding speaking to him, preferring to say whatever he needed to at a given moment to someone else over Thorax where possible. When he did speak to Thorax, it was generally kept simple, and he’d change the subject or just cease talking altogether if Thorax tried to move the topic elsewhere. It frustrated Thorax, because it left him unsure how he could possibly proceed and didn’t know what else to do.

And the fact that it bothered him by extension started to bother Trixie too, who was starting to feel responsible. When she noticed Thorax wasn’t making much headway in addressing the matter, let alone resolve it, Trixie had a small inward debate then quietly decided to herself that she would try and do something about it on her own, setting off in search of Spike. Since getting up that morning, Spike had been fairly restless, continuously moving from spot to spot on the airship as if he couldn’t settle on a place he wanted to be. But the airship wasn’t especially large of course, so it didn’t take long before Trixie found him, first spying him leaning on the aft railing of the airship through the navigation room’s rear window. Going quietly so to not draw attention to herself, she stepped out of the deckhouse and then walked around it to the back of the main deck where the dragon remained, not noticing her approach. Trixie stopped a couple feet away from him, not wanting to get too close out of respect for him, and watched him in silence for a moment, trying to gauge the dragon’s present mood. Failing that, she finally chose to speak up.

“Spike?” she prompted quietly.

Spike jumped and twisted around to look at her briefly. “Oh, it’s you,” he grumbled, twisting back to look out over the railing, removing his false eyeglasses so one arm could come up and rub at his face quickly.

Trixie didn’t get enough of a chance to see during that brief second he had turned to face her so she couldn’t be certain, but with a twinge of guilt and worry, she wondered suddenly if Spike had been quietly crying. Fearing what would happen if she guessed wrong on that though, she opted not to ask, and instead sought a new topic with which to engage in conversation. “Starlight’s working on something for breakfast for all of us,” she said, vaguely pointing one hoof behind her. “She’ll probably have it ready soon.”

“Right,” Spike replied curtly, returning his glasses to his face again. Trixie wondered briefly why he was still wearing them if they were only part of a now useless disguise. “Going to tell me what it is she’s making?”

“Uh, some kind of granola cereal thing she’s cobbled together.”

“Oh goody, that sounds positively scrumptious.”

Trixie wrinkled her snout at Spike’s sarcastic tone. “Oh, don’t be like that. At least Starlight’s working at mixing in a few gems into it for you and Ember, so…”

“Well, I’ll be down to get it in a few either way,” Spike interrupted, glancing back at her with narrowed eyes. “Was that all?”

Trixie hesitated, kicking at the deck of the airship with one hoof, debating. Finally she sighed and pressed on regardless. “Look, Spike,” she said, getting to the point. “I know we never got off on the right hoof, and I know I’ve…done some not nice things to you and others in the past, but…I’m sorry for all of it.” She winced to herself. “I’d…list it all out more precisely, but…looking back, it occurs to me there’s a fair bit of it, and…and I wouldn’t want to accidentally forget one, so…” she stopped herself there, realizing she wasn’t making things better, and started over. “Look, I get it, you’re not happy with me right now, but can we maybe try to fix that?”

“You were never the problem, Trixie,” Spike retorted with a snort, turning to face her fully finally.

Trixie was momentarily taken aback. “Really?” she asked, confused. “But…” she tilted her head at Spike. “…do you mean it’s Thorax, then?”

Spike averted his gaze, suddenly looking both sad and apologetic. “Thorax is just being Thorax, and I certainly can’t blame him for doing that.”

“But you’re still not happy with that…are you?”

Spike didn’t reply.

Trixie sighed. “…look, Spike…” she bit her lip. “…I don’t want to stand in the way of your friendship with Thorax, and I’m not trying to.”

Spike closed his eyes for a second before starting to walk off for the other side of the deck, moving past Trixie. But as he did, he said one final thing. “Honestly, Trixie? It’s not you I want to hear that from.”

He then stalked off vanishing behind the other side of the deckhouse, leaving Trixie behind. She turned to watch him go, brow drooping in concern as she considered what little Spike had said on the matter, and eventually was forced to conclude that, whatever needed to be done to sort this out, Trixie wasn’t the one who needed to do it. She went back below deck where Thorax was, still assisting Starlight, and relayed this to him.

“You need to talk to him,” she told him.

“Don’t you think I’ve been trying?” Thorax replied back. “If he really wanted me to do come and talk with him, he wouldn’t be trying so hard to avoid both that and me.”

Trixie frowned. “You think he doesn’t want to sort this out?”

Thorax shook his head sadly. “Worse. I fear he’s given up trying.”

Trixie gazed at him for a moment then put a hoof on his shoulder. “Hey…even if that’s the case…I don’t think you should give up on it just yet.”

Thorax regarded Trixie then looked at her hoof. He gently brushed it off his shoulder, but he did so with an appreciative look in his solid blue eyes. “Thank you for trying to help, Trixie,” he said.

They left it at that, the two turning back to their separate activities. Thorax spent the time debating to himself how he could try and sort things out with Spike, or at least get talking with him without Spike trying to brush him off, unwilling to listen, but he still remained uncertain how he could do so, fearing he might still have no success. So as he continued assisting Starlight with breakfast, he quietly brought up the subject with her, hoping she could give him some advice.

“Well, you’ve really only got two options at this point,” Starlight admitted a little dejectedly, knowing this wasn’t going to be especially helpful. “You can either try and force a confrontation and hope that actually helps to smooth things over and not make it worse, or you can just hold off, give Spike some distance, and hope he’ll come to you whenever he’s ready to talk.”

Thorax grunted, unsatisfied with those options. “Neither are exactly ideal, are they?” he grumbled.

Starlight gave him a sympathetic look. “Unfortunately, it’s the best I’ve got, and when you really think about it, any way you approach it is going to fall into one of those general two categories.” She sighed. “I can understand your hesitation though…both have the danger of only making things worse, and of course, none of us want that.” She glanced back at Thorax. “If it helps, I was able to speak with him last night and smooth a few of our personal things over, and to do it, I chose to face him directly and force a confrontation, and that seems to have worked out okay…he’s at least being more cordial around me now. But even then…I had to dance on the line for most of that, and it could’ve gone either way still.”

“I’m glad it went well for you regardless,” Thorax stated, glancing back at her. “I was hoping you and Spike could make some amends. I’m just sorry it took a gamble to do it.”

“Yes, well, admittedly at that point I didn’t exactly have a great deal to lose,” Starlight admitted to herself. “If it had gone wrong, it would’ve only made Spike mad at me, and considering he was already that going in, it wouldn’t have changed things much, I guess. It’s not the same for you, though. You’re his friend…and that friendship could end up on the line with just one wrong step.”

“I fear it already is,” Thorax mumbled aloud.

Starlight watched him thoughtfully for a second. “That friendship really does mean a lot to the two of you, doesn’t it?” she asked.

“You have to understand Starlight, there were some days when that friendship was all we had,” Thorax answered, and sighed himself. “Well…at any rate, I’m just going to have to keep an eye on things and try and do what I can to keep things stable for now.”

Starlight placed a reassuring hoof on his shoulder. “I hope that no matter what, things work out for the both of you,” she said. She then turned back to the makeshift granola she had been prepping and after making a few final touches to the large mixing bowl of it that she had been making, she dusted off her hooves. “Well, this is about ready anyway. I suppose one of us ought to go fetch Ember…”

“I’ll go take over the helm from her and send her on down,” Thorax volunteered automatically, moving to leave and head above deck.

Starlight turned to watch him depart. “Are you going to be coming for breakfast too?” she asked.

Thorax shook his head, but gave her polite grin. “Honestly, I’m not that hungry…I think I’ve had my fill already.” Indeed, his two-chambered stomach already felt full and content with a healthy supply of positive emotion that he had managed to passively collect at some point, probably throughout the night. He opted not to mention that it probably stemmed from his and Trixie’s sleep during the night, nor did he mention that the high-fiber granola probably would agree less with his changeling digestion than most other solid foods would. “So don’t worry about me…go ahead and eat without me. Besides, someone still needs to tend to the helm, so it might as well be me.”

And with that, he headed on up and into the control cabin above deck, finding Ember still standing at the helm and keeping the Vergilius on course as instructed. “Hello, Dragon Lord Ember,” he greeted as he arrived and strolled up to join her at the helm. “I can take over now while you go below to get some—”

“Oh, there you are!” Ember abruptly interrupted, whirling to look at Thorax impatiently. “I’ve been waiting for you to show up! It’s about time you finally pulled yourself off of Trixie!”

Thorax stopped short at this comment and tried to suppress a groan, his expression a mixture between embarrassed and frustrated that it seemed everyone on the airship already knew where he and Trixie had been at during the night. “Look, nothing happened, it’s not at all as it looks—”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever,” Ember interrupted again, not interested in hearing Thorax’s explanation, instead locking the helm controls and grabbing Thorax by one holed hoof so to drag him in front of the controls, but turning him so he faced away from the controls and back at the rest of the control cabin’s interior. “You stay there, and don’t you dare move.” She then about faced and proceeded out the deckhouse exit for the main deck before Thorax could even finish processing what had happened. “I’ll be right back.”

Thorax blankly watched her go for a second, feeling lost as to what it was the dragoness was trying to do. After a couple of seconds though, he started to twist around and look over things in the control cabin. He had begun to face the helm again to make sure everything was operating smoothly and that they were still on course (they were) when Ember reentered and, to Thorax’s surprise, was bodily carrying Spike in her arms.

“Ember, put me down!” Spike cried, protesting to what Ember was doing.

The cry seemed to fall on deaf ears though as Ember turned her attention to Thorax upon entering and noticed he had turned to face the helm again. “Oi!” she cried, snapping her claws to get his attention. “Eyes forward on us, not the steering wheel!”

Thorax quickly twisted around to face away from the helm as she had first positioned him again, realizing that going against Ember’s demands at the moment might be unwise right now.

Ember then plopped the still-objecting Spike down in front him. “There!” she declared with finality. She pointed a claw at Spike. “Now you tell him,” she moved her claw to point at Thorax, “what you” the claw moved back to Spike and then onto herself, “told me last night. And don’t either of you leave this room until you’ve got it sorted out, got it?”

“But…” Thorax started to object.

“I’m not…” Spike also started to protest in the same instant.

“Ahshshsh!” Ember interrupted, shushing them both. “Neither of you leave until then, so sayeth me!” She then turned to exit again, this time heading below deck.

“But what about my breakfast?” Spike objected hotly.

“Fine,” Ember relented as she started down the steps, jabbing a claw at them both once more. “But don’t move.”

She then vanished below deck for a moment. This was soon followed by a distant clattering sound, accompanied by a vocal objection from Starlight, before Ember reappeared on the steps, only going up them far enough so that her head and upper torso poked over the steps, allowing her to set down a bowl filled with granola and a few gems haphazardly stuck into it then slide it across the wooden deck until it bumped into Spike’s leg, scattering a few small pieces of the granola as it went.

“There!” Ember declared. “Talk while you eat if you must. Just talk already, you two!”

She then left. Spike and Thorax stared in the direction of the steps then glanced at each other, Thorax warily and Spike grumpily.

“She’s very…assertive,” Thorax noted aloud finally.

“Ember’s not the sort of dragon to take no for an answer,” Spike observed curtly, pulling one of the gems out of the bowl full of granola and biting into it with a gravely crunch.

A long and awkward silence fell between them as neither of them was eager to be the next to speak. Thorax spent most of it fretting, eyes wandering aimlessly as he fought over what to do or say next, well aware of the delicate position he had been forced into. Ultimately though, he decided he needed to take the opportunity to at least start and let it go where it will from there, and there was no better way to start than with what felt like the most obvious thing to begin with.

“Forced confrontation it is, then,” he first mumbled to himself before beginning to address Spike directly, louder but still speaking timidly. “Look, Spike…I’m sorry about all of this.”

Spike snorted and shook his head, looking almost apologetic. “Don’t apologize for anything,” he muttered but not quite managing to make eye contact. “If anything, I should be apologizing for…well…for being a jerk. You’ve just been trying to make the best of things, while I’ve been rebelling and ending up the jerk nobody likes.”

“That’s not true, Spike,” Thorax said softly. “You’ve just been…justifiably troubled.”

Spike snorted again. “It’s still no excuse.”

Thorax hesitated for a second while watching Spike finish off the first crystal from his provided breakfast. “Maybe it is,” he said, more to himself than anything. He sighed. “Look, it’s clear to everybody that I’ve done something that’s bothering you, and I just want to try and make it right again so that doesn’t have to be the case, Spike.”

Spike made a curt, false, and altogether weak laugh. “Thorax…our friendship’s coming apart.”

Thorax nodded solemnly. “I know. I want to prevent that.” He tilted his head sadly at Spike. “Don’t you?”

“Of course I do, Thorax.” Spike paused for a moment, tilting the bowl of granola in his claws idly, watching the contents sift and stir around as he did so. “But… if the past few days have shown anything…it’s maybe that the path you need to be on…just isn’t the same as mine…and we just might have to accept that.”

Thorax kept shaking his head, denying this and not at all ready to even consider it. “I don’t believe that.”

“You’re going to have to, I fear,” Spike grumbled, scowling suddenly, angry.

“You can’t be satisfied with that, though.”

“I’m not. That friendship is practically the last worthwhile possession I have. I’ve lost everything else, after all. Twice, even. I have nothing else to my name except the clothes on my back, a pile of parchments full of random ramblings I’ve convinced myself might actually be worth something…and you. You are all I have left, my one and only belonging, so to speak, the valuable I want keep close and keep entirely to just me. But I can’t, can I? Because I still want you on your way to a good life independent of things that would otherwise bar your path or hold you back. It’s all I have left to live for, making sure you succeed…that you not just survive but also thrive, and go on to have that good and happy life you deserve so very deeply. If something were to prevent that…something that happens to you…I-I can’t even bear to think it. I…” Spike shook his head, tearing up. “…I think I’d lose it, if that happened, Thorax. And I desperately want to avoid that…even if that means I lose out in the process. That’s why our friendship can’t continue, Thorax. Your paths are going separate from mine, and I won’t stand in the way of that.”

Thorax gaped at him. “And you’re just going to let it?”

“I can’t keep being the scorned little dragon who wants to horde you to himself like some kind of foal with a favorite toy, to ensure nothing ever happens to you!” Spike stopped to wipe at his eyes with one arm. “Look, last night, Ember expressed concern that I was being too lenient and always letting you have your way when she knew I didn’t want to or thought it wise, that’s what she was wanting me to tell you earlier…but after you made me realize I was basically dooming all of Equestria just to settle a grudge I really just have against one pony who not only wasn’t there when I needed her but also wants to hurt you, that prized possession of mine…that’s when I realized…realized my greed was being unfair not just to all of them…but especially to you. If I were to keep you protected forever, I’d be happy that you stayed safe, but you’d never find happiness or much freedom…and…I care for you too much to let that happen to you. So even though I hate it to death and as much as I don’t want to do it, I’ve been trying to back off…letting you do what you need to do, Thorax, what you want to do, and trying harder to keep in mind your own desires. You deserve that freedom, I’ve said that since the beginning. And by golly…I’m going to see you get it, even if it’s the last thing I do. No matter the price.”

“And even if you lose the very thing you want in the process,” Thorax murmured, believing he was starting to understand.

Spike nodded sadly, hanging his head.

Thorax shook his head. “But that’s not good enough for me,” he said. “What about your own needs? Your own concerns? Your own fears? You deserve a better life, too.” He kept shaking his head sadly at his dragon friend, tilting it with concern. “Spike…this is not a path I like you being on. I want better for you.”

“I can’t have better, Thorax. We’ve quite clearly established that now. After everything I’ve been through, everything I’ve had to suffer, and losing out again and again at finding a stable and happy life, continually getting it ripped out from under me repeatedly, I’ve given up on being happy, anyway! So you just go! Have your happy little life, and don’t waste time worrying about me! I lost my chance for such a life, and I’ll just have to live with it but that doesn’t mean you have to too. Either way…clearly we both can’t be happy.”

Thorax gazed at him stubbornly for a moment. “And if I refuse to accept that?”

Spike gazed at him with a look that was partly terrified, partly distraught, and partly furious. “Please don’t,” he pleaded.

But Thorax stood his ground. “No,” he stated resolutely, making his choice. His gaze narrowed determinedly, “I’m not going to stand to one side and neglect your needs like this, Spike, not after everything you’ve done for me. You gave up everything to help me after all, Spike, you can’t get more selfless than that!”

“You would’ve died if I didn’t, Thorax,” Spike spoke levelly, like it didn’t make a difference.

But it did to Thorax. “Exactly. I owe my very life to you, Spike, and I’ve long wanted to repay you for that somehow.” Thorax shook his head, ashamed. “But instead, I’ve let my excitement at trying to achieve my desire for better relations with Equestria distract me…and foolishly letting you get left behind as a result, overlooking the damage I am bringing you, even though it’s been staring me in the face, haven’t I?” Thorax blinked back tears quickly before proceeding. “Spike, you’ve sacrificed enough for me already, and through my neglect to you, now you’re on the verge of sacrificing too much, enough that you’re losing yourself…just for my sake…and I canNOT ask you to do that. Its past time I did something to return the favor. It’s time I sacrificed things for you and your own benefit, just like what you have for me.” He shook his head, ashamed, rising to his hooves and staring to pace. “Informis Una auxilio mihi tribuit, I should’ve done so far sooner than now…”

Spike raised his gaze at Thorax, eyes narrowing into a glare of denial. “I will not let you take the blame for this. You’ve done nothing wrong.”

“Yes I have, and the more I listen to you berate yourself, the more I am ashamed by what I see. Spike…you’re falling apart, and clearly I’ve not done enough to help resolve it! Clearly I’ve been ignoring your words, your desires, your needs, your decaying spirit, just so I can indulge in a silly little dream! No more of that, Spike! No more! Not when the price is losing you. I am NOT willing to pay that price, not ever!”

“No, no,” Spike intoned, standing up suddenly, motioning to himself. “Thorax, I’m too far gone…lost too much to be able to ever recover—as much as you want to, you can’t fix that!”

“Watch me,” Thorax vowed, stamping one hoof down in determination. “I’m not doing a thing more until I’ve seen to it that you are out of this horrible place I’ve stupidly let you fall into. And I’ll do what I need to do to straighten this out, whatever that might be, even if it means I stop chasing that dream, distance myself from ponies that are clearly only distracting me—”

He was cut short when Spike suddenly hurled the bowl of granola in his claws down hard onto the floor. “Don’t you dare!” he shouted. “Don’t you DARE!” Enraged and distraught simultaneously, he was suddenly upon Thorax, grabbing the changeling by the collar of his jacket, surprising Thorax enough that he stumbled backwards and bumped into the helm behind him, accidentally unlocking the controls. Spike didn’t do it out of malice though, but out of pleading. “I’ve been through Tartarus and BACK getting you this far, Thorax, I am NOT going let you just throw it all away like this, everything I’ve worked so hard to help you earn, I refuse to let you do that, not for my sake!” Spike hollered, tears streaming from his eyes. “You are on the verge of getting EVERYTHING and that’s wonderful, absolutely wonderful—it’s not worth it letting that go trying to futilely fix someone as broken as me that has no hope having any of that himself!”

“But you do have that hope, Spike, and maybe you can’t see it, but I can! And I will not accept that life at the price of your own, Spike, because this should be a wonder you can share in too, and I don’t ever want to hear you tell yourself otherwise!” Thorax only retorted back, tears beginning to flow from his own eyes as he threw off Spike’s claws and then grabbed the little dragon in a bear hug, almost as if afraid that if he let the dragon go, he’d vanish forever. “Of all the things I’ve gained in the past four moons Spike, you are the one most important to me out of them all…and I’m not about to let that go just because you’ve lost hope in yourself. I’ve been neglecting that as of late in light of recent events and getting all caught up in that, but I swear to you now…I’m going to help you get that hope back. I don’t know how…but I am going to.”

Spike was shaking his head, buried in Thorax’s jacketed chest, weeping openly. “You…you…” he murmured, sounding like he was trying to shout out some sort of insult but was failing. He eventually trailed off, his words falling into a stream of sobbing.

They both sat there in silence for several minutes, save for the sound of their respective weeping for each other. Finally, the initial flood of tears out of the way, the emotions of the two started to cool some, enough that the ability to speak coherently returned.

“What’s happened to us, Spike?” Thorax asked forlornly. “We were the closest of friends for moons, and then in the space of a mere few days, that’s all starting to come apart…and I fear we only have ourselves to blame.”

“I know,” Spike said, and he met Thorax’s gaze finally, looking despondent. “That’s what I’m afraid of.” He wrapped Thorax tightly in a hug of his own. “You are the greatest friend I’ve ever had, Thorax…and I am terrified of losing that for any reason.”

“So am I,” Thorax responded, giving Spike an extra squeeze in return. “But what terrifies me more is that despite that unsettling you so much, you’ve just given up trying to fight it anymore.” He shook his head. “Spike, please tell me honestly…how long have you felt like this?”

Spike rubbed at his wet eyes. “Awhile,” he replied vaguely.

“How long is ‘awhile?’”

“I don’t know…I haven’t really been keeping track.”

“Best guess, then.”

“Why? Why is it so important when I realized I was past the point of no return?”

“A couple of reasons, one of which is that I know, less than a moon ago, you were starting to relax and settle in back at Vanhoover, being anything but past the point of no return.”

“No, I wasn’t…I was still living in fear of being discovered on up until Twilight did precisely that.”

“Okay, maybe, but there was still a point where that fear was at its all-time lowest.”

“And that was?”

“When you started rebuilding your comic collection.”

Spike glanced up at him in surprise. “Rebuilding my—what does that have to do with anything?”

“Everything,” Thorax replied. “Because you had been considering doing it well before then, but you still held off, because you knew you couldn’t take it with you if we had to leave Vanhoover.”

“And I was right, and I didn’t.”

“No you didn’t…but the fact you started it anyway says you had reached a point where you still saw things as stable…and that you weren’t going to go anywhere anytime soon. In short, Spike…you felt safe enough to do it…you were starting to look after yourself for a change, doing what you wanted or needed.” Thorax gazed at Spike in lament. “At the time, in fact…you had seemed to be in pretty good spirits…the best I had seen you in a long time…it made me think that maybe you were past the danger of falling into states like this…and maybe that’s when I stopped paying attention to it when I should’ve kept doing so still…but regardless, it saddens me that you’ve lost all that progress now, which is the other reason why I want to know how long you’ve felt like this. If I knew when it started…maybe we can figure out why, too.”

Spike sniffled to himself for a moment. “Well, it was before trying to rebuild the comic collection then, though I suppose the full reality was still sinking in at that time…”

“Before?” Thorax grew puzzled. “Then…what got you going down the lane of thought that’s led us to…well…here?”

Spike pressed his head against Thorax’s chest sadly again. “I guess it was when I first started to suspect our friendship was coming to an end.”

Thorax shook his head to himself, hugging the dragon closer. “And what makes you so sure it was way back then?” he asked determinedly.

“Because I think we were already drifting away anyway whether we realized it or not, and we’ve only kept on going ever since.”

“But what made you think that?”

“…you felt like you were drifting away, Thorax, getting…distant. Caught up in your own things, and…and that didn’t include me.”

Thorax frowned, wondering if that was possibly true and he had simply failed to notice. If so, it only made him feel all the more guilty about it. “If that’s the case, I wasn’t trying to. I’m still not trying to now, Spike, I swear I’m not. I would have at least worried too much about your well-being and you getting left behind if I was.”

“But you have, too distracted to pay attention, because it’s not just me you have to worry about anymore, now is it?”

“Then who—?” Thorax pulled back a little, looking Spike in the eye as he suddenly understood. “Trixie. You’re talking about me and Trixie, aren’t you?”

Spike averted his gaze as if ashamed, but he nodded his head, starting slowly and reluctantly, but quickly with increasing speed and emphasis. “I can’t lie, Thorax, I’m not a fan of Trixie…but…it was never really her specifically that was the problem. Sure, I may find her ego annoying as all hay…but I’m not an idiot, Thorax. I know she’s trying to turn her life around. How successful she’s being at it is another topic…but it’s not her I ever had the issue with, it was…” he hesitated, burying his face in Thorax’s chest again. “…it was the thought that, with you starting to spend so much time with her…when were you ever going to have any time left for me?”

Thorax stared at him in shock. “Is that what this has been about? You’re just afraid Trixie is going to take me away from you?” When Spike sheepishly nodded, Thorax pulled him close for another hug. “Oh, Spike.” He took a deep breath. “All of this, you losing hope in yourself and overlooking your needs like this…that’s all been because I met Trixie, wasn’t it?” Spike nodded again. Thorax shuddered to himself, his heart feeling weighed down with guilt. “And that was because I’ve lied to you about how close we’ve gotten ever since we first met…isn’t it?” Another nod. Thorax sighed, realizing the depth of his error. “Look…there’s no point in denying it because this much is certainly true: you are no longer the only friend I have anymore, and Trixie…Trixie certainly is special to me, I won’t deny that either, and there’s a lot about that I’ve been…been really caught up trying to figure out. But none of that should matter…because you are a whole other type of special to me, different from Trixie. You’re not just my best friend…you’re my first friend. And you needn’t fear, Spike, because nothing is ever going to change that. Not anything. Not even Trixie, even if I do choose to…become closer still with her…and I’m sorry I never made that clear to you sooner, because I should’ve, I really, really, should’ve.” He paused, debating to himself for a moment. “You know, you say you’ve been doing these sort of things wanting to keep in consideration my own desires and attempts at happiness, even if it meant pushing me away…but did it ever occur to you, that I’ve been trying to do the same thing for you?”

Spike was quiet for a moment, but he didn’t remove his face from Thorax’s chest. “You have?” he asked softly, sounding like he had been caught off guard by this.

Thorax nodded slowly. “For starters, why do you think I didn’t confront you sooner about your…your unresolved emotions? I was trying to respect your wants and desires and above all, your privacy, by staying out of a matter you clearly never wanted to delve too deeply into. I knew addressing it was going to cause you pain…and I certainly didn’t want that.”

Spike didn’t seem very swayed by this though. “That hardly compares, Thorax.”

“But it’s not the only example.” Thorax averted his gaze for a second, fearing the reaction admitting this might cause, but he knew he had to say it. “The night I was at Trixie’s show in Vanhoover, while we were talking afterwards…she offered me the chance to leave Vanhoover with her and join her show.” He felt Spike stiffen at this, but Thorax pressed on before he could say anything. “I turned her down at that time, of course, for a number of reasons…but one big one was because…doing that would likely mean parting ways with you, leaving you behind…and I couldn’t do that, not then. You still needed my support…and I think I still needed yours, too. We both probably still do now.”

Spike was again quiet for a moment before responding. “Things have since changed, though, Thorax,” he pointed out sadly.

“Indeed,” Thorax admitted, and took a deep breath as he went on to admit another reveal. “Which is why when Trixie made the offer again this past evening…I was more willing to consider it.” He again felt Spike stiffen, but Thorax wrapped his hooves tighter around the little dragon before Spike could do or say anything. “She’s ready to let you come with this time though, if you’re willing, which certainly helps…but the real reason I’m more willing to consider it this time though is…more because I was thinking that, if we pull this rescue off and smooth things out with the princesses like I hope we’ll be able to…you were going to want to try and return to live in Ponyville, try and rebuild something akin to what you had lost…where you weren’t going to need me playing such a constant role in your life, and thus…leaving me off to the side and in need of some place to go. Of course, I’d still visit as often as I could in such an instance…but I was thinking that…that would be the time where I would need to respect your own wants in life…and part ways and go my own way in life…” he heaved a sad sigh, shuddering with repressed sadness, “…even if I didn’t really want to.”

He felt Spike tighten his grip around his barrel, the dragon pressing his face harder into the changeling’s chitinous chest as if fearing Thorax would depart now and wanted to keep him close. “You…you were really willing to do that…just because you thought I’d…I’d be happier that way?”

Thorax nodded. “Yeah. Because…because your happiness matters to me too, Spike.”

“But Thorax…I don’t want you to go anywhere.”

At this, Thorax had to smile a little, realizing that they were more on the same page than they thought. “Good, because I don’t want you to go anywhere either if I can help it,” he said. “And if you want me to stay, I certainly will.” He swallowed heavily, feeling a swell of emotions rising in his chest. “Look, I’ll admit, there might still be times when others need my support for one reason or another that require my focus on them, or times when I’m slow on the uptake on your own troubles like I’ve clearly been these past few days…but I’m still not about to let any of that take away my friendship with you, not for a moment. I will always and forever be there for you in the end and for as long as you need me, Spike…no matter what. On the name of the Informis Una herself, I swear it. That friendship of ours will not end. I will not allow it…and I’d like to think you won’t either.”

With Spike’s face still buried in his chest, Thorax couldn’t clearly see the dragon’s face, but he didn’t need to, as the despairing sadness in his emotions were suddenly replaced with a bright and vibrant flare of hope, one Thorax realized he hadn’t sensed in Spike in quite a long time. He found it was a very welcome change. “You really mean that?” the dragon asked in a hopeful squeak.

Thorax didn’t even hesitate in his response. “Of course, Spike, you shouldn’t even have to ask that. After all, you are my greatest friend, too.” He patted the little dragon on the back for a second, before reaching in and lifting his chin so he was looking up at Thorax’s face. “You know,” he assured softly, “I think you have a lot more than you give yourself credit for. You act like you’ve hit bottom, and that you have nothing at all…but I disagree. You’ve had it rough these past few moons certainly, we both have, but you still have potential, Spike, just as much as I do, to go and do good things. You’ve already demonstrated that in loyally supporting me for all these moons, an act I can’t begin to thank you enough for… there’s no reason not to believe that you can’t do that again, or to go further still.” He poked Spike in the belly. “Especially with that big heart of yours. You also have talent, of all sorts…and you have an amazing and analyzing head on your shoulders.” Thorax’s gaze turned distant, remembering. “I…was told once, not so long ago, that anyone can do as they’re told, but only a few think for themselves, keeping in mind the bigger picture. And you do that, you think beyond what you’re told, Spike, and consider if there could be a better way to do something than what you’re told.”

Spike snorted. “Don’t you do that, though? Isn’t that how you got to this point in the first place?”

“Sort of. But with me…I’m more reckless.”

“You? Reckless?”

Thorax shrugged. “Maybe not in the traditional sense…but yeah, I think I’d have to be. Looking back…I’ve kind of always tended to pick the first plan that feels right to me, and then I just go and try to act upon it, regardless of the consequences or the risks. I sort of always felt the risks would be worth it if the end results still paid off…and in so doing, I took risks that could’ve backfired and threatened our well-being well before now. Interacting with the likes of Ragg and Trixie, going about and exploring Vanhoover without regard…all of those instances could’ve ended badly for us…if I hadn’t gotten lucky and it went our way anyway. And when it did, I patted myself on the back and decided that made it okay to take such a risk again…as such I kept pursuing my ideals without ever really acknowledging the damage that could come with it.” He then gave Spike a nudge. “But you did, you always knew better and always tried to tell me as such, even though I regret that I don’t think I always listened as much as I should’ve…and I certainly haven’t been doing that enough lately either, for which I truly do deeply apologize for Spike…regardless, my point is that, unlike me, you were never so ready to take such a risk, at least not without plenty of just cause to support it. You thought about it and considered all the options first, then picked the one that seemed the best available. I think that’s what you’re trying to do now…only now you’ve convinced yourself you don’t have as many options as you really do.”

Thorax paused to take a breath, averting his gaze as he did so, collecting his thoughts but then just as quickly returning his gaze onto Spike. “But most important of all…you are far from alone, Spike. It’s not just me—you have plenty of other friends: Miss Fly, various patrons to her shop, Dragon Lord Ember, Fluttershy…and there are plenty more who still want to be your friend. Starlight, Trixie, Princess Luna…all of them have expressed at some point that they want to reconnect with you, to make reparations for what happened and become a friend to you again…and from what we’ve been told, they are far from alone. By the sounds of it, most of Twilight’s friends wish to reconnect with you. I think you have far more friends and allies both in and out of Equestria than you’ve been telling yourself.”

Spike turned his head, gaze turning vacant and thoughtful, but also puzzled as he considered all of this.

Thorax pressed on though, turning firm. “But friendship is two-way, Spike,” he continued. “It isn’t all take all the time…you have to also give back, too. And I worry what your problem, your real problem, is that you’ve been refusing these attempts to be friends with others even now, because you’ve convinced yourself you can’t have them…and you’re only pushing them away, isolating yourself needlessly from those you need to help support you…even me. You don’t have to do that, though. And in the case of me, you’re trying to give all, but take nothing back in return…and while your intentions are beyond well-meaning in that…that’s not really how it works, Spike. Friends work best when you let the other give back a little too.”

Thorax gazed wandered off a bit, Spike watching the changeling as he did this, thoughts thinking of other things. “Actually…it’s sort of like the situation with the other changelings, but in reverse. They’re trying to take all and give nothing in return, and are left feeling they’re the ones getting demonized as a result. Worst, when you take all and give nothing back…then ultimately, there’s only going to be so much to take and still not enough to go around.”

“So you’re saying they should try giving more,” Spike reasoned, the first time he had spoken in a little bit, but demonstrating he was very much listening to Thorax.

Thorax nodded. “Exactly,” he said. “I’m positive I’m not the first to ever try it, of course, but…I think why I succeeded where others haven’t is that…others probably tried by giving all but refusing to take back what they needed to survive, thinking that was the wrong thing to do.”

“So they just kept giving and giving…” Spike began summing up.

“…until they could give up no more,” Thorax finished with a solemn nod. “And, being a changeling, either starved…or gave up and went back to the old way of just taking it all out of desperation, deciding anything else couldn’t be done after all.”

“But then that’s the secret,” Spike realized, and again he perked up with a sudden flare of hope. He looked to Thorax with a bit of eagerness bleeding onto his face. “You succeeded in being the good changeling and befriending those who would normally be mere enemies or prey not by giving all your love, but rather by giving just what you needed, and taking only what you needed and was given to you back in return, that way all get the love and none go without.”

Thorax chuckled a little. “When you say it like that, you make it sound easy,” he noted.

“It’s because it is, it has to be,” Spike reasoned, and he stood. “If you could just convince the other changelings of that…”

“And I hope to, one day,” Thorax agreed, standing as well. “But it’s not that easy. You have to keep in mind just how engrained the idea that a changeling must take everything just to survive is. To them, to give up anything would be almost suicidal. It’s going to take more than just a few well-placed words to get them to see there’s a better way, I’ve always known that.”

“Show them, then,” Spike reasoned, motioning to Thorax. “Show them that if you can live doing it, so can they.”

“And I will,” Thorax assured, ruffling Spike’s spines and pleased to see Spike suddenly so eager. “But not today. Right now, we’ve got bigger problems to face in that we need to stop their plans to conquer Equestria and free the princesses they have captured. And that’ll be a big enough bite to chew as it is…I don’t think we need to add to it.” He shrugged. “Besides, even if we succeed perfectly at this plan, I doubt the hive’s going to be going anywhere afterwards. There will still be the chance to come back and make my case properly, when the time’s better for it.” He sighed then looked Spike in the eye. “But we’re getting off topic. What we’re talking about right now isn’t about them…this is about you and me.”

Spike sighed and averted his gaze. “Yeah,” he admitted dejectedly. He shook his head sadly. “Look, Thorax…I…I just…”

“Spike,” Thorax interrupted, placing a hoof on the dragon’s shoulder. “I know, like my changeling brethren, you have things engrained now that seem too hard to change or that you may not want to change right now. And…I don’t want to be the one to tell you what to do. I’ve tried that already…and I worry it’s only been making things worse by giving you the feeling you’ve lost control of your own life. Maybe there are some of those things we’re both going to just have to live with for now, work at gradually changing over time. But…trust me…change can still be good. You needn’t always fear it. And…just like what you believe for me…you deserve better too. You’ve been trying so hard to ensure I get that better life for myself…can’t I still try to do the same for you?”

Tears formed in Spike’s eyes again, but the mood behind them felt different this time. “Of course you can, Thorax,” he said. “I…I never meant to act like you couldn’t, it’s just…it’s hard to believe things could ever be…as good as they once were…it feels like I’ve fallen so much that I can never get it all back…not entirely.”

Thorax licked his lips thoughtfully, bowing his head as he knew what he was about to say would be upsetting. “Spike…even I know that the life you had once before, living happily and peacefully with Twilight and her friends in Ponyville without care or worry…that’s gone forever now. And no matter how much both of us wish it wasn’t so…we shouldn’t pretend that it’s ever going to come back, because it isn’t. Too much has happened, and too much has changed. We might be able to get select parts of it back again, and I hope for your sake we do, but it can’t be put back to the same way it was in full, not ever.” He watched Spike for a second, studying the dragon’s expression and noting his emotions, trying to gauge his reaction to this. When the reaction didn’t prove to be immediately negative, he pressed on with what he hoped would be a slightly cheerier note. “But…maybe we shouldn’t try. In this misery we’ve brought upon both of ourselves in various ways…I’d like to think there’re still new rays of light and hope we’ve opened up too that we can pursue instead. Either way, the old is gone, so now it’s time to start anew. Go in new directions in life, see what happiness those can bring, what new things we can achieve through them, and…” he paused, knowing this was a subject they had both touched upon before. But he knew it still needed to be said. “…move on.”

Spike mulled upon Thorax’s words for a second. “You think letting go of the past and…just starting from scratch, really is the best option available to me, then?” he asked.

Thorax chose his words carefully in replying, careful to not let Spike allow him to tell him what to do. “It’s an option available to you,” he corrected. “You…you do whatever you think is best, Spike, and whatever it is…I’ll try to do my best to support you in this, within reason.” He shook his head. “Whatever you do, know that I don’t want things to be just about me, but rather both of us, together. I have my own needs, true, but let me see to them for now. In the meantime, you have your own needs, right? What do you need to do to see to them?”

Spike thought about it for a second. “I honestly don’t know,” he admitted. He seemed troubled, and his emotions suggested he was frustrated in himself. “It’s…been so long since I’ve even really thought about it…”

“Tell me what you’d like then. It doesn’t matter how impossible it might seem right now. We’ve already talked at length about my dreams…what are some of yours, Spike?”

Spike fidgeted with his claws awkwardly. “…I’d like a home again,” he admitted, though with some uncertainty. “You know…someplace I know I can be safe at…someplace I wouldn’t have to just up and leave again anytime soon. Someplace I can live an ordinary life, where I don’t have to lie to those I care about in order to survive, like what we did in Vanhoover. Someplace…peaceful.”

“What else?” Thorax prompted, urging Spike on. When Spike didn’t immediately continue, he sought to make a suggestion. “Maybe someplace with friends?” When Spike averted his gaze again, he frowned, tilting his head sadly. “Or…do you prefer to stay in seclusion? Push those you could meet away?”

Spike frowned and hung his head, catching onto what Thorax was trying not to imply but was clearly thinking. “Thorax, I’m not deliberately trying to push anyone away,” he said. “Not really…I…never wanted to admit it, but…deep down…I don’t like the idea of…of being alone and on my own. It’s just…after all of this…my trust has been shattered so badly…it’s hard to want to trust anyone but me now…and you, of course.”

“I know,” Thorax said with a nod. “I can understand that and relate to a certain degree. After all the scorn we’ve faced, it’s safe to say that opening ourselves up to others only to have them turn against us in the end is a very real fear, and not an unjustified one.”

“Right,” Spike agreed. “But…at the same time…I don’t like that I do have that fear…in fact it makes me…angry…angry at myself. I want to open up and make friends again, but…” he shook his head again. “Honestly, Thorax? I’m too scared to.”

“So start small,” Thorax reasoned. He grinned encouragingly. “Besides…you aren’t alone. You have me and others who want to help that you can call friends already.”

Spike grinned a little. “I guess maybe I do,” he said. “It’s…it’s just easy to forget that, sometimes.” He looked at Thorax a bit more optimistically. “Maybe you have a point, then. Maybe what I need to do is not so much make new friends…but let the ones I already have back in.”

Thorax grinned a little himself, but he chose not to comment, wanting to leave the choice to do that or not to Spike. “So what can I do to help you obtain those things?”

Spike grinned a little, heartened by this show of support his changeling friend was giving in such earnest. “You know, I honesty haven’t the foggiest,” he admitted truthfully. He turned his head to look Thorax in the eye. “But you know what? Just…talking about it is making life…feel a bit more bearable right now.”

Thorax grinned. “Good.”

The two friends pulled each other close in a one-armed hug and gazed ahead of them and out the forward viewport they now both faced.

Spike eventually took a deep breath. “I’m sorry, Thorax,” he said finally, “For everything…everything bad that has ever happened to both me and you since we met, regardless of who might be responsible for it. I wish it didn’t have to be that way.”

“Likewise,” Thorax said softly. He sighed. “I’m sorry too, and sorry I left you feeling neglected. You’re my greatest friend, Spike…that’s the very last thing I want to be doing.”

Spike was quiet for a second. “I’m guessing the way ahead of us is going to be one hay of a treacherous climb,” he admitted aloud. “But…oddly, for once…I don’t feel too bothered by that now. I can’t help but feel that…” he grinned again. “…that maybe things are going our way again, after all. And if so, then I embrace that.” He looked up at Thorax. “And if that also means we have to go storm the changeling hive to keep that feeling going, that sense that there is light at the end of the tunnel that we can actually get at?” His expression turned determined. “Then I say…bring it on.”

Thorax smirked and made a mock salute. “Aye-aye, captain.”

They snickered to themselves for a moment. Thorax used his magic to scoop up the bowl of granola and gems Spike had thrown onto the floor earlier, ensured the contents were clean, then levitated it over to his dragon friend, who accepted the bowl and thoughtfully resumed eating them.

“Well…” Spike continued after a second, having reflected back upon their conversation,

“Wherever we’re at now…” he set down his bowl for a second and grabbed Thorax around the middle in a hug. “…don’t you go anywhere.”

Thorax gladly returned the hug. “I certainly don’t intend to, Spike,” he said. “Honestly…I don’t think I want to be anywhere else, anyway.”

They lingered in the hug for another moment longer, but then Thorax reluctantly had to break away when he remembered he had bumped the Vergilius’s steering controls unlocked and left the ship’s wheel idly moving freely ever since. “Hold on, we’re veering off course,” he mumbled aloud as he quickly rose to take the wheel, turning the craft back onto the proper course again.

Spike picked up his breakfast once more and held it in his claws as he idly followed Thorax to the helm, watching while the changeling did this. He gazed out the forward viewport and out at the terrain they were flying over on this actually very pretty morning. “You know, the terrain is looking lusher out there than I was expecting, given how far south we are now,” he admitted aloud.

“The south isn’t all dry and mostly barren terrain, you know,” Thorax said. Having put them back on course—they thankfully hadn’t strayed too far—he studied the land for a moment too. “Though along this way, the greenery is going to be patchy until we start drawing near to the acorn grove that surrounds the changeling hive.”

Spike quietly munched his breakfast to himself for a moment. “How much longer until we arrive there, anyway?”

“Probably not for another hour or more, at the soonest,” Thorax admitted.

“Hmm,” Spike hummed again as he chewed. He swallowed before continuing. “Sounds like we still have some time to kill, then.” He gazed at the terrain for a second then glanced at Thorax. “Have you ever played I spy?”

Thorax glanced at him, raising one chitinous brow curiously. “I spy?”

“Yeah, like, I spy with my little eye….something…big,” Spike offered. He motioned at the wilderness outside to silently prompt Thorax into guessing what it was.

Thorax, catching on, gazed out the viewport for a moment for anything that could match that vague description. “…the sky?”

Spike gave him a slightly incredulous look. “That’s the first thing you thought of?”

Thorax shrugged. “Well, it is big, isn’t it?”

They chuckled for a moment, and as they continued with the travel game, for the first time in the past couple of days they felt like ordinary friends again, just hanging out and not a care in the world. And for the moment, that was that mattered, and they simply wanted to cherish that for a bit. Their fears and personal troubles certainly weren’t gone, and they were still perfectly aware that they were flying into a dangerous situation still. But now, both of them had accepted that and for now, the two friends weren’t going to let that bother them.

And whatever the future brought them, good or bad…both of them finally felt ready for it.

Meanwhile, Ember peeked over the top of the steps leading up from the below deck, watching the pair and gauging their progress. Standing behind the dragoness was a nervous Starlight and standing beside her was Trixie, holding her own bowl of granola aloft in her magic and munching away on the contents as they awaited Ember’s report.

“So?” Starlight prompted in a quiet whisper after a moment. “How’s it going up there? They’re not going at each other’s throats, are they? Have they actually settled down a little?”

“Better than that,” Ember remarked back with an approving smirk at the sight of Spike and Thorax chatting at the helm like the old friends they were. “They look like they’re getting along like a lazy dragon would with a sun-warmed rock.”

Trixie raised a confused eyebrow as she chewed on her granola for a second. “I assume that means they’re getting along good, then,” she surmised.

Ember rolled her eyes, annoyed at the two ponies’ lack of understanding of her dragon simile. “What else would it mean?” she asked, then nodded her head. “But yes. I think it worked, they’ve talked it out, and they’re getting along great now.” She shot a victorious glance at Starlight. “And you thought my idea to force them together was only going to end in disaster.”

“To be fair, I was right to be concerned,” Starlight argued back, folding her hooves while Trixie beside her leaned her head back so to pour the remainder of her bowl of granola into her mouth. “Judging from their shouting eariler, it all very nearly ended in disaster and them on even worse terms than they were before. You can’t just force a resolution for every situation, Ember, sometimes it takes a bit more finesse than that. You took a huge risk just acting like that, and not even letting anypony else know what you planned until after you had already carried it out…and only when we asked, no less.” But then she sighed and looked otherwise relieved. “But that all said…I’m still glad to hear they’re getting along better now. I could tell Thorax was especially troubled by it…their friendship means a lot to them.”

“It means a lot to them both, Spike was starting to fly apart at the seams over the matter,” Ember remarked as she stepped down from the steps and joined the other two mares. “He’s relied quite heavily on that friendship with Thorax, and I think Thorax has too. And can you blame them? For ages, all they really ever had was each other. I don’t think they would’ve lasted this long if they didn’t have that support.” Her gaze turned a little forlorn as she glanced back in the direction of the two sitting above deck, unaware the others were talking about them. “They need each other too much…to lose that friendship now, over a misunderstanding of what the other wants or intended…that would’ve been the real disaster.”

“You know, she has a point,” Trixie agreed through a mouthful of granola. “It doesn’t take a genius to see that those two work best as a team.”

“Don’t talk with your mouth full, Trixie,” Starlight groused as the three wandered back into the ship’s saloon.

Trixie swallowed before continuing. “All I’m saying is that if we really plan to follow those two into the depths of the changeling hive, it’d probably be best to have them on good terms with each other rather than not talking to each other.”

“Which is why I did what I did,” Ember concluded as she took a seat at the table again, lounging her almost serpentine body in the bench seat. “This little feud of theirs couldn’t keep going. Besides, they’ve been through too much already to let it come apart now.”

“True, they have been through more than anyone should ever have to,” Starlight agreed as she took a seat across the table from Ember. “Becoming outcasts, venturing treacherous terrain alone, struggling for supplies and a way of life, living in fear and as criminals, always trying to outrun their pursuers…” she plunked her head onto the table with a heavy sigh. “…and I’m one of the ponies that helped bring that all down on them. I’m such an idiot…it should’ve been obvious to me what was really going on ages ago…but I completely missed it and put my trust in Twilight, never stopping to think that she might have…misjudged.”

“She did far more than that,” Trixie grumbled as she sat herself beside Ember. “Personally, Spike’s kind of right in thinking there’s a bit of vindication to be had in Twilight getting caught by a changeling invasion like this.”

“From what he says about her, he’s still furious with her,” Ember agreed.

“I know, which makes this little victory they achieved this morning feel like a mere molehill in comparison to the towering mountain that will be the inevitable confrontation with Twilight awaiting them if we pull off this rescue,” Starlight remarked with clear dread. She shook her head. “No matter what happens…that’s only going to end with a lot of pain on all sides, I fear.”

Trixie toyed with one end of her mane. “You think Twilight’s even going to listen to them this time?” she asked Starlight slowly.

Starlight didn’t reply right away. “I hope for her sake she does, or…” she trailed off, afraid to even speak of the worst-case scenario.

“I’m guessing it’ll end very badly for her if she doesn’t,” Trixie concluded.

“An understatement at best,” Starlight agreed.

“Personally, I have a few choice words of my own for that mare,” Ember grumbled, who still wasn’t too pleased with Twilight’s actions in all of this herself. “But time for that later.” She grinned. “Right now, I’m just going to savor the fact that I was right and made the right call in getting those two talking like I did, because it totally worked when you two thought it wouldn’t. Which reminds me…”

She turned to Trixie, nudged her with her scaly elbow, and then held out an open palm to the stage magician, beckoning to the mare. Trixie scowled, but as agreed, she begrudgingly hoofed over five golden bits into the dragoness’s waiting claws. With a victorious cackle, Ember clutched the bits she had won with savor. Starlight, however, just rolled her eyes, having not approved of the bet from the start.

“So what should we do now?” Starlight asked instead, changing the subject.

“Yeah, can we go up above deck now, or are you going to keep us detained down here a bit longer?” Trixie grumbled to Ember.

“I think we’d best give those two a bit more time to themselves,” Ember concluded, with a nod of her head in the direction of Spike and Thorax. “You know…so they can catch up.”

Starlight shrugged, thinking that reasonable. “Fair enough,” she said. “But what do we do in the meantime?”

Trixie glanced around the cabin. “I don’t suppose Spike and Thorax have any board games lying around this airship, do they?”

Ember twisted around to where Spike had left a board game of sorts since the last time it got played. “Well, I don’t know about board game, but Spike does have a set of Ogres & Oubliettes here…”

“I spy…something…green.”

“…tree?”

“Hmpf.”

“My turn?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay, I spy something…tall.”

“Uh…tree.”

“Right.”

“Uh, I spy something…with bark.”

“Tree.”

“Hmpf.”

“Okay, I spy something…uh…a vertical log?”

“Tree!”

“Yeah.”

“Okay, I spy something—”

“Tree.”

“Hmpf!”

“Okay, my turn—”

“Tree!”

“No, no, I gotta—”

“It counts.”

“I didn’t even spy anything!”

“It counts.”

“Okay, fine,” Spike folded his arms and gave Thorax a rebellious look. “…tree.”

Thorax groaned, planting his head into the ship’s wheel then chuckled a little. “I think we’ve run out of things to spy,” he observed aloud.

Spike sniggered a little too. “Yeah, I think you’re right.” He shook his head and sighed. “I missed this though…just the two of us, hanging out, being friends…it seems like it’s been so long since we really have done this last.”

“Odd to think, then, that it’s really not even been a full week since we left Vanhoover,” Thorax observed.

“Yeah, but it still feels like it’s been whole moons since then,” Spike mumbled. He sighed again. “Look…I’m sorry, Thorax…I didn’t mean to put either of us in this sort of situation, laying our friendship on the line.”

“Nor did I,” Thorax said with a sigh of his own. He shook his head, grinning a bit optimistically. “But…despite that…I think it’ll survive…don’t you?”

Spike shared that grin. “I sure as hay want it to,” he admitted. The grin faded a little. “It’s just…while this whole talk’s helped in spades…it hasn’t changed the fact that…I worry I’m not doing enough to let you go on and get yourself your own life…that you’re holding yourself back for my sake.”

“Perhaps I am, a little, and I think the same can be safely said for you as well, Spike,” Thorax said. Then he shrugged. “But, you know what? Maybe that doesn’t have to be a bad thing. Clearly, there’s a balance we need to find to our friendship, and we’ve lost sight of that balance, something we’ll need to try and find a way to get back in the days and hopefully weeks to come, but for now…whatever we both choose to do for ourselves in the future…I don’t think our friendship needs to stand in the way of that. We can both build up lives of our own, see to our own needs, but at the same time still maintain that healthy friendship that was what brought us together in the first place. As I said before…friendship is both a give and take affair. Both friends have to give back as much as they take from the relationship…I think we’re just learning what that actually means now, though.” He looked at Spike, placing a holed hoof on his shoulder. “Whatever the case…I certainly don’t want to do anything to damage, much less loose, that friendship. It means far too much to me.”

Spike grinned and placed his claws on Thorax’s hoof, pleased to hear this. “Me too,” he said. “You have no idea how good it is for me to hear you say that, too. I…I honestly don’t know what I’d do with myself without you, Thorax.”

Thorax gave the little dragon a pat before removing his hoof. “I know what you mean,” he admitted. “The idea of a life without you beside me as my cherished friend, Spike…it’s a hard idea to swallow, indeed.” He looked out the forward viewport again, gaze turning wistful. “But you know…at the same time…I’d like to think that we both have other friends now that we can count on, just as much as we count on each other, to support us too.”

Spike’s grin grew a little. “I’d very much like to think that too, honestly,” he said. He, too, turned wistful for a moment. “I do sort of miss the old days…when I had plenty of friends that I could count on…it just seems like I’ve been alienated by many of them after what happened in the Crystal Empire…so it’s easy to think they’re gone forever and never coming back.”

“And, to be perfectly realistic, it’s quite possible that there are some that are precisely that, estranged friends that won’t be coming back, and for that I apologize for your sake, Spike. It can’t be easy losing friends like that.” But Thorax’s attitude remained positive. “But, if Starlight coming here and trying to make amends for her past actions have proven anything…it’s that at least some of those friends don’t have to remain lost. I hope, for your sake, once this is all over, you and them can work to restore at least some of that lost friendship again, in time.”

Spike found himself nodding in agreement, actual hopeful for once that Thorax’s words would prove true. “That would be wonderful.” He took a deep breath. “But…we have bigger things to deal with first, things closer to the here and now, right aboard this airship, even.”

“Right, our plans to rescue the ponies held captive at the hive,” Thorax agreed with a nod. He glanced at Spike, curious. “What are your thoughts on that plan?”

Spike thought carefully about it before he tried to answer. “Mixed still, honestly,” he admitted. “There’s a part of me that wants the plan to succeed completely as we planned and without problem…part of me that still has high doubts about it actually working and that we won’t just doom ourselves trying…and then there’s still a part of me that doesn’t even want to try at all…for reasons I think you already know well.”

“I do,” Thorax said with a solemn nod. He studied Spike for a second, sensing his emotions. “But…correct me if I’m wrong, I think you’re starting to push past some of those doubts, at least enough to be willing to at least try the plan along with the rest of us.”

“I guess so,” Spike agreed. “Though it helps I don’t have a better plan to suggest. And…I don’t really want Chrysalis to win and succeed in conquering Equestria, of course. Still…I’m scared of the possibility that…we might fail.”

Thorax nodded, understanding. “I wish I could promise it won’t come to that Spike…but realistically speaking…I think we both know I’d be lying if I even tried, because that’s not a promise I can guarantee in any way.”

Spike nodded too. “I understand,” he said softly. He then glanced at Thorax optimistically, remembering something Ember had told him the previous evening. “But…whatever troubles await us at that hive…at least know that we’ll be facing them together.”

Thorax grinned and wrapped a hoof around Spike, pulling his friend close. “Together, then,” he agreed.

They went quiet for a long moment, silently mulling upon things. Then, as Spike’s mind started to wander to other subjects, a sly smirk started to appear on his face.

“So,” he began slowly, glancing up at Thorax who had turned his attention back to piloting the airship. “If you and Trixie actually get it together…”

Thorax groaned and let his head thump against the ship’s wheel again, but a slight grin played at his lips as he caught on to Spike’s intentions.

Spike, however, grinned shamelessly and nudged his friend in the belly with his elbow. “C’mon, you should’ve known the subject was going to come up eventually after everything that’s happened,” he teased.

Thorax grunted noncommittedly, shooting Spike a look. “I thought you didn’t even like Trixie,” he noted.

“I really don’t, at least not a great deal,” Spike agreed. “But now I’m confident you’re not going to let her stand in the way of our friendship no matter what happens between you two, so if you really must go through with it, the least I can do is make sure you do it right.”

“Mm,” Thorax grunted again and straightened, frowning. “Honestly, Spike, I don’t even know where me and Trixie are going anymore,” he confessed. “One moment it seems like we’re both all for it, and then the next we’re both trying to distance ourselves from it as much as possible.”

“I assume that has to do with the fact that one of you is a changeling and the other isn’t.”

“I would think that would be the case, yes.” Thorax’s tone was a little sarcastic, saying this.

Spike was undeterred, though. “Well, that didn’t seem to stop either of you from…having fun…this past night,” he pointed out with a smirk.

Thorax let out a small, frustrated, wail. “How many times do I have keep telling everybody?” he asked aloud. “Nothing happened between us last night! We just sat down and…and…”

“…cuddled?” Spike offered idly, his smirk growing.

“…Talked,” Thorax corrected sternly. “We didn’t do anything more than that.”

“…except practically fall asleep in each other’s hooves,” Spike reminded.

Thorax mumbled something incoherently in reluctant confirmation.

“So…you cuddled,” Spike concluded, smug.

Thorax made another uncomfortable moan softly through his closed mouth, but he blushed profusely. “Look, nothing happened, no matter how you look at it,” he repeated, rising into a standing position. He glanced down at Spike, then back up at the forward viewport. “I don’t think I should be discussing this with you anyway. No offense, but…isn’t this sort of talk rather…mature…for you?”

“Nah, it’s okay, I’m all in the know,” Spike assured casually.

A little too casually for Thorax’s tastes. “Oh really?” he asked skeptically, raising an eyebrow at the dragon.

“Yeah,” Spike confirmed, then seeing Thorax was doubting, he moved to stand closer beside the changeling. “Here, Thorax, about where would you say I come up to on your body, in terms of height?”

Thorax turned his head to give Spike a confused look. “What?”

“Just humor me and answer the question, Thorax.”

Thorax raised an eyebrow again for a moment, but he relented and after eyeballing Spike’s height against his own for a second, he reached out with one hoof, tapping the spot on his body he thought was about level with Spike’s height, discounting his spines. “About…here,” he said, tapping the top of his flank as he motioned this out. “Why?”

Spike didn’t reply. He just glanced at the spot Thorax’s hoof was touching then back at Thorax, waiting for him to make the connection himself. Thorax glanced between Spike and his hoof for a second, then abruptly realized that it wasn’t an accident Spike happened to choose to stand right beside the changeling’s flank.

“Oh,” he mumbled, catching on as his blush returned.

“Yeah,” Spike said with a nod, and poked Thorax’s flank with his elbow, which the dragon’s head happened to be impeccably level with. “The perfect line of sight to see everything, enough that it’s hard for me to not miss certain details about those around me, so much so that it wasn’t long before I started having certain questions that I wanted answers to. And Twilight, in her infinite wisdom, decided it was more efficient to just go ahead and explain it and get it over with, thus she sat me down then and there and told me about the birds and the bees.”

Thorax frowned, his brow furrowing as he failed to understand the meaning of the term. “The…birds and the bees?”

Spike smirked and folded his arms as he gave the changeling a knowing look. “Sex, Thorax.”

“Oh.” Thorax blushed again and quickly averted his gaze.

“At any rate, this is a subject I at least know something about,” Spike concluded. “Maybe not as much as those that would, obviously, have more experience than me, but I can totally still follow along for most of it.”

Thorax frowned, mulling upon all of this. “I don’t know if that’s enough to justify trying to help me though,” he pointed out. He looked over at Spike once more. “Weren’t you the one who said you probably weren’t the best to ask about the subject of love the last time we discussed this matter?”

“True,” Spike granted with a nod. “And I do gotta admit that you’ve…basically…already gotten further on that subject than I ever have.” He rolled his eyes in mild frustration at this fact, but he chose not to dwell on it. “But you still have clear misgivings about the whole Trixie thing, and I can still at least try to help, can’t I?”

“Depends on whether or not your advice is actually helpful at all,” Thorax mumbled to himself. His gaze turned distant for second though as he thought about it. He shook his head. “Look, the thing holding me back the most is that I’m just not sure I’m…ready to pursue something like that with someone else, Trixie or not.” He frowned, and suddenly he looked even a bit frightened. “The very idea of it…intimidates me greatly, to be quite honest. What if I mess it up and make a fool of myself?”

“Ah, you’ve basically got cold hooves, then,” Spike noted, nodding in thoughtful understanding. Thorax appreciated he was at least taking it seriously. “I can understand that, at least. It is a pretty big step…and what with this being the first time you’ve ever gone down this route…”

“Exactly!” Thorax cried, relieved that Spike understood. “Not only that, but it’s all been going so fast, outside my control…and it feels like I’m doing everything so…out of order. Everyone expects Trixie and I to be leaps and bounds further than we are in this, but in reality I haven’t even properly courted Trixie yet when that should’ve been the very first thing I did…but I didn’t even realize where this was going until much too late, so…”

“Courting?” Spike repeated with a smirk. “I’m guessing by that you mean changelings have a set and customary way of formally beginning relationships then, or at least the closest you ever come to such a thing, seeing that the customary view for you changelings is it’s more a task to fulfill rather than actual pleasure or enjoyment.”

“Yes,” Thorax assured with a nod, “a proper way of doing things, to clearly convey intent and that there are no ill-feelings that could complicate things between the pair, show that I consider myself hers, give her the chance to do the same, earn her trust, learn more of her, as well as to make it clear to all other prospective mates that she’s taken, and so on.” He glanced at Spike. “Don’t ponies have the same thing?”

“Yes and no, it’s done more only for the sake of polite society and it sort varies on the region and the couple, plus sometimes some of the steps are more optional and not necessarily considered required,” Spike explained. “And there’s always a few that decide to forgo tradition anyway, and that’s okay too.” He shrugged. “But you can’t really expect Trixie to have known any of that though, do you? As far as she would know, the only things she’d need to keep in mind are the perceptions of her fellow ponies…in fact, that’s probably the sole thing she has been keeping in consideration, and probably the only big thing holding her back at this point, if the lovey-dovey smell is any indication…”

“Again with the lovey-dovey smell!” Thorax complained. “What is the lovey-dovey smell?”

“You’re not the only one with a nose that can detect smells that others cannot, or so I’ve recently learned,” Spike replied with a smirk, tapping his snout with one claw. “But my point is that it wouldn’t surprise me at all if Trixie hasn’t even stopped to think about that there might be cultural considerations to keep in mind from your side of the spectrum too.”

Thorax grunted, gazing out the forward viewport again. “I suppose in a way I haven’t doing the same back for her, either,” he admitted. He groaned. “This is so complicated…why must it be so?”

“It doesn’t, actually, or I don’t think it has to,” Spike remarked. He patted Thorax encouragingly on the leg. “You and Trixie have only been making it complicated, and I think it might be because you’re both equally afraid of committing just yet.”

“Well…can you blame us?” Thorax asked. “There’s so much to overcome…sometimes I can’t help but think it’d be…wiser of me to not even take the chance and try, out of fear that I would only set myself up for failure because…really…we’re such different creatures and all…”

“True, and that’s definitely something you shouldn’t just overlook,” Spike agreed. “But you know, at the same time, if you two are ever going to seriously pursue this, then at some point you’re going to have to stop overanalyzing it and just go with it. After all, if you two really do have serious feelings for each other—and it’s getting to the point that it’s even getting hard for me to deny that probably being exactly the case—then I think it’s not so much what’s on the outside that you two like about each other…but rather what’s on the inside that you two find so appealing…and in some ways, I’d like to think that’s even better.”

Thorax sighed, feeling that telltale ache in his chest again, and he had a hunch that Spike had a point. “Doesn’t make it any easier,” he mumbled aloud.

“Well, I certainly don’t think you two should rush into this either,” Spike commented aloud as Thorax suddenly leaned forward and over the ship’s wheel, squinting his eyes slightly as he peered out the forward viewport in front of him. “Don’t think I’m trying to rush either of you into this, because I’m not. Actually, I’d sooner think Trixie would be the one doing that, so I’d watch out for that. Because, you know, with Trixie…in the past, it seems like Trixie seems to act compulsively, and it seems like that was always a large part of what was always getting her in trouble in the past, so—”

“Shh,” Thorax suddenly hushed.

“Oh, c’mon Thorax,” Spike grumbled with a scowl. “I know you think of Trixie more fondly than I do, obviously, and I’m trying to keep that in mind and give her the benefit of a doubt for both of your sakes here, but that still doesn’t mean she doesn’t have—”

“Shh!” Thorax suddenly shushed again, more urgently as he clamped a hoof to the dragon’s mouth without looking away from the forward viewport. He silently gazed out the viewport intently for a moment then abruptly grabbed the throttle control, throwing the Vergilius into reverse for a quick braking maneuver, pulling it to a complete mid-air stop, before killing the engines entirely, an eerie silence suddenly falling upon the air yacht.

Spike gently removed Thorax’s hoof from his mouth, watching the changeling warily. “…Thorax?” he inquired cautiously, sensing that something was up.

Thorax didn’t reply right away though, listening intently to the sounds of the area they now hovered in. There was little to hear, but nonetheless, the ambient noise of the region felt recognizable. Peering out the viewport and up ahead of the now-stationary airship, he saw the relatively spartan grassland they had been flying for some minutes now abruptly started to thicken into a visible barrier of trees about a half-mile ahead, their leaves beginning to turn for the oncoming autumn season…and were of a type he knew very well. Quickly, he reached over to grab the spyglass from its usual location, extending it and peering out the viewport at the horizon ahead of them. It didn’t take him long to find it. It was still more than two or three miles off and distant enough that it was obviously hard to make out all of the details, but there was no mistaking it.

“Thorax?” Spike prompted again, a growing tone of worry in his voice.

“Spike, you had better go and get the others up here,” Thorax replied somberly, lowering the spyglass from his eye but his gaze not looking away from the spot he had been using it to magnify. “We’re here.”

Author's Note

Yeah, yeah, I know, you've all been waiting a long time to hear that be announced, but thanks with sticking with me for all this regardless. :twilightsmile:

Even if I had done more to cut things out and speed things along though, this chapter was never on the cutting table, and cutting it out was not an option at any time, because this was the chapter that addressed the rift that had developed between Spike and Thorax and attempted to resolve it in some way. I don't expect it to be perfect, but hopefully I succeeded in it successfully putting Spike and Thorax back on better terms, well on the way to full reparations, but also still leaving the matter not entirely cleanly resolved quite yet.

The small scene with Ember, Starlight, and Trixie was spur of the moment while writing, but I felt a little background on what their thoughts were on all of this was merited, especially since I figured there was no way they didn't hear Thorax and Spike's shouting.

Also, I figured I needed to let Spike get in on the teasing Thorax over Trixie, and attempt to give him some advice on how to proceed, similar to what Starlight did with Trixie in the previous chapter.

On that subject, about the matter of Spike being aware of the birds and the bees...I used to think like many others that Spike would be too young to be "in the know" about that, but then someone pointed out to me on one of my other fanfics that Spike is consistently butt-level with pretty much everybody else in the show, and since they all go around naked all the time, obviously it wouldn't be long before he had questions that needed answering. So running with that thought here, but admittedly more so that Spike and Thorax can still be on the same level here on the subject.

Weirdly, and call me a prude if you must, but I think this is the first time I've ever directly used the word "sex" in proper context in writing before... :rainbowhuh:

Even though it wasn't necessary, I couldn't possibly mention I spy and not make that reference for the laughs too. :rainbowlaugh:

Edits made to chapter as of 11/9/2017. More may follow at a later date.

The Grove

“So that’s the hive?” Starlight as she peered through the spyglass at a dark smudge just barely visible a good ways out on the horizon. She lowered it from her eye, allowing Ember standing beside her to take it from her magic. “That blue-green spire way off in the distance?”

“Yes,” Thorax replied as he stood beside the helm of the airship, even though he had kept it perfectly stationary since they had arrived. “I’d know it anywhere. It is, after all, the place I was hatched and raised.”

“Seems like it’s smaller than I expected,” Ember mumbled as she squinted through the spyglass at the hive far in the distance.

“Well, keep in mind we’re still over three and half miles off from it,” Thorax reminded. “Just close enough to be just able to pick it out from the surroundings, otherwise it’d probably blend in with the rest at any greater distance. Obviously, though, we still have some more traveling to do before we actually arrive at it.”

“But if we can see them, can’t they see us from this distance too though?” Trixie asked nervously as she peered through the control cabin’s forward viewport in the general direction of the hive while Ember continued peering at it with the spyglass.

Thorax shook his head. “I’d be astounded if they could. We can see the hive from here because the hive is so much larger than we are, but it’s doubtful they could pick out the Vergilius at this distance. Most of the watches stationed at the hive observe things coming and going by naked eye, and even with the aid of a spyglass like ours, this air yacht probably wouldn’t appear as more than a mere speck at best from this distance, not enough to identify it or be certain of its intent. They might at most note it’s there, resolve to check up on it to see if anything changes, but otherwise ignore it so long as it doesn’t appear to cause trouble.”

Ember snorted as she lowered the spyglass, handing it to Spike, even though he had already had a turn peering through it. “How do they possibly expect to be prepared for any threats that might come their way then?” she asked critically, finding this poor tactics.

But Thorax had an answer. “As I mentioned before, the hive has a series of additional hidden outposts and watchtowers built encircling it, serving as a sort of first line of defense and protection against any threats or intruders that might be coming towards the hive,” he explained patiently. “We’re about a half-mile off from the border of that encirclement, but fortunately, I know the locations of the outposts in this area, and I’ve deliberately piloted us into the gap between the two closest, at sufficient distance from either that they hopefully won’t sight us too easily either. But even if they did…remember that the hive is expecting Julius to be flying in with this same airship, so if they do spy the Vergilius, the most they would do is send word on ahead to the hive and do nothing anyway, so long as it does not do anything they wouldn’t expect…which I don’t plan to.”

“So in a way,” Starlight concluded appraisingly, turning to the changeling, “You’ve set things up so to use the Vergilius almost like a Trojan horse.”

Thorax nodded. “That was why I told the two changelings that had been following you what I did, precisely so to give us some sort of cover we can use to sneak on towards the hive without immediate suspicion.”

“But we can’t fly the Vergilius the rest of the way to the hive though, because we’d be flying into range of the magic dampening throne in the process, right?” Spike remarked.

Thorax again nodded. “And even without that, I can fly us a bit closer to the acorn grove,” he motioned to the line of trees about a half mile ahead of them that divided them from the hive, “but no further. Any closer and the hive will sight the airship and react accordingly, either sending a greeting party or go on full alert for our arrival, neither of which we actually want. We’ll have to land outside the acorn grove and continue the rest of the way on hoof, as we decided yesterday.”

Trixie groaned, not relishing the idea of the lengthy hike. “But Thorax, that’ll be three whole miles to cross!”

“Yes, but by proceeding by hoof, we’ll have an easier time avoiding detection, and the more we can do that, the better,” Thorax explained optimistically. “Besides, this will work out for the better, as we arrived a bit earlier than I expected. The hive, right now, is still going to be a flurry of activity as changelings go about carrying out early morning tasks, but by the time we arrive walking by hoof, that should have all calmed down and activity within the hive back down to a general and quiet lull.”

“Making it less likely we’d bump into any unwanted company,” Starlight concluded, nodding her head as she caught on. “Well then, walking by hoof it is.” She turned to Thorax. “Anything else we need to do to prepare?”

“Pack light for the hike, but also prepare for as much as you can,” Thorax advised. “Anything you think might be useful or help in anyway while we’re at the hive, no matter the circumstance.”

“So basically whatever Trixie normally carries in her saddlebags when she steps away from her wagon,” Trixie concluded.

Starlight turned to face the others, clapping her forehooves together loudly in conclusion. “Well, whatever it might be, best go get your gear together and prep to go.”

Ember strolled out of the control cabin and out onto the main deck. “I’ll go alert Obsidian of our plans,” she announced as she did this, the escorting dragon in question having taken to circling the stationary airship while he awaited further word of what they were going to do next.

Starlight nodded then glanced at their resident changeling. “Thorax, go ahead and do whatever you need to so to land the air yacht and then get ready to go yourself.”

“Right,” Thorax said with a nod, turning back to the helm while the others all filed back down into the below deck to gathering their things.

It was a very solemn and quiet affair, this process as everyone went through their things, determining what to take and what not to take. Ember had it the easiest as she had brought little more than herself and her scepter. She had debated bringing the armor she had been wearing when she first arrived onboard, but ultimately decided it would be too noisy and for the sake of stealth it was better to go without it. But it wasn’t quite that simple for the rest of them as they had much more to decide they could need in the hive or would only weigh them down. Starlight eventually advised that a good rule to follow was to bring just the minimum supplies they would need to survive should they be away from the airship for longer than a day, for whatever reason, and everyone proceeded with this in mind. By then, Thorax had landed the Vergilius in a small gap in the vegetation right on the very edge of the grove of oak trees seeming to surround the hive before joining the others in packing. He doubled Starlight’s advice of packing essentials to survive and proceeded to pack as such himself.

Nonetheless, there were still things that were going to be best left behind that they didn’t really want to leave behind, but at the same time couldn’t quite justify bringing with. For example, Thorax opted to leave behind his midnight blue jacket there at the airship and proceed for the hive unclothed save for his saddlebags, his thinking being that, without the jacket, he’d have an easier time blending in with the other changelings at the hive should the need arise. Another example was that Spike opted to pack only about a day’s worth of travel food for everyone but otherwise decided to leave all the rest of their food supplies here at the airship so it wouldn’t be weighing them down.

Yet there were some things members of their group were simply unwilling to leave behind. Trixie, for instance, insisted upon on bringing with their one jar of peanut butter and as many crackers she could reasonably carry (which didn’t amount to more than a box’s worth but it was more than none at all). “I need something to keep me calm during this crazy journey,” she grumbled when questioned about this choice. Then after a lot of further hemming and hawing over the contents of her saddlebags too, she ultimately decided to just bring the bags as-is, removing or adding little that wasn’t already there after that.

Spike similarly decided he wasn’t going to leave behind his Ogres & Oubliettes game set, which resulted in a small argument when he realized the set was already out on the saloon table and found out that the ladies aboard had been playing it earlier, but in a highly-simplified manner that Spike did not approve of.

“You mean to tell me you took my roleplaying game and turned it into a glorified version of Candy Land?” he complained loudly at one point.

But while that was going on, Thorax was across the room, standing in the doorway of the open closet and quietly working with Julius in his cocoon contained in that little room. Seeing that he had a look of concern etched upon his brow, Starlight, who had finished her packing and was simply waiting for the others to finish, stepped over to stand beside him.

“How is he doing?” she asked, nodding her head in the direction of the unconscious changeling within his cocoon.

Thorax glanced at her then back at Julius. “Well, he still seems stable and showing gradual signs of recovery, but…” he sighed. “I’m still not sure that he, if I were to wake him up and pull him out of the cocoon now, wouldn’t still go into shock and potentially die.” He motioned a hoof to the cocoon, glowing a faint green thanks to the magic that was powering it. “For all I know, this cocoon could very well be the only thing still keeping him alive at the moment…which is frustratingly insufficient for this situation.”

“I can understand that,” Starlight remarked, who shared a bit of Thorax’s frustration. Even though there was no denying Julius was very much an enemy to them, best left in this sedated state where he couldn’t cause them harm and would be better if he wasn’t here at all, she still had no real want to see him die, and indeed saw allowing such a death as needless.

“Unfortunately, we have a bigger problem than all of that,” Thorax continued, rubbing his chin with one hoof and nodding his head solemnly at the cocoon and its occupant. “The cocoon requires a magical recharge about once a day. I’ve already given it a full recharge just now, so it should be good until about this time tomorrow…but I probably the only one of us who can properly recharge it, and even if it wasn’t, we’re all leaving for the hive, leaving Julius here behind, and it occurs to me that we have no guarantees of just how long we’ll be away, or if we’ll be able to get back at all.”

Starlight started to see what Thorax was getting at and warily gazed at the injured changeling sealed inside the cocoon. “What happens if we can’t get back in time to recharge it?” she asked.

“Then the nutrient bath regulator runs out of power,” Thorax replied, pointing at the glowing bubble-like structure located at the top of the moist cocoon. “When it does, the chemicals that are keeping Julius in hibernation will start to lose their effectiveness and soon thereafter…he’ll wake up.”

“And then?”

“That depends on how good his health actually is at that point, whether or not he’s healed enough to be able to operate outside the cocoon. If he has, then he’ll work to break out of the cocoon and will be free to do as he pleases. At that point, he could do anything from going straight to the hive and raise the alarm, giving us away if we haven’t already been found by then, to hijacking the Vergilius and using it for his own purposes…most likely to again raise alarm with the hive as well as try and cut off any way of escaping.”

Starlight winced. “All not good things for us,” she observed. She then approached the matter the other way. “What if he hasn’t healed enough?”

“Again, depends on his overall health and whether or not that’ll be enough to allow him to regain consciousness,” Thorax replied, gazing distantly at the cocoon. “As I said before, for all I know, he could just go into shock immediately, never regaining consciousness, and die from the resulting complications. Assuming he doesn’t and can regain consciousness, then it all falls upon whether or not he’s strong enough to escape the cocoon on his own. If he can’t, then eventually the fluids in the nutrient bath will go stale and toxic and he’d drown.”

Starlight again winced. “So basically it’s either he escapes the cocoon and messes up everything for us in the process, or he doesn’t and effectively dies from negligence.”

“Yes,” Thorax confirmed with a frown. “You see why it troubles me. Our best hope is that we can simply get back to him and recharge the cocoon before it runs out of magical power and we are forced to face all of that.”

“But as you said, we have no guarantees at all that we’ll even be able to do that,” Starlight observed. “Though I’m hoping and praying it doesn’t come to that, more for our sakes than Julius’s here, no offense.”

“None taken, I fully recognize that Julius is a danger to all of us and the sensible thing to have done wasn’t keeping him aboard like this,” Thorax admitted dejectedly.

Starlight gazed at him for a moment, sitting herself down beside him. “Then why did you, if you always knew you were going to face problems like this?”

Thorax gazed at Julius for a long moment then shook his head. “I wasn’t about to just stand to one side and let him die, Starlight,” he admitted sadly. “I just couldn’t. It’s…just not who I am.”

Starlight let out her breath quietly and placed a reassuring hoof on Thorax’s chitin-covered shoulder. “You have a good heart, Thorax,” she said. “I don’t like the idea of letting him die either, but even I’m not sure I could’ve actually made that hard choice to try and preserve his life like this, given the danger.”

Thorax sighed. “Unfortunately, be that as it may, that supposedly good heart isn’t helping resolve the problem…it’s, if anything, only delaying what might perhaps already be inevitable.”

Starlight brooded on the dilemma for a long moment, returning her gaze to the changeling in his cocoon. “Well…we’re technically within his home territory now…should we perhaps do something to turn him over into the care of the other changelings, let them handle it?”

“I want to, but I haven’t been able to think of a way to do it that wouldn’t also risk giving us away to the others,” Thorax admitted sadly. “The best I can think of is to simply move his cocoon outside, maybe within the acorn grove itself, and hang it somewhere obvious away from the Vergilius and just hope some changeling comes along in time to be able to help him if he needs it…which guarantees nothing.”

“How likely is it a changeling would come along in time, anyway?”

“Not good. The acorn grove is expansive, Starlight, ranging from anywhere between a mile to two miles in thickness, and it encircles most of the hive. It’s very easy to walk through all of it and never once cross paths with another changeling the whole time you’re there, it’s that large. That’s part of what makes it such a wonderful place to go and meditate…you weren’t likely to be bothered by anyone else.”

Starlight was quiet for a moment, looking down at her hooves for a moment. “Well, at least I can take comfort that we aren’t likely to meet up with any other changelings while we’re crossing the grove, and even if we do, it sounds like it’d be easy to avoid them.” Knowing this didn’t help any with the problem of Julius though, Starlight switched to a new thought. “Ember was planning to have Obsidian stay behind and guard the Vergilius while we’re away…maybe we can move Julius somewhere he can see and keep watch over Julius too?”

Thorax considered the matter. “That would leave Obsidian in an acceptable position to act if need be should Julius get out and try to cause problems…” he mumbled then with a sigh nodded his head. “I suppose I don’t really have a better option either way.”

So as they all filed out of the airship and onto solid ground, Thorax removed Julius’s cocoon from its closet and carried it out too, hanging the cocoon instead from the branch of a nearby tree more than sturdy enough to support the weight where it would be within Obsidian’s line of sight. Then he explained the intent to both Obsidian and Ember. Both agreed to the plan, considering it the most logically desirable one they had available. However, this plan still left it vague on the course of action to take should the worst transpire and Julius did awake and successfully escape his cocoon.

“What should I do if he tries to cause trouble?” Obsidian grumbled aloud, the big dragon clearly uncertain on what he was expected to do.

“Stop him and keep him contained without hurting him as much as possible,” Ember replied immediately.

“And if that’s not enough and he still resists?” Obsidian asked.

Ember glanced warily at Thorax before turning back to Obsidian. “Then use your best judgement.”

Which, Thorax realized with a sinking heart, pretty much meant Obsidian had permission to kill Julius for the greater good of their mission if it meant this would be the only thing that would keep him from creating trouble. But, seeing no way around it, he instead prayed such a horrid action wouldn’t ever have to come to pass.

That all settled then, the rest of them departed from the Vergilius and Obsidian and approached the border that led into the quiet and tranquil acorn grove dividing them from the changeling hive. There, they made last minute checks before departing. Soon, they were as settled as they could be that they indeed had everything.

“So everyone’s ready then?” Starlight asked, who had more or less taken command of their quest without meaning to. “Everyone has everything they’re going to need? Used the bathroom already? Won’t need to head back for anything?”

“As ready as we’ll ever be, I guess,” Trixie remarked aloud, who had already pulled out the crackers and peanut butter to nervously snack on.

“Well then,” Thorax remarked in the spur of the moment, turning to head off, “Allons-y!”

He was then greeted with a bunch of blank looks and realized few of them understood the term.

“It’s Prench,” he explained sheepishly, “for ‘let’s go.’”

“Oh,” Starlight remarked with a dismissive shrug and started off into the grove.

Ember followed, using her scepter like a walking stick. “Whatever.”

Thorax frowned but followed suit without further comment.

Trixie moved to walk beside him. “I didn’t know you could speak Prench,” she noted aloud, curious.

“He doesn’t,” Spike replied for Thorax with a teasing smirk as he walked on Thorax’s opposite side. “He’s just listened to too much Doctor Hooves.”

“Shush, you,” Thorax replied back, annoyed, but unable to hide an amused grin himself, knowing Spike’s comment was all in friendly jest.

They pressed on, Thorax taking the lead so to guide them as they headed on into the depths of the grove of oak trees, and it wasn’t long before they were well out of sight of the air yacht and all that remained with it. They continued to idly chat amongst themselves about nothing in particular for a bit as they went, but eventually the serenity of the grove settled upon them with a shushing power greater than any librarian and they fell quiet, idly gazing about at the startlingly pretty woods and letting its beauty sink in. For a long while there was little to listen to other than the sound of their steps and the munching of Trixie nervously eating her peanut butter and crackers.

“It’s certainly quiet here,” Starlight finally observed aloud after several more minutes of this silence, her tone soft and barely louder than a whisper, as if she was afraid speaking would ruin the tranquility.

“Too quiet,” Ember noted, folding her scaly arms in discontent but also speaking in a muted tone. “I don’t like it.”

“The quiet is normal though, and part of what makes the grove so special,” Thorax said, who had been continuously drinking in the peace of the grove like a parched pony the whole time they had been walking amongst the trees. He had dearly missed the acorn grove and was glad to have the chance to return to it again, even if only in passing. “Gives you a chance to actually…hear yourself think…time to mull over bigger issues than whatever tiresome task the queen wants you to do today.” He glanced back at the others. “Whenever things in the hive got too overwhelming for me, for whatever reason, this was always the place I would slip away to and clear my head.” His gaze wandered back to the leafy canopy hanging over their heads. “It was the only place that could lift the heavy burdens on my mind sometimes.”

“Sounds like this grove is pretty special to you, Thorax,” Starlight observed, grinning slightly at Thorax’s reverence for it.

“Immensely,” Thorax agreed without hesitation. “It was the shelter of this grove that got me through some of the most trying times in my life, honestly.”

“Why is this grove here anyway?” Ember asked, puzzled by this much. “You keep acting like it means something important to the changelings, but I haven’t been able to figure out why.”

Spike reached down and scooped up a fallen acorn from off the ground. “It’s these,” he explained, holding up the nut for Ember to see before elaborating simply for the dragoness’s benefit. “You see, the acorns these trees all grow hold a sort of religious significance to changelings.”

Thorax blushed a little, but he certainly didn’t deny it. “Indeed,” he confirmed humbly. “The acorns are believed to promote a sort of aura of wisdom and comfort, especially in groupings like this.”

“So it’s no accident that this grove exists so close to the hive then, isn’t it?” Starlight surmised.

“Quite,” Thorax confirmed. “For many generations, changelings have been planting and expanding the grove so to encourage that benevolent aura as much as possible. Many have been eager to take part of the benefits that then follow, so the hive’s never short on volunteers.”

“Is there a sort of changeling groundkeeper, then?” Starlight asked next, having become curious.

“Not per se…it’s more just a group effort, where if a changeling sees something that needs done in passing, then they’ll likely take the time to do it. With so many frequently visiting the grove, it’s not hard for all of those little tasks to add up.”

“As for planting new trees, that happens a little more incidentally,” Spike continued, picking up the explanation as he recalled what information Thorax had given him on the subject while examining the acorn still in his claws, “the changelings collect up all of the acorns that fall off the trees and then, at the end of the growing season, go and scatter them out across the land, with the hope new acorn-bearing trees will grow, spreading that aura Thorax is talking about.” He glanced around at their surroundings with a pleased smirk. “Clearly, it’s been working out pretty well.”

“Yes, in fact the hive has probably already been in the process of collecting the final batches for the season now,” Thorax observed. “I expect the Dissipatio will be taking place in another few weeks.” He gazed longingly into the tree limbs above his head again. “I’m actually a little sorry that I will have to miss it…it always been one of my favorite events…one of the few times every changeling actually felt…united.”

A long moment of silence then fell as the group allowed themselves to savor the sanctity of the moment, unable but to share a little in Thorax’s reverence for the grove and the acorns that grew there.

Though the silence was still occasionally interrupted by the sound of Trixie continuing to munch on peanut butter and crackers, and finally it annoyed Ember enough that she spoke up about it. “Must you keep munching so noisily on those things?” she demanded, twisting her head around to look at Trixie.

“I’m nervous!” Trixie replied back in her defense, continuing to go right on munching on the snack. “I eat when I’m nervous! It helps me keep calm!”

“Well, it’s not keeping me calm!” Ember objected, and she suddenly snatched the jar of peanut butter and box of crackers from Trixie’s magical grasp.

“Hey!” Trixie objected, trying to grab them back, but Ember’s grip on them remained firm. “Give those back!”

“Make me, you…” Ember started to retort back, but then abruptly stopped, going still and ramrod straight as she suddenly perked up and focused her attention straight ahead of them. “Someone’s coming!” she hissed, lowering the volume of her voice.

The others urgently followed her gaze into the lightly rustling foliage before them, but Thorax, who had already noticed something amiss just moments earlier and had been quickly sniffing the air, suddenly turned around to face them, eyes alight with worry. “She’s right, we need to hide!” he declared in an urgent whisper.

“Why, who’s—?” Starlight started to speak, but Thorax cut her off as he started to motion to hiding places.

“There are two changelings coming this way!” he explained urgently.

And sure enough, the rustling that had first caught Ember’s attention was now getting gradually louder, and almost directly ahead of them, the foliage started to shift and move as something pushed through it.

“Everyone hide, keep quiet, and keep calm!” Thorax ordered, giving Starlight and Trixie a push for a cluster of bushes positioned a few feet to one side of their location.

Starlight, catching on, quickly galloped to the bushes and leapt into them, ducking out of view. Ember, meanwhile, tucked Trixie’s peanut butter and crackers under her free arm before grabbing Spike around the middle with the arm holding her scepter and, with a single but powerful stroke of her wings, launched both of them upwards and into the canopy above, vanishing from sight in the leafy foliage. Thorax meanwhile had to keep pushing Trixie towards the bushes, the mare having practically frozen and seemed suddenly incapable of motion, and he didn’t cease until he had them both hidden in the bushes with Starlight, ducking low so to keep out of sight.

Just a matter of seconds after the last of them dropped out of view, the approaching changelings stepped out of the surrounding foliage and into view. They were not disguised, but there was no reason to have expected them to be—they were, after all, on their own turf. From his hiding spot with suddenly statue-still Starlight and the nervous Trixie to his side, Thorax carefully peered through a small gap in the bush and at the two changelings, observing them. He had feared that the two had been alerted to their presence somehow already and had come to investigate, searching for clues. Instead, he found that the two changelings were simply strolling through the area, engaged in deep conversation spoken in their native language. From the bits and pieces Thorax could catch, it sounded like the two were criticizing each other on how they did their jobs in the hive—apparently they were both praefecti, prefects that served as a sort of administrative staff directly under Queen Chrysalis—and complaining aloud about some of the stressful tasks they had been put through as of late because of said duties, which Thorax assumed were related to the ongoing infiltration of Equestria’s government. They seemed otherwise unaware that they weren’t as alone in this area as they thought at present.

Thorax had to frown over this, as this meant these two changelings passing through here and now was nothing more than pure coincidence, and he and the others simply had the rotten luck of being in their path. Nonetheless though, because these two changelings were praefecti, that meant they were changelings that rarely wandered far from the hive or the shelter of the acorn grove they were in now, would have little experience searching for or detecting any outside threats that might come their way, or be prepared to react to such a threat if confronted with one—this was something they would leave up to other changelings more qualified, of which none were immediately present. Thorax found that meant the odds of the two noticing the hidden intruders were low; he had little doubt that the two would simply and safely pass by, unaware they were there, and then they could all go on their ways with the two never being the wiser.

And at first that seemed to be exactly the case, as the two changelings slowly strolled through—they were clearly in no hurry—continuing in their ambling conversation without ceasing or any pause. Thorax thought to himself that the old changeling stereotype that all praefecti were noisy had some truth to it after all, and kept waiting for them to finish passing through. But then, when the two changelings were only about halfway past, they both started to slow down and their gazes turned off of each other and onto their surroundings, gazing about them as if suddenly confused. Thorax noted alarm that both had begun sniffing the air and feared the two changelings could smell at least one of them lurking nearby. This fear was realized when one asked the other if he could smell what he smelt. No doubt it was some stray emotion that was out of place for the location.

If so, he needed to determine what it was and where it was coming from so to try and quell it before it gave them away. Thorax was reasonably confident that it wasn’t coming from him; he had enough practice controlling his emotions that, for the moment, he felt his emotions were not being exposed too much. Spike and Ember, being up in the canopy of the grove, were too far for Thorax to get a clear sense of their emotions at the moment, but he doubted they would be problematic, as they were in the best position to move to a safer location without easy detection if needed without his prompting. Starlight was also keeping herself impressively calm to Thorax’s senses. She seemed slightly nervous, but was keeping it inward and to herself enough that not much of it was wafting away from her. Thorax was confident the problem emotion wasn’t coming from her.

Trixie, however…

One glance at her sitting beside him was all Thorax needed to see that the azure mare was on a verge of a panic attack, sweat clearly glistening on her brow, eyes wide and pupils dilated in fear, and she was even shivering a little. Her eyes were locked on the two changelings that had come into view in clear terror, terror that only seemed to increase as the two changelings continued to sniff the air, puzzled and attempting to pinpoint the source of the unexpected emotion they were detecting, and were gradually starting to narrow it down to the general area she, Thorax, and Starlight were hiding from view in a bush.

Thorax turned his attention to Trixie, placing a hoof on her shoulder. “Trixie, I need you to calm down,” he whispered to her.

“I know, I’m trying,” Trixie whispered back.

“Try harder,” Starlight urged, watching the two changelings carefully herself as she seemed to catch on to the same thing Thorax had determined.

“They can smell your fear,” Thorax explained further, moving his hoof to rub Trixie’s shoulder in a hopefully soothing manner, recalling that this had helped calm her down when she had nervously taken the helm the previous evening. “You need to control it.”

“I’m trying but I can’t,” Trixie stressed through gritted teeth.

Meanwhile, Starlight was watching the two changelings with gradually growing worry as they seemed to be getting closer and closer to pinpointing it to their hiding spot, steadily starting to take the odd step in their general direction. “Thorax, are we going to need to take them out?” she asked quickly.

Thorax had already been considering the idea, but he didn’t really like it. “We would have to catch them by surprise and take them both down simultaneously,” he replied back, looking around Trixie so to meet the unicorn’s gaze.

“I have a stunning spell I can use, but I can only hit one target at a time with it,” Starlight replied back.

“As it is for me, but the moment we hit one, the other will bolt, and his fear will only raise the alarm of any other changelings within range. They are not soldiers, Starlight, they will not have the guts to stand and fight and will want to flee and alert others.” He shook his head. “Besides, if we stun them, we will only have to figure out how to keep them contained, out of the way, and undiscovered afterwards so they will have no chance of interfering with our plans after we leave, because we can’t possibly take them with and they will recall that they were attacked upon awakening and will then want to alert the hive.”

“Put them in cocoons!” Trixie suggested urgently in a harsh whisper.

Thorax gave the gel glands in the back of his mouth a squeeze, but was only rewarded with a small drop of gel onto his tongue followed by a sharp ache as the glands protested this, clearly conveying that they were pretty much empty. He shook his head. “I cannot, I am still drained of gel from putting all of you in cocoons yesterd—” he cut himself short and got to the point. “We don’t have time to discuss this. Trixie, our best hope is that you calm down. If you purge that fear from yourself, they will have no clear emotions to follow and leave.”

“I’m trying, I’m trying,” Trixie hissed, but it seemed the harder she tried to calm herself, the more worked up she got instead.

And the more worked up she got, the more clearly the two changelings seemed to detect it, and the more they started to veer in their direction, sniffing the air and trying to pinpoint the source. If it kept up, they would upon them in mere moments. Starlight didn’t seem to have anything more to suggest and seemed to be mentally hurrying for a plan without avail and Thorax had run out of alternatives that he liked himself.

So, seeing no way around it, he quickly grabbed Trixie and turned her to face him. “Trixie, you trust me, correct?”

Trixie, surprised by the motion, looked at him blankly for a second. “Yes?” she said, confused on why he would be asking.

“Then I ask you continue to trust me and let me do what I am about to do,” Thorax urged. “Starlight, keep an eye on those two for me.” He lit his horn, gazing at Trixie for a split second. “I apologize in advance for this,” he added as he placed his horn against the tip of Trixie’s.

“Why, what are you—?” Trixie began to ask, but she trailed off as she felt Thorax form the mental link between them.

Unlike when Thorax had forged a link with Spike some moons back, which was very jury-rigged and unwieldly due to biological incompatibilities between dragons and changelings, Trixie’s unicorn horn served as an excellently compatible conduit through which Thorax could forge the link, and as such, he had almost immediate access into Trixie’s mental scape and practically guaranteed near-perfect control of the link. Nonetheless, once he had entered Trixie’s mental scape, he did not press any further into it out of respect for Trixie’s privacy. Instead he floated on the surface of her thoughts and began pouring as many calming thoughts as he could into her mind, hoping these would coax her to ease her fear.

However, Trixie’s initial reaction was alarm, not understanding what was happening, followed rapidly by confusion as Thorax’s own thoughts started to appear in her mind as a result of the link, confusion that only increased as she started to realize that Thorax’s mind had joined with hers and began to comprehend in shock that the changeling was telepathic. Soon her mind was flooded with questions about this that was making it hard for Thorax to concentrate, so in addition to the calming thoughts, he also started sharing his knowledge on how changeling telepathy worked and its history, much of the same knowledge he had more verbally shared with Spike after the time they had linked. Gradually, this caused Trixie’s questioning to ease and understanding began to follow. And as she started to recognize what Thorax was trying to do, her mental scape proceeded to relax, permitting Thorax to continue.

Meanwhile, Starlight wasn’t sure what was going on, as from her perspective all that had happened was Thorax and Trixie touched horns and both had gone very vacant in expression. Trixie had even closed her eyes, as if concentrating on something. But whatever it was, Starlight assumed it was supposed to help calm Trixie down, and as she continued to watch through the leaves of the bush they were hiding behind, it indeed seemed to be doing that, as gradually the sniffing and searching of the two changelings started to veer off of their location again and started to wander back to their original location, as if confused on where the source of whatever it was they were detecting was.

“Whatever it is you two are doing, it seems to be working,” she whispered aloud to the two and motioned with one hoof to keep it up.

And Thorax continued to pump calming thoughts into Trixie’s mental scape and mentally provide answers to Trixie’s questions as she thought of them. The flood of information seemed to overwhelm her somewhat, lacking experience in this and thus not prepared for the suddenness such information could be shared in a mental link, but otherwise she was indeed calming down, albeit slowly. Starting to run out of obvious calming thoughts to share with her as a result, Thorax opted to resort to sharing some his memories that helped to calm himself, hoping to keep this up long enough for the two changelings to lose interest and depart. But then Trixie started to think of what lay ahead of them still after this, became disheartened that her emotions had become a liability this quickly into the quest, and wondered with worry what would happen if this happened again and what they would have to do then. By now she had learned from the information Thorax had shared with her that this mental link required physical touch to work, and so she also worried what would happen if Thorax wasn’t close enough to her to do this next time.

Unfortunately, Thorax conveyed in his own thoughts that there was no good solution to that, except reluctantly conceding there was one option that he thought he might be able to accomplish, by attempting to establish a sort of “doorstop connection” with Trixie, which was a means of quick-linking mental scapes on demand even from a distance if needed. The drawback to this though was that setting it up required a sort of connection that was just a hop, skip, and a jump from starting a hive mind, a practice was that highly restricted among the changelings and considered illegal to do without special authorization from Queen Chrysalis, authorization she almost never gave and Thorax certainly didn’t have. If the other changelings caught them working such connection at any time, there would be severe consequences.

He chose not to elaborate upon what these consequences would be, but he must have accidentally let slip some of his thoughts on the matter to Trixie regardless because she suddenly caught on that this meant Thorax could be executed if caught doing such a thing, and with a flare of fear for the changeling’s safety, she quickly backpedaled away from that option, choosing instead to insist that they not resort to that. Thorax, not eager to use it himself due to the dangers in addition to a lack of confidence he could actually pull it off correctly anyway, readily agreed, and both started considering other alternatives.

By this time, the two changelings had gathered back together and started quietly conversing with each other again. As they weren’t speaking Equestrian, Starlight couldn’t be certain what they were saying, but one changeling was turned facing towards her enough that she could make out mild confusion on his face. Neither seemed particularly concerned, and both were just puzzled. Starlight hazarded to guess it was because they sensed an emotion they weren’t expecting out here, but it had just as quickly faded again and now they were wondering over why. It eventually escalated into a small debate over the matter, but finally, apparently not finding a satisfactory answer but not caring enough to pursue it further, the two changelings shrugged their shoulders and continued on their way, starting to walk off roughly along their original path.

“It’s working, they’re leaving,” Starlight whispered to Trixie and Thorax.

Thorax chanced a glance himself, pulling his immediate attention off the mental link and on the departing changelings. Satisfied, he refocused his attention on the link and prepared to break it off. As he did so though, Trixie had started to reason in her mind that she would just have to force herself to keep calm for the remainder of the journey and vowed to do so, even though her confidence in it was still wavering. He reasoned that maybe it would help Trixie to remain calm in the future on her own if she had reason to be more confident in her ability to successfully aid in the venture, so as he pulled out of the link, right as he was about the end the link altogether, he quickly shared some final information and encouragement with Trixie’s subconscious as way of a precaution, hoping that could be of assistance, even in the worst case.

Trixie didn’t immediately notice when Thorax withdrew from her mental scape though, still having the thoughts and memories he had shared with her bouncing around her mind that she knew were not hers, and for a moment she thought he was still there. But as her mind slowly started to sort out the new information and Trixie could no longer sense the added presence of a second mind in contact with hers, plus the fact that Thorax was no longer responding to her thoughts, she realized the link was over. Feeling dazed, she slowly opened her eyes again, not realizing she had closed them in the first place, and peered at Thorax still sitting directly in front of her.

He was leaning quite close to her, but he had powered down his horn and removed its curved and pointed tip from touching with Trixie’s horn. He was peering at her with expectant but hesitant eyes, and at some point, also without Trixie’s noticing, he had placed both of his forehooves on either side of her head in an attempt to keep her still. Trixie didn’t really focus on any of this though, and for some moments as they quietly waited for the two changelings to move further away from their hiding spots, she was still coming to terms with the fact that her mind was isolated and her own again, something that now felt oddly jarring—like she had only just returned to a familiar home after spending years living on another world, and her mind wasn’t quite sure what to make of the whole experience. Did that really just happen?

“Whoa,” Trixie finally breathed, awed. “That was…weird.” She felt like she should be asking questions, lots of them, but found Thorax had already answered most of them while they were linked, having given her the needed information that way.

Thorax grinned ever so slightly at Trixie’s jarred state and seemed to sympathize. “The first time is always a little…disorienting,” he whispered in assurance as he removed his hooves from her temples.

It was then that Starlight, satisfied that the two intruding changelings had left and weren’t immediately coming back, butted in. “Just what was that anyway?” she asked, now watching the two closely as they came back to reality. “What were you two doing?”

Without turning away from each other, Thorax and Trixie glanced at the heliotrope unicorn for a second. Thorax was uncertain how to explain and did not feel especially comfortable dwelling upon it in Starlight’s presence. “Mental link,” he explained simply as he rose and walked out from behind the bush in search of the others.

Starlight didn’t understand though. “What?” she asked as her head turned to follow Thorax. “What do you mean by that?”

“He’s telepathic, Starlight,” Trixie abruptly summed up, her eyes still staring straight ahead at the spot Thorax had been sitting before her, in a daze.

Starlight locked her eyes on Trixie again, widening slightly as she stared at her friend in astonishment. “What?” she breathed aloud, mind awhirl with the possibilities this presented.

Further conversation on that subject was curtailed as Thorax reached roughly the spot they had been when they had all gone scurrying for cover, looking up into the tree branches above in search of the remaining two of their group. “Spike?” he called softly, “Ember?”

He let out a small, barely concealed yelp when Ember suddenly dropped down from within the canopy directly in front of him, Spike still held safely in her arms. “Present!” Ember quipped, smirking at Thorax’s startlement.

Not amused, Thorax swatted one hoof on Ember’s arm as she set Spike down on the ground. “The coast is clear for the moment again, in case that wasn’t already obvious,” he remarked gruffly.

“Was just waiting for the all-clear from you before moving,” Ember said, straightening, and putting one set of claws on her back as she went on to bend backwards slightly, trying to pop her spine. “Just in time too, I was starting to get cramped hiding up in those tree limbs…”

“What happened, Thorax?” Spike interjected here, straightening the sleeves of his white shirt and the hem of his sweater vest as he approached the changeling. “I couldn’t hear those two changelings much, only picking out pieces of their conversation, so I wasn’t sure what was happening. Did they know we’d be here?”

“Not at all,” Thorax assured, turning to glance in the direction the two changelings had walked off in, already long gone from sight and he was glad for it. “They were simply passing through this spot by pure chance and we just had the rotten luck to be in the way.”

“Hey, you said that wasn’t going to happen,” Ember abruptly pointed out, annoyed as she jabbed a claw almost accusingly at Thorax. “You said that this grove place was big enough that we weren’t going to cross paths with any other changelings that might be in here too.”

“I did,” Thorax confirmed, not denying it, and he had meant it at the time too, so the fact it had happened despite his expectations certainly bothered him.

And it bothered the others too. “So just what were the odds for those two changelings to have almost stumbled upon us by accident like that, Thorax?” Starlight asked as she and the still decidedly-distracted Trixie—being guided along a little by Starlight—stepped up and joined the conversation.

“About a hundred to one,” Thorax admitted with a sympathetic wince. “For our luck’s sake though, I’m hoping this was just a fluke.”

“Or we could be standing in a whole heap of crap before too much longer,” Ember bluntly observed. She shook her head. “I was more concerned about why those two lingered around here for as long as they did. Spike whispered to me that he thought they could smell someone’s emotions…was that it? And if so…who’s to blame?”

“They were detecting someone’s fear, yes,” Thorax explained for the dragoness and peered at her and Spike in turn. “So you tell me…how afraid were you two while you were hiding?”

Ember considered it for a moment, reflecting back. “Honestly? Not very,” she admitted. “Because I figured even if those two did start to pick me out, I could totally just keeping going on up through the canopy into the open sky and fly away. Bugged by the idea of all that, certainly. But afraid?” She shook her head confidently. “Nah, not really.”

“I, for one, was mildly concerned at all of this, especially when those two stopped to stand practically right under us,” Spike admitted. “But it was hard to feel too afraid when Ember had me in practically a body lock, partly for the same reasons as she said, and partly because…well…” he motioned at Ember with one set of claws, “…look at her. She could’ve taken them.”

“I totally could’ve,” Ember agreed smugly, nodding her head once in approval.

Thorax nodded his head too. “That’s largely what I thought,” he said, and sighed. “For us, I like to think I kept myself fairly calm during that, and Starlight was actually doing wonderful keeping her emotions in check.” He glanced apologetically at Trixie. “So I’m afraid it was Trixie’s emotions that they were detecting, as she had a small…panic attack.” He glanced back at the others. “Obviously, we’re all doing better now, but…”

“Yeah, are you doing okay there, Trixie?” Spike interjected suddenly, looking at the still-dazed mare with a look of mild concern. “You seem a bit…out of it.”

Trixie, who had gotten caught up sorting out the memories and thoughts she had gleaned from Thorax during the mental link, blinked and refocused her attention on Spike. “Sorry, I just have…” she glanced briefly at Thorax, “…a bit to think about.”

Starlight glanced at Thorax with a look of uncertainty for a second too, then turned to Trixie and put a hoof on her shoulder. “How are you feeling, Trixie?” she asked gently.

Trixie’s eyes went vacant for a second as she considered the question. “Calm,” she finally concluded.

A beat passed in the group then Ember shrugged. “Well, that is what we’d prefer anyway,” she admitted.

“Right,” Thorax said, looking around at their surroundings, getting his bearings again before motioning for them to move on. “We need to keep moving and away from here in case those two come heading our way again.” He peered through a thin spot in the leafy canopy and at the sun, noting its position now a fair bit above the horizon but still on the eastern side of the sky, conveying that it was about mid-morning now. “And I’d like to reach the hive before this afternoon if at all possible.”

“Agreed,” Starlight said, and motioned to Thorax to resume guiding the way as before. “After you, Thorax.”

They resumed walking onwards through the soundless grove for a few minutes. Eventually, Ember remembered she still had Trixie’s peanut butter and crackers still tucked under one arm and timidly offered them back to the mare. “Here, I guess you can have these back if you want.”

Trixie, however, regarded the snack for a second then shook her head, declining the offer. “You know what?” she said. “You can keep ahold of those.” She shrugged. “I’m not feeling all that hungry anymore.”

Ember seemed surprised by this, considering how much protesting Trixie had done when she had taken them away from the showmare, but the dragoness simply shrugged and kept them in her claws without further comment. Eventually, she started to snack occasionally on the peanut buttery treat herself, Spike joining in every now and then too. Meanwhile, the rest of the group hiked on, lulled back into silence as they savored the quietude of the acorn grove, though after the close encounter with the two changelings, they were left a bit on edge and were ever on the lookout for such an incident repeating. Fortunately for them, it did not, and they found absolutely no other signs of any other changelings in the grove. It almost seemed as if they had the whole grove all to themselves…which naturally they could not object to.

After several more minutes of this though, Ember started to grow bored. “This grove certainly is massive,” she grumbled, jabbing the butt end of her scepter at an old rotting log they were passing with a thud. She glanced up at Thorax, who was vaguely leading the group. “I mean, I guess I get it, you changelings love these trees, but c’mon…don’t you think this is a bit excessive?”

Thorax chuckled. “Not really, no,” he admitted. He gazed around at the grove fondly. “I wouldn’t give up this grove for anything, and I know a few other changelings in the hive who’d agree with me. In fact, many of them would only want to make it bigger, if possible.”

Ember rolled her eyes, but she didn’t argue further. “It feels like we’ve been walking for ages, though,” she remarked instead. “You sure we’re heading the right way and not actually going in circles?”

“Positive,” Thorax replied immediately and completely without hesitation. “Trust me, Ember, I know this grove even better than I do the hive. We’re heading the right way. In fact, we’re almost at the edge of the acorn trees growing here. We should be reaching it soon.”

“Acorn trees? I thought these trees are called oak trees, and not acorn trees,” Ember remarked aloud, motioning at the trees that surrounded them on all sides.

Thorax shrugged. “Every changeling I’ve ever heard refers to them as acorn trees, so I guess that’s just what we changelings call them,” he reasoned aloud.

“And it’s not like it’s inaccurate,” Spike pointed out from beside Ember. He motioned at a passing tree, its limbs ladened with the nuts. “I mean, they are trees that do produce acorns.”

“That doesn’t mean that’s what you should call it,” Ember argued back.

“Why not?” Trixie asked, looking back at the dragoness. “I mean, after all, we call a tree that produces apples an apple tree.”

Ember scowled, but unable to argue that point, she let the subject drop.

So Starlight took the moment to interject with a question of her own. “So some changelings would want to expand the acorn grove even further than this?” she asked. When Thorax nodded, she continued. “But why? I mean, I get it, the acorns have cultural significance and all of that, but this grove is so massive that, as you said, changelings can walk through it for hours and not meet anyone else, even if there’s a whole bunch of them in here. If it got much bigger, I bet you could house your whole hive in this grove with plenty of space to spare, and that just seems like it’d be unnecessary effort when it’s already plenty big.” Her brow furrowed as she pondered the matter. “Unless the crop of acorns has other uses in the hive, like maybe consumption…do the changelings perhaps farm the—?”

“Uh no, and that’s actually a bit of a touchy subject that I’d advise you not to bring up unless you want to get an earful,” Spike interrupted for Starlight’s benefit, recalling how Thorax had reacted when he himself had suggested anyone eating acorns.

“But to answer the question,” Thorax replied, “there’s a couple of reasons why expanding the grove would have its uses, but chief among them is simply the natural protection it gives the hive from danger.”

“Yeah, I’d buy that,” Ember remarked with an approving nod. “It’d be hard for an army of ground forces to try and march through a grove as thick as this. It’d help deter invaders.”

“It’s more than that, though,” Thorax added, glancing back at the others. “According to legend, it’s believed the acorn grove provides a sort of…I guess you’d call it supernatural protection for the hive, a sort of…mystic barrier shielding it from danger and misfortune, and overall warding away trouble that would otherwise come to the hive. Supposedly, that barrier should stop anyone or anything that wishes harm to the hive from coming through and invading, forcing them to instead turn back without ever reaching the hive.”

The group all glanced at one another for a second, then out at the surrounding trees making up the grove hesitantly.

“We’re doing that, though,” Ember finally remarked, stating the obvious.

“Yes, and the irony of that isn’t lost on me,” Thorax admitted. He gazed about at their surroundings again but this time with a note of concealed concern, the thought clearly troubling him a little. Regardless, he waved his hoof dismissively. “But it is a legend after all… so it’s probably little more than just an old tale, anyway.”

A moment of heavy silence fell. “But you think those legends have truth to them, Thorax,” Trixie softly remarked aloud after a second.

Thorax chose not to respond to that comment.

Silence again lapsed on the group for another few minutes. During this, Trixie allowed her mind wander deep into thought again, so she failed to notice Starlight ahead of her stopping until she was bumping into the mare’s rear. “Starlight, what gives?” she grumbled as she looked up and around the halted unicorn. “Why’d you—oh.”

Directly ahead of them, the acorn grove abruptly halted and ceased to exist beyond that point. After a few feet of level, grassy, ground, it sharply dropped off in a gravelly decline, after which nothing but barren wasteland stretched on to the horizon.

At directly the center of it was the changeling hive.

The group regarded the structure of towering and uneven spires, changelings faintly visible from here as black dots moving about it, in silence for a long moment, taking in the intimidating view. Thorax was heard to audibly gulp.

“Well,” Ember finally said slowly, “it certainly looks bigger and more threatening now that we’re this close to it.”

“It’s only going to get bigger still,” Thorax warned softly. “We’ve still got another mile to walk before we arrive at it.”

“Sheesh,” Spike mumbled, cowed by the sight of the hive.

Starlight moved to stand next to Thorax. “Does that mean we’re going to be entering full range of that magic-draining throne now?” she asked.

Thorax nodded and pointed at the edge where the land dropped into the brief slope and immediately transitioned into wasteland. “From that point on, everyone’s magic but my own will cease to work.”

Starlight studied the dividing edge for a second before lighting her horn, allowing her magic to coalesce around it as she timidly approached this dividing line. She expected her magic to gradually fade out as she crossed over this clear-cut line, but was instead surprised to find that the moment her horn passed over this invisible barrier, her magic instantly went out like a candle being blown out, with her horn going numb as her magic vanished. Surprised by the sudden sensation, she pulled back from the divider, stared at it for a long moment, panting. She then glanced back at the others who were all watching her closely and with clear nervousness on their faces. Even Ember seemed a little unsettled.

Starlight let out her breath with a whoosh. “Well then,” she said, turning around so to face the group, “does anyone have anything they’d like to say before we proceed?”

The others glanced at each other for a second, debating to themselves.

“Don’t die,” Ember finally offered.

Starlight narrowed her eyes at the dragon lord. “Thank you for that, Ember,” she said sarcastically.

“You’re…welcome?” Ember replied uncertainly then leaned closer to Spike. “Hey Spike, that is the right thing to say in this instance, right?”

Spike wearily glanced back at her. “Yes Ember, it is.”

Ember pumped her fist victoriously. “Ha! I’m starting to get the hang of this whole being civil thing.”

After some eye-rolling at Ember, the rest of the group moved to join Starlight standing at the dividing line between grassland and wasteland, gazing at the path ahead of them.

Trixie took a deep breath. “Thorax, when we left the airship, what was that Prench thing you said again?” she asked suddenly.

Thorax glanced at her out of the corner of his solid blue eyes. “Allons-y.”

Trixie nodded, and motioned out at the hive. “Well…allons-y, then.”

Thorax nodded in agreement too, following her gaze. “Allons-y indeed.”

And with that, the group stepped over that dividing line and resumed their trek as one, now on their final approach towards the changeling hive ahead of them.

Author's Note

I want you guys to know just how close you all didn't get a chapter tonight--as I was sitting down to give this chapter it's customary final edit before posting, I suddenly had a crisis of doubt about whether a certain scene in this chapter (not saying which) was even going to be necessary, and that hinged upon how I write that all-important moment of the story, The Climax (which I'm almost at, BTW), and it's recently occurred to me there are two major ways I could take that, and I can only use one. Whichever it was determined a lot of things about what would or would not be necessary in the remaining chapters of the story, this one included, and I wasn't sure I was prepared to make that call just yet. So I very nearly decided to call for a last-minute delay in the story posting and take time to figure it out...but luckily for all of you, it didn't come to that.

Anyway, after all the talk of the changeling acorn grove Thorax's blabbed on about for so long in this story, visiting the actual thing seemed necessary. Though to try and keep things interesting and relevant, I did add in other things to do as such, like the scene with Thorax and Trixie's mental link...which actually has been an idea almost as old as the idea of Thorax being a touch-telepath in of itself.

FYI, though obviously I will doing everything I can to keep it from being a word-for-word lifting of it, the next couple of chapters will probably start running a bit parallel with "To Where and Back Again," for obvious reasons. Don't expect that means things will end precisely as they did in the episode, though. :raritywink:

The Hive

The hike through the remaining wastelands separating them from the changeling hive was long and tedious, but largely and thankfully uneventful. Thorax admitted that he used to sneak to and from the grove and hive often before finally leaving, thus he knew several tricks to be able to safely sneak across the barren terrain without detection, and he employed a few as they trekked to the hive. The only exception to that was in regards to what they did to hide from the changeling patrols that flew by overhead at regular times.

Clearly, there was a routine and planned pattern to the patrols, but Thorax made it clear that these set patterns were deliberately changed at random intervals so to prevent enemies memorizing the patterns and bypassing them altogether, so taking the time to memorize them had always struck him as pointless. Instead, what he had always done to slip past an overflying patrol, back when it was just him sneaking about, was to transform into some mundane object that to an overflying patrol wouldn’t seem worth noticing. As he obviously couldn’t do this with their whole group though, he instead resorted to his custom spell that hid an object by making it “unnoticeable” and expanding the range sufficiently to encompass all of them. As the spell was a magic hog even when just applied to Thorax, the strain of doing this was enough that Thorax couldn’t maintain it for much longer than five to ten minutes at most, but that was usually all he needed to do it for. It helped that Thorax’s confidence in being able to slip past all of this rubbed off on the rest and thus, emotionally speaking, they did little to give themselves away to the changelings routinely flying by.

It was slow going, but their progress was steady, and many of them weren’t in too much of a hurry to arrive at the intimidating hive lying ahead of them, ever looming bigger the closer they got. Along the way, while they were still ducked behind a large boulder so to hide from a nearby patrol, Ember remembered she needed to check and see how the effects of the magic-absorbing throne had on her firebreath, and did a quick test. Fortunately, she and Spike both demonstrated that they could still breathe fire, but it lacked the normal colors that distinguished them, the flames coming out as merely raw orange fire, and they lacked the normal degree of control over the behavior of the fire. Spike likened it to having a “campfire in my mouth,” explaining that he could produce the fire, but whatever the fire did after that was per it’s will, not his. He rather liked this, because of the raw power the flames felt to have, but Ember was annoyed by the lack of control, pointing out that she couldn’t breathe a refined flame with which to try and cut into the throne when the time came. But she at least noted that they both still had the firebreath and thus was available to them for use if needed. This boosted their hopes for success, but not enough to eliminate the dread of what still lay before them in their so-called quest.

Perhaps as a result of that apprehension, there wasn’t much talking among the group. This at least suited Trixie just fine, left with plenty to think about after what had happened earlier in the grove and was still trying to sort through the experience of her mental link with Thorax. This must have left a sort of vacant look on her face though, because eventually Starlight, having been keeping an eye on Trixie a bit more than usual since that same event, sidled up to her.

“Are you doing okay, Trixie?” her friend asked quietly.

Trixie blinked her eyes a few times as she slipped out of her introspective state. “Yeah, fine, just…thinking.”

“Mm.” Starlight went quiet for a second. “Look, about earlier, in the grove, I have to ask…did you already know Thorax was telepathic before then?”

Trixie shook her head. “Hadn’t a clue until then, so it was just as much a surprise for me as it was for you,” she replied.

Starlight mulled upon it a second longer. “What was it like?”

Trixie had to think hard about that one. “I don’t know how to put it into words, honestly,” she admitted. “It’s…sort of indescribable…you have to experience it to really get a full feel for it…but it was sort of like…his mind and my mind were joined and made…for a few fleeting moments…one.”

Starlight blinked in surprise. “Are you saying he had full access to…well…everything in your mind?”

“I guess so…but I still felt in full control of everything in my head, and he didn’t seem to be prying into anything in there.” Trixie rapped the side of her head for emphasis. “Actually, he spent most of it just stuffing his thoughts into my head, both in the attempt to calm me down, and to answer my questions on what was happening as I thought of them.” She tilted her head at Starlight. “Why do you ask?”

“It’s just…telepathy…” Starlight sighed softly. “Most of what I know about it is only theoretical, but I still know enough to know it could be a double-edged sword if used incorrectly…and I just can’t help but wonder…if a changeling like Thorax can see into our minds like that…what else could they do? Could they manipulate our thoughts, change our way of thinking, force us to adopt views or opposing sides we normally wouldn’t? Control us through our minds to force us to do something we wouldn’t want to?”

Trixie frowned. “Do you really think Thorax is capable of doing anything like that?”

“No, of course not. Thorax wouldn’t have done everything he’s done up to this point if he meant to do malicious intent like that, so I fully believe you when you say he did nothing more but soothe your mind. But it’s not him so much I’m worried about, it’s the other changelings. What could they do with such an ability, and could they, or perhaps have they already, used it to control ponies like me or you?” Starlight sighed again. “After Spike left with Thorax, Twilight had already theorized about something like this being the case. I hadn’t really read too much into it at the time, but now, to find out that Twilight was actually right about this…”

“I don’t think the changelings could do stuff like that even if they wanted to, though,” Trixie interjected. “While we were linked, Thorax shared some info about how all this mental linking stuff works, and…I’m still trying to sort through some of it, but basically, they can share thoughts, coax the mind to undergo simply tasks like recall a memory, just relax, or shield itself from danger, but it seems that’s about it, and seems that’s all they’re really interested in. The stuff you’re talking about, the mind control and tampering with and falsifying memories…that all seems to be beyond them…and I don’t think they’d take too kindly to the idea of doing it anyway. It seems they were once, a long time ago, all linked together perpetually in a sort of hive mind but, long story short, they found that was hindering them as a race too much and was too prone to abuse, so they abandoned that practice and now refuse to go back.” Trixie’s expression turned to one of concern. “Thorax even conveyed to me that if he were to be caught doing anything even close to forming a hive mind by the others, he could be executed for it as punishment.”

Starlight pulled back in surprise, but some doubt still remained. “And you can be sure none of that was fabricated, and was all real and true fact, not just things he was feeding you to keep you…unaware?”

Trixie thought about it. “As much as I ever could be,” she admitted. “I…can’t really prove it verbally, I guess, but…after experiencing that mental link…I can just…feel it was real. All of it. Thorax wasn’t fabricating anything…so yes, if you’re asking me, then that’s the truth.” She smiled faintly, but encouragingly. “The mental prowess of a changeling isn’t the thing you need to be worrying about, at least.”

Starlight sighed once more to herself. “Yeah, probably,” she admitted. “It’s just…it’s sudden…caught me all off guard by it. I mean he’s been upfront about a bunch of other things about himself, so I guess I’m just surprised he never mentioned this before now…”

“Never mentioned what before?” Spike asked, now moving over to join the two mares, having overheard the last part of Starlight’s last statement.

Starlight glanced in his direction and seized the opportunity. “Spike, are you aware that Thorax is, in fact, telepathic?” she asked quickly. She expected him to be surprised by this information.

But he wasn’t at all. “Yeah, he is,” Spike replied with a casual shrug, like it was old news to him. “Well, latently, at least,” he then added, recalling how Thorax usually referred to the skill. “It still requires physical touch to do after all, so there are limitations.” He was about to go on to ask how this came up when, studying the expressions of the two mares, Trixie’s especially, he abruptly made the connection and his eyes widened slightly. “Did Thorax forge a mental link with one of you?”

Trixie sighed then nodded. “Yeah, with me, back in the grove, when we were hiding from those two changelings that nearly found us,” she murmured as if ashamed. “It was how he got my emotions under control and calmed down, so we wouldn’t be discovered.”

This, however, seemed to cause the surprise in Spike Starlight had been looking for, and he tilted his head at Trixie, clearly looking like he hadn’t expected to hear this detail. “Really?” he asked. “Huh…that’s…that’s surprising…”

“What surprises me more is that Thorax never said anything about it before now,” Starlight remarked. She tilted her head back at the little dragon. “You seem to know a fair bit about it though.”

“Starlight, other than Trixie now, I’m the only other one in this group who has experienced such a link with Thorax,” Spike explained simply, fiddling with the bowtie he still wore as he reflected back on the memory of the experience. He glanced at Trixie with a look of understanding. “So I’m probably the only one here that understands what that’s like…though Trixie being a unicorn, Thorax probably had a much easier time linking with her than he did with me.” He grinned sheepishly at the pair and patted his bare forehead. “He had incompatibility issues to work around, see.” He then focused his attention on Starlight more fully. “But anyway, it’s not really surprising to me that Thorax hasn’t mentioned it before to you. It was over a moon after I met him before the subject first came up with me. It’s something he’s very quiet about, and resorting to it is not something he takes lightly—he highly respects the sanctity of the mental scape for both himself and others, understanding that’s a very private thing to be able to gain access to. The sense I’ve gotten is that there are plenty of changelings that feel the same way…in fact they overall seem a bit leery of their telepathic abilities if you want my honest opinion, which makes sense if you know the history. They’d rather turn to other tactics than their mental abilities first if they can, or so the impression Thorax has given me.”

“So the reason me and Trixie are only finding about this now is simply because he’s protective of that ability, knowing it’s a very sensitive thing not to be toyed with,” Starlight recapped, starting to understand.

“Exactly,” Spike agreed with a nod. He turned to Trixie. “Which is why him choosing to forge a link with you surprises me so much…that’s no small thing for him to have done.”

“He…didn’t really have a choice at the time,” Trixie pointed out.

“Actually, Trixie, he did,” Spike pressed. “Because if all he needed to do was to end your panic attack and force you to calm down, then he could’ve just stunned you, leaving you knocked out for the remaining duration of that close encounter and not outputting any revealing emotions.”

“He could’ve,” Starlight agreed, nodding her head to herself thoughtfully. “In fact, I have to admit, Trixie, that if he hadn’t acted first, I was just about to try and stun you myself.” She gave her friend an apologetic grin. “No offense.”

“None taken,” Trixie replied, before refocusing her attention on Spike again. “But so he chose instead to forge the mental link, which, given the circumstances, makes sense to me…so that still doesn’t mean it was that big a deal, does it?”

“Trixie, you have to understand, Thorax wouldn’t do such a thing with just anyone,” Spike explained, then sighed, averting his gaze to the way ahead of them as they continued marching for the hive. “The night before Twilight found us in Vanhoover…we learned, or rather Thorax learned, that Princess Luna had been trying to track him down via the dreamscape, wanting to visit his dreams. She felt there was more going on than what Twilight and the others had told her, so she wanted to see for herself what Thorax was like and thought peeking in on his dreams would give her the answers. What she didn’t expect was that Thorax, because he’s latently telepathic, sensed her presence and caught her in his dreams, forcing an unplanned confrontation of sorts…I don’t really understand all the details on what happened exactly, but…” Spike shook his head. “Thorax swears to this day that Luna meant absolutely no ill intent in doing what she did, believes everything she told him during that encounter was complete truth, remains convinced that she was in the process of swaying to our side, and may have acted favorably for us in the days to come if Twilight hadn’t found us first…but even though he had the perfect chance to let Luna fully into his mental scape, let her see for herself who and what he was and that he was no foe…he still didn’t trust her enough to grant her that access. Even though he thinks of her so favorably, that wasn’t enough to earn the right to see into his mental scape, he’s that protective of it.”

Trixie looked at Spike blankly for a moment, brow furrowed in thought. “So what does that mean?” she asked.

“It means he trusts you, Trixie,” Spike replied softly and reverently. His gaze turned distant. “A lot more than I’ve been giving him credit for, in fact.”

Trixie’s gaze went vacant for a long moment, beginning to understand the scope of this trust Spike was trying to convey to her. It was humbling somewhat to consider the depth of that trust, and yet she couldn’t help but focus her attention on Spike still, catching on to the implications towards himself his statement provided, and she gazed at him for a long moment, debating to herself. “Do you trust me then, Spike?” she asked finally and slowly.

Spike hesitated for a second before replying. “My trust is growing, at least.” He didn’t elaborate further. Instead, after a momentary pause, he glanced back at Trixie. “So…that mental link…you handling the aftermath okay?”

Trixie seesawed one hoof back and forth, uncertain. “There’s…a lot of new stuff in my head that wasn’t there before that I’m still trying to sort out, much less get used to actually being there.” She frowned. “It’s weird having thoughts and knowledge that are so clearly not mine bouncing around…it’s jarring.”

Spike grinned knowingly. “Yeah, it, uh, it takes a little getting used to, but you adapt in time,” he admitted, reflecting on his own set of foreign memories that were still easy to recall in his mind. He had grown used to them being there, but recalling them still disoriented his mind a little due to the disconnect in ownership. He glanced between the two mares again. “Anyway…anything else either of you wanted to discuss?”

Trixie and Starlight exchanged glances briefly. Trixie slowly shook her head, not feeling the need to discuss the matter further, so as that left Starlight, she turned her attention back to Spike. “Well, I still have other questions I’d want to ask, but they’re technical enough that I don’t think you’d be able to answer, Spike, so for now, I guess so.” Starlight grinned a little. “But you at least helped me settle a few…misgivings I had about it all.”

“Good,” Spike said with a nod. “It wouldn’t do to have something like this wreck your confidence in Thorax needlessly, now of all times.” He nodded his head ahead of them at the changeling hive they were trekking towards.

Starlight nodded in agreement. “I concur, it’s going to be critical that we keep trust in each other at this point, or we’re not going to stand a chance in there,” she reasoned, then grinned encouragingly at Spike. “But never fear…unspoken telepathy or not, I still trust Thorax to safely guide us there, and with the rest of us here to back him up…hopefully that’ll be enough to give us a fighting chance.”

Spike shared the grin. “I hope you’re right,” he said. Then, without further comment, he trotted off, pulling ahead of the two mares, leaving them alone towards the back of the group.

Starlight turned her attention back to Trixie. “Well, at least you can take comfort that there’s someone else that can relate to what you went through in that mental link or whatever you want to call it,” she bantered cheerily.

Trixie nodded distractedly. “I suppose,” she admitted. She sighed. “I guess…I just wasn’t prepared for what…what that happening signifies.”

“It means Thorax has put a great deal of faith and trust in you, more than most would give someone other than themselves. That’s not something you want to depreciate in the slightest,” Starlight summed up. She nudged Trixie encouragingly. “But I don’t think you are in much danger of that…that trust is two-way, isn’t it?”

Trixie grinned a little to herself, but didn’t reply.

Meanwhile, Spike caught up with Thorax leading the way across the barren expanse heading up to the hive, coming to stand beside his changeling friend. “Hey,” he greeted.

“Hey,” Thorax greeted back, his attention focused on the hive ahead of them. It was beginning to loom over them very closely now.

Spike fidgeted with his claws for a second. “You forged a mental link with Trixie?” he asked suddenly and without warning.

There was a split-second delay before Thorax replied. “Yes,” he answered simply. But there was confidence in his choice.

Spike nodded to himself for a second. He turned thoughtful for another second after that. “I know that’s no small thing for you to have done,” he noted aloud. “You trust her a great deal then, don’t you?”

Thorax glanced down at Spike. He grinned a little. “As much as I do with you, bud,” he replied pointedly.

Spike nodded to himself again. “Okay,” he said, taking a deep breath as he turned his head to peer ahead of them. “Then…I trust your judgment.”

Thorax, who was expecting Spike to take a bit more issue with the matter than this given their past history on Trixie, regarded him in mild surprise. “That’s it? Just like that?”

“Yeah,” Spike replied softly then gave Thorax a serious glance. “Because now I know you’ve come to understand her on a level that I never will. As such…you’re now in a far better position to judge her character than I am. So…if you are willing to put that much trust in her…I’m not really in a position to argue, am I?”

Thorax’s grin returned slightly and relaxed a little, nudging the dragon with one hoof. “Don’t discredit yourself too much, though,” he urged. “You know I tend to be a bit quick to trust…so it was your misgivings in her that made me make sure she had earned it first.”

This made Spike grin to himself, feeling reassured.

Finally, after several long minutes of hiking and evading detection across the barren terrain separating the changeling hive from the rest of the world, the group of aspiring infiltrators arrived at the base of the massive structure and ducked behind some jagged, claw-like structures randomly jutting out of the earth immediately surrounding it. From here, the group got their first up close look at the hive’s entrance, a dark and gaping maw that was open and easy to see enough that it was hard to picture how one could sneak through it without getting spotted, even if one took away the two menacing-looking guards that presently stood securing it. Thorax said there were more just inside, hiding out of sight, too.

“Their job is to study everyone who enters or exits the hive and make sure they really are who they appear,” he explained quietly to the rest of them, keeping his voice low so to not be accidentally overheard by the many more changelings that were moving about the area. “So obviously they’d notice right away you all are not changelings.”

“Well, obviously,” Ember grumbled, folding her arms. “I mean, we don’t even remotely look like you.”

“Yes, but keep in mind we are changelings, shape shifters that can take on any number of appearances,” Thorax patiently reminded. “Sometimes changelings come and go while still in disguise for whatever reason, so even we changelings need to just double check and make sure. Besides, changelings can disguise themselves as other changelings and if they get away with it, then that can grant them access to places they normally wouldn’t and cause trouble. In wartime, before the hives were united, changelings were known to use such tactics trying to get into enemy hives. So it doesn’t hurt to always be skeptical of what one sees…or so a common changeling saying goes.”

“Speaking of,” Starlight interjected and turned to face everyone else, “in case any of us get separated while inside, I want to make sure we’re all clear on the code phrase to use confirming we all are who we say.”

“You say ‘Eaisht lesh dagh cleaysh,’ and I say ‘eisht jean briwnys,’” Ember replied immediately. “Simple.”

“Speak for yourself,” Trixie muttered, and struggled to repeat the whole ancient dragon proverb. “Eaisht lesh dagh cleaysh, eisht jean briwnys,” she struggled out slowly, but managing to sound out the words accurately still. She shook her head. “I still say we should’ve picked a simpler and easier code phrase to say, like, I don’t know…‘klutzy draconequus’ or something.”

Spike couldn’t help but snicker. “Something tells me that Discord wouldn’t approve of that,” he noted.

“Well, he’s not here, so it’s not like he’d get a say in it,” Trixie smugly pointed out.

“It wouldn’t make much difference if he was anyway,” Thorax reminded. “He’d be just as powerless magically as the rest of you, no offense.”

Spike had to snicker again though. “Now I’m picturing Discord’s reaction to having to be powerless for any space of time.”

“There will be time to discuss that later,” Starlight interrupted, eager to get going. She turned to Thorax. “Thorax, if not here, then where are we going to enter this place?”

“This way,” Thorax instructed and led them nearer to the hive.

This actually brought them to a hiding spot even closer to the main entrance, managing to slip past the first set of guards stationed outside of it, but with no obvious alternate way inside. Nonetheless, it was apparently still within sight as Thorax quickly noted with relief that it was unguarded as he had hoped. He then focused his attention on the solid outer wall that neighbored closely to them while the others kept an eye on the changeling guards and looking out for any sign of trouble.

Then Starlight had a thought. “Thorax, if the front entrance here is so heavily guarded, then why is this side entrance of yours not?” she asked, without turning away from the lookout she was keeping with the others.

“It’s only open part of the time,” Thorax replied back, as if this was enough to explain everything.

Only left puzzled by the vague statement, Starlight started to glance back at him. “What do you mean by that?”

But she felt Thorax’s hoof tapping her shoulder, and she turned to see Thorax silently pointing at a wide hole-like opening in the hive’s outer wall that Starlight could’ve sworn wasn’t there a second ago. Deciding not to question it for the moment and quickly getting the attention of the others, they hurried over to the opening while the coast was still clear. The entrance didn’t open quite level with the ground, but Thorax was able to easily fly into it, and Ember was tall enough to simply clamber into it then turn around and help the others up. Soon they were all inside and they turned around to get, for most of them, their first good look inside the changeling hive. The interior was a massive expanse of tunnels and chambers that seemed to crisscross and intersect with each other purely at random that didn’t even seem to congeal together into distinct levels, all made from a blue-green chalky substance that seemed solid as if rock, but felt a bit too smooth and porous under their respective feet and hooves. Altogether, the tantalizing and overwhelming view was enough to make one’s head spin.

“Whoa,” Trixie murmured aloud as she gazed up at it all with widening eyes, an expression that was largely shared by all of the others. “Okay, I am definitely glad we’ve got you here, Thorax. I don’t think we’d be able to find our way through all of this without you.”

“You definitely wouldn’t,” Thorax agreed as he turned back to face them, pointing with one hoof.

They heard a gravelly, crunching noise, and the others turned back in time to see the entrance they had just come through collapse in on itself, vanishing completely from sight as it turned back into a completely solid wall.

“Uh, why did our exit just vanish?” Ember remarked aloud, sounding a little alarmed by this.

“It’s a changeling hive,” Thorax reminded them, drawing their attention back on him. “It shifts and changes shape like we do all the time. As such, we’re the only ones who’d have any ability to navigate it.” As if to demonstrate this, he turned around and started walking towards another solid wall perfectly in time for a new opening leading deeper into the hive to appear. “It’d be nothing short of total chaos to the rest of you, I’m sure.”

“No joke,” Spike mumbled as they followed Thorax through this new opening, only to watch it, too, immediately close behind them again once through. “I don’t know how you can make any sense of this.”

“It’s home,” Thorax simply replied, leading the way further into the hive.

They voyaged deeper with Thorax as their guide, moving quietly and quickly in hopes they weren’t noticed. Fortunately, the hive, or at least this portion of it, didn’t seem especially busy at the moment. The only changeling to be seen anywhere around was Thorax himself, and he seemed to know exactly what he was doing and where to go. He also seemed to always know precisely whenever a new opening was going to open or close, always walking confidently towards or away from them in perfect time with them as a result.

“How are you doing that anyway?” Starlight finally couldn’t help but ask, astounded by how reliably Thorax could do this. “Are you somehow doing that, or can you just somehow tell when one of these openings are going to open or close?”

“Both, I guess?” Thorax replied, uncertain how to describe it. “Some open randomly, some at regular intervals, some automatically as I approach them, and some just react immediately how I want them to.” He shrugged. “I’ve never really thought too hard about how it works…but I guess it’s just something instinctual.”

“Hmm,” Starlight hummed to herself. “I wonder if it’s some latent magic…sort of like how earth ponies can have an instinctual ability to grow plants and the like because of their latent earth magic…”

“I don’t know about that, I once knew an earth pony who, the poor dear, seemed to kill every plant she touched,” Trixie grumbled aloud.

“Whatever causes it, I’m sure these doorways wouldn’t respond to any non-changeling then, so they might as well really be solid walls to anyone else,” Spike reasoned as they stepped through such a doorway that had sprang into existence the moment Thorax approached it.

“Exactly,” Thorax agreed with a nod. “Part of what I meant when I said you’d all be totally lost in here without me, or any changeling for that matter, to guide the way.”

“Only part?” Ember asked critically. “So dare I ask what the other part is?”

Thorax motioned with one hoof at the thick weave of interlocking tunnels ahead of them. “Well…it is a complete maze in this place.”

They kept going regardless though, and even though Thorax had to stop and get his bearings every now and then, he kept leading them ever deeper into the hive, directing them to the first destination they had agreed to stop and check at for the captured princesses and friends. Never once during this whole time did they see another changeling other than Thorax…which actually heartened them, as it meant their luck was holding out thus far. Nonetheless, they still heard every now and then the faint scampering of hoofsteps somewhere off in the distance of some changeling passing nearby in this unwieldy maze, leaving them ever alert. Eventually though, after several minutes of what felt like to the others like merely random wandering, they arrived in a deep tunnel which arched to their right in a gradual curve.

Thorax stopped at the start of this curve and turned to face the others, motioning for them to wait a moment. “So around this bend will be the entrance leading into the harvesting chamber I told you all about,” he explained. “And I really ought to forewarn everyone…what we find in there might seem a bit…disturbing to you.”

Trixie audibly gulped. “You said that’s where the changelings here keep captured ponies to feed off of, right?” she asked, trembling a little.

Thorax nodded solemnly. “It’s still about another hour or so before the next mealtime so there probably isn’t going to be anyone in there except guards outside the major entrances.” He motioned ahead of them. “This isn’t one of them, of course, this is a side entrance leading through…” he hesitated, unsure of the proper term, “…I guess the equivalent of a kitchen…?” Trixie squeaked at this, so Thorax backpedaled, shaking his head as he got back to his chief point. “…what I’m saying is that even though it’ll likely be void of changelings that could catch us…that doesn’t mean it probably won’t be any less nerve racking for all of you. But…we all agreed we wanted to check and make sure the hive isn’t keeping the princesses here, so…brace yourselves.”

The group all looked between each other as they steeled themselves, but eventually they all nodded to Thorax, conveying that they were ready to proceed. Nodding back, Thorax motioned for all of them to follow him and to keep quiet. Leading the way with the others closely following, they continued down the corridor, following it on around the bend. At the other side was what appeared to be another solid wall, but as usual, Thorax approached it without slowing and with the usual gravelly grumble, an opening appeared in the wall, permitting them access into the room beyond. This room was relatively small, at least by comparison to the many cathedral-like rooms they had previously seen in the hive, and was empty of any occupants. But it bore many cubbyholes, counters, and other flat surfaces serving as tables hewn directly out of the same material that made up the rest of the hive, all bearing baskets, plates, and tools of unclear purpose on or in them. It very much did have the feel of a spacious kitchen, though far more robust in design and lacking any obvious stove or oven. As Thorax navigated them through the tabletops and other objects scattered throughout the middle of the room, the others looked around apprehensively. Curiously though, they didn’t immediately see anything out of the ordinary, though the room still gave them an odd feeling that seemed out of place and unsettling.

Finally, Spike had to ask the question. “Just what is this room, Thorax?” he asked, keeping his voice hushed as instructed.

“The refectorium,” Thorax replied levelly. “It’s where meals for the hive are prepared.”

The others paused to look at him. “How so?” Ember asked after a moment.

Thorax glanced back at them briefly, then altered course slightly so to lead them to a series of cubbyholes carved into the wall of the room. “Because there’s only so much food to go around and to make sure the supply of it is kept regulated and isn’t going to waste or hoarded, only the messores—uh, changelings that harvest positive emotions—are allowed to collect emotion from prey here at the hive. What they collect is then placed in these.”

He reached into one of the cubbyholes and pulled out a pouch-like container that seemed almost like a far smaller version of a changeling cocoon, small enough to fit into one’s hooves. The others gathered closer to get a better look. The pouch itself was colored the typical bright green color like a cocoon, but this was dampened by the pinkish-white glow the swirling, energy-like contents within produced.

“Thorax, what’s in this?” Starlight whispered, unable to identify these contents.

“Concentrated emotional energy,” Thorax explained, “So concentrated that it becomes visible and produces a glow like this. The messores portion out into every pouch enough to sustain a changeling until the next mealtime, and then distribute them out to changelings at such mealtimes. This one is probably either a leftover, or being saved for the next mealtime…probably the latter now that I think about it.”

Starlight peered around the rest of the room, struck by how innocent that seemed, and yet she couldn’t shake the strange feeling that she felt in the pit of her stomach. “I don’t get it then, this room seems simple enough,” she observed with a frown. She turned back to the others. “So why do I feel so…weird?”

“I know what you mean,” Trixie piped in, sitting down and rubbing herself with her hooves as if lightly chilled, while Ember and Spike both nodded their heads in agreement, confirming they felt similar. “I feel…weirdly content, but in like a…sickly sweet, forced and false sort of way…I don’t feel like I should be feeling that way, and it’s just…bizarre.”

Overhearing this, Thorax slipped past the group, leading them towards the wall opposite of the one they had entered through. “There’s a reason for that,” he admitted solemnly. “We were going to have to go in here next anyway, so it’ll…make more sense if I just show you.”

As he approached the wall, another doorway appeared, opening into a much more spacious and open, but relatively level room filled with a green glow. The moment the doorway appeared, the weird feeling the others were getting suddenly doubled, and as they slowly filed into the room, it only took one look to see why. They all collectively gasped except Thorax at the sight. Lined up into broken rows with filled with irregularly-sized gaps but no less unsettling a view, the room was filled with occupied cocoons, all containing caught prey, many with the familiar shapes of a pony within. The number of the cocoons was enough that the others had to stop and just stare in shock at the disturbing sight.

Thorax, meanwhile, continued on for a few steps, then turned around and sat himself down before them, looking ashamed. “We feed on positive emotions,” he reminded glumly. “So it wouldn’t do if the prey we caught wasn’t still feeling positive.” He made a solemn nod at the cocoons in the room. “These cocoons are magicked to coax the prey sealed within them to continue to feel positive emotions while inside…what you’re all feeling is bleed off from that, all trapped in one spot.”

The others quickly realized this was what made it feel weird to them, as this feeling of positivity felt out of place this deep within the hive, and the sight of all of these cocoons of captured prey only made it worse. Chilled, the group broke apart and started going from cocoon to cocoon, peering at each occupant inside. They were mostly ponies of all types and sizes, young and old. Pegasi, earth ponies, unicorns—there were even a few crystal ponies to be found among the prey. But it wasn’t just ponies even; there were also diamond dogs, griffons, donkeys, zebras, a couple immature dragons (which Ember growled angrily at the sight of), as well as a slew of various woodland creatures, ranging from rabbits to foxes or bigger. There was even a manticore. It seemed that if it was capable of producing positive emotions, it was on the menu for the changelings.

Starlight idly walked down the length of the room with the others, shuddering at every new cocoon she peered into. “Just how long have some of these ponies been here?” she asked, fearing the answer.

Thorax averted his gaze. “It can sometimes be hard to tell just from sight,” he admitted reluctantly. He was clearly very uncomfortable about all of this. “But I hope most of these have not been here too long. The preferred practice, if someone is to be captured and taken back to the hive like this, is to capture someone who is already planning to travel somewhere, like on a vacation or a business trip. The changelings will then capture them, take them here to harvest as much emotion we safely can without creating harm off of them while during the space of time they were expected to be gone by all that know them. Meanwhile, the dreams that someone has while in their cocoon fills in the blanks of what they expected from their trip, and then the hive releases them back at the expected time of their planned return from such a trip, none the wiser. That way, no suspicion is aroused and the hive does not risk discovery and thereby trouble.”

“Admittedly makes a degree of sense,” Spike was forced to admit aloud as he peered into one cocoon, sighing sadly at the sight of the unfamiliar pegasus within.

“You said that was the preferred practice though,” Ember recalled, scowling a little as she continued peering into cocoons as well. “So what is the not preferred practice?”

Thorax sighed, hanging his head. “Sometimes,” he admitted, “when letting them go free again would only endanger the hive in some way, some prey is kept here permanently, until they are no longer able to produce emotion of use for the hive.” He shamefully spied one cocooned pony that was well up there in years in a cocoon he knew was not freshly made, but he opted not to point this out to the others. “And that can be a fairly long time.”

The others exchanged uncomfortable glances at this.

They kept searching through the cocoons, searching for any sign of the missing princesses and their kidnapped friends they knew to be in the hive. Some of the cocoons were near to the two main entrances on either side of the room that had a guard stationed at both, so to reduce chance for detection, Thorax went and checked those cocoons for the others, that way if he was observed by one of the said guards, they were less likely to think him too out of place. But luckily neither guard noticed him. Before long, they’d been through most of the whole room, without any sign of the missing ponies they had come for, or anyone else they recognized or knew.

This didn’t leave Trixie feeling much better. Finding one pony sealed in cocoon that couldn’t be much older than a teenager and her heart going out to the poor pony, she sighed. “I wish we could free and rescue all of these other captured ponies too,” she desired aloud.

Starlight, standing across the row from Trixie, turned to watch the showmare turn away from the cocoon and proceed to the wall marking the end of the room. She sighed too. “As much as I wish we could, Trixie, there’s no way we to do so without getting caught. It’s just not possible to coordinate the safe escape of so many without raising the alarm, and surely the changelings would never let us get away with it. We don’t have the numbers to even think about trying anyway.” She ran her hoof over one cocoon, peering mournfully in at the occupant within, wondering who the unicorn inside might be. “We’ll just have to hope that Thorax is right and that they all aren’t going to be here permanently or won’t come to any lasting harm…or that the aftermath of all this will put both sides in the position to negotiate their release.”

“Besides, by freeing them all in one go like that, you’d risk starving the hive as a result,” Thorax added with a sigh of his own, peering sadly back at the many cocoons they had passed in the room. “And I don’t think any of us want that on our heads.”

Spike turned away from the final cocoon he was checking and at his changeling friend. “What do you mean, Thorax?” he asked. “Is the hive really that pressed for food?”

“Oh, it’s even worse than I thought it would be,” Thorax admitted sadly. He gave Spike a forlorn look. “There’s…been a shortage of food supplies in the hive for some years now…and after the attempt to invade Canterlot failed and alarmed Equestria about us, that shortage had gotten worse.” He peered back at the room, as did the others, noting how many gaps there were in the rows of cocoons. There were a good number of them, some quite sizeable. “And it seems it’s only gotten worse still since I was last here at the hive…this room is far emptier than it ought to be, emptier than I’ve ever seen it. If it keeps getting steadily worse like this…the hive is going to be struggling to survive here soon.” He hung his head, saddened by the thought.

A heavy silence hung in the room for a second. “No wonder the changelings are trying to invade again,” Ember remarked aloud. “I’ll bet you diamonds that a lot of them think it’ll be their last chance at survival.” She shifted awkwardly. “If it fails…well…that might be the last straw for them.”

Thorax snorted suddenly, turning to face the group. “What’s worse is that I know it doesn’t have to be that way if the hive would just make peace with Equestria, but they won’t…so in a way, they’ve brought this upon themselves.” He hung his head. “And that’s what’s so tragic about it.”

Spike moved to comfort Thorax. “Hey, look,” he said, gently hugging one of the changeling’s legs, “all that means is that you can help them by showing the right way.”

Thorax was quiet for a second. “Yeah,” he mumbled, but he didn’t seem very convinced. He gazed about the room for a second and the cocoons scattered about and sighed. “You know, it’s strange coming back to this room after so long. Before I left the hive, even though I had disagreements about the directions the hive was going at the time, I never really gave a second thought about what we changelings were doing in this room…I just took it as a part of life. But now…after so many moons away from it, living in Equestria and thriving off of just friendship alone and not needing such a thing as this harvesting room…” he shook his head, “…it all just feels so…wrong now. The sight of this room is making me feel sick to my stomach, appalling me by the thought that my race has to resort to kidnapping and holding hostage innocent beings that don’t deserve fates like this…it’s…shocking, feeling like this now. It’s like…like I had always been aware of that reality before, but it’s only now that…that my eyes are really seeing it.” He kept shaking his head, unsure. “And if even I couldn’t see that before now, only after I had to go and live a life free of it for so long…how can I expect other changelings to see it that way too, if to them, all of this is…” he almost had to spit the word out, “…normal.” He went silent after that, letting his ambling thoughts sink in for a long moment. He then took in a deep breath and straightened, changing the subject. “Anyway…we’ve found no sign of the captured princesses in here, so I think it’s safe to assume now that Queen Chrysalis is keeping them captive in the throne room as I originally suspected, so we might as well get moving and head for there, next.”

“Now wait, hold a moment,” Trixie said, who was hovering at the nearby wall of the room, peering at it, before glancing back at the others. “What about this? What’s through here?”

The others stared at her for a moment. To them, it appeared to be just a solid wall, but as that didn’t necessarily mean anything here in the hive, a couple of the group looked to Thorax expectantly. But even Thorax seemed confused by what Trixie was suggesting.

“Trixie, that’s just a solid wall,” he stated, taking a step closer to Trixie. “There’s nothing to go through to, I can assure you. There’s never been anything there to begin with for the whole time I’ve been alive.”

Trixie’s brow furrowed. “Wait, really?” she asked, surprised. “You mean you can’t see it? A hive full of masters of illusion, and I’m the first one who sees what’s wrong with this wall?”

Starlight took a cautious step forward. “What are you getting at, Trixie?” she asked, attempting to mediate.

Trixie rose to her hooves, and smirked a little. “Oh, nothing much, just that the Great and Powerful Trixie knows a wall that only looks like it’s a wall when she sees one,” she explained.

And then to prove it, she trotted right on through the wall as if it wasn’t really there, vanishing from sight. Everyone pulled back slightly in surprise, momentarily unsure how to respond.

“Trixie!” Starlight called in surprise, taking another step towards the wall, but stopping short of following Trixie on through it. There was no response from Trixie to be heard though, nor did she reappear. “Trixie!”

Another long moment passed in which there was no sound or sight of Trixie. But just when the others were starting to grow worried, Trixie abruptly stuck her head back through the wall, looking as if her head had just been stuck onto the middle of the wall, and grinned cheekily at the others.

“Sorry, I didn’t realize it was soundproof for a second there,” she explained, then stuck her hoof through the wall too so to motion them to follow. “But it’s just an illusionary wall, perfectly safe to step through, and there’s another chamber behind this thing. Not every big and there doesn’t seem to be anything in it, but still…if someone’s gone through all the trouble of hiding it…”

The rest of her statement was cut off as she retreated back through the wall and vanished from sight again. The others all glanced at one another with varying degrees of perplexity and surprise then Starlight cautiously pushed her way through the wall. Except for a faint tickle of magic against her body, she felt nothing, and the wall might as well have never been there. Spurred on by her example, the others one by one followed her through, starting with Thorax and then followed by Ember and Spike, respectively. The chamber on the other side was indeed not very big, barely just big enough to fit all of them, and would also be unlit if it wasn’t for the fact that the illusionary wall only created the illusion on the one side—on the other side it appeared as nothing more than a faint barrier of rippling magical mist, just transparent enough to see what was happening back in the main chamber they had exited, as well as allow light into the little room.

Trixie sat herself in the middle of the small chamber and wore a big and smug grin on her face, proud of her little discovery, but the others simply stood about the chamber and looked generally puzzled, uncertain of just what it was that they had uncovered. Thorax seemed especially confused by this unexpected discovery, his brow furrowed greatly as he numbly moved about the small chamber, taking in the details. It seemed the fact this chamber existed at all baffled him and that troubled him greatly.

“But…I don’t understand…” he mumbled aloud as he came to stand at the opposite end of the chamber, staring at its far wall. “This shouldn’t even exist…”

“Is it maybe something new?” Starlight reasoned as she slowly circled the outer edge of the chamber, searching for any details they may have missed that could explain things. “Something that was added after you left the hive?”

“No, no, it can’t be,” Thorax assured immediately, running one hoof over the wall in front of him. “The resin in this wall has a fair amount of age to it and been here for a good while…it’s easily several years old. It’s existed since well before I left the hive.”

“But…why build a little room like this anyway?” Spike asked aloud, not seeing the point of the little chamber. “And why hide it?”

“Whatever the deal is with this room, it doesn’t seem to get a lot of traffic,” Ember observed, having bent down to run one claw along the floor at one edge of the room. It came away quite dusty. “I’m thinking no more than maybe one or two are ever in here at a time, and they walk mostly in the middle of the room.”

“Then does that mean that not many other changelings know about this room too?” Starlight asked, thinking aloud. She glanced around blankly at the otherwise empty room. “What is so special about this room that it’s kept hidden from most of the inhabitants that might use it?”

“Whoever does come in here must do so pretty regularly, because there’s no sign of that same dust build-up here,” Trixie said, motioning to the center of the room where she was still at.

“There’s not much where Thorax is at either,” Spike observed, moving closer to where Thorax was sitting, lost in thought as he continued running his hoof along the far wall. “In fact, there’s no dust build-up in a nice straight line from the entrance and on through here, from one end to the other. Almost as if…”

He trailed off, and slowly his and everyone else’s gaze traveled to the same wall Thorax had been studying, all starting to come to the same conclusion. Guessing their thoughts, he glanced back at them and solemnly nodded. “Yes,” he confirmed, answering the unspoken question. “There is a hidden doorway here on this wall.”

A moment of silence passed as this was allowed to sink in, and the others waited for Thorax to continue explaining but he did not. Finally, Ember folded her arms. “Well?” she prompted the changeling. “Open it.”

“That’s just it,” Thorax said. He seemed more troubled than ever. “I cannot.”

“What? Why not?” Trixie asked, frowning.

“The doorway seems to be sealed in such a manner that it will only respond to a certain member of the hive,” Thorax leveled his gaze with the others, “One of royal blood.”

The others started to catch on and gave the wall with its unseen door in it renewed study. “What is Chrysalis hiding, then?” Starlight wondered aloud.

“We’re not ever going to find out unless we can get that doorway open,” Trixie pointed out flatly, not seeing how they were supposed to do that if Thorax couldn’t open it. “I mean, it’s not like we can just ask the queen to open it for us.”

“I’m not sure we should anyway,” Thorax reasoned, and he suddenly seemed apprehensive of whatever might lie beyond this hidden doorway, taking a couple steps back from it. “Queen Chrysalis no doubt has a good reason for all of this…what if it’s something potentially dangerous or harmful?”

A moment of silence fell as they all digested this. “What if Twilight and the others are being kept behind that door?” Starlight countered instead.

Thorax opened his mouth to rule it out, but then found he couldn’t assume it wasn’t a possibility.

Finally, Ember sighed and stepped up to the wall. “Well, there’s more than one way to make an opening,” she said, popping her claws as she glanced at the other dragon in the room. “Spike, you might not know how to use that sniffer of yours, but surely you must know how to use those claws, right?”

Spike smirked and flexed his draconian claws, joining her at the wall. “I’m way ahead of you.”

Together, they began furiously scraping away at the wall, scratching and gouging it with steady progress and quickly wearing it away. Fearing the consequences, Thorax opened his mouth to start to object, but found that the two dragons, their claws built for precisely this purpose, were making short work on the wall and had dug through enough of it already that he was forced to see the damage was irreversible already and decided to keep quiet. The wall quickly weakened under the onslaught and soon it started to crack and crumble, at which point Ember changed tactics and started to slam her body against the deteriorated wall, trying to get it to give way. On her third try, it finally collapsed, the wall breaking up into chunks that then unceremoniously plopped onto the floor, opening up to whatever lay beyond. As the dust quickly settled and they got their first view beyond the closed opening, their eyes started to widen in realization. Thorax audibly gasped, shocked.

Beyond the now forced open doorway was another secret chamber roughly double to triple in size to the little one they presently stood in. All but a small portion of it, enough to step into and stand in, was filled with cocoons of captured prey. Numbly, the group slowly slipped into the new room, gazing about at the cocoons in astonishment as they worked to understand just what this hidden stash of changeling prey meant.

“There’s enough cocoons in here to fill in some of those gaps back in the main room,” Starlight observed aloud, jerking her head back in the direction they had come as she moved around to take the chamber in full.

“And some have been here for a good while, too,” Thorax noticed sadly, stepping up to one cocoon containing a sickly looking pony within. He placed a hoof on the moist skin of the cocoon. “This poor soul has been fed upon enough times that he’s on the verge of an emotional collapse because of overfeeding.” His brow started to narrow, hinting at the beginning of a scowl of disapproval. “Whoever has been coming in here to feed hasn’t been showing the restraint they should be.”

“But if the door leading into here can only be opened by a changeling royal, then we already know who that’d have to be, right?” Trixie reasoned aloud.

Thorax didn’t reply, and instead he just sat himself down numbly in the center of the room, staring at it all in shock and clearly never having expected to find something like this. Starlight watched him sympathetically for a long moment, but finally had to pose the question. “Thorax,” she began slowly, “is it possible Queen Chrysalis has been hoarding prey for herself from the rest of the hive?”

Thorax again didn’t reply. But in many ways, an answer wasn’t needed.

It didn’t take long to search the room, and the group found by the end that there was no sign of anyone they knew. Nonetheless, they were even more reluctant to leave these cocooned beings in this secret stash than they were those in the main chamber, for fear that they might be leaving them only to be sealed away from sight again. But ultimately they knew they had to. They simply didn’t have the means to mount a rescue of that sort of scale—they weren’t even sure if they could pull off the rescue they did intend to carry out. So eventually, they left the secret chamber and the harvesting chamber altogether, proceeding to head on out back into the rest of the hive, now heading on for the throne room where their targets hopefully were being held. But they all did so with heavy hearts, and with much to think about the enormity of what was happening in that room.

Thorax was especially troubled by what they had uncovered, and he was eerily silent for the next several minutes as they walked away from the harvesting chamber, him leading the way once more. But despite more than one of them trying to prompt him to open up, he refused to speak of it. When Ember eventually whispered to Spike that she didn’t understand why the changeling was so perturbed about this, as it seemed obvious to her that Chrysalis was disloyal to all but herself, Spike suddenly thought he might have an explanation.

“From what I know, Thorax and Chrysalis have never seen eye to eye on the direction the hive should be going, and they both have known this for ages,” Spike whispered back to Ember. “But up until now, I think despite all his criticisms of how Chrysalis rules, Thorax still thought of her as his leader, and that she still did what she thought was best for the hive. So now he’s realizing that might never have been the case after all.”

They continued on through the depths of the hive, gradually heading upwards within the towering structure. Their luck thus far continued to hold and they encountered no other changelings, but the sounds of them being nearby such as the pitter-patter of hoofsteps or the faint hum of their gossamer wings were starting to grow more and more frequent. The interior of the hive looked little different from when they started though, the corridors and rooms appearing as more as an unregulated mish-mash of intersecting paths, and there seemed to be no distinct distinguishing marks from any of it as far as the others could see, other than the fact they’d find what were clearly stairs. They had no more idea where they were or where they were heading like the changelings who lived here, making the would-be rescuers all the more glad they had Thorax around.

Yet the further they went, the more Thorax worryingly became uncertain. It seemed he had to stop at junctions to consider which path to take next increasingly longer every time he did so, and it started to rattle the confidence of the already on-edge others he was supposed to be escorting. When Thorax began to mumble aloud under his breath during such moments too, partly in grumbling and partly in thought, Starlight started to grow worried.

“Thorax, you are sure where to go to get to the throne, right?” she asked in a whisper, moving closer so to talk to him.

“Yes,” Thorax confirmed, then, biting his lip, amended, “well, reasonably sure at least.”

Starlight winced. “Thorax…”

“Look, I’m still confident I can navigate my way through this hive still,” he assured, abruptly stopping and turning to face the others, causing them to stop too. “It’s just…” he sputtered in frustration for a second, “…things have changed in the hive a lot more than I expected, and it’s only slowing us down.”

“Well, you have been gone for a while,” Spike pointed out.

“I know that, and I’ve been keeping that in mind,” Thorax relented. “In fact, I was fully expecting it. The interior of the hive is adapted to what is needed at any given time pretty much year round. Rooms are expanded or reduced in size to suit changes in demand, tunnels are rerouted to adjust for changes in hoof traffic, and so on. That’s normal.” He scowled, looking back at the tunnels ahead of them. “What’s not normal is just how much of it I’ve been starting to notice. For the stretch of time I’ve been gone, I expected a tunnel changed here, a room added there, but mostly relatively minor changes on a whole, nothing so drastic that there’d be whole portions that are new and I wouldn’t already know how to find my way through. That’s been about the normal average for that stretch of time for as long as I can remember. But now…” he motioned ahead of them with one hoof. “…now it’s all shifted a lot more than I could’ve expected. I’m starting to see signs of extensive changes here and there, whole routes that now lead to entirely new portions of the hive, a lot more changes in a short stretch of time than I’ve ever seen before. And what’s weird about it is that I can’t clearly discern why.”

The others glanced around at their disorienting surroundings for a moment. They were, of course, unable to relate to Thorax’s problem much, but the fact it was a problem at all certainly didn’t bode well with most of them. If anything, it only made the alien surroundings seem all the more foreboding.

“Well,” Trixie remarked, her voice a little uneven as she sought to find an upside, “at least it’s all been pretty quiet the whole time we’ve been in here.”

“And that’s the other thing that’s bothering me,” Thorax admitted, turning back to face them, concern clear on his face. “It’s almost too quiet in this hive. I mean, I’m certainly not going to complain to that as it means for us that it’s easier to avoid getting caught, but…” he shook his head. “It’s typically quiet for this time of day as I’ve indicated before, but it’s all oddly quieter still than would be normal. It could be nothing…but then again, it could also be something. Either way…it’s giving me a bad feeling that I don’t like.”

Spike was heard gulping, and that wordlessly seemed to sum up how their little group felt about that thought quite nicely.

Still, there wasn’t much they could do about it except keep pressing on and hope for the best, and they all had to concede to each other that this was more desirable anyway. So they pressed on. Thorax still had to stop and discern where to go next every now and then, often with more grumbling about this as he was left feeling unsettled every time he had to do so, but nonetheless he still kept them moving ever forward for their destination, still notably confident that they were going the right way and would successfully get there in the end. He kept telling Starlight (who kept asking, the unicorn getting less and less confident of their odds the longer they traveled) that he just needed to get to what was a key central junction and take a specific tunnel, at which point it was almost a straight shot on to what Thorax called “the queen’s sanctum,” within which was the throne room. And it wasn’t too much longer before they arrived at that junction, smaller than they were expecting given its apparent importance, but clearly a well-worn one nonetheless. They proceeded into it cautiously in case there were other changelings traveling through, but found the way immediately ahead of them empty of life as usual, to their relief.

Regardless, Thorax still had to stop in the middle of the junction, a glare forming on his face. “Oh, of course they did,” he griped under his breath.

Not quite softly enough to not be heard by the others. “Do what?” Ember asked.

Thorax grumpily threw out a hoof ahead of them. “How many tunnel entrances do you see directly ahead of us?” he asked.

The others looked ahead, uncertain. For all they knew, there could be more than what they were seeing, they just didn’t have entrances actually physically open yet, considering it had been well established by now that such entrances tended to appear and disappear at what seemed like random. Nonetheless, Trixie tentatively hazarded to guess judging from what she saw. “…three?”

“Exactly,” Thorax replied with a frown. “There normally were four, with that fourth being such a heavily used one that I can’t possibly see what the need to seal it off would be. But they have!” he motioned at a stretch of blank wall that sat between two entrances. “They’ve sealed off the entrance to that tunnel entirely, probably moving it to somewhere further ahead for all I know, but of course, that was the tunnel we wanted to take.”

Starlight perked up in alarm at that. “Is that going to cause us problems?” she asked, concerned.

Thorax rubbed his forehead and waved a hoof distractedly at the tunnel sitting immediately adjacent to the spot the missing tunnel had originally begun. “Not too much, we’ll have to take a longer, more roundabout, route with that tunnel instead, but it should still connect up with the tunnel we want further ahead and we can just slip into it then.” he rolled his solid blue eyes. “Unless they’ve arbitrarily changed that too.”

“You sound very frustrated by this,” Ember noted aloud as they all continued into the tunnel Thorax had indicated.

“Well, it certainly doesn’t help my attempts to navigate us to where we need to go,” Thorax pointed out. “But a lot of these changes also seem so…without rhyme or reason, almost random and without purpose, at least none that I have been able to figure out.”

“Well they can’t have done it without some reason,” Trixie reasoned as they walked.

And soon, the reason started to become clear, as after heading down this tunnel for some feet, they started to hear a distinct sound, growing louder, and coming from somewhere ahead of them.

“You guys all hear that, right?” Spike asked nervously.

“It…sounds like stomping,” Starlight said, her brow furrowed as she attempted to identify it.

“No,” Ember corrected, blinking in surprise. “Not stomping…it’s marching.”

They started to near a side-opening that led into a chamber running along the side of the tunnel, which Thorax pointed to. “It’s coming from in there,” he observed, and shifted course to take a cautious peek. The others followed.

The doorway lead out onto a small ledge that overlooked the chamber beyond, and that room was expansive, equivalent in size to a large amphitheater that could seat hundreds, but instead of that, it housed more changelings than they could count, most to all were wearing armor, and were either marching in formation, stockpiling supplies, or conducting drills of some sort while clear authority figures shouted out orders in the changeling language. Unseen from their peeking spot, the five intruders stared at the sight for a long moment in silence, processing just what it was they had found.

“Well, now I know why they sealed off that tunnel,” Thorax muttered to himself. “It would’ve run right through the middle of things if they didn’t. They sealed it off so they could build all of…this.”

“What is this?” Trixie breathed, awestruck by the sight. “Are they…practicing for some event, or…”

“No, no, they’re troops,” Ember realized, chilled. “They’re training troops.”

“Look at them all!” Spike declared in a harsh whisper, fear sounding in his voice, enough that Thorax had to sniff the air and make sure the scent of that fear wasn’t growing too noticeable. “They must have hundreds in here, enough for an army!”

“That’s gotta be what it is,” Starlight said, starting to catch on. “There’re enough forces here that—it’s like the army that tried to invade Canterlot.”

“No,” Thorax retorted sternly. “This is far larger than that force. The force that attacked Canterlot was only about a third of the hive’s total population at the time at most…this seems closer to double that, if not as much as two-thirds of the hive’s population…and this might not even be all of them that they’re training at the moment.”

Spike felt his breath catch in his throat. “You could invade whole countries with an army like that.”

“I think that’s the idea,” Starlight concluded grimly. She glanced at Thorax. “I’m guessing Chrysalis really isn’t going to be content with just conquering Equestria after all.”

A scowl had started to form on Thorax’s face as he stared down at the army in training. “I’m starting to think she never planned to in the first place.”

Author's Note

Hopefully the intrigue is slowly increasing with this chapter. Figured I might as well try and subtly up the stakes of the changeling invasion scenario a little while I was at it.

We've discussed the details of changeling telepathy before, and as such I worked to try and keep it a brief summary here, but I still felt it was a subject worth addressing, especially seeing that Starlight would surely be aware by now of Twilight's theories on the matter and might have had a little red flag go up that needed taken back down again. The real chief point of all that though was to try and convey that it was no little thing Thorax deciding to forge a link with Trixie like he did there, and just how much trust he truly shows in her in opting to do so like that.

There was going to be a small scene in which Thorax briefly discusses various sorts of solid food "appetizers" that are also served to changelings with pouches of emotion, including a wedge of changeling cheese that he quickly downs, but it felt out of place in comparison to the tone of the rest of the scene, and I figured the more action-driven readers among us wouldn't mind me getting to the chief points that much sooner.

Originally I had plans for Chrysalis's secret stash to contain chiefly fellow changelings (implied to be dissenters like Thorax later in the story) as prey, along with an implication that she was feeding on not just positive emotions, but negative emotions as well, which as you may recall is not a healthy practice for a changeling to do...but I then decided that was demonizing her a little too much, so I toned it back a little.

In other news, to show how far ahead in writing I am not...I have been busy writing what we will call for now as "The Climax." :raritywink:

Sabotage

They didn’t talk much after they left the troop-training chamber and proceeded to quietly head on for the throne room, a perturbed and lost-in-thought Thorax leading the way. Most of that time was spent mulling over what they had found meant and the full ramifications that could follow. As they did, the journey proceeded on largely as it had before, tense and wary, ever on the lookout for trouble, but while other changelings could be heard nearby, they encountered none and miraculously their presence within the hive continued to go unnoticed.

After several minutes of this silent walking though, Ember finally spoke up, breaking the silence. “So, now we have strong evidence that Chrysalis’s delusions of grandeur are far bigger than we were first assuming, surprise, surprise,” she recapped aloud before placing her claws on her hips. “So what are we going to do about it?”

“One crisis at a time here, Ember,” Starlight replied back. “Let’s just focus on getting back Princess Celestia and the others. We’re on our way to the throne room now, so it won’t be much longer.”

“Yes, but what about after that?” Ember stressed. “Do you really think just because we steal back the pony princesses she’s stolen, that’s going to stop that army she’s building back there?”

“Probably not,” Spike admitted. “I mean, if she’s gone to all the trouble of getting this far with it…”

“Yes, but it’ll still set her back, buying us time,” Starlight reminded. “She’s won’t be able to carry out those invasion plans right away if we pull this off.”

“That’s easy for you to say, but now we can be certain Equestria isn’t the only country on the menu,” Ember reminded back. “I have to think about the safety of my own territory too, you know!”

“You think I don’t know that?” Starlight snapped in a harsh whisper, shooting a look back at the dragon lord. “But we’re in no position to do anything about it right now! We should focus on pulling off the plan we’ve already got first, and then once we’ve got some additional help, then think about what we’re going to do to stop Chrysalis’s invasion plans, so one crisis at a time, please!”

Ember rolled her eyes, but she relented and dropped the subject. “Whatever,” she grumbled.

Another moment of silence fell as Thorax proceeded to led them up a flight of stairs that seemed to unevenly stop and begin again for no clear reason other than it could.

“Are we even sure destroying the queen’s throne is really going to restore our magic?” Trixie asked hesitantly as they climbed up the steps. “I mean, our plan pretty much does hinge on that.”

“If Thorax is right about how it works, then yes, it should,” Starlight replied with a tone of patience, but it was very forced. Clearly, what patience she had to give was running out.

“That’s not very reassuring,” Spike couldn’t help but note aloud, wincing a little.

“And it’s just that I’ve been thinking about how this throne-thingy would have to work so to be able to steal magic continuously for who knows how many years,” Trixie added, continuing on. “And it can’t possibly hold onto all that magic forever. It’d be like bottling up all of the Celestial Sea into one soda bottle. It’s just physically impossible. That magic must get used up somehow in order to make room for more, and if it gets all used up, then how do we know it’ll even still be there to come back to?”

“I should remind you that a pony’s magic isn’t like a battery that can just be thrown away and never recovered, Trixie,” Starlight replied. “It’s more like when you cut your mane. It grows back, right? So even if the magic we had before we approached the hive is gone, our horns will be able to harness new magic to replace it, but only once the throne preventing that is gone. You of all ponies should know that, Trixie.”

This seemed to satisfy Trixie, but now that the subject had come up, the others started thinking about it too. “I’m obviously no expert, but wouldn’t that still imply there’s like, I don’t know, magic in the air to draw upon?” Ember reasoned. “How do you know this throne doesn’t steal and consume that too? For all you know, very little magic might go back into the air or whatever after we destroy it.”

Spike had been thinking about what he knew about magic. “Yeah, I don’t know about that too, Starlight,” he added in agreement, rubbing his chin in thought. “I mean, if I remember some of Princess Celestia’s lessons that she gave Twilight back in the day correctly, isn’t there that Starscraper’s Theory of Maximum Thaumic Access which suggests…”

“Look!” Starlight snapped, coming to a halt and whirling onto the others, bringing them to a stop as well as they stepped onto a small landing. Thorax, either not noticing or not caring, proceeded on up the next flight of stairs without them. “I know our plan is nowhere close to watertight, but it’s the best we’ve got, and I don’t hear all of you coming up with any better ones! And as I am only just keeping it together right now, it would be wonderful if you three could actually try and help for a change instead of trying and be the voices of doom all the time, okay?”

Cowed, the others pulled back then hung their heads a little in shame. “Sorry,” Spike said, defeated.

“How can we help?” Trixie asked next in a similar tone.

“Well, don’t ask me!” Starlight griped as they started to follow Thorax up the next series of steps, the changeling having already arrived at the top and working at regaining his bearings. “If I actually had any ideas, I’d be asking you to work on that instead of asking for you to think of your own ways to help! I don’t know why I have to be the one leading the way on all of this, anyhow! I thought this was a group effort, after all.” She sighed, calming down a little. “Look, I’m sorry, it’s just…what with us being in the heart of the changeling hive, in danger of getting caught at any second, with the fate of all of Equestria resting on my hooves and the worry that other countries are probably in danger too…it’s getting a little overwhelming.”

“Well, I don’t know, you’ve got us this far,” Ember pointed out.

“Thorax has gotten us this far,” Starlight corrected. “That’s precisely why I chose to find him and Spike in the first place, because I knew without his help…” she hung her head, “…we didn’t stand a chance.” She glanced back at Spike, ashamed. “What’s worse is that I probably wouldn’t have even needed to do that if I had just done what Spike told us to do in the first place and trusted him, instead of trying to drive him away.” She hung her head. “I’m such an idiot, really.”

“Oh, no you aren’t,” Trixie assured, coming to comfort her friend. “It was your quick thinking that got you and me safely out of Ponyville, and it was your ideas that got us pointed in this direction. Thorax may have been the guide and source of information, but you really have been the one who’s often taken that information and formed a working plan out of it, working out the bumps where you can, and not us. So you’ve got this.”

Starlight snorted skeptically. “Trixie, I couldn’t even handle giving advice at the Sunset Festival in my village, why should I think I’d be any better handling all of this?”

“Are you still beating yourself up over that?” Trixie asked.

“Wait, that’s why you left that festival thing early?” Spike asked, surprised.

Starlight rolled her eyes as they arrived at the top of the stairs with Thorax. “Look, I get what you’re all trying to do, and I’m flattered in the show of support in my abilities, but trust me, you’re better off not putting all of your faith in me like that.” She nodded her head at Thorax. “If anything, you should be putting it in Thorax. He at least knows where we’re going.”

Thorax, overhearing, looked at her abruptly and winced. “I wish you hadn’t just said that,” he admitted.

The others looked at him in alarm. “Oh, don’t say it…” Ember grumbled.

Thorax wince grew. “…I think we’re lost.”

“What?” Starlight declared and moved to stand beside Thorax. “You said you knew how to get there!”

“I did,” Thorax said, then flung out a hoof at the expansive room the ledge they stood upon opened up into, overlooking another sizeable junction of tunnels leading off to other places in the hive. “But then I found this place.”

The others regarded the room blankly. “Okay, you seriously need to stop assuming we’d just understand what you’re talking about straightaway when you do that, because you should know all of these rooms look alike to us,” Ember commented aloud. She glanced at the others. “I mean, it’s not just me, is it?”

“It’s not,” Trixie assured.

“But that’s just it, I don’t either, because this room shouldn’t even be here,” Thorax elaborated, motioning again to the room. “Before I left the hive, all that should be here was a simple tunnel that kept heading up to the queen’s sanctum, a straight shot heading there. But since then, they’ve ripped it all out and built this thing!” He motioned to it helplessly a third time, clearly not knowing what to make of it. “I don’t know where any of these tunnels might lead, and we can’t just guess because we don’t have time to get it wrong!” He shook his head. “I don’t even know why they changed it at all…they wouldn’t make this sort of change unless there was some sort of accident and they had to rebuild things, but…” he turned to face the others again and sighed. “Look, the simple fact is…I don’t know what leads where, and without knowing that…I just can’t reliably navigate us from here.”

A heavy silence fell as the group all looked at one another, at a loss for what to do. Eventually though, everyone’s gaze gravitated towards Starlight, waiting for her to decide the next move. Noticing this, she stomped her hoof in frustration.

“Why do you all keep looking at me for things like this?” she griped, but then forced out a sigh and started pacing, trying to think. “Okay, okay, let’s not panic, we’re not completely sunk just yet…” she looked at their changeling guide, “…Thorax, is there possibly another route we could take to the throne room?”

Thorax considered it uncertainly for a second. “I suppose there’s a back route we could take…but I almost never used it because it was a back route so I don’t know it as well, and not only will it drag out the journey much longer which I don’t know if we’ve got that kind of time for, that’s all assuming that route hasn’t changed in some way too. For all I know, the whole hive is going to be laid out differently from this point on.”

“Why would they make such extensive changes to the hive like this then if they weren’t in the habit of doing so in the first place?” Spike asked aloud.

“I don’t know…I assume it was done to make room for all the changes Chrysalis had to do so to house all the new troops she’s been having trained and all of that.” Thorax shrugged. “I’m not a structor, I don’t know the exact reasons why they might rebuild parts of the hive in this configuration.”

“Well, that doesn’t help us any,” Ember grumbled, planting the end of her staff on the floor and dropping down to sit beside it. “So I guess until we figure out something, we’re not going anywhere.”

“Great,” Trixie groaned, plopping her rump onto the floor as well while Starlight continued to pace in thought and Thorax racked his brain for something of use. She glanced at Ember. “I don’t suppose you’ve still got those peanut butter and crackers, do you?”

Ember looked down at her arms and realized she wasn’t carrying either anymore. “I think I ate it all back as we were approaching the hive,” she admitted.

“What?” Trixie whined.

“Hey, you said you didn’t want them anymore, and it turns out they were kind of tasty, so since I was never one to waste food…”

“I thought you dragons ate gems, not crackers and peanut butter!”

“I can eat a lot of things besides gems, you know!”

“Hey, fighting isn’t going to get us anywhere you two,” Spike interjected, moving between the two and sternly motioning for them to stop. “Besides, I helped Ember finish off the peanut butter and crackers, so I can take some of the blame too, but basically Trixie, you’re just going to have to make do without them.”

Trixie sighed and turned to start to sift through her saddlebags. “Well, I’m sure I can come up with something else to nibble on while we wait for our doom,” she muttered.

“Oh, do think positive,” Ember grumbled.

Starlight glanced at Thorax. “That reminds me, how long until that next mealtime and activity picks up in the hive again?” she asked.

Thorax thought for a second. “Maybe another half hour, give or take,” he admitted. “And even then, activity isn’t going to pick up all at once, so that might buy us an additional fifteen or so minutes before these tunnels are all going to be swarming with changelings.”

“So we’ve got some time until this place becomes…well…a hive of activity, I guess,” Spike conceded.

Thorax nodded. “Still, a hive full of very hungry changelings probably isn’t going to be the place we’d want to be,” he pointed out.

“Ravenous appetites, huh?” Trixie guessed, not relishing the idea.

“Yes, and even after a mealtime we’re typically not sated. We can never get enough love, so that basically leaves a changeling always hungry,” Thorax replied with a nod.

“You aren’t,” Spike pointed out, looking at his friend.

“Well, I’m the exception to the rule of course,” Thorax conceded. “Unlike my fellow changelings, I’ve had access to a more constant supply of positive emotion for the past several moons.”

“So how often do you get hungry?” Ember asked, leaning back and joining in on the conversation, seeing she had nothing else to do at the moment.

Thorax opened his mouth to reply, but then paused and had to stop and think about it a bit further. He seemed suddenly surprised. “Actually…I guess I haven’t really been truly hungry for some time now…huh, I guess after I met Spike and made a friend or two, I sort of just forgot to be hungry after a while and haven’t needed to feed, or at least nowhere near as aggressively as other changelings typically do.”

Spike blinked, also a little surprised. “You know, now that I think about it, I haven’t seen you outwardly feed, where you do that whole tongue flicking thing, in quite some time. I had just thought you’d figured out a more subtle way of doing it, but if you haven’t needed to feed like that lately, I guess you wouldn’t need to resort to that altogether.”

“Yeah, running almost continuously on a full tummy has its benefits,” Thorax remarked with a small grin.

Starlight, who had been listening to all of this, suddenly stopped pacing. After a brief pause, she glanced back at Thorax. “Thorax, this lack of need to feed…was this right about when your wings changed?” she asked, curious.

Thorax looked back at his wings that were supposedly “sparklier” than they were before the last time Starlight had met him. He still wasn’t sure if that was actually the case, though. “I guess so…but you know, I’ve also molted between then and now too, so it could also easily just be a case of my wings still looking…shall we say…fresh?”

“Molted?” Trixie asked, who hadn’t realized the changeling did such a thing.

“It’s pretty intense, lemme tell you,” Spike quipped, remembering when Thorax did this.

“Is there a point to all of this?” Ember asked.

“Well…maybe,” Starlight admitted, glancing at the dragoness then back at Thorax. “I guess I am just kind of thinking out loud, but it’s just…for ponies, the state of their physiology can change in various ways depending on their diet…you are what you eat and all…so I’m just wondering if changes in your physiology has something to do with the fact that you’ve been living off a different, healthier, diet than other changelings would,” Starlight explained.

“I guess I have been doing that,” Thorax admitted. “As we saw in the harvesting room, the changelings here at the hive have had to scrimp and save for meals lately whereas I haven’t had to…I could actually afford to have my fill and still have some leftover, practically every day.” He winced to himself as he said it though, not exactly taking pride in the fact that he had been getting well-fed when his fellow changelings clearly were not.

“Then I wonder what the rest of the hive would behave like if it could be given that as well…as well as just what the full extent of such changes could be, if I’m right…” Starlight pondered aloud.

“As interesting as all this eating and not eating is, don’t we sort of have bigger problems to be focusing on at the moment?” Ember asked aloud, cutting the discussion short, “Like figuring out where to go next? Or are we just going to sit here and wait for the changelings to come and catch us?”

“It’s not going to come to that,” Starlight promised, resuming her pacing.

“Oh, don’t say things like that, you’re going to jinx us Starlight,” Trixie pleaded. “I mean, I just know one of us is going to say something like that just in time for some changeling to suddenly drop out of the sky and attack us.”

Then, as if the universe was listening and decided to taunt her, a changeling suddenly did drop out from somewhere above them, landing directly behind Trixie and hissing aggressively at her, tensing up to attack. Trixie’s shriek of terror as she whipped around to face the enemy changeling while also scampering backwards away from it was nearly earsplitting, echoing loudly off the large chamber as the others all whipped around to face the sudden attacker in alarm. Starlight, being the closest, acted first, throwing herself onto the changeling and trying to tackle him from the side right as he started to move forward, charging into the center of their group. He hissed in aggravation when Starlight’s tackle threw him off kilter, and he worked to try and throw her off and pin her in his hooves, mouth open and fangs exposed, ready to bite.

“Don’t let him bite you!” Thorax warned as he lit his horn with a stunning spell, trying to line up a shot while Ember and Spike looked for an opening so to join in on the fray. Trixie, frozen in terror, could only stand back and watch.

Starlight quickly grabbed the changeling’s muzzle with her hooves, trying to keep his maw away from her flesh as they moved about, grappling. The changeling still seemed aware of Thorax was trying to line up a shot though, because he suddenly shoved himself and Starlight to one side in time for Thorax to fire his spell twice, both shots narrowly missing the intended target. Before Thorax could fire off another though, the changeling grabbed Starlight and reoriented her so she was held in front of him, then vaulting past the others that were now converging upon him to try and contain him, he surged forward and slammed Starlight into Thorax, using her as a makeshift battering ram. All three went down in a heap, but with the attacking changeling on the top and ready to deal damage to both Thorax and Starlight under him, rearing up to do so.

But before he could, Spike vaulted himself onto the changeling’s back and wrapped his arms around the changeling’s chitinous neck, trying to choke him. The changeling reacted by starting to use his magic to try and pry Spike off but Starlight, thinking quickly as she pulled herself off of Thorax, grabbed a water bottle that had fallen from her saddlebags and hurled it at the changeling’s horn. It struck it with enough force that the horn immediately went numb and the changeling lost control of his magic, unable to form enough of an aura to grab anything, let alone a moving body the size of Spike.

Beginning to gag slightly from the little dragon wrapped around his throat and clutching at it with his forehooves, the changeling started bucking out of desperation, trying to throw the little dragon off, the actions forcing the others to keep their distance or risk getting struck. Though Spike bounced on his back like a rag doll and it prevented him from keeping his grip too tight on the changeling’s neck (allowing the changeling to still draw enough breath to stay conscious), he held on, so finally the changeling buzzed his wings and took to the air just high enough to fly over to a tall outcropping of the resinous material making up the hive and slam his back against it, pinning Spike to it. Spike still held on, but it caused his grip to loosen just enough to allow the changeling to bodily swing him around so he was hanging from the changeling’s front instead of his back, enabling the changeling to drag him off his neck with his hooves.

He had just succeeded and was shoving Spike bodily to one side despite Spike’s claws managing to leave deep scratches in his chitin and turned in time for Ember to suddenly come upon him and whack him hard with the head of her scepter. She hit him hard enough that the attacking changeling literally flew backwards and slammed into the outcropping of resin again with the force of a runaway carriage, accompanied with an echoing bang. Immediately knocked out, the changeling sank into a heap on the floor, while the outcropping of resin, cracked and weakened from the impact, nosily crumbled for a moment before tipping backwards and over the ledge they stood upon, crashing and bouncing off things as it tumbled down onto the lowest point of the chamber with a noise rivaling Trixie’s earlier screech in volume.

Ember hissed to herself, wincing and tensing up as the boulder-sized clump of resin finally came to rest about two stories below them. “Oops,” she muttered, realizing she had exerted more force in her attack than she meant to.

While the others collected themselves from the sudden scuffle, thankfully all not much worse for wear save for some light scratches, Thorax hurried to the side of the fallen changeling, looking him over. Unlike Julius before him though, this changeling had faired far better from Ember’s assault, though he was out cold and had struck the outcropping with such force that it left a long hairline crack in his chitin almost neatly down the center of his back. Thorax worried the fallen changeling might have received a concussion from the impact too, but knew there was little to be done about that now.

He turned to the others, urgently motioning for them to regroup quickly. “We need to get moving,” he hissed, “get as far from here before someone else—”

“Shh!” Ember suddenly hushed, alert as she listened to their surroundings.

The five of them all fell silent, listening intensely in the silence that was settling again upon the chamber. It didn’t stay that way for long as only seconds later, a distinct buzz could be heard in the distance, steadily getting louder and nearer to their location.

“What’s that?” Trixie asked in tense alarm as she listened to the noise.

Thorax paled, struck with sudden fear. “A changeling patrol,” he breathed in alarm. “We’ve alerted a changeling patrol!”

“Well, between the noises of that big rock falling and Trixie’s shriek…” Spike began to recap hurriedly.

“He scared the crap out of me!” Trixie declared in her defense. “I mean he—!”

Starlight stuffed a hoof into Trixie’s mouth, silencing her and looked urgently to Thorax as the hum of changeling wings grew steadily louder. “Thorax, what do we do?” she pressed.

Thorax took a second of tensely staring in the direction of the sound, beginning to hyperventilate as the relatively cool composure he had managed to maintain up until now shattered. “Run!”

He then turned and immediately galloped into the nearest tunnel entrance, scooping up Spike and tossing him onto his back in the process. The others immediately galloped after him, following him as they blindly raced away in the direction opposite from the sound of the oncoming patrol.

“Where are we going?” Ember demanded as the lithe dragoness’s long strides easily kept pace with the others.

“Away!” Thorax simply responded, revealing that he had no set destination they were going, he was simply trying to shake the pursuing patrol off their trail.

But the longer they ran, the longer they kept hearing the buzz of the oncoming patrol, which only seemed to cause Thorax to panic more, fearing capture.

“We’re not shaking them!” Starlight observed in alarm.

“They must have singled out our trail and are following it!” Thorax declared back, only trying to run fast and urge the others to run faster too.

“Is it because we’re all about to lose our heads in fear?” Spike exclaimed, shooting a panicked look back down the tunnel they were running down. “Are we going to have to calm ourselves down or—”

“I don’t know if it’ll matter, they’re too close and they already know what to look for, enough to give them a path to point them in and follow!” Thorax interrupted. “And it might not just be our emotions that they’re sensing and following, either, it could anything from sound to scent of sweat to--!”

“Then we’re sunk!” Ember concluded with finality, cutting Thorax short.

“NO!” Thorax bellowed with sudden and fierce determination. “I will not let them lay a hoof on any of you!”

So they kept running, turning into new tunnels at random as they came upon them, but no matter the evasion they attempted, it seemed it was only delaying the inevitable as the clear sound of the approaching patrol still echoed out all too closely behind them, and it was only getting closer and louder still. Worse still, the exertion of the non-stop sprinting was starting to catch up with most of them and they were all starting to get winded.

“You know…” Trixie puffed as she started to tire and lag behind a pace or two. “…this is all…more cardio…than Trixie…is used to…for one day!”

Ember gave Trixie a push forward from behind, keeping her moving, but she was getting worried herself. “She’s right, we can’t keep running forever!” she pointed out to the others. She gripped her scepter tightly, ready to wield it like a weapon again. “I say we stand our ground and fight back!”

“We can’t, we’re already outnumbered!” Thorax interjected. “That patrol has been pulling in more changelings to add to their numbers as they go! I can already make out fifteen distinct wingbeats and it’s only been growing!”

“Then we should’ve stood our ground and fought them off when we first heard them coming instead of running!” Ember objected back.

“There were still as many as five changelings to deal with then, and you already know just how much it takes for all of us to take on just one!” Thorax barked. He shot a look back at Ember. “Not to discredit your combat skills, Dragon Lord Ember, but do you think you could take on that many targets at once?”

Ember frowned and didn’t reply, but her lack of response was reply enough to the question.

“She’s still right though, we can’t keep running forever, and it sounds like they are gradually gaining on us!” Starlight reminded, her lungs burning from the exertion of the constant running. “There must be something we can do to evade them, or they’re just going to catch up and snag us!”

“I am drawing a total blank, though!” Spike replied as he bounced where he sat on Thorax’s back, holding onto the changeling’s neck. “Unless we can think of some way to instantly put some serious distance between us and them real quick, I don’t think we’re going to evade them if we haven’t already at this point!”

“Oh, if only I had access to my magic!” Starlight bemoaned as she tried to light her horn regardless. Her horn merely sat numbly on her forehead though. “Then I could just teleport us somewhere, anywhere, other than here!”

“Thorax has magic, couldn’t he teleport us somewhere?” Ember asked.

“I don’t know how to teleport!” Thorax retorted. “It’s a pony sort of spell, anyway!”

“Then what’s the changeling equivalent?” Starlight asked.

“A fire portal, but I never was able to learn how to successfully do that either!”

Trixie, meanwhile, squeezed her eyes shut with her ears folded back as the constant sound of the pursuing patrol’s buzzing wings assaulted them. “Augh, I can’t think with the sound of those changelings chasing us!” she declared. “Oh, I wish I could put some music so to try and drown it out, clear my head…I mean, I have the record player in my bags, but—”

“Wait, wait, hold on!” Spike interrupted, his head snapping around to look at Trixie galloping beside him and Thorax. “You have a record player with you? Right here, right now?”

“Yeah, a portable one, in my saddlebags,” Trixie replied as she looked back at Spike. “I always have it on hoof, in case I ever get stopped and asked to put on a show but while I’m not actually at my cart, so…”

Spike hurried waved her claws to cut her short, not needing to know the extra details. “Will it play a seventy-eight rpm record?” he asked urgently.

“Of course!” Trixie replied, unable to keep a smug grin from appearing on her face despite their current situation.

“Where are you going with this, Spike?” Thorax asked as Spike quickly reached into one of the saddlebags Thorax carried on his back.

“Thorax, you remember my favorite record of hard rock music?” Spike asked as he hurriedly rooted through the saddlebag.

Thorax snorted, not relishing the memory. “How could I forget that horrid thing? Every time you played it while I was still in the room, it always made my head—” he abruptly ground to a halt and whipped his head back at Spike, eyes wide with excitement. “You didn’t!”

“I did,” Spike replied with a grin as he pulled out of the saddlebag the very record in question, still neatly tucked into its accompanying sleeve.

“Move, move!” Ember ordered from behind as she shoved the changeling to get him moving again, and once more they were all galloping on down the tunnel.

Thorax, however, was suddenly giddy with excitement. “I can’t believe you actually brought that thing with us all the way from Vanhoover!” he declared at Spike.

“You kidding me? This is my all-time favorite record, and I already lost my original copy in Ponyville when we got chased out of the Crystal Empire—like I was really going to leave it behind for Twilight to capture again after that!” Spike declared as he kept the record held up over his head. “It wouldn’t fit in my backpack, so I stuck it in your saddlebags, and lucky for us, I never got around to taking it back out in all that’s happened since!”

“I don’t understand though, what’s so important about that record?” Starlight asked, panting as she strained to keep galloping at full-tilt with the others.

“It’s the hard rock music on it!” Thorax explained eagerly, shifting his gaze onto the unicorn as she galloped slightly ahead of him. “We discovered that the sound frequencies of the instruments used in it combined have a negative effect on me, greatly disorienting me to the point that I couldn’t walk straight to save my life while within hearing range of that racket—”

“—and you think it’ll have the same effect on the changelings chasing us!” Starlight finished, eyes brightening excitedly as she caught on.

“I don’t think anything, I’m telling you that’s what will happen!” Thorax replied back, nodding eagerly.

Starlight looked to the back of their group. “Ember, if they were all disoriented like Thorax says, do you think you could fight them?”

The dragoness mulled upon the matter for a second. “It depends,” she replied and looked to Thorax. “About how many are there in the patrol now?”

Thorax listened to the wingbeats echoing out from their pursuers behind them. “I count about seventeen—no, eighteen now!”

Ember’s brow furrowed. “…maybe if I could take them on one at a time?” she suggested.

“Thorax, is there a tunnel we could lead them down narrow enough that it’d force them to go through it in single-file?” Starlight asked the changeling.

“Uh,” Thorax began as he quickly scanned the many tunnel entrances they were speeding past, trying to pick out any fitting that description. “Yes, this one here!” He led the way as they darted into the fairly lengthy tunnel stretching out for about a hundred feet before bottlenecking gradually then suddenly terminating altogether into a small chamber that was empty save for a small table placed in the center and a small pile of loose and broken resin stacked to the left. Thorax realized as they approached the chamber that it had an entrance but no exit. “It leads to a dead end, though!”

“That’s even better, they’ll think they have us cornered and come racing right in!” Starlight declared as they galloped into the room and fanned out to take positions. “Trixie, get that record player set up, and Spike, get your record ready to start playing, then everyone find places to hide! Ember, figure out where you’re going to want to be for this!”

Twirling her scepter so to limber herself up for the combat awaiting her, Ember quickly surveyed the room doing so, but eventually concluded that the best place for her to be would be right in the center, in line with the room’s one and only entrance and exit, where she could see the oncoming patrol approach once they rounded the corner and entered the lengthy tunnel leading to the room. She saw she could hide behind the table that sat in the center of the room so to stay out of view while they approached, but then realized she’d still have to come out and into the open so to be ready to fight well before the patrol actually entered the room and realized that could be a problem. “Thorax, how many are there now?” she asked.

“Twenty-two,” Thorax replied after a moment’s pause to listen and count.

Ember nodded and frowned. “You know, disoriented or not, they’re still going to see me coming from a mile away like this,” she warned as she took position.

Starlight immediately had a solution though and looked to Trixie, who had finished setting up her record player on the stack of rubble and was moving aside to let Spike take over. “Trixie, how many of those smoke bombs you use in performances do you have on hoof?” she asked, pointing a hoof at the showmare.

Trixie, catching on to what Starlight was thinking, grinned slyly. “How many do you need?” she replied.

Starlight returned the grin. “All of them.”

“You got it, girl!” Trixie replied as she darted across the room to take position to one side of the entrance, reaching into her saddlebags to fish out the smoke bombs she carried within. “Just give me a shout when you want them!”

“There is one other problem,” Thorax noted aloud as he and Starlight ducked down behind some of the rubble to hide. The patrol still hadn’t come into view at the other end of the tunnel, showing that they were further back than they thought, but the buzz of their wings was so loud now that it could only be seconds before they did. “This music will still affect me detrimentally just as much as it’ll affect the patrol.”

Trixie, overhearing, reached into her saddlebags again. “Here, I’ve got a pair of earmuffs you can wear, that should at least help!” She tossed the fuzzy earmuffs across the chamber to Thorax who caught them and immediately put them over his ears.

“What don’t you have in those saddlebags?” Ember asked Trixie as she ducked behind the room’s one table.

“A good traveling showmare is always ready to perform in any environment,” Trixie responded smugly.

“They’re almost here,” Starlight observed, spying the flicker of shadows at the far end of the tunnel announcing the patrol’s imminent arrival and looked to her side where Spike was working with the record player. “Spike, are you ready with that record?”

“Just about!” Spike said as he cranked the player’s volume up as high as it would go, having already set the record spinning. All that was left was to place the needle onto the record for it to play. “Now, you should know that this first song on the record is more rap rock than it is hard rock, but it has affected Thorax just as badly as the other songs on the record, so it should still have the same effect on the other changelings. If not, it’ll be easy to skip the record ahead to the next song.”

“Just be sure there’s ample time for it to affect the changelings heading towards us,” Starlight advised and turned to Thorax crouched down on her other side. “Thorax, have you braced yourself for this?”

“What?” Thorax asked, unable to hear her clearly under the earmuffs.

“That’d be a yes,” Starlight remarked with a smirk.

“Here they come!” Ember called as she saw the first changelings in the patrol rounding the corner and flew into the tunnel leading towards them.

And once the first few had entered the tunnel, the rest rapidly followed until all twenty-some changelings filled the far end of the tunnel, blotting it out as a single mass, the swarm wasting no time in heading right for the chamber at the other end they knew their prey was hiding in. The sight was intimidating and for a second as Starlight stared at it, she felt a chill go down her back. But her resolve came back quickly and she turned to Spike, nodding her head.

Spike nodded back, the player’s needle in his claws. “Let’s make some noise,” he quipped, before setting it down on the spinning record.

The music began playing instantly, blaring out into the chamber and echoing out as the song’s opening guitar riffs filled the space. Everyone winced a little, taken aback at the volume, while Thorax slapped his hooves over the earmuffs on his ears, face scrunched up as he tried to shield himself from the noise. After the initial second of the track though, Trixie suddenly perked up.

“Wait a minute!” she declared, having to raise her voice in order to be heard. “I think I’ve heard this song before!” She turned her head back at Spike, starting to grin. “That’s a good choice!”

“Isn’t it, though?” Spike asked with a smug smirk on his face as he ducked down behind the rubble beside Starlight.

Trixie merely laughed and turned back to watch the oncoming swarm while the song finished its opening intro and its harsh lyrics began:

“I can’t stand it, I know you planned it!

But I’m gonna set it straight, this Watergate,

I can’t stand rocking when I’m in here,

Because your crystal ball ain’t so crystal clear…”

“It’s working!” Ember suddenly shouted from her spot behind the table where she was watching the oncoming swarm.

And sure enough, from still as much as only a fourth of the way down the tunnel, the patrol’s neat and tight flying it had originally come into view with had already begun to degrade, the changelings rapidly beginning to bob and wobble in their flights. A couple on the edges started to bump into the sides of the tunnel, slow to realize that the tunnel was gradually tapering into a narrow bottleneck at the other end where their targets hid. Nonetheless, the patrol pressed on, determined to succeed and flying closer to the source of their growing disorientation.

Meanwhile, however, Starlight was listening to the song’s lyrics and was frowning at some of the language she was hearing. “Did Twilight ever know you listen to music like this, Spike?” she loudly asked the dragon beside her.

“What’s that, Starlight?” Spike shouted back at her as he bobbed his head in time with the song’s beat. “I can’t hear you!”

“I said, does Twilight know you listen to this music?” Starlight repeated, shouting louder so to be heard over the deafening music.

“Still can’t hear you, Starlight, the music’s too loud!” Spike shouted back, even though Starlight was quite certain he’d heard every word of the question.

“…‘Cause what you see you might not get,

And we can bet, so don’t you get souped yet!

You’re scheming on a thing that’s a mirage,

I’m trying to tell you now it’s sabotage!”

The quality of the song aside, there was no denying it was working, as the closer the swarm got to the chamber, the worse their navigation became. Soon there were changelings continuously bumping into each other, with one collision causing other changelings behind them to run into them as well. Two other changelings suddenly veered downwards out of control and tumbled to the ground while a third flew too high and bumped into the ceiling, also veering out of control. One changeling even smacked head on into a low hanging stalagmite as if he couldn’t see it and tumbled to the ground, out cold.

Gradually, the changelings were still getting lined up enough to head through the narrowing tunnel one at a time like they should, though more because they were all getting forced into the center as the tapering walls of the tunnel pushed them all into single-file. As Starlight watched though, she couldn’t help but notice that an entrance to a side tunnel some feet before their chamber opened up just long enough for two changelings to shakily branch off from the patrol and vanish into it. She wondered what they were up to, but had to focus on the oncoming patrol as they started to reach the chamber they were hiding in.

“Trixie, now!” Starlight commanded, pointed a hoof across the room at where Trixie hid by the door.

Trixie immediately threw her hooves down at the floor in front of the room’s only entrance and with an almighty bang that nearly drowned out the music for a second, a great billowing cloud of grey smoke filled the entrance, blotting out one’s view from either side of it. Apparently unconcerned by the smoke though, perhaps seeing it as only the distraction it was, the pursing changelings flew right on into it without slowing, confident they would have the intruders right where they wanted them, only to emerge on the other side of the cloud of smoke to see, too late to in any way avoid her, Ember standing on the table in the center of the room, ready for them.

The second the first changeling reached her, Ember immediately swatted it out of the air with one stroke of her scepter, sending the already disoriented changeling veering across the room to slam into a wall, and from there the dragoness only turned into a flurry of movement. As every changeling emerged from the cloud of smoke in single-file as hoped, Ember knocked it clean out of the air with every stroke of her scepter she was whipping skillfully back and forth. A couple of changelings still managed to slip past her, but disoriented as they were already by the music—made worse by the fact they were now at the apex of it—most of them only kept flying straight until they slammed into the room’s rear wall, unable to slow in time to prevent the crash. Those very few that didn’t tried to loop around for another pass at Ember, only to be struck down regardless by the dragoness as she swung her scepter while scarcely looking at them, operating more on instinct than sight.

One changeling Ember swatted aside careened behind the barrier of rubble Thorax, Spike, and Starlight were hiding behind, but although the very wobbly changeling attempted to pick himself and face them like nothing happened, all it took was one good left hook from Starlight and the changeling flopped onto his back, immediately neutralized. Indeed, their plan was going so successfully that for a second as Ember fought with the oncoming swarm, changelings were flying everywhere as they were bounced aimlessly around the room trying, and spectacularly failing, to combat her.

Spike, at one point, got so caught up in the heat of the moment that he forgot where he was and started to loudly sing along with the song still playing during all of this—“Listen all of y’all, it’s a sabotage, WHOO!”—before Starlight quickly silenced him by stuffing her hoof into his mouth.

But then as quickly as it had all begun, before the smoke from Trixie’s smokebombs had finished dissipating, Ember made one final stroke of her scepter that sent the last changeling in the patrol skidding across the floor of the chamber in a heap, and except for the record player continuing to blare out hard rock music and the occasional moans of the few changelings still conscious but unable to pick themselves up and do anything, silence fell in the chamber again. Quickly, the group all left their hiding places and hurried to the center to regroup.

“That’s it, that’s all of them!” Trixie shouted over the music with a relieved grin on her face as they all met up. “I think we did it!”

“Don’t celebrate just yet!” Starlight shouted back to her and turned to Thorax. “Thorax, there were two changelings that broke off from the main group and flew down a side tunnel! Where do you think they’re going?”

“What?” Thorax shouted back, barely able to heard Starlight as he still wore the earmuffs and had his hooves clamped over top of them, this only being just barely enough to shield himself from the loud music playing on Spike’s record.

“I said there were two changelings who broke off from the rest of the group and flew down a side tunnel—”

“Oh! OH! With intruders in the hive, the standard procedure is to go and ensure the protection of the queen, of course!” Thorax said brightening.

“So if we follow them down that same tunnel, it’ll lead us to the throne room?” Starlight asked to confirm.

“It should, yes!”

“Then let’s go!” Ember said, starting for the exit.

“What about the record player?” Spike asked, motioning back at the still playing device.

“Leave it!” Starlight replied as she followed Ember for the exit, Thorax hurrying after them, eager to get away from the loud music. “So long as it keeps playing, it’ll keep all of these changelings out of commission,” she motioned with one sweeping hoof at the neutralized changelings scattered about the room, “and it’ll prevent any other changelings from coming in here to investigate without falling prey to it themselves! Plus, it’ll help serve as a distraction, keeping the changelings looking in the wrong spot for us!”

“Darn!” Trixie declared as she reluctantly followed the others out of the room. “I liked that record player!”

“I liked that record!” Spike complained as well, not wanting to leave behind his favorite record, but begrudgingly obeying too.

They all then filed out of the room, Ember standing at the entrance to let the others through first then, with one final and casual swing of her scepter so to knock out a changeling that had started to try and pick himself up again, she turned and sauntered off after them.

Author's Note

For those that were not able to tell, the featured song here is Beastie Boys's "Sabotage," which actually presented a brief dilemma for me, because the lyrics of the song do feature a moment of explicit language, something which struck me as seeming out of place in "Grief" since it has (deliberately) avoided using any such language during it's whole run, and I debated whether or not to actually go through with using it. Ultimately, I did anyway, though clearly omitting said moment of language.

And just because I am that much of a Trekkie, yes, the whole scene was loosely referencing that one scene from Star Trek Beyond (<--moderate spoilers for said film!)

Because some people noted that Spike was pretty much useless in the last fight with a changeling, I made sure he contributed a bit more in the brief fight in this chapter. You're welcome. :raritywink:

Fun fact, Trixie's line about getting enough cardio is directly lifted, word for word, from another fanfic that I had started writing at one point but since aborted without finishing, because I liked that line enough that it seemed a shame to not use it somewhere. :rainbowlaugh:

And FYI, I went back and did some editing to the chapter "Terrified" yesterday. Nothing too major, so I don't think anyone needs to go back and reread it if they don't want to, but basically I just cut out a few tidbits that I decided I didn't want to present in that chapter after all. I may yet go back and make more edits to that and other chapters around it at a later date.

Oh, and tomorrow "Grief" turns a year old, so woohoo and all that...except when I first started writing "Grief," I had done so explicitly telling myself that it would not take over a year to write and post. Clearly that's not happening now. :twilightoops:

Give or Take

It was so sudden that it was a split second before Thorax’s mind had even comprehended what had happened.

Chrysalis was upon him so abruptly and so unexpectedly that it seemed unreal, and he struggled to believe that what had happened actually just had. But at the same time there was absolutely no denying it as he felt all at once the tip of his former queen’s horn pierce the chestplate of his chitin and dig deep into the softer tissues immediately underneath. The force of the impact winded him, his breath catching in his throat, and in the next second immediately following, a wave of indescribable and blinding pain washed over him. It was so overwhelming that Thorax involuntarily tried to inhale again so to scream, but his lungs locked up, refusing to cooperate, and he could only stand there and make faint hiccoughing sounds as he tried to draw breath again.

It felt like he was that way with Chrysalis’s horn jammed within his chest for ages, but it was only a few seconds longer before Chrysalis yanked her horn free of Thorax. Blinded by pain already, Thorax hardly felt it. He stared as Chrysalis straightened to her full height before him, smirking wickedly while red blood ran down her horn. His blood. Behind her, Starlight had frozen partway in the process of picking herself up off the floor and stared in horror. By then Thorax became aware of something warm and wet beginning to run down his front, and looked down to see it was his blood dribbling out of the newly-made two to three inch deep hole in his chest. Immediately, he wanted to place his hoof over the wound to try and stop it, but his forehooves were still stuck to the floor with gel and he couldn’t lift them high enough to reach his knee, let alone his chest. As such, he could do nothing but watch as the wound continued to bleed freely, dripping onto the floor in front of him.

This combined with his continued inability to draw a full breath eventually caused Thorax to begin to feel light-headed, and within a half-minute after getting stabbed started to wobble on his hooves. Finally, gravity took over and he tipped over onto his side, hitting the floor with a thud, his forehooves getting pulled in uncomfortable directions as the gel adhering them made them resistant to moving. Spots started to flicker in Thorax’s vision as he realized he was on the verge of suffocating, but finally his body’s need for air overwhelmed the shock of his stab wound and a mouthful of air managed to make it down his throat to be welcomed into his lungs. But the movement of his muscles to do this only aggravated his stab wound and caused another wave of extreme pain to surge through him, resulting in subsequent breaths being staggered and more than halved in size due to the pain just the act of breathing was causing him.

It was around then that Thorax heard Spike.

“NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!”

Revealing himself from wherever he had been hiding somewhere in the vicinity of the throne, Spike came running out into view, pushing his way through the throngs of changelings that still encircled the scene (who had all been looking on at the events playing out before them with apparent surprise themselves, seemingly not expecting this sudden turn of events) and drawing their attention to him. A centurion and a regular changeling guard both moved to block his path, but Spike immediately warded them off with a blast from his firebreath and didn’t even slow down. He also scampered right past Queen Chrysalis, but she made no motion to stop him, instead looking on with bemusement. Spike barely paid her any attention anyway as he dropped to his knees, skidding to a halt before Thorax and looking the wounded changeling over in terror.

“Sp-Spike…” Thorax tried to choke out as he came to a stop before him, wanting to both reprimand the dragon for revealing himself and to order him to go back into hiding while he could, but the effort to talk was too straining and ended with a weak and agonizing cough that momentarily left him breathless again. He felt something wet and warm splatter into his mouth in the process and dimly realized he was coughing up more blood.

“Oh, Thorax!” Spike cried in dismay as for a moment he viewed the critical wound that was beginning to pool blood on the floor around Thorax, helplessly unsure what he could do to stop it.

Ultimately, he stripped off his navy sweater vest and balling it up before pressing it against the wound in an attempt to staunch the bleeding. The sudden pressure resulted in another flare of pain for Thorax that he could only hiss his way through, trying to focus on keeping himself breathing. By this time, his brain had caught up with events enough that Thorax noted the wound was deep enough and far enough on the left side of his chest that it could’ve easily punctured his lung on that side, explaining his troubles in drawing a full breath, which, of course, only worsened the situation.

But his thoughts on that were derailed as he became aware that Chrysalis, standing over him and Spike, was cackling with laughter. “So!” she declared gleefully as she used her magic to clean the gore off her horn then callously flung it in Starlight’s direction, speckling the mare with Thorax’s blood, “This is the little dragon who so foolishly dared to befriend a changeling!”

“You monster!” Spike twisted around to snarl at her. “You vile, vile, MONSTER!”

Spike’s fury only seemed to amuse Chrysalis all the more and she cackled once again. “And yet it worked wonderfully in getting you out and into the open, did it not?” she pointedly commented as she took a step closer to the two. “Game over, dragon, you have all lost, and once I have all three of you taken care of, my victory is assured.”

But before she could come any closer to the fallen changeling and his dragon friend, Starlight suddenly zipped in front of them, blocking the queen’s path and sternly glaring up at her.

Chrysalis was momentarily taken aback, even moving a small step back at this, but she otherwise didn’t seem the least bit intimidated by Starlight. “Oh, going to try and be the brave defender, are we?” she asked Starlight as she moved to approach the three once again. “Very well then, I’m fine taking on all three of you at once if need—”

“We’ll surrender,” Starlight abruptly interrupted, her gaze remaining stern.

Chrysalis did a small double-take of surprise at this, and some of the other changelings looking on were taken back by this as well. Thorax managed to stare at the mare in shock, not understanding her intent with this unexpected pronouncement.

Spike, however, wasn’t about to stand for it. “The HAY we will!” he shouted, his eyes alight with a fury and distaste for the very idea that not even Thorax had seen the likes of before.

“We’ll surrender,” Starlight nonetheless repeated again undeterred, raising her voice so to be heard over Spike’s protest, “if you will also spare Thorax’s life.”

Chrysalis regarded Starlight for a second then chuckled. “Just like that?” she asked giving the unicorn a very doubting look. “You’re really willing to give up everything, even Equestria itself, for the life of just one changeling?”

Starlight glanced back at Thorax briefly before giving her answer. Thorax just gaped back at her, shocked by what she was doing for him. “That’s what friends do,” she replied simply as she looked determinedly back at Chrysalis.

Chrysalis only cackled more, taking great amusement in the very idea. “All three of you truly are insane!” she declared with wicked glee. “How will that friendship ever protect you from the dangers that will await you now? Do you even realize what it is you’re suggesting to do, pony? Your whole world as you know it will cease to exist! But it will be all right, because your one friend lives, is that what you’re thinking? Surely you must still realize that any life of the individual is ultimately expendable for the greater good of others, especially if your own life is on the line, right?”

“And that’s what the difference is between you and Thorax,” Starlight assured softly but clearly, for all to hear. “Because he wouldn’t do that…and neither will I.”

It seemed to baffle the other changelings watching and listening, as a number of them looked at each other and murmured under their breaths, trying to process the idea of what Starlight was suggesting, it clearly being a foreign one.

Thorax, however, disagreed with what Starlight was trying to do. “Please, no…don’t do this, Starlight…just…never mind me,” he pleaded in a raspy and unsteady voice, before turning to look at Chrysalis. “Your highness, please…just spare them.”

“Thorax…” Spike began to object, worry clear on his face and not about to let him sacrifice himself for them either.

Chrysalis shot a cruel smirk at the wounded changeling. “Now, now, Thorax,” she replied. “You know I can’t do that, even if I wanted to. You’re all too much of a danger to my plans, and thereby the hive as well.” She turned the smug look to Starlight. “But at least Thorax, of all changelings, is being the sensible one here. In his state, he’s not worth saving now, especially seeing you’ve all already lost.”

“But Thorax is still a friend,” Starlight persisted regardless. “A friend I refuse to just abandon like that, even if it means paying a price for it.”

Chrysalis, however, merely snorted and turned away. “No friend could ever be so important,” she argued as she did so.

“This one is,” Starlight stressed.

“Besides,” Spike butted in heatedly as he started to understand what it was Starlight was trying to do, turning his head to look at the changeling queen defiantly, “it wouldn’t just be Thorax that would live, but his ideals as well.”

Chrysalis shot a dark look back at them as she caught on to this intent as well, and glanced critically at the other changelings encircling them as they continued softly debating to each other on this topic, viewing the matter in a new light. She turned to face Starlight again, advancing closer. “It doesn’t matter anyway,” she insisted in an attempt to divert the topic, “because as I see it, I don’t need your surrender, you are all already at my mercy, my want, my will, and I alone will decide all of your fates, not you.”

Starlight couldn’t help but glower a little at Chrysalis, taking a step back from the queen as she continued to advance menacingly on the pair, but Spike wasn’t so deterred by this flat-out refusal. “At least give us some changeling gel we can use to patch this wound, give him a fighting chance!” he pleaded defiantly, motioning to the stab wound in Thorax’s chest. The sweater vest Spike as using to try and staunch it was already soaked through with blood. “I know you changelings can use that gel to treat wounds and stop bleeding!”

“Thorax is a changeling himself!” Chrysalis reminded, eyes darting to one side so to glance at Spike but otherwise keeping herself facing Starlight. “Let him patch it with his own gel.”

“He can’t,” Starlight objected quickly, remembering Thorax’s comments about his set of the relevant glands in the acorn grove. “His glands are empty. He’s out of gel.”

“Then that sounds like it’s his problem, not mine,” Chrysalis concluded, lowering her head to look Starlight in the eye. “Consider it his punishment for his misdeeds.”

Starlight gaped at Chrysalis for a second for how cold she was acting then suddenly turning furious, impulsively slapped the queen across the snout with her hoof. Chrysalis let out a cry at the blow and several of the onlooking changelings hissed in anger at the attack on their queen, a couple advancing menacingly towards Starlight with almost murderous intent in their eyes. Chrysalis acted first out of all of them though as she quickly recovered and lit her horn, starting to surge towards Starlight with intent to strike back. “You--!”

She got no further than that when she suddenly slammed into the side of a cyan forcefield appearing without warning between her and Starlight, cutting the queen and the other changelings off from Starlight, Spike, and the wounded Thorax, sealing them within its protective bubble. For a split second, Starlight thought she had somehow thrown up the forcefield herself, instinctively and out of self-defense, and proceeded to glance up at the tip of her own horn before remembering she was deep within the changeling hive and did not have access to her magic. She quickly looked around for the caster of the spell when she glanced down and saw Thorax’s horn was alight with the source of the cyan magic, Spike staring at the changeling in disbelief for this deed.

Thorax’s stern eyes, however, were on Chrysalis standing outside of the mystical field. “You…will not…hurt them,” he wheezed determinedly, trying to weakly lift himself up off the floor, but wasn’t getting much more than his head off the ground and Spike quickly moved to try and keep him still anyway.

Chrysalis was not intimidated by Thorax’s threatening though, and instead laughed mockingly. “And you really think this will stop me?” she asked, responding by firing a spell into the forcefield dividing them. Thorax grunted from the strain of the impact and the barrier cracked a little, but it quickly healed and refreshed itself. “In your state, you’re much too weak to be able to maintain this shield for very long. You’re only delaying the inevitable at best.” She struck the forcefield with another magical blow, causing it to crack again but this time more considerably before it healed itself, proving her point—Thorax wouldn’t be able to maintain the forcefield for longer than a few minutes at best, especially if Chrysalis kept attacking it like this, and the others had no way of helping to support it, especially while Starlight was robbed of her magic.

So Starlight decided she had better make use of the time the changeling was giving her. “You know it doesn’t have to be like this at all, Chrysalis,” Starlight insisted to the changeling queen through the forcefield. “We could work this out and I think we both know it, but it’s you that is refusing to consider it!”

“There is nothing to consider!” Chrysalis snapped as she circled the outside perimeter of the forcefield. She fired another spell into it, causing it to again crack as it deflected the blast, and it was a little slower to fully heal again afterwards. Thorax grunted from the strain of trying to maintain the field. “In order to thrive, this hive needs positive emotion to feast upon, and to have that, we must take it!”

“But what if you didn’t have to?” Starlight challenged as she turned herself with Chrysalis’s movements circling the field.

“Impossible!” Chrysalis declared. “The hunger of changelings can never be sated!”

“Exactly!” Starlight stressed and thrust a hoof at the wounded Thorax. “Thorax doesn’t have to feed like that anymore, because after he left the hive he was able to do just that AND sate his hunger once he found a friend!”

“And a lot of good it did him too!” Chrysalis snarled back. She fired another spell into the forcefield, and this time not all of the cracks healed up afterwards, leaving a small one where the spell had struck the barrier. “He was shunned by you ponies no less, left an outcast in hiding and struggling to survive—”

“He was doing no such thing!” Spike interjected at this, twisting his head away from his tending of Thorax so to glare at the changeling queen. “Thorax has told me stories about the life he was living in this hive, and the life he was living in Vanhoover was a hundred times better than that, even with the constant threat of being discovered! And he didn’t make just one friend, he made several! Despite everything he’s been put through, he was thriving by comparison! Can you and your hive even pretend to claim to be doing the same thing?”

“Equestria’s been slow to accept Thorax for who he is, just as you and your subjects have been, and that’s on us both,” Starlight agreed, accepting her share of the blame. “But he’s still helped to prove all that can be overcome! We both just have to give him the chance, and if he can do it, why not all of us?” When Chrysalis only responded by firing another spell into the barrier, Starlight stepped closer to the field separating her from the queen. “Chrysalis, please, no one else needs to be hurt in this!”

“No one…ever had to,” Thorax grunted weakly, again trying to push himself upright, but Spike forced him down again. He still turned his head to look at Chrysalis though. “You…have only convinced yourself its necessary…because…the hive is fighting…for food…and is only just scraping by…and you’re using that…as an excuse to…wage a war…a needless war…”

Chrysalis fired another spell into Thorax’s forcefield, the recoil of the blast causing Thorax to get cut off as he grunted in the pain it caused him. The forcefield, meanwhile, was no longer fully repairing every new crack dealt to it, as some were now always getting left behind with every hit. It was slowly starting to splinter. “If I do nothing, our enemies will steal that love away from us, ensuring that we get nothing!” the changeling queen argued as she continued to circle the forcefield continuously. “And with no love, we WILL starve! What you are proposing will only result in the very extinction of the changeling race in the end, and that cannot be allowed to happen, even if it means eliminating our foes first! We MUST prevail!”

“And we can!” Thorax persisted, managing to keep talking again with a grunt, though it clearly took a lot of effort for him to say his piece. “But…this isn’t the way to do it! You must trust me…all of you!” He turned his gaze to look pleadingly at the other changelings looking on at the argument, but though they were all listening attentively, none of them seemed ready or eager to rally to his side of the matter. “We can…survive…off of friendship…and love…without stealing it…and it can be given freely to a changeling…there’s more than enough…to be had out there…for us all…and still have enough left over…I’ve done it…I swear to you…on the name…of the Informis Una herself…I’ve done it…”

“Silence!” Chrysalis commanded, trying to stop Thorax from continuing in his monologue.

“…you all can too…” Thorax pressed on regardless, wheezing as he forced himself through the pain he was suffering so to speak it now while he could. “…you just have to try…please…refusing to…is what will really destroy our race…”

“I said silence!” Chrysalis repeated, firing another spell into Thorax’s shield. Though he grunted from the impact though, he kept going, ignoring the angry queen.

“…hate only breeds more hate…” he pressed on, “…every enemy we defeat…will only create another in its place…what we need…is friends, not enemies…what we need…is to give love and friendship…back…”

A couple of the onlooking changelings began looking at one another and murmuring among themselves again throughout this, Thorax’s words sounding potent yet strange to them. They clearly weren’t sure what to make of it. The fact they weren’t just automatically dismissing them though only riled up Chrysalis even more. “SILENCE!” she bellowed again, punctuating it as she fired another spell into Thorax’s forcefield, creating more cracks in the weakening barrier. The fact the magical shield had even held this long despite its caster’s weakening state was nothing short of a miracle. “You speak insanity, Thorax! Your words will only get us all killed!”

“You…have…to…listen…” Thorax pleaded on regardless, trying to stress this as hard as he could despite the strain it caused him in his wounded state. Regardless of Spike’s efforts to at least slow the bleeding, the dragon worryingly noted he was now kneeling in a puddle of Thorax’s blood and the changeling was only continuing to bleed profusely. “This…drought…of positive emotion the hive is in…we’ve brought this upon ourselves…”

“Thorax, you will cease your prattling, now!” Chrysalis commanded.

Thorax kept ignoring her protests. “…you can’t force love…we must earn it…and we can’t do it…trying to harm those…that can and will give it to us…”

“Be silent!” Chrysalis bellowed again, growing increasingly and increasingly furious the longer the unwanted debate continued. She fired repeated spells into the forcefield in a brief fit of fury. Miraculously, Thorax was able to keep the field intact and up still, but only just. The field sported cracks all over it afterwards, and it was clear Thorax was at his limit maintaining it. “All of you will listen to me! That friendship you speak of is a fool’s errand! It is an act of selfishness, giving up the well-being of the many for the one just because you’re a friend, and worse still, leaves you open for exploitation, a back unprotected and ready for stabbing! You could never feel safe around a potential foe that could only use that to strike!”

Spike suddenly looked up from Thorax’s wound, looking as if lightning had suddenly struck him. “Twilight thought the same thing,” he realized suddenly, speaking more to himself than anyone else. “That’s why she turned Thorax away—she feared Thorax, as a changeling, would only exploit the friendship she offered…” he gazed down sadly at Thorax, wounded and almost critically weak, “…but just look at what has become of that.”

“She forgot, in her fears, that friendship isn’t just something you give, but something you receive as well,” Starlight explained, picking up the point to add into her argument, glancing at Spike but gradually turning back to Chrysalis again. “Both sides give and both sides receive. You can’t have a friendship without the other, but if you do have both, then both sides are shielded from that danger.” She was interrupted when Chrysalis fired another spell into the weakening forcefield. “Chrysalis, listen! Friendship isn’t selfish at all, because both benefit from it! It’s symbiotic, and in the case of the changelings, it’s almost literal! You need us to survive, and we need you to not be enemies so we can survive! Wouldn’t seeking peace make more sense?” Starlight stopped to take a quick breath, as deep as she thought she could spare the seconds for it in this tense situation. “You asked earlier if I thought giving up my well-being for Thorax would be worth it, and the answer is yes, it absolutely would, because even though I barely know him, I would stand to lose more if I didn’t at least try to defend him. I had a chance to befriend him before, and like others, I turned it away, only to see over these past four moons it bringing nothing but more and more harm for all of us. I never wanted that. But even without that, changeling or not, I can’t just stand to one side and let him die over this. Standing up for him is the right thing to do!”

“And whatever gave you that idea?” Chrysalis demanded as she fired another spell into the shield. More cracks formed, and now new ones were gradually appearing even without suffering additional blows. It would collapse soon, and how it hadn’t already was impossible to guess.

Fortunately, Starlight had her answer ready. “Spike did,” she answered. “From the beginning, he was willing to give up everything so to defend Thorax and did so, just because he knew Thorax was a good changeling and that was something to promote, not destroy. And yes, he’s been hurt repeatedly because of it and has lost so much, and I deeply regret he had to be put through all of that…but he also gained not just a good friend, but an important friend, a friendship that has filled that gap…and he knows it’s worth fighting for, because not only does he get a friend out of it, he knew before all the rest of us stupid fools that it was through that friendship that paved the way to make it possible for ponies and changelings to be friends, and that great good to both would only follow if this were done.” Starlight’s gaze turned to one of guilt. “And I deeply regret that I didn’t see that myself the same time he did, not until almost too late.”

Starlight, being turned away from him so to keep Chrysalis in her view, couldn’t see Spike at the moment, but the little dragon heard every word, and while he determinedly worked to try and staunch the bleeding from Thorax’s wound, he found that he had to blink back tears. He noticed a couple of changelings directly across from him on the other side of the forcefield were watching him almost curiously and turned away in embarrassment, shame, and annoyance, feeling like he was an oddity being gaped at.

Chrysalis still remained unmoved though as she continued to circle the forcefield, her attention currently all on Starlight as her circling moved her in line with her throne once again. “How touching,” she remarked sarcastically. “But while your words promise much, they will never deliver. No pony has ever given freely to any changeling before.”

Starlight, growing weary and furious at Chrysalis’s stubbornness, suddenly snapped. “That’s because you won’t let them!” she argued and decided she wouldn’t hold back any longer. “This isn’t even about the changeling race needing to survive at all, and you know it! You know Thorax is right, that he has been right this whole time, but you refuse to listen, because you just don’t want to admit that a lowly drone like him overrule your ruling and force you to admit that you are wrong!”

“Thorax’s place wasn’t to decide the fate of the hive!” Chrysalis argued back, stopping her circling finally so to glare at the prey she wanted at but couldn’t yet reach. “He is my subject! He is supposed to answer to my wishes, my wants, not his own! And I will use my drones however I wish to get those needs done!”

“And just how many more will you let suffer over this?” Thorax suddenly demanded, his voice raspy but he somehow managed to get the whole statement out in one, shaky, breath. He was glaring daggers at his former queen as he continued speaking. “How many more drones alone…are you willing…to sacrifice…just because…you can’t admit that you…are in the wrong…and that someling else came up…with…a better way? How many are…starving right now? How many have already died…because of it? How many are there…that you know you just don’t…have the resources to support?” He narrowed his eyes darkly at her. “You know the hive is struggling…and it’s only gotten worse…since I was last here…you are only letting your subjects…suffer and starve…trying to cling to an old way…that doesn’t make sense anymore…your stubbornness and…lust for power is holding us all back…preventing us from…continuing to grow…develop…evolve…just like the hive minds of old did…” Chrysalis’s eyes narrowed dangerously at the implications Thorax was making, but Thorax kept talking. “Starlight’s right…this isn’t about survival…this is about power…how you want it all for yourself…and how you will stop at nothing to get it…and how you will steal it from other changelings…to get it…because you and I both know very well…that there is already enough prey…in this hive…to support every changeling here…”

“What nonsense are you spouting now?” Chrysalis growled, but there was a knowing tone in her voice that made it clear that she knew very well what Thorax was getting at.

And Spike decided it was time they revealed all. “We know you’re hoarding prey for yourself from the rest of the hive,” he said, looking darkly at the changeling queen.

That caused a stir among the other changelings, and a great deal of whispering immediately broke out among them, wondering how that could possibly be true. Many turned their eyes to Chrysalis blankly, wanting some sort of explanation from their queen. Meanwhile Chrysalis’s eyes widened involuntarily, only confirming the truthfulness of this statement.

“It’s true!” Starlight said, backing Spike up as she addressed the other changelings, hoping to make them see what Chrysalis was doing. “We saw for ourselves and you can too!”

“In the harvesting chamber!” Thorax shouted for the reference of the other changelings, so they would know where to look. “On the thirteenth row…on the far right end against the wall…”

“Shut up,” Chrysalis growled darkly, her eyes narrowing to slits in her dangerous fury.

Thorax ignored her objections as before. “There is an illusionary wall hiding it…” he pressed on determinedly, “…but it’s there! We’ve already opened the door…you can see for yourself! There is enough prey there to…”

“SHUT UP!” Chrysalis bellowed with such fury that everyone else, even every other changeling in the room, abruptly went silent and twisted to stare at Chrysalis in alarm as she fired another spell into the weakening forcefield. It still held together somehow, but it had to be the last time it would, because the field was cracking on its own now, no longer repairing itself as it geared up to collapse fully. There was no way it would withstand another hit. “You dare come into my hive and speak of such TREASON?”

“Treason?” Thorax barked suddenly and harshly, not cowed by Chrysalis’s display of force, but then he was hardly in a position to be at the moment, lying wounded as he was. His voice croaked as he spoke. “You…are the one about…to commit treason…if you continue…with what you…are doing! It…is…time…to…CHANGE!”

“NO!” Chrysalis bellowed back.

“Tum nihil magis sed Irritati es!” Thorax abruptly bellowed back in his native language, the effort of doing it so aggressively seemingly draining him of his energy as the wounded changeling let himself flop back onto the floor, panting and coughing after he said it.

What he said was lost on Starlight because of the language barrier, but it was apparently shocking because Spike knew enough of the words to understand and he just stared at Thorax in astonishment for this statement. A very loud gasp of similarly stunned astonishment rippled through the onlooking changelings, and Chrysalis actually stumbled backwards as if physically struck by the words, only to immediately turn manic with fury to a degree she hadn’t yet before. As she immediately lit her horn and started lowering it to fire one more blast of magic at Thorax’s crumbling forcefield, Starlight quickly grabbed Spike and threw them both to the floor. She did so just in time, because the blast of magic Chrysalis fired burst straight through one side of Thorax’s shield, flew right over Spike and Starlight’s heads so close that they could feel the violent heat of the magic, burst out the other side of the magical shield before it had even finished collapsing, then continued to whizz right on across the throne room, dangerously missing two of the changelings encircled around them, before finally striking the center pillar in the throne room’s main entrance, blasting a sizeable chuck out of it in a spray of shattered resin.

As Spike and Starlight started to pick themselves up though and the shattered remains of Thorax’s shield rained down on them, bursting into wisps of energy on impact, Chrysalis hurried up and forced them back down, pinning them to the floor first with her forehooves, then with her magic immediately following so to keep them there. Thorax, weakened though he was, tried to light another spell to stop this. But his horn merely flickered weakly, alight for a long moment, but never forming any sort of visible spell. “Don’t… hurt them,” he pleaded with Chrysalis.

“I think they have clearly proven themselves to be too much of a danger for that now, Thorax,” Chrysalis growled as she held down the squirming unicorn and dragon, who were trying to free themselves but Chrysalis’s magical grip held them firm. “Besides, I don’t recall you having a choice in the matter.” She shot him a dangerous look. “And anyway, it is far past time that you remembered just what you are.”

“We don’t…have to fight them,” Thorax reminded urgently. “We can be better.”

“But this is what we are, Thorax,” Chrysalis stated, and raised her gaze so she had the attention of the other changelings looking on. “What we all are. We are changelings, we will always be changelings, and you may try to fool yourself as much as you want, but you can never change the fact that we are the predators, and they are our prey.” She motioned to Spike and Starlight as a twisted grin appeared on her face. “So why are you fighting it? Give in.” She leaned over Spike and Starlight so to bring her lips close to Thorax’s ear. “Come,” she whispered coldly, “Feast with us.”

Thorax’s eyes widened as he realized what Chrysalis, leaning back to stand straight over his two friends, was about to. “No,” he murmured, trying to find the strength to push himself upright and do something to stop what was about to happen, but it just wasn’t there to be had within him any longer. He could only squirm weakly on the floor and watch in horror. “Don’t!”

Starlight and Spike meanwhile had their attention focused on the changeling queen looming over them, helpless to do anything to stop her. Even without Thorax’s growing panic to clue them in, they could tell for themselves that Chrysalis was about to do something awful for them, it just wasn’t immediately clear what exactly…until Spike saw the queen begin flicking her tongue from her mouth in an all-too familiar manner. But held in place with her magic as they were, there was little either he or Starlight could do except watch as Chrysalis proceeded to lap hungrily at their emotions. And worst still, the longer she did it, the more she did what Spike knew Thorax never would—the lapping grew more and more intense as Chrysalis took in more and more emotion off the two captives. He soon saw she wasn’t going to hold back.

Thorax had mentioned overfeeding several times over the four moons Spike had known him and how he blatantly refused to resort to it at any time, but he also never really explained just what overfeeding was beyond that vague defining term he used to name it. All Spike really knew about it was that it was some sort of highly intense form of changeling feeding, and that it was inherently harmful in some way for the prey being fed off of in the long term. But as Chrysalis’s feeding began to upgrade from mere lapping at their emotions to flat out and visibly gulping it down, her mouth wide open now, Spike started to see just what overfeeding was like as he felt for the first time ever, with a sudden chill of realization running through him, his emotions being actively taken from him and be pulled down the changeling’s queen gullet. He could the feel the tug of Chrysalis’s feeding dragging the emotions off of him, feeling a bizarre vacuum-like effect in what seemed to be his very soul, and a well of cold unfeeling started to form in its place as the positive emotions in him drained away, leaving only the negative in its place.

Around the same time Starlight began feeling the same thing draining away from her, her eyes bulging at the shock of the sensation. As more and more emotion left both of them, crippling depression began to set in, followed by lethargy, their physical strength sapping away from them as they sank to the floor. Both started to get headaches, initially as a dull throb but quickly growing as a sharp stabbing pain as their bodies found themselves unable to cope with the loss of positive emotions and the unfiltered negative emotions started to weigh cripplingly upon them. Chrysalis released them from her magical grip as they succumb to the effects of overfeeding but otherwise only kept right on feeding as her two prey writhed on the floor before her. She was feeding so intensely now that the streams of emotions she was pulling off the unicorn and dragon was starting to coalesce into a wispy but visible stream of pinkish-white emotive energy. She showed no signs of stopping.

Meanwhile, Thorax could only look on in horror, still trying to find the ability to rise up and do something, anything, to stop the torture his two friends were starting to be put through, but the wound in his chest released sharp stabbing pains every time he tried to move his body, and he had already bled enough that he was weak from blood loss, Spike’s sweater vest having fallen out of place without Spike there to hold it, nor could he find the magical strength to light his horn and use it in any meaningful way. He couldn’t even find the strength to buzz his wings, not that it would help any with his forehooves still stuck to the floor with changeling gel. His only comfort was that only Chrysalis was feeding off the two—the other changelings looked on, but hadn’t joined in, and didn’t seem especially in a hurry to do so. Indeed, an unusual stillness had settled upon these changelings encircling them, as if Chrysalis’s cruelty had left even them taken aback.

This meant that with only Chrysalis doing the feeding, it bought Spike and Starlight more time before the overfeeding grew to be too much and their bodies—unable to operate without emotion to direct and guide it—start to fail, slowly being poisoned by the negative emotions being left behind. Although at that moment, it wouldn’t have surprised Thorax in the slightest if Chrysalis chose to feed even upon that too, if only out of spite. But that additional time Thorax was left with wasn’t any good if he couldn’t do anything to stop it. And it was only dragging out the whole experience further, torturing Starlight and Spike as they were forced to continue to suffer and that was hardly any better. Scarily though, Thorax saw the almost twisted glee in Chrysalis’s eyes as she fed without restraint and realized she probably preferred it this way.

“No,” Thorax breathed in protest, dismayed at what was transpiring right before him and was too injured to even do anything to try and stop it. “NO!” Chrysalis, however, paid his protests little heed, and if anything, she only seemed to take joy in watching him squirm and object fruitlessly. It only infuriated Thorax, locking eyes with her and staring down his former queen. “Why are you doing this!?”

Chrysalis abruptly stopped feeding so to free her mouth to speak, Spike and Starlight both breathing gasps of relief at the momentary reprieve. “Survival of the fittest, Thorax,” the changeling queen replied calmly, ignoring the two she had been feeding off of at her hooves. “What cannot fight back does not survive.” She narrowed her eyes at him. “And you need the reminder.”

She resumed feeding at the same intensity she had left off at, causing Spike and Starlight to resume writhing in agony as their emotions continued draining from them. Starlight actually cried out as the feeding dragged on. The clear agony they were in was almost driving Thorax mad, desperate to do something to stop it. But he still was no more capable of doing so than he was before, lying limply there on the floor in a still growing puddle of his own blood, limbs too weak to support his weight, unable to find the strength to protest or call upon his magic, and because of the stab wound in his chest, still struggled to even draw enough breath to keep himself conscious. Feeling the blackness that came with the sleep of unconsciousness starting to creep upon the edges of his being, he wasn’t sure how long even that would last at this point. He could do nothing to stop this horrible and insanely cruel injustice taking place directly before him, and the most infuriating thing about it was that it was within hooves reach. And yet he could do nothing. The most he could even think to do was to somehow try and buy time and hope for a miracle.

For Spike and Starlight though, the hope of a miracle had already long dried up, so sapped of positive emotions now that their very beings felt under attack by the crushing negative emotions left behind. Neither could cope; Starlight had locked up with shock at the intensity of the despair she was beginning to drown in, involuntary tears streaming from her wide eyes. Spike, meanwhile, had sunk so far into depression that any sort of positive thought at this point now seemed alien to even consider. The grief was pressing on him so intensely from all angles that it was hard to see what was left to even live for as Chrysalis continued to drain him of emotion and his very being started to buckle under the strain.

Just end it, he thought despairingly to himself, longing for the release he hoped would come with it. Just end it now and get it over with.

But then that growing black hole of extreme negativity constantly growing within his soul was broken by a sudden spark of positivity. Mentally, Spike clung to it, desperate to keep it close and dearly afraid it was only going to get ripped away from him again. But instead, it gradually started to grow, flaring stronger and stronger, giving Spike enough hope that he started to pay attention to his physical surroundings again. He realized Starlight had suddenly brightened slightly and saw she was sensing the same thing he was, yet he could still clearly see the stream of concentrated emotions Chrysalis was stealing from both of them right before his eyes. He was left uncertain where this spark of hope could have come from, thinking for sure that Chrysalis’s feeding should’ve ripped it away by now.

But then he heard one of the onlooking changelings encircling them gasp loudly in shock, quickly being echoed by many more in a rippling wave, and Spike began to search for an explanation. Scanned the area around him, he spied Starlight and the two streams of emotions Chrysalis was drawing off of them, but then shifting his head lower, he spied a third stream of emotion flowing into Starlight’s belly from somewhere behind him, away from Chrysalis. A glance down at his own torso and he found an identical fourth stream doing the same thing. Gradually starting to comprehend that this stream of emotions was the cause of the renewed spark of positivity he felt, his eyes followed the two new streams of emotion on down to their source, springing out like fountains from Thorax’s chest, the changeling’s eyes closed and brow slightly furrowed in concentration.

This sight apparently surprised all present, especially the changelings who had all begun to whisper anxiously amongst themselves in their native language, and even though Chrysalis hadn’t slowed her feeding any, she too regarded the sight before her with puzzled surprise. Finding some of his strength returning to him thanks to the positive emotion streaming into him, offsetting slightly the emotion Chrysalis was drawing out almost just as quickly, Spike weakly crawled closer to the wounded changeling.

“Thorax, what are you doing?” he whispered to his friend, confused and not understanding.

“Returning…the favor…” Thorax breathed back in an unsteady and broken statement. He did not open his eyes, but the determination to finish whatever it was he was doing was clear both in his face and his tone.

Chrysalis then suddenly stopped feeding, letting out another of her cackling laughs as she understood what Thorax was doing before Spike did. “You fool, Thorax!” she declared, amused at Thorax’s selflessness. “You’ll only kill yourself faster doing this!”

Spike’s eyes widened as he realized what Chrysalis meant. Thorax was giving up his own supply of collected emotion for Starlight and Spike, preserving their lives even when it meant it was also slowly starving himself. “No, Thorax!” he started to object, placing his claws on Thorax’s side urgently, “Don’t—” but he was cut short as Chrysalis resumed feeding again and felt it gnawing away at the flare of positive emotion Thorax was sacrificing for him.

Thorax seemed resolute regardless. “Mihi lacrimo non…” he breathed to Spike in linguae mutationis, his voice already turning weak. “Mihi…lacrimo…non…”

“No, NO!” Spike objected, trying to push himself upright, only to fall back to his knees, his body draping itself over Thorax’s barrel as Chrysalis’s feeding started to rob him of the brief flare of strength the positive emotions Thorax was trying to pump into him had given. Already he could feel that flare of hope fade again, having hit its peak far too soon. “Don’t do this! Somebody, please, stop this! Don’t let this happen! PLEASE!”

Starlight, meanwhile, made use of the brief burst of strength she was getting from Thorax’s donated emotions to shakily try and heave herself onto her hooves. “Chrysalis, don’t be a fool yourself,” she rasped as she addressed the changeling queen feeding off of her. “What do you hope to gain from this? What good will it do? Is it just for the cruel…satisfaction…of doing us all harm?” She managed to raise her head long enough to shoot the queen a glare. “You really think yourself as some brilliant queen of the changelings doing this? What kind of queen would voluntarily do something like this?”

Chrysalis stopped feeding again so to reply. “You know nothing of the changelings and what it takes to be queen!” she retorted, annoyed. “I decide what is best for my subjects, not some mewling grub, and certainly not the likes of you!” She immediately resumed feeding again, considering the matter settled.

But Starlight, unable to keep her head raised so to keep looking at Chrysalis, instead let her gaze fall onto some of the changelings that were looking on, standing around them, and saw in their faces that they both looked confused, awestruck, and even frightened. “No,” Starlight objected, feeling the brief flare of strength Thorax’s donated emotions had given ebbing again. “No, I don’t think so…the changelings here don’t seem so eager to agree…they’ve just been too afraid of you to do something about it…” she managed to glance back up at Chrysalis again. The queen didn’t give any sort of reply back this time, opting to keep feeding and probably hoping that by doing so she can end the argument that way. But Starlight could see in the queen’s eyes what sort of response she would give. “Ruling by fear isn’t strength, or the best way to be a ruler,” Starlight rasped as she struggled to keep herself from toppling over onto the floor again, unable to rise to her full height but shakily on her hooves regardless. “I know what that’s like, ruling by fear and intimidation, and I know what it’s like to want everyone to do what you say, but that’s wrong. A real leader doesn’t force their subjects to deny who they are…or strike them down or torture them when they choose…better…ways…” feeling light-headed suddenly, Starlight stumbled and collapsed onto her belly again, the despair left behind from Chrysalis’s feeding starting to engulf her as the reprieve Thorax had bought her faded away.

Thorax was still donating away positive emotion for her and Spike, as much as he could, but he was clearly running out, and the two streams he was channeling into them started to dwindle. As they did, Spike panicked, fearing for Thorax’s life. “No, please, don’t let this happen!” Spike pleaded aloud to anyone who’d listen. “Please…please…someone do something…”

Starlight laid helplessly on the floor, losing the resolve to fight any longer, but noting the onlooking changelings staring at her, Spike, and Thorax in stunned shock, she realized one last point. “No one has done this before…have they?” she asked aloud softly, directing the question not at Chrysalis but at the other changelings. “What Thorax has done…sharing love freely…none of you have seen that done before…have you?” She looked knowingly at the encircling changelings within her line of view. “But…why is that so shocking? Couldn’t…you…share love…too? What…would you…have to loose…if you all did…did…”

She couldn’t bring herself to speak further, feeling the flare of hope Thorax was providing within her shrink away and get swallowed up in the misery that Chrysalis’s feeding was filling her up with. Any remaining strength she had to fight back rapidly disappearing, she curled into a ball, shivering in despair. By Thorax, Spike was starting to succumb to similar effects, but he nonetheless was trying everything he possibly could to stop it. He was shaking Thorax anxiously, watching with dread the stream of emotion the changeling was produced fade away, now only a mere sliver of a wisp left. “Stop, Thorax, stop!” he pleaded, in tears. Thorax didn’t respond though. Spike wasn’t even sure he was still conscious. “Please…” he repeated, starting to collapse to the floor again, his head falling onto Thorax’s side. His gaze, fading in and out of focus, eventually locked onto the encircling changelings watching him. He again felt like he was some odd spectacle they were just standing around and ogling at. He frowned. “Stop this,” he tried to shout at them, but couldn’t generate the volume needed for it to be a proper shout in his weak state. “Don’t let her do this, please…please…” he let himself collapse onto Thorax’s limp form, continuing to murmur in despair. “Please…please, don’t take him away…someone just save him…he’s my friend…he’s…he’s all I have left…”

There was no response. In fact, the throne room had fallen eerily silent now that Starlight had gone quiet and there was no one left willing to protest what was happening. Squeezing his eyes shut in despair, Spike let gravity pull him limply off of Thorax and to flop on to the ground at the edge of the puddle of blood his changeling friend laid in. Lifelessly, he stared at the wisp of emotion Thorax was still trying to donate, but whether or not the changeling was even still conscious of it was anyone’s guess, as that stream had faded to a mere flicker, stuttering as Thorax milked himself dry of emotion. Spike’s heart sank in despair and finality as he watched the stream flicker out entirely and he braced himself for the end.

But then the stream of emotion suddenly flared back to life, doubling in strength from before.

Spike’s eyes shot wide as it felt like it was flooding him with goodness, swatting away the vat of negative emotions he had been about to vanish into. His strength returning, he started to push himself up along with Starlight experiencing the same restoration of being, staring in awe at the strong emotions Thorax was now somehow giving up…but how? Hearing another ripple of surprise, Spike stood and studied Thorax and saw there was now a fifth stream of emotion, channeling emotion into Thorax, now flowing through him to Starlight and Spike in the stead of his own. Astounded, all eyes turned to the changeling standing within the encirclement as he shared his collected emotions with Thorax. But no sooner had all eyes fallen onto this changeling, another stream of emotion flowed into Thorax, joining the first as a second changeling started sharing their emotions too.

They were then followed by another. And another.

Chrysalis abruptly stopped feeding, her eyes growing wide as she took in what was happening before. “What are you doing?” she demanded of her subjects. “Stop!”

But none of the other changelings listened or obeyed, and instead, only more streams of emotion started joining the first, spurred on by the first few. Soon there were so many streams of shared emotions going around that the air was growing thick with positive emotions, so much so that even Starlight and Spike could sense it in the air. Now that Chrysalis had stopped feeding too, their strength quickly returned with all the emotion that they were getting from Thorax, serving as a central conduit for all of this shared emotion. Starting to feel back to himself, Spike went back to Thorax’s side, trying to shake him awake. “Thorax, you can stop now!” he urged. “We’re out of danger!”

But Thorax made no response, and again, he didn’t seem to be conscious. Meanwhile the onlooking changelings continued to share their emotions freely, with more and more joining in as a sort of chain reaction that soon it seemed Chrysalis was the only changeling in the room who wasn’t sharing her emotions.

And she was growing increasingly panicked at the eminent uprising taking place among her subjects. “Stop! Stop!” she commanded with growing desperation, slowly starting to back away and towards her throne. “I order you all to stop!”

None of her subjects heeded her demands though, and only continued sharing their emotions, apparently unaware they had done their part already and instead seemed determined to see through whatever it was they had started. Whatever it was, it was pumping so much positive emotion into Thorax now that gradually a shimmering aura of what could only be magic started to fade into view around the wounded changeling. Startled by its appearance, Spike gasped and leapt to his feet as he and Starlight started to back slowly away too, not sure just what it was they were being witness to.

“You traitors!” Chrysalis was bellowing now, sounding furious, but there was also a clear terror in her eyes as she realized she had lost total control of her subjects. “You are all TRAITORS! You will all PAY for your disobedience!”

This did absolutely nothing to discourage the uprising changelings though, taking no heed to her threats as they continued to share their emotions, the streams of emotion so thick now that they all intermingled with one another, their exact sources and destinations all getting lost from view. The shimmering aura that had engulfed around Thorax eventually plateaued after a certain intensity and grew no further, but now similar auras were forming around the other changelings sharing their emotions, and their auras didn’t plateau out, instead growing in intensity until the respective changeling vanished into a ball of magical light. As this started to spread among all the changelings present save for Chrysalis and Thorax, the aura around the first changeling suddenly exploded outward with an echoing bang, startling Chrysalis, Starlight, and Spike as they kept backing away, feeling the wave of magical energy wash over them and the rest of the room. Immediately after, the auras around the other changelings all started to explode in loud booms as well, generating so much light and energy that it was getting hard to look at them without being blinded.

Then, among all the magical booming, a loud crack echoed out and the three onlookers turned behind them to see a swarm of cracks start to ripple across Chrysalis’s throne, crumbling as the initial crack Spike had started began to give way under the magical pressure, compromising the whole structure.

“No!” Chrysalis declared in a clear panic now, racing towards the throne in some vain hope of stopping it. “No, no, no, no!”

The throne only continued to crumble though, the cracks glowing with energy as all the magic trapped within started to slip out, prying the throne apart from within. Getting a taste of this magical energy as she felt the tell-tale beginnings of her magic returning to her, Starlight realized with a jolt that the years upon years upon years of magic the throne had been collecting for who knew how long was somehow all still within, under pressure…and was now about to escape in one mighty explosion.

“Spike!” she cried, going to the dragon and taking his claws, trying to pull him aside so to shield him along with herself in the imminent blast.

Spike, however, had already come to the same conclusions, but his focus was turned back to Thorax, left lying in the middle of it all. “Thorax!” he exclaimed in alarm, and misinterpreting Starlight’s actions as an attempt to pull him away from the wounded changeling, he ripped his claws free from Starlight’s grasp so to hurry back to the side of his friend.

“No, wait, SPIKE!” Starlight called back, desperately lunging after Spike, trying to grab him again.

But before she could reach him, the throne let out one final crack then exploded in one mighty blast that slammed into Starlight from behind, blowing her off her hooves. All at once she felt herself bounce roughly off something solid followed by several little things pelting her, before darkness engulfed her.

But for no more than a minute at most.

Coming to again with a jolt, Starlight awoke initially confused, unsure where she was or what had happened, but gradually came to realize she was lying on her back, lightly buried under resinous rubble. For a frightful second she thought she might have been seriously injured, but in hurriedly doing a mental assessment of her body, she found she was scraped all over and her ears were ringing, but otherwise bore no critical injuries of any sort. Even better, the layer of rubble covering her was thin enough that she could still easily see light streaming through the gaps, and she proceeded to brush and throw it all off of her. Nonetheless, once she had her head free and got a good view of what lay directly above her, she still found herself disoriented and unsure of where she was, because all she saw above her was open early noon sky and not the ceiling she was expecting.

Had she somehow been teleported somewhere else? She rolled herself over and onto her hooves, picking herself up fully as she gazed at what laid ahead of her. There wasn’t much to see though—all that laid before her was more rubble scattered unevenly across an open floor before it all vanished and gave way to open air. Beyond that, Starlight could make out the wastelands that surrounded the hive and the acorn grove bordering it, and she recognized she was still at the hive, before realizing she must still be in the throne room. With a jolt, she saw that the blast of the exploding throne had completely blown it apart, opening it up to the air outside the hive.

She heard a shuffling beside her and turned in time to see Spike pull himself out of the rubble and sit up. The white shirt he still wore was scuffed and smudged with dirt, and one lens of the false eyeglasses he had managed to keep on his face throughout all of this was cracked, but like herself, he seemed very dazed yet largely unhurt. Blankly, he pulled off the cracked glasses off his face and began to peer around behind Starlight in a daze. Starlight, meanwhile, kept herself facing the other way, searching for the spot she had last seen both the throne and Queen Chrysalis. Chrysalis had vanished from view however, and all that remained of the throne was a small pile of dark rubble, now completely destroyed. Starlight tested her horn quickly and found with relief that it easily lit up with her magic now that the throne’s effects had been removed.

“Starlight…” Spike suddenly spoke up as he numbly rose into a standing position, starting straight ahead of him.

“What?” Starlight asked as she twisted around to look behind her for the first time, taking in the rest of the ruined throne room, and immediately gasped.

The cocoons of her captured princesses and friends had all, naturally, been knocked loose in the chaos and fallen to the floor. Fortunately, they had all seemed to have landed gently enough that their occupants were cushioned from harm in the impacts, yet all had still managed to break open in the process. Now their occupants were starting to clamber out of their little prisons, wet with goo and looking very disoriented. But what was most startling about this view wasn’t the cocoons and their liberated occupants, but rather who was hovering around them, assisting.

They were creatures bearing brightly colored and clean carapaces, the exact color varying on the individual, but seeming to range from a light yellow, to a bright cyan, on to a mint green or even in some instances a combination of more than one color. Most of them bore horns and sparkling gossamer wings with smooth edges and tails to match. Their ears were long and often appearing tufted, but depending on the individual they were held either upright and alert or folded back and concerned. All of them seemed to be going about in a bit of a daze, still trying to make sense of what had just happened like all the rest of them, but regardless, many of them were buzzing around and provided friendly help and aid where they could. Some were helping each other, some were helping cocoon occupants out of said cocoons. One had kindly located little Flurry Heart and reunited her with her dazed and confused, but thankful, parents.

Starlight didn’t recognize these creatures initially at first, but then with eyes growing wide saw that they were changelings—the same changelings that had encircled the throne room and opposing them only minutes earlier. At some point in all the chaos, or more likely because of the chaos, all of them had transformed into entirely new, gentler, forms. These changelings had gone from fearsome foes into kind and docile helpers, now compelled to be friends rather than enemies in light of these events. The possibilities that could explain how and why this happened sent Starlight’s mind reeling, wondering just what in all of that magical chaos was responsible for creating this, before deciding that for the moment, she just couldn’t care.

“Wow,” she breathed, shocked and humbled by the sight, while also overjoyed at this change for the better the changelings had undergone.

She and Spike were brought out of their reveries however when a fallen cocoon lying near them suddenly had a fist punching through its filmy skin and Ember noisily sat upright out of the opening, hacking up slime in the process. Focusing once more on the broken cocoons and their liberated occupants, Starlight surveyed them again, watching as her friends all crawled free no worse for wear, until her eyes fell upon Trixie clambering out of her own cocoon. With a small smile, she walked over to help her friend.

“Bleh!” Trixie said as she spat out slime, accepting Starlight’s helping hoof without comment. “I don’t even want to think about what it is that I’ve got in my mouth.”

Starlight only chuckled in response as she pulled Trixie upright, the azure unicorn pushing the soaked tip of her hat out of her face, the only thing she still wore as it seemed the changelings had relieved her of her saddlebags before putting her in the cocoon. Trixie then turned and surveyed the ruins of the throne room herself, taking it all in with a dazed and confused look. She studied the transformed changelings for a particularly long time and Starlight waited for her to demand to know what the heck had just happened.

But instead, Trixie asked a totally different question, one that should’ve been asked well before now. “Where’s Thorax?”

Starlight’s eyes widened in realization that she hadn’t seen their changeling friend yet, and twisted around to scan the reformed changelings again, hoping to pick him out. Of course, with all of their new forms, she realized it’d easily be that she wouldn’t recognize him now if he was there, but despite that, she somehow knew that he wasn’t and quickly grew alarmed.

Spike, by this time, had realized the same thing and was urgently scanning the ruins for his friend as well. “Thorax!” he called with clear worry. But when he, too, couldn’t find him among the transformed changelings, he, like Starlight, started to search for the spot they both recalled last seeing him. Their eyes quickly fell upon that spot, only to see that a large pile of debris lying there, one of the pillars for the room’s main entrance having come down on that spot. Spike eyes widened in alarm and he immediately raced towards the pile. “THORAX!”

He quickly threw himself onto the pile and set to work trying to clear away the rubble in search for his friend buried somewhere underneath. Overhearing and without even asking questions, Ember suddenly vaulted herself free from her cocoon, and her wet feet slipping and sliding a little, raced to Spike’s side, joining him in shifting rubble. Other changelings quickly descended upon the pile to assist too, soon followed by Applejack, Fluttershy, and a few of Twilight’s other friends, all working to move the rubble. Trixie stared in alarm at all of this then hurried forward to assist as well, leaving Starlight’s side.

Starlight started to move forward to help too, but was suddenly stopped when a slimy hoof grabbed her shoulder and turned her around so to come face to face with a very lost and confused looking Twilight Sparkle. “Starlight, what happened?” she asked urgently, looking like she desperately needed some frame of reference in order to understand what it was she had awoken in the middle of.

Starlight twisted her head back at the ruined throne room, momentarily unsure how to explain. “I guess we did it, Twilight,” she finally responded in a bit of an unsure daze. “We defeated the changelings with no magic at all, and…they’re all kinda…good now.” Her eyes rested upon the pile of rubble the others were trying to clear, hoping to uncover the missing Thorax, and she felt her spirits fall. “But for what price?”

Celestia and Luna suddenly joined the pair, on their way to help clear the rubble too. “Clearly, much has happened since we last spoke,” Luna observed as they passed. “But for now we—”

She was cut off when a rumbling behind them sounded out, and they turned in time to see an absolutely furious Queen Chrysalis, not having transformed in the slightest like the others, burst her way free of the rubble that was once her throne, hissing loudly and her horn alight with magic. As it seemed clear she meant to do battle, everyone who wasn’t helping to clear away the rubble covering Thorax immediately about faced and stood to oppose her, bracing themselves to be ready fight her off. Even some of the reformed changelings moved to oppose their queen. Within seconds, everyone was standing off against the changeling queen, ready to do battle and resume the age old conflict between Equestria and the changeling hive that had been going on for so long.

And in witnessing in horror history about to repeat itself, Starlight felt something within her suddenly and unexpectedly snap.

“Stop! STOP!” She bellowed as she ran into the middle of the standoff, right into the line of fire for both sides and she motioned for all of them to stop and listen. “We don’t need to DO this anymore! It’s changed, everything’s changed! There’s no reason left to fight anymore! The changelings have changed, they’re willing to make peace, and here you all are, ready to start that conflict all over like nothing happened! Don’t! Just don’t!” She stood their panting for a second, looking back and forth between Queen Chrysalis on one side, and everyone else on the other, making sure she had their attention. Once she had, she first focused her attention on everyone standing to oppose Chrysalis. “Look! We’ve all been fighting each other for so long that I think we’ve forgotten to stop. We forgot to stop and consider that maybe, just maybe, we don’t need to be enemies, or even better, we never needed to be enemies in the first place.” She glanced back at Chrysalis then back at the others. “I know, Chrysalis is just one changeling, perhaps the only one here still looking to be an enemy, but she should realize by now that she’s outnumbered. She’s no threat to us now! So maybe the move we all should be making right now is to pursue peace. That might seem hard to consider after spending so long considering her a foe…” Starlight’s gaze fell upon Twilight, standing in the line of those opposing Chrysalis, and looked at her knowingly, “…but if I’ve learned anything from this, it’s that a changeling can change, deep down as well as on the outside…you just need to give them the opportunity to do so…a real chance to be a friend, instead of a foe.”

That addressed, she then turned to face Chrysalis, stepping closer to her. “Now,” she began, “as for you…”

“Save your breath,” Chrysalis hissed as she glared down at Starlight but for the moment made no move to attack her. “You will not sway me.”

“But what do you have to gain from it?” Starlight challenged and motioned a hoof at the reformed changelings. “Look at your subjects, Chrysalis. They are not willing to follow you down this path any longer. Like Thorax, I think they see now that there’s a better way. You should too, because to be honest? You don’t stand a chance going down this path on your own. Trust me, I know, oh boy, do I know. Back when I wasn’t much better than you and Twilight and her friends defeated me, I chose to run away and seek revenge. But all that brought me was more pain and suffering and nothing of the happiness I really needed. But it’s not too late for you, Chrysalis, because you are still at that point where you don’t have to go down that same path. You can learn from my mistakes and spare yourself that grief. Perhaps you can still be the leader your subjects deserve too. You just need to take the time to pursue forgiveness.”

“Forgiveness?” Chrysalis spat. “Do you know who I am? What I have done? Little pony, how can you expect forgiveness to even be on the table when I, and I alone, have brought about the demise of hundreds!”

“And I have brought about the demise of MILLIONS!” Starlight suddenly snapped at the queen, silencing the changeling, who was taken aback. “At one point even leveled all of Equestria! And the only reason that isn’t still the case right now and we’re all lying dead is through some fluke of magic that undid all of that, so none of you would ever have to know about it! But I do! I have to live with that, every day of my life, to somehow go on with the knowledge of what I am capable of doing hanging over my head, haunting me! I’ve done far worse than you, Chrysalis, and am far less deserving of mercy than you. And yet, despite ALL of that,” Starlight motioned behind her at the others, “they still found it within themselves to forgive me. And if they found they could do that with me of all ponies…surely they can do it for you too.” She faced Chrysalis solemnly. “I won’t lie to you, Chrysalis, the path ahead of you would still be very rough, and you won’t succeed at it all at once. You will still have to earn that forgiveness, and trust me, they will make sure you do. I will make sure you do, because I have not forgotten what you just tried to do. But it is still attainable, and I think you have it within you to do it.” She held out one hoof towards Chrysalis. “You just have to take the first step.”

Chrysalis, taken aback by all of this, simply stood there and stared at Starlight, clearly unsure how to react to all of this. Her eyes wandered down to the hoof Starlight was offering her, staring at it for a long second, and as the changeling queen’s gaze started to soften, it was clear she was genuinely considering it. She looked back up at Starlight—who tried to give her an encouraging grin—and continued to debate her options. The others looked on with baited breath in tense and stunned silence, wondering if Starlight’s attempts to reform the changeling queen would actually be successful. Gradually, Chrysalis started to raise her own hoof, and, slowly and shakily, started to reach for Starlight’s proffered hoof.

But then at the last second, Chrysalis’s face twisted back into a scowl and she shoved Starlight’s hoof away. “There is no revenge you could ever conceive that will come close to the revenge I will extract upon you one day, Starlight Glimmer!” she hissed at the unicorn, who backed away, before raising her gaze onto the others, “To all of you, too! Take heed, because I will be back to have my revenge, I vow it!”

Then, backflipping off the open ledge of the ruined room behind her, Chrysalis took to the air and flew down towards the ground far below as fast as she could. Starlight raced to edge to stare in dismay after her. She was quickly joined by a more determined looking Twilight, horn already alight as she moved fire a spell, taking aim at Chrysalis as the ousted queen shot like an arrow across the wastelands below.

“I SEE HIM!” Spike suddenly shouted from behind them, who had still been clearing away rubble with his helpers during all of this. “I SEE HIM! THORAX!”

Startled, Starlight and Twilight both instinctively turned their heads to look back at Spike at the exact time Twilight fired off her spell, the potent spell just narrowly missing the fleeing changeling queen and slamming into the ground beside her with an impressive explosion, kicking up a large cloud of dust. Realizing her error, Twilight twisted back around and prepared to fire again, her eyes searching for Chrysalis. But Chrysalis had made use of the explosion as a distraction and was already gone from sight. Twilight, looking crestfallen, let her horn go dark as she searched the land stretching out before her for some sigh of the missing queen, but Starlight, seeing no point in continuing to do so, instead urgently turned around and moved to join the others at the now mostly cleared away pile of rubble.

She arrived in time for Ember to slip herself the pillar that had fallen, working at lifting it enough so to move it out of the way, and as Starlight watched, she understood what had happened. When the throne room broke apart in the blast, the pillar Chrysalis had unintentionally struck and damaged with her magic earlier gave way and fell inwards into the room, the top of which being just tall enough to come down right where Thorax was laying. Anything caught under it as it fell should’ve been crushed, but when it came down, it appeared it had brought a large chunk of the ceiling down with it. That chunk landed immediately beside Thorax and served as a prop for the pillar and all the rest of the rubble to land upon, making a nice little pocket of space around Thorax and shielding him from the worst of the collapse. Thus he was layered with a coating of dust and had a few more scratches in his chitin from smaller debris that had slipped through, but otherwise had been spared additional harm.

But as Ember moved the pillar aside and the others came closer so to look at Thorax, Starlight realized with alarm that this may not have mattered. Like Chrysalis, he also hadn’t transformed and instead retained his usual appearance, but the fact he of all changelings hadn’t transformed seemed more than cause for concern. Blood was still slowly oozing from the stab wound in his chest, but he was frightfully still as he lay in the now sizeable pool that had collected. His eyes were closed and his mouth slightly ajar, he responded in no obvious way to the movements going on around him, and his gossamer wings had wilted, no longer retaining a solid shape. He was clearly in a bad state.

Spike, naturally, was the first to move towards him. “Thorax!” he cried pitifully as he first tried to shake Thorax awake. When Thorax made no response, he grabbed his balled-up blood-soaked sweater vest from where it had been left and reapplied it to the wound, desperate to do something to help. Others moved in to assist, hovering around Thorax’s form and trying to see what could be done, but before much of anything did, Princess Celestia came striding determinedly into the group.

“Everyone, stand aside!” she commanded resolutely as she approached.

Intimidated by her purposeful approach, everyone sprang away from Thorax, giving the princess of the sun space, except for Spike, who refused to move. “You are not taking me away from him, not now!” he shouted, believing Celestia intended to strip his friend away from him, not having forgotten her role in the changeling’s past banishment.

“No, Spike, you misunderstand,” Celestia pleaded urgently as she arrived, lighting her horn. “I can help save him, please let me!”

Not expecting this, Spike looked up at her in surprise, giving Ember the chance to slip in and, with odd gentleness, pull Spike back a few steps while keeping her arms wrapped softly around him. Once he was out of the way, Celestia immediately cast a healing spell upon the wounded changeling, forming a beam of magical energy that channeled from the tip of her horn and into Thorax as she worked the spell. Following her example, Luna and Cadance both hurried over to join Celestia, casting similar spells of their own so to support Celestia’s. Everyone else stood in a loose circle around the area, anxiously looking on and tensely awaiting developments. With three of the most powerful ponies in Equestria all working together to save Thorax though, it seemed like success could only be assured.

But Starlight noted Twilight was the one princess who didn’t join in with the healing spells, and instead hung back to one side, looking on with an expression that was partly shocked, partly dismayed, and partly horrified, staring at the wounded changeling lying there. At first Starlight thought with disappointment it was because she still bore a lingering dislike for the changeling, but studying Twilight’s face, she quickly realized that wasn’t the case. Twilight’s expression was one of a pony who was making a revelation that potentially changed everything…in time to see it was much too late to actually do anything about it. It was a look of dread, pity, and above all, shame, and Starlight later realized that Twilight had already come to understand the actuality of the situation sooner than all the rest of them.

A fear that was redoubled once Starlight noticed the healing spell was taking far longer to take effect than any healing spell should ever have to on a live subject.

And soon, she wasn’t the only one to realize that.

Cadance was the first to stop casting the spell. She had kept at it for several minutes, but as more and more time went by, the more and more distraught she appeared to get. Finally, with a sob, she broke off the spell and left the other princesses, hurrying to the side of her husband and burying her face into his shoulder to weep. Shellshocked, Shining Armor solemnly wrapped one hoof around her while he looked on, a look of dread similar to Twilight’s growing onto his features. With this, the brief flare of hope that had settled on the group rapidly dissipated and the group became tense with worry and trepidation, realizing what this could mean. Eventually Trixie, standing beside Starlight, made a weak squeal that grew in volume until it turned into a sob of her own. Starlight wrapped a hoof around her in a one-hoofed hug, trying to comfort the mare as she looked on, fighting off tears too.

Luna was the second to stop, only a few minutes after Cadance did. Stone-faced, she had stared down at Thorax’s form while she had cast the spell, but the gears were continuously turning behind her eyes and her face was ever so slightly paling before she ceased casting the spell too. She remained staring at Thorax for a long moment before closing her eyes and reverently bowing her head for a moment, saddened. She then turned her gaze onto Celestia standing beside her, at first as if looking for instruction, but then knowingly moved to speak instead. “Sister…” she began softly, placing a hoof on her elder sister’s shoulder.

But Celestia immediately shrugged off the hoof, making it clear that she wasn’t interested in discussing it. With a look of fierce determination, she kept on working with the healing spell, pumping the magic of the spell continuously into Thorax. To her, failure wasn’t an option, not after everything the changeling had so clearly done in assisting to rescue her, her family, and cherished friends and cohorts, and certainly not after she had spent so long failing to provide aid for the changeling she recognized now had always been innocent of any wrong doing, resolute to ensure she did not fail him again now. So she kept at it, far longer than the others had. When the first healing spell didn’t seem to have the desired effect, she switched to other variants she knew of, rotating through them in hopes one or a combination of them would work. Then she tried making tweaks to the spells on the fly, trying to coax more power out of them, before going on to dangerously invent entirely new and untested ones on the spot. At one point she even resorted to illegal spells she herself had outlawed as much as several eons ago, all in the hope that one of them would be successful where the others had not.

Eventually, though, she ran out, and was forced to loop back to the original spell she had started with, as none of the others had produced any different results.

Rebelliously, she kept with that spell for several minutes longer, running it for triple the length of time it normally would need, longer than any healing spell should ever need to run, but finally, even she knew when to acknowledge facts. So finally, she stopped as well. For a long moment afterwards as a heavy and eerie silence befell the group, she gazed sadly down at Thorax laying there, unmoving and unchanged, mulling through many thoughts in her head, before closing her eyes and heaving a weary sigh. She raised her gaze again and locked eyes with Spike standing on the other side of Thorax from her, still wrapped in Ember’s arms and watching her intently.

He already knew, of course, Celestia could see it in his eyes. But he was still watching her with every ounce of hope he had in him, imploring that she would manage to achieve a miracle regardless. It only made it all the harder for Celestia. She opened her mouth to speak, but after a second, her nerve failed her and she closed it again, instead averting her gaze in shame, unable to bring herself to say it.

It was all Spike needed though. Letting out a strangled gasp, he wrenched himself free of Ember’s limp arms and hurried forward to Thorax’s side. He slowed to a stop as he arrived, standing over Thorax and fumbling his claws about, feeling helpless and frustrated for a moment, his jaw moving up and down as if trying to find something to say, his eyes darting about in some vain hope of doing something to fix this. But even he had to conclude the same as the others. Ultimately, he squeezed his eyes shut and let himself drop to his knees, and as everyone else sadly looked on, the little dragon lowered his head onto Thorax’s side and proceeded to weep bitter tears into the shoulder of the deceased changeling.

I Was Blind

He had heard from others that in moments like this, it was for them like time had stopped.

But for Spike, it was more like time no longer mattered.

Nothing mattered at the moment. The world around him might as well have ceased to exist as Spike paid it no attention while swallowed up on all sides by his anguish. The only thing that did matter, the only thing he could even focus any of his attention on, was the one terrible reality lying before him.

Thorax was gone.

And even then he struggled to comprehend the very idea of this. How could he just be gone? He was there, alive, breathing, talking, and everything just minutes ago, and yet just like that, he was gone. Snuffed out in a moment. So quick that Spike’s mind reeled from the suddenness of it. How could everything that had made Thorax what he was just vanish like that? How could he be taken away and erased so thoroughly that as Spike lay there with his head upon Thorax’s form, weeping for his lost friend, he faced the reality that he was never coming back. This was something so final, an act so complete, that it simply could not be undone.

Thorax was dead.

Spike wasn’t necessarily a stranger to death—he knew what it was and what it meant, knew that dealing with it when it happened was a great burden to those left behind. He knew those who had lost someone close to them both recent and distant, had seen the sadness it wrought upon them, and he knew it was a sadness so deep that it was hard for it to go away. Applejack and the losses she had faced in her own family was perhaps the most foremost example Spike had encountered, knowing perfectly well that Applejack had years of experience coping and adapting with it under her metaphorical belt, and yet even still to this day it was easy to see how distant she could still get whenever the subject came up…even with her reputation of being a pony that excelled at keeping such sadness to herself. He knew death was a matter that stuck with them, dealing a sadness that could forever affect them thereafter in some manner, no matter how much you tried to fight it or move on—the grief of death was that potent.

And he had been witness to the dead before. The first instance he recalled was in his youth, when he accompanied the Sparkle family to the funeral of Twilight’s late grandfather, the first time he had ever seen a dead pony and the first time the reality of death had really struck him before. He had also been in attendance for the public funerals of a few notable Canterlot nobles at the time of their passing in the years since, in each one getting more and more of a taste of just what death was, what it was like, and what it meant.

But all of those instances involved the death of someone else, the nameless face in the crowd, no one he had any special attachment to before. This was the first time facing death was so personal for him, involving someone as close to him as Thorax…the first time Spike was really struck just how much death could take away from someone.

He was finding he was woefully unprepared for the desolation now clawing away at him, helpless to do anything to stop it but to shed useless tears for his dear deceased friend.

He couldn’t handle this truth, couldn’t comprehend a world without Thorax. Looking back on the four short moons he had held with the changeling, he was struck at just how short a time Thorax had been in his life, such a small sliver of his total lifetime. And yet he had become so pertinent to Spike’s existence that he couldn’t comprehend losing it again, unable to see how his life could still stand without Thorax by his side. He had sacrificed everything for this changeling, risked his own life and done everything he could to ensure this changeling not just lived, but thrived, getting the best and happiest life Spike could give him…only to have it all come to an abrupt end like this regardless. It left Spike feeling lost and alone…where could he go now? How could he go on without Thorax? Should he even try? Because at the moment, he felt like despite everything he had done for Thorax, it still hadn’t been enough, and that thought cut deeper into him than any knife ever could.

And so the world around him didn’t matter, because in that moment, he was left wondering if even himself mattered anymore. He felt like he was left with nothing without Thorax, and was nothing as a result. He couldn’t even save his greatest friend in his world…and with that failure’s weight crushing him, what else mattered? He ignored the world in that moment, because right now the world and his existence in it felt utterly meaningless. He wanted nothing to do with it right now. It’s not like it was going to be able to give him what he really wanted in that moment anyway.

But of course, the world wasn’t going to let him be overlooked. He dimly noticed as several came to try and interact with him, presumably to try and give comfort to him, but he didn’t want such comfort. It all felt empty, and none of it could be used to bring Thorax back, so he fought off any and all advances attempting to do as such. He didn’t even pay attention to whomever it was that might be trying at the time, whether they were pony, dragon, or changeling. He didn’t care. Any appendage that came within the reach of his own he immediately, violently, and blindly swatted it back however he could, anything to just get them all to back off. For what felt like hours to Spike though, the others didn’t seem to get the hint that he didn’t want their hollow platitudes and inadequate attempts of comfort because they kept trying again and again. Whenever Spike swatted away one, another would soon step into its place and the cycle would repeat.

This didn’t change until finally at one point, while moving to carelessly swat away the latest figure trying to approach him, Spike faintly realized he felt his claws connect with something solid for a brief second, followed by a loud yelp and the figure immediately backing away. It occurred to him that he may have, in his recklessness, accidentally sliced open someone’s leg doing this…but he found he couldn’t care. Whatever had happened, it seemed to have finally driven home the idea that Spike didn’t want comforting, that he just wanted to be left to weep for his fallen friend, and finally everyone else backed off. Eventually, they vanished from the detection range of his senses altogether and he realized they had all left, probably not knowing what else to do but to relent to Spike’s wishes and give him some distance. He was thereafter left undisturbed.

Spike both cherished and hated that loneliness. On one side, being so utterly alone felt weirdly right in his grief-stricken mind, that being left abandoned was the right fate for him. But on the other side, Spike felt the emptiness of the loneliness, left with nothing but his grief and the fact that with Thorax’s death, he had no one now…leaving him seeing that he didn’t really want to be that alone. But as before, he couldn’t bring himself to care, let alone do anything to fix it. The world didn’t matter. Nothing mattered…except the dead changeling laying there before him, into the shoulder of which he was weeping hot and bitter tears, tears that felt like they stung the entirety of his body just to shed and yet still seemed grossly inadequate in expressing just how utterly crushed Thorax’s passing was leaving him.

He was like that for a long time, lost in his weeping and tears, blind to all around him except himself and his pain. It was both glorious and horrifying…and ultimately impermanent. Eventually Spike found he had simply run out of tears, and despite feeling the beast of his sadness burrowing deep and restlessly in his body still, he couldn’t seem to force his body to shed anymore. So he just laid there atop of Thorax’s body, gazing unseeingly straight ahead, lost in the parade of misery that was marching through his mind and soul.

Thorax was gone.

He still couldn’t wrap his mind around that, the idea that Thorax wasn’t just gone momentarily, but gone forever. He was never, ever, coming back. The eternalness of this just seemed too unfathomable, and every time he even tried to picture just how long an eternity with no Thorax was, the pain of his sadness got too overwhelming and his train of thought would become derailed, swept away in the despair and unable to complete the journey to finish that endless line of thought. Spike wondered if maybe it was better to not even try…let him at least hold onto the illusion that perhaps eternity did have an end and Thorax could come back then.

It didn’t help that the sight of Thorax’s lifeless body under him didn’t look like it was dead, but rather just pretending. The lethal stab wound that had brought about this tragedy wasn’t in Spike’s line of sight due to his position lying atop of Thorax, and from there, he couldn’t see the physical damage that had undoubtedly killed his friend. Without that visual reminder, it allowed the idea that perhaps the death of his friend he now faced wasn’t actually so. From Spike’s angle, Thorax looked as if he was simply asleep. He kept expecting Thorax to suddenly wake up, turn to look at him grinning cheekily, and say “Gotcha.” Then they could share a hearty laugh and all could go on and be fine and normal again.

He wished, prayed, and pleaded that this was the case. But of course it never happened. Thorax remained limp and lifeless under him, his body reduced to a mere empty shell, with everything in it that had contained Thorax’s very essence of being having been drained out like the blood that had dribbled from the wound in the dead changeling’s chest. Spike, in fact, couldn’t help but view the two as the same thing…and could note with dismay that the wound had stopped bleeding finally, the pool of blood it had left slowly cooling and drying out, congealing into an unsightly stain on the floor of the ruined changeling throne room. There was no life in this changeling-shaped shell anymore…and yet Spike still had a hard time seeing it.

The most damning thing of all was that Thorax still felt warm beneath Spike’s cheek, as if there was still life within him. It seemed bizarre to consider something so dead could be so warm…he had always thought death was something cold and uncomfortable. Yet Thorax, despite the hours still marching on, still felt as warm as any time he felt alive, the chitin Spike rested half his body upon still feeling malleable and conforming upon his scales as it had always felt during Thorax’s life, just soft enough to provide comfort. He was surprised that warmth had lasted so long, was continuing to do so, and was showing little sign of stopping. It bellied some sign and some faint hope of life within the body.

But Spike knew it was an illusion. The warmth was there, but there were absolutely no other sign of life in Thorax now. He was too still, too limp. There was no movement of breathing in his chest, no sound of his internal organs operating under the black chitin, his wings too flaccid and wilted like a dead plant, and above all, there was no pulse of life to be felt…no heartbeat to speak of.

Thorax was dead.

Spike found time and time again as he laid there that he couldn’t deny it. But he desperately wished he could find some way in which he could.

He was like that for a long time. For most of it, he paid no attention to the passage of time, and thus didn’t have any clear idea of just how long it had been. To him, it felt like weeks to years were passing by, a veritable eternity he had to endure without his best friend alive and beside him. But by the end of it, gradually as his mind started pay attention to its surroundings once again, his eyes focused for the first time not on the deceased Thorax his head rested upon, but rather the line of broken clumps of resin marking where the side wall of the throne room had once stood as well as the open sky that lay beyond it. Spike stared at it unregistering for a moment, but he gradually started to remember where he was, lying amongst the fallen rubble that was now the ruined hive chamber, listening to the distant crack of loose rubble still randomly shifting positions on its own, and the feathering breeze that filtered through the room blown open to the outside world.

Eventually, he shifted his gaze by rolling his eyes upwards into the sky, searching for the sun in hopes of gauging the present time. He found it was well into the middle of the western sky, only a few degrees past the peak height of the bright orb’s movement, putting the time about mid-afternoon that same day. Only a couple of hours had passed…only a couple of hours during which Thorax had been deceased. The much shorter window of time than Spike was expecting both startled him and frightened him. Those mere couple of hours facing Thorax’s death alone had been pure torture to bear through in of themselves—how could he possibly expect to deal with Thorax’s death for the rest of his life?

Depressed with that thought, coupled with his already rampant and potent sadness, Spike let his gaze settle back into the same spot as before, staring straight ahead and continuing to rest his head on Thorax’s shoulder, blankly looking at nothing at all as he let his mind be submerged in his bitter thoughts over the loss of his friend. He kept at this for some minutes more still. But then he was jolted out of this negative revere when the head of a yellow reformed changeling suddenly leaned into his view, startling him.

Surprised, he lifted his head abruptly so to take in the newcomer changeling better, his sudden movement startling the changeling in turn, who quickly backed away a pace, not wanting to look like he was intruding. He wasn’t alone either, as there were three other changelings standing close to him in a cluster, colored teal, pale green, and pale orange respectively. All four of them seemed oddly timid, mellow, and gloomy—not at all the dispositions Spike was used to seeing in the changelings of the hive and was struck by just how different the transformation they had undergone today had left them.

He was further reminded of this when the first, yellow, changeling spoke up after quickly recovering from Spike’s sudden shifting of his attention onto them. “Please,” the changeling spoke politely and respectively. He was conveying such a sad sense of sympathy for the tragedy that Spike felt as if he was suddenly the changeling sensing their emotions. “We don’t mean to disturb you. But…we wanted to ask if we could move Thorax to a more desirable location inside the hive…where we all can pay our respects too.”

Spike quietly stared at the lugubrious changelings for a long moment, not immediately replying as he gradually let the full weight of his head rest against Thorax’s shoulder again. His first reaction was to refuse the changelings do anything with Thorax’s body, because doing so felt like surrendering to the fact that Thorax was dead, allowing the last vestiges of everything that had been his good friend be stripped away from him. And he didn’t feel ready to face that just yet. Just the thought of doing so made his stomach churn both in fear and despair. But as he continued to watch the changelings, he saw they were sympathizing with him, understanding and respecting what Spike was suffering. They knew what he was going through…and he soon realized it was because they were hurting too. They had just been given new purpose and direction in their lives, a whole new state of being full of hope and friendship, but that victory was soiled by the death of the changeling who had helped make it happen. And like Spike, he realized these changelings didn’t quite know how to deal with that any more than he did. And with that in mind, he found he could sympathize right back.

He closed his eyes for a second, breathing a slow sigh. The thought of what he was about to do nearly brought him to tears again, but instead of surrendering to his grief, he held it back with what strength he could muster and slowly nodded his head. “Okay,” he said, shifting his arms so to push himself back up onto his feet. “Okay.”

He rose into a standing position, the side of his body that had been resting against the lingering warmth of the deceased changeling felt chilled as Spike stripped it away, and he involuntarily shivered. He gazed down at Thorax, laying there on the floor. He had to fight the urged to throw himself back upon the body and hold it close, refusing it be taken away, but he also saw for the first time just how ungainly and unsightly Thorax appeared all sprawled out like this. It suddenly seemed disrespectful.

Spike forced himself to take a step back from Thorax, gazing at his friend’s fallen form before looking pleadingly back up at the changelings, who hadn’t yet moved. “Just…please be gentle with him.”

The yellow changeling nodded his head in agreement, like this request went completely without saying. “We will,” he assured.

And as they stepped forward to begin, they did indeed work to move Thorax’s body with the greatest of reverence, again surprising Spike, considering how just hours ago these changelings had thought of Thorax as a traitor to his race. It touched him greatly to see what Thorax had done and the sacrifice he gave wasn’t lost on these changelings, and once again, he found himself nearly driven to tears. In the presence of others now and this time keeping himself aware of it though, Spike again forced himself to hold back the weeping, trying to put on a brave face. He felt like he utterly failed at that, but he managed to hold back the tears save for some light sniffling and blurred vision as his eyes got watery for a second.

Using their magic to peel off the gel still was adhering Thorax’s forehooves to the floor, the four changelings then worked together to gently use their magic to lift Thorax and slowly rotate his body so to lower him onto a stretcher they had brought with them, placing him carefully on his back. This done, each changeling then took up a corner of the stretcher and reverently started to carry it out of the ruined throne room and back into the corridor leading into the interior of the hive.

Loyally following his friend even after death, Spike went with them, solemn.

They didn’t go especially far, just down a level and then into a moderately sized, but fairly enclosed private chamber. As it bore a physical door similar to the beetle-like doors that guarded the queen’s sanctuary, Spike figured it likely that it was used for Queen Chrysalis’s purposes, or some other similarly important changeling. Upon seeing that the room contained a circular bed of dried moss upon a slightly raised platform of blue-green resin and remembering Thorax’s descriptions of such collections of moss serving as the standard bed within the hive, Spike suspected it might be some sort of VIP bedchamber.

The four changelings carried Thorax to the moss bed then magically lifted him from the stretcher and onto it with the same reverence as before. Again, they set Thorax down on his back, positioning Thorax so he lay more gracefully with his hind legs straight and his wings neatly laid to either side of his body. One used his magic to gently wipe away some of the drying blood still staining Thorax’s chest, before he and another changeling took one of the deceased changeling’s forehooves and folded them together atop of Thorax’s chest. When they were done and had stepped back, Thorax lay upon the mossy bed precisely how you’d stereotypically expect the deceased to be laid for a public viewing. For Spike though, it only made Thorax appear all the more like he was simply sleeping, making it all the harder for him to accept the idea that Thorax was, in reality, dead.

This done, the four changelings then filed themselves into a small line and each took turns respectively to pay their respects, speaking a few words to their fallen comrade while Spike stood to one side and watched. Most of what the four said was fairly brief, to the point, and spoken in their native changeling language of linguae mutationis, not Equestrian. But Spike still understood enough of the language to be able to follow along. What the four changelings said all roughly bore the same things: an apology for failing to treat Thorax kindly while he was in the hive and failing to listen to his ideas sooner, a word of thanks for his sacrifice and all he had done to give them the “enlightenment” that has set them on this new and reformed path, and a promise that they would not squander this chance Thorax had paid for with his life, wanting to make the most of what this “enlightenment” had given them. It was all very heartfelt—there was no doubt in Spike’s mind that each changeling meant every word of it.

After each of the four changelings had paid their respects though, they turned and departed from the room. Spike, however, stayed. He couldn’t bring himself to leave Thorax’s side still, so he didn’t, instead taking up a seat to one side of the room where he could watch over Thorax’s body. He eventually found out much later that him doing this went against changeling tradition. Normally, the room bearing the deceased for viewing was kept empty of any other occupants save whatever person was in there to give their respects, so to grant privacy to that person and give them a comfortable opportunity to speak their minds without fear of being overheard or seen. But the changelings, understanding Spike’s situation, wordlessly made an exception for the little dragon on this occasion and informally considered him something of an honor guard for the fallen changeling, leaving him be.

Spike sat there on his own for a few minutes, gazing sadly at his fallen friend on the mossy bed, struggling to come to terms with Thorax’s death still. At one point he looked himself over and realized he was a mess—his knees were bloodstained from kneeling beside Thorax when trying to treat his stab wound as were his claws, his shirt was scuffed and dirtied, the false eyeglasses were tucked into the shirt’s pocket but Spike could still see the lens that had gotten cracked, and he realized he had forgotten his sweater vest in the throne room…not that it mattered. As he had used it to try and stop Thorax’s bleeding, it was so soaked with blood it was long ruined. The bow tie he wore seemed to be the only thing that escaped the day’s events relatively unscathed, but this was of little comfort to Spike as he acknowledged that he was a mess. That didn’t mean he cared enough to do something about it. All he cared about was that he was alone with his deceased friend and felt helpless on what to do next.

But the loneliness didn’t last long at least. Soon the first changelings come to pay their respects for the fallen Thorax began to file in a few at a time, ranging either from one at a time, or sometimes in groups of two to three. Either way, Spike quickly realized there was a great many of them, all of them reformed into new states and far, far, more than he expected there to be—much more than had been in the throne room at the time of the transformation, proving that this transformation, or the “Enlightenment” as the changelings were already coming to call it, was more widespread throughout the hive than he had first dared to suspect.

Some of the changelings were there just to pay their respects to the deceased Thorax, but some also came to speak to Spike as well, recognizing him as Thorax’s ally and friend and thus deserving a share of the praise they held for Thorax too. It was through such conversations that Spike learned more about what had been going on. The transformation that had turned the changelings into their new forms was apparently fueled by such a massive burst of magic that many changelings commented they had never before seen or heard of the like, and it was suspected that the accompanying destruction of Queen Chrysalis’s throne may have only amplified it. It was sufficient that the effects reached not just the changelings in the throne room, but many of the changelings in outlying rooms throughout the adjacent levels above and below the throne room, spurring them to do as Thorax had just before his death and share their emotions with all around them. The rest of the changelings in the hive sensed this massive burst of emotive-fueled magic and, shocked and intrigued, moved to investigate. As they found out what happened, many started to transform too, resulting in a sort of ongoing chain reaction that was sweeping through the hive even now as they spoke.

There were, of course, still changelings within the hive that hadn’t yet transformed and were still favoring the hive’s ways of old, but they were part of a rapidly growing minority as more and more changelings were converted, and many those that hadn’t yet were still shocked and moved by this transformation and what it meant for them and their kind, suggesting that many more would soon follow in the days to weeks to come. Many of the changelings who spoke with Spike seemed confident that the entire whole of the hive would be converted in time, and seemed optimistic about what the future held in store for changelings everywhere. Many of them sounded like Thorax in their unbounding optimism, making Spike miss his departed changeling friend all the more and wishing Thorax could be here to see the victory and dream he had finally helped to bring about.

Despite that victory though, the hive had still been thrown on its head thanks to the day’s events, and was presently in a state of near disarray. Their transformations had left the changelings somewhat shellshocked by what had happened, and it was clear that they were still trying to figure out the full depth of what this all meant. As already noted, they had come to refer to the event that had transformed so many of them as the “Enlightenment,” recognized it as a good thing, and saw that they had been blessed with a chance to better themselves because of it. But Spike got the impression that they were still trying to understand the full significance of it all, struggling to put what they learned both into words and into practice.

Nevertheless, they did seem to grasp the concept still and all that Spike met as they came to pay their respects were immediately repentant of their past actions, now choosing to fully embrace their new forms and all that entailed. Many that spoke with Spike also took the time to beg for his forgiveness for their past actions, stunned and ashamed now by the things they had done in the past. This about face was so extreme for the changelings that many of them no longer could believe they had ever even wanted to live the old way at all, unable to conceive that the old way could in any way be better than what they had now, seeing it as only detrimental to themselves and as a culture. Yet at the same time, this sudden switch in views was so complete and abrupt that many changelings were still reeling from it, seeing the old ways were to be abandoned, but not knowing any other way of living and overwhelmed by the possibilities this change presented them. Some voiced bafflement at how they had never been able to consider any of this as possible before, as now it seemed so obvious.

“I was blind,” one changeling had eloquently put it, “but now I see.”

Altogether, it genuinely amazed Spike to see just how strongly influenced to change the changelings had become, as well as their genuine interest in turning over a new leaf as a race. Even more heartening however was the fact that the changelings all saw Thorax as the one who made it happen, and as such, Spike wasn’t the only one they begged for forgiveness—many of the respects they paid to Thorax were to apologize for the mistreatment they had given him while he had been in the hive. They all had seen him as a misfit at best and as a traitor at worst, but now were forced to acknowledge that they were wrong to do so. One changeling even commented aloud that Thorax was “perhaps the wisest of us all,” a comment which stunned Spike and cause him to shed a few more tears over that, but this time partly out of happiness. Despite the pain he felt for losing his friend, he could at least be heartened that the example Thorax had set for the changelings was not being ignored, and they readily acknowledged the sacrifice he had made for them. They all sought to convey just how much that meant to them too. Many were quite passionate about it. Several were driven to tears, enthralled by the chance they had been given, dismayed at the price that had to be paid for it, and ashamed of their roles in creating that price. Seeing this left Spike feeling that if anyone here could truly understand the full depth of Thorax’s sacrifice, it was these changelings.

The changelings didn’t just convey their grief for Thorax’s passing verbally, though. It took the first dozen or so changelings before he realized the significance of it, but Spike eventually noticed that every changeling that entered the room also bore an aura of almost overwhelming sadness surrounding them. Spike initially just took it to be the fact that these changelings were only carrying themselves in a sad manner, but then realized it was more than that—this sadness he felt was the genuine emotions of each of these changelings, being actively shared with all around them like Thorax had demonstrated before his death, and that sharing clearly wasn’t limited to just the changelings. The changelings were already aware of this too, as was proven to Spike when he finally asked one changeling about it while she was speaking to him.

“That is how we must change for the better,” she explained to him. “Before, we stole the emotions we needed to survive and only ever got enough to scrape by. But now, we will share the emotions we already have with each other, and none will have to go hungry so long as there is another changeling to help feed the first.”

Spike nodded solemnly to himself, glancing sadly over at Thorax’s fallen form where he lay, thinking about how this changeling’s words reminded him of the sort of things Thorax wanted to see his species achieve. “I just didn’t think it’d be…so noticeable, or done so freely, even to non-changelings like me.”

“I do perhaps see a downside to it,” the changeling admitted softly, averting her gaze. “Everyone in the hive seems to be saddened by Thorax’s passing…and by sharing our emotions like this, we are only redoubling our lamentations with others already grieving. In this tragic time…that is probably not helping anyone.” Her gaze returned to Spike, and she seemed resolute suddenly but also concerned. “This new ability to share instead of horde…it is truly wonderful and I hope I speak for many when I say we only want to promote it, but this is also an ability that is still new to us and are still trying to understand. We have not yet figured out if there is a way to minimize its effects with respect to those that may not want to share our feelings, or if it even can be minimized.”

“It’s okay,” Spike assured quickly. He lowered his gaze slightly. “I mean, feeling a bit of what your feeling right now isn’t…” he paused to take a deep breath, trying to draw strength without breaking down himself, “…well, it’s certainly not a good feeling, but, oddly…it is sort of comforting knowing that…” he squeezed his eyes shut, feeling the tell-tale sting of tears threatening to form in them again, “…that I’m not the only one who’s been utterly crushed by Thorax’s death.”

The changeling shifted on her hooves awkwardly for a second, unsure how to respond to that. “There’s more to it, though,” she pressed anyway, “because regardless of whether or not we actually can minimize how much of our emotions we share with others…I’m afraid to even try.” She motioned to her new yellow body. “As it was that sharing of emotions that allowed us to achieve this new state, I fear that doing anything that could end that sharing at any time may reverse this transformation, and only cause us to fall back onto…old habits. I do not want that…for myself or any of the others.”

Spike looked at her for a long moment. “I think the fact you have that fear says you won’t let it come to that anyway,” he said, trying to be supportive.

It did manage to draw a comforted grin out of the changeling in response.

And it really did bring Spike a small amount of comfort too, comfort he desperately needed in this horrible time. But with it also came a recollection that this wasn’t the first time he had experienced this free sharing of emotions like this. He hadn’t realized it at the time, nor did he think Thorax had either, but in recent moons, whenever Thorax was especially riled up with some emotion, Spike had always felt like he could sense some of that same emotion being conveyed to him. As such, he suspected Thorax had lately been sharing his emotions a little too, making Spike realize just how close to his own transformation Thorax had been.

As he sadly focused his attention back on Thorax’s body, he thought to himself that Thorax should have gotten that, sporting a new body of his own right along with these other changelings, eager to put to practice these new ideas the hive was now willing to take up. He had been so close too…only to have it ripped away at the last second. And that just didn’t seem fair. As such, even though many of the changelings who came to pay their respects with Thorax also wished to speak with Spike as well, Spike did little of the actual talking, instead letting the changeling speak while he continued to mull and long for his deceased friend. And while it was great to hear all these good things the changelings suddenly had to say about Thorax, it still didn’t change the fact that he was gone and not coming back. And with that heavy thought on his mind, it left Spike with little want to say much of anything.

But that changed when, well after Spike had lost count of how many changelings had come to pay their respects thus far, one changeling in particular strolled in. He was colored mostly a bright lime green that darkened into a sparkly emerald green on his underbelly, except for some light orange coloring about the base of his neck and dark fuchsia-colored elytra covering the folded wings on his back. He also bore three pearl-like structures in his chest, which seemed to be a reoccurring trait among the transformed changelings, but only on certain ones Spike had noticed, who wondered idly if there might be a reason why.

Regardless, this newcomer changeling entered the room and immediately approached Thorax’s body first, like all of the others before him. He stood there regarding the fallen changeling lying on the bed of moss sadly for a long moment of silence, extruding sadness in his openly shared emotions…but Spike also noticed with mild interest that there was also a deep sense of regret and shame mixed in, more than he noticed with changelings before him.

Finally, the changeling sighed wearily, then drew in his breath again and turned to face Spike sitting to one side. “You are Spike, then?” he asked. “Thorax’s dragon friend?”

“That’s right,” Spike mumbled back, disinterestedly watching the changeling as he approached where Spike sat.

“Hello then,” the changeling greeted softly. “My name is Synthorax.”

Spike perked up a little, surprised by the name. “Synthorax?” he asked, wondering if the similarity it seemed to have with Thorax’s own name was mere coincidence.

It wasn’t. “I’m one of Thorax’s clutchmates,” Synthorax explained. “In your terms, I suppose that would make me his brother.”

Spike straightened even more, further surprised by this development. He knew Thorax had siblings, but Synthorax was the first to even try to make himself known to Spike, catching him off guard. “His brother?” he repeated, still trying to process this.

“Well, younger brother, technically. Thorax’s egg hatched a few minutes before mine, but…” he trailed off, unsure how to proceed. Noticing Spike’s surprise, he swallowed awkwardly. “Did Thorax ever speak of his clutchmates?”

“On occasion, but he never really mentioned specific names before,” Spike admitted, taking Synthorax in. He was trying to see if he bore any resemblance to Thorax in anyway, but it was difficult to see given Synthorax’s reformed state and having no frame of reference of how Thorax might have looked had he achieved a similar state.

At this, Synthorax turned ashamed. “I am not too surprised,” he confessed. “Thorax and I had not spoken to each other since we were nymphs, and rarely even saw each other after that until he fled the hive.” He hung his head, averting his gaze as his shame settled even more heavily upon him. “Sufficing to say…he and I did not get along very well.”

Spike was still pondering the idea of meeting any of Thorax’s siblings though. “What about his other clutchmates?” he asked. “How…are they handling this?”

Synthorax mulled upon the question for a brief second before answering. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “I’m not even sure if any of the others are coming to pay their respects too, or already have…though I suppose if they have, they did so discretely or I guess you’d already know…” he sighed. “I imagine Pharynx at least isn’t going to come…last I heard, he hasn’t transformed yet and is probably taking all of this…bitterly…but then I guess Thorax was always a little closer with Pharynx than the rest of us, him being the eldest and all…though even that’s not saying much, really.” Looking back at Spike and realizing how this might sound, he switched gears to explain. “You have to keep in mind…changelings don’t really do the family thing like you and the ponies probably do.”

“I know,” Spike assured. He sheepishly played with his claws. “Thorax explained to me the particulars once…you basically all go off on your own and don’t interact much after that.”

Synthorax nodded solemnly, then glanced back at Thorax’s limp form, his sadness visibly manifesting on his face now. “After all this, though…I kind of hope that might change…if only because I’m finding myself wishing that hadn’t been the case between me and Thorax, now that he’s…” he trailed off, unable to bring himself to finish the statement. His apparent sadness and regret visibly increased again. “Tell me…in the end…was he happy? Living the life he was?”

Spike went quiet as he considered it for a second. Grieving as he was for Thorax’s passing, reflecting back on his time with Thorax made his heart ache stronger, and it was hard to focus on finding an answer. “There were certainly rough spots,” Spike finally admitted. In thinking about it though, he just couldn’t say Thorax had ever been too bothered by that. “But…yes…I think he was happy enough…at least, I don’t think he would’ve given it up for something else. He…” Spike’s voice cracked, but he forced himself to press on. “…he was pleased with what he had accomplished…in the end…though I wish he could’ve had the opportunity to do more still.”

Synthorax nodded to himself, but he didn’t seem very reassured as he turned to face Thorax’s body again. It was clear all of this was bothering him greatly. “I had never held Thorax in high regard much,” he admitted suddenly. “Always thought he was the crazy and odd one, what with all of his…strange ideas…the few times we spoke, we were…always butting heads over that, until the…the last time we directly spoke with each other…we fought…I called him things that…” Again he trailed off, his regret deepening further still. He closed his eyes sadly as he started to tear up. “Oh Thorax,” he murmured softly. “I should’ve listened to you. Clearly, you were smarter than me in so many ways, not so blinded by tradition like I was…I should’ve seen it sooner. You…you deserve better, but…I promise…I’m listening now.” He heaved a heavy sigh and sulked to himself for a long moment. Then sniffing his nose and suddenly regaining his composure, he raised his head and turned to face Spike again. “What sort of life was Thorax living after he left the hive?” he asked softly. “Can you tell me?”

Spike hesitated for a second, thinking this might be hard for him to do, but regardless, he nodded his head. “Sure.”

The two spent the next several minutes discussing the basics of Thorax’s life since Spike had met him. Synthorax kept taking special note of anything that might touch upon Thorax’s ideals, unintentionally prying for more details until the conversation also covered just what sort of future Thorax had been envisioning for the changelings and their hive. Synthorax noted at one point that Thorax’s vision was “very optimistic,” but he said it in such a way that it was hard for Spike to determine just what he meant by that. If the changeling had any problems with that high optimism, he did not speak of them and instead kept them to himself, bottling them away where Spike wouldn’t notice that they might be there. In fact, if anything, Spike noticed that Synthorax seemed more determined dedicating himself to the expectations of his transformation and the “Enlightenment” that came with it. Like all the other changelings, Synthorax recognized he had been given a chance to change for the better and was eager to act upon it, but he didn’t want to do just that, Spike thought he also wanted to carry on from where Thorax would be leaving off, perhaps as his way of making it up to Thorax all the things Synthorax had done wrong to him.

If so, then Spike couldn’t help but approve of that intent.

Eventually, both Spike and Synthorax ran out of things to say. As he knew there were plenty of others who wanted their chance to pay their respects to Thorax and not wanting to delay them too long, Synthorax decided that would be his time to leave. But as he reached the door, he stopped and turned to look back at Spike to say one last thing. “I’m glad Thorax managed to find you as a friend,” he spoke truthfully then, regret for his treatment of his clutchmate catching up with him once more, he added, “I just wish I had been such friend to him too.”

He then exited the room, leaving the air thick with the deep guilt and regret from Synthorax’s shared emotions. Spike felt saddened by it, sympathizing a little. He wished he knew of something he could do for the troubled changeling, only to remember that he wished such a thing could be provided for himself too, and the chat with Synthorax in many ways made Spike long for his deceased friend all the more. Yet, the deep regret Synthorax put off did give Spike a sign to search for in other changelings that came in to pay their respects, noting that such regret was relatively rare at such strengths except for only a couple of other changelings that came in. It left Spike wondering if these changelings might be other clutchmates of Thorax’s, but if they were, none of them were nearly as talkative as Synthorax and did not reveal themselves as such, and Spike couldn’t bring himself to ask.

The viewing continued on regardless and the minutes started to turn into hours. There was no sign of an end of changelings filing in to see Thorax, and again Spike was stunned at the sheer number of them. He still didn’t see any that weren’t transformed into the now-familiar forms so many of them had gained. Spike wondered just how many of them there actually were now, shocked so many had not only transformed but had also resolved to change their lives to something more friendly and amiable in such a short space of time. It was nothing short of a miracle, but as wonderful as that miracle was, it still felt bittersweet in light of Thorax’s passing. Spike again wished Thorax was alive to see the good that was taking place in his hive, and remained dismayed that it just couldn’t be.

The more Spike heard about the changes taking place in the hive though, the more he grew concerned about whether or not it could last as he became aware of one very big problem facing the changelings—with Chrysalis’s ousting, the hive was now effectively leaderless. And while the large majority of the changelings all seemed to know where they wanted their race to eventually be and end up, they didn’t seem to quite know what they would need to do to get there, a thought that Spike learned was beginning to weigh heavily as the initial euphoria of their transformations wore off and thoughts to the future slipped in its place.

In fact the changelings were acting like a chicken without its head, needing someone to guide, direct, and instruct them through this drastic change in their lives, but had no one they could turn to and no one stepping up to fill in that void. And Spike knew enough about politics to know that this power vacuum was only going to leave the changelings very vulnerable if they didn’t find that leader in short order. If they didn’t, someone could come along and seize control of their hive for their own purposes, good or bad, but it was the bad that Spike especially feared, thinking that anything that robbed these changelings of their new shot in existence as an utter tragedy.

He especially feared Chrysalis, wherever she was now, would see this and seek to take advantage of the chaos so to restore herself to the throne and, undoubtedly, undo everything that had taken place today, making the whole transformation pointless. But Spike found the changelings reacted to the mere suggestion such an idea with surprising fury, determined to refuse to do anything with their former queen from this point on. By now, the changelings had seen for themselves Chrysalis’s secret stash of horded food and were justly irate by this, but it turned out this was only the latest of a long list of secret grievances the changelings had been collecting against Chrysalis and her attempts to suppress their rights—it was just none of them had ever thought there was a way out until now, nor that it was by drastically abandoning the old changeling way of life.

But as a result, Spike found none of the changelings he met were willing to let Chrysalis back into the hive without at least ensuring she received some justice back in turn. Their exact ideas on that varied. Some, like Thorax no doubt would’ve, wanted to try and reform Chrysalis too, thereby blessing her with the same enlightenment they had received. But far more simply wanted Chrysalis gone from their lives forever no matter what. Despite attempts to search for her already underway, there was no sign of the missing ex-queen, and no one was quite sure where she had gone or would’ve gone. But wherever it was, many changelings just wanted her to remain there and stay far away from their hive. Others still however came to Spike and swore that they would hunt her down anyway, seeking vengeance against her for her role in killing Thorax, as if they thought this would bring comfort to Spike—it didn’t, because Spike knew it wouldn’t matter what happened to Chrysalis now, Thorax would still be dead and gone from the world.

Whatever the case, the changelings made it clear they were not about to let Chrysalis back into their lives now that they had finally gotten rid of her, and yet Spike still feared for their futures should she try regardless. He knew Chrysalis was a cunning foe, and recent events only affirmed that. If anyone could find a way to slink her way back to the top of the hive despite the challenges awaiting her, it was probably Chrysalis. And whenever the fear of that possible eventuality grew to its peak, Spike would turn to whatever changeling was in the room and urge them to do whatever they could to find a leader, asking who among them could be one. Unfortunately, the other thing all of the changelings seemed to be in agreement on was that if anyone could’ve been their replacement leader, it was Thorax. Several told Spike straight up that, had Thorax lived, they would’ve sworn a lifetime of allegiance to him right then and there, which was highly flattering for Thorax, of course. But with much despair, Spike could only remind them that with Thorax’s passing, this was not an option. Spike wasn’t certain Thorax would be up for the task of leadership anyway…it wasn’t really ever his style.

In lieu of a clean solution then, this was a problem that remained unresolved, and eventually Spike, frustrated and saddened at his inability to help the changelings find that solution for them, let the subject drop for now.

The viewing pressed on further still, and more changelings continued to file in. By this time though, the novelty of the changelings’ new forms was starting to wear off on Spike, and their words of comfort, support, and praise for Thorax, all started to sound the same and blur together. Thus, growing depressed and disinterested in the proceedings, Spike started to withdraw upon himself to sulk once more, ignoring the world around him.

But that changed when, unexpectedly, someone new entered the room. Spike first noticed when the sound of the newcomer’s steps didn’t match those of the changelings before and turned to look at the newcomer only to see she wasn’t a changeling at all.

“Ember,” Spike breathed in surprise, perking up at the sight of her.

The dragoness glanced solemnly in his direction, but she did not reply as she strolled into the room. She did so in an oddly timid and dejected manner that Spike wasn’t at all used to seeing Ember do. He was used to her acting strong and confident, not…cowed and gloomy. She had been given back her scepter, which she carried in one hand as she unhurriedly crossed the room, using it like a walking stick almost like she couldn’t bring herself to do anything else with it. Spike also noticed that her scales were still covered with dried slime that hadn’t yet flaked off from her time spent in a cocoon. It showed more obviously than normal because the dust and grit kicked up while she helped unbury Thorax earlier had stuck to the drying slime and stayed there. The fact that Ember hadn’t bothered to clean it off yet wasn’t especially surprising seeing that dragons typically wouldn’t anyway, but Spike still felt like it showed he wasn’t the only one who had been through too much today.

Whatever the case, the first thing Ember did upon entering was to stroll purposely up to the side of the mossy bed Thorax’s body laid upon, and there spent a moment sadly but silently taking in the sight of the fallen changeling. Then, heaving an almighty sigh, she straightened and moved her scepter to plant it onto the floor, perfectly centered before her with the ruby tip pointing straight upwards. While holding it in that place with both sets of claws, Ember then quietly closed her eyes and bowed her head, letting the top of her head rest against the side of the scepter. She remained like that, nearly motionless, for a very long moment, leaving the watching Spike to wonder just what it was that she was doing. Eventually, he realized in shock that it was a draconian form of honorary salute and felt he should be touched, knowing that was no small thing for a dragon to give to someone who was decidedly not also a dragon.

After a minute or so, Ember then slowly opened her eyes and raised her head slightly to look around the scepter and regard Thorax again. “May your travels to the beyond be safe and fruitful,” she murmured aloud respectively. She then relaxed and let the scepter fall to her side, breathing another sigh. She squeezed her eyes shut for a second, long enough for Spike to wonder in surprise if the dragoness was holding back tears. If she was though, she managed to clear them away without shedding them, because when she opened her eyes again, they were clear and composed. Turning her attention to Spike now, she calmly approached where he sat against one side of the room and knelt down before him so to be on his eye level. “Are you doing okay?” she asked in a surprisingly soft and gentle tone that Spike had again never heard or seen Ember use before.

Spike looked at her and her earnest desire to assist for a moment, and suddenly found himself moved to tears again by her graciousness. Yet ashamed by the hot tears leaking from his eyes, he bowed his head in an attempt to hide them and silently shook his head no.

Ember sighed sadly at this. “I can’t blame you,” she admitted, hanging her head. “I’m sorry, Spike…I’ve failed the both of you.”

Spike looked at her incredulously. “You? Failed?” he repeated, not understanding.

“Spike, when I came aboard your airship and joined sides with you and Thorax, I did so promising that I would protect both of you and keep you safe.” Ember turned her head to look back at Thorax’s body. “But clearly, I wasn’t able to keep that promise.”

“Oh, Ember, no,” Spike said, shaking his head sadly, refusing to accept that. “You did far more than either of us could have ever asked or expected of you.” He reached out and placed a claw on the dragon lord’s shoulder. “We both owe you a great deal for that.”

Ember shook her head sadly and plopped down onto her rear, sitting on the floor next to Spike. “I’d entirely give that debt up in a heartbeat if it meant it’d bring him back,” she stated seriously.

“I know the feeling.” Spike shook his head too, and after a momentary pause, he heaved a great, sad, sigh. “If anyone’s failed Thorax, it was me,” he pressed. “Everything I did these past four moons, it was to…” he gazed sadly at Thorax’s body, feeling the crushing wave of despair and disbelief that his friend was truly gone starting to flood his body again, but fought to remain his composure at least long enough to finish the statement. “…avoid this.”

Ember closed her eyes sadly. For a brief second she had them squeezed tightly shut as if fighting to maintain her own composure, and Spike yet again found himself stunned just how close to the verge of weeping Ember was, and as she wasn’t one to be emotional like this at all, the fact she was moved so was shocking and almost chilling for Spike. “Don’t be so hard on yourself, Spike,” she stated firmly, enough that Spike took it to be a command. “You played a pivotal role in all of this too, in that you helped ensure Thorax could even be in the position he was to make a difference…a role I hope you will be able to continue still, even after what’s happened.”

Spike, however, shook his head in denial. He nodded his head forlornly at his fallen friend before them. “Thorax was the real hero.”

Ember followed his gaze sadly. “He was more than a hero,” the dragoness relented. “Through one action, he did far more for our world as we know it than I suspect we can even realize right now. He may have died doing it…but from looking around at everyone’s reactions to what happened today, I can already see that what he did is sending changes through more than just his fellow changelings, enough that by the end of it, our world could be forever changed…I hope for the better.” She turned her gaze back onto Spike. “But what I’m getting at is that none of that likely would’ve happened, if you hadn’t been there to be the friend Thorax needed.” She averted her gaze a bit. “I know I’ve been very hard on you about being the dragon raised among ponies…but after what has happened today…I can’t help but think that maybe you growing up among the ponies was perhaps the best thing that could have ever happened for us all…because it gave you the strong and caring heart needed to do it…I just wish the ponies supported you more on that.”

With that heavy thought on both of their minds, the two dragons went silent for a long moment, together sitting on the floor and gazing sadly at the fallen changeling that had sacrificed himself for it. Ember then suddenly let her scepter fall from her grasp, letting it hit the floor with an unceremonious clunk. Spike’s attention drawn onto her, he watched as the dragoness again squeezed her eyes shut, fighting to maintain control of her composure. This time, however, she failed, and hot tears started to leak from her eyes against her will as she started to silently cry. Spike gazed at her for a second, taken aback, but ultimately sympathizing with Ember, he reached out a placed one hand on Ember’s shoulder in an unsure attempt of comforting her. Ember apparently decided that wasn’t enough for her though and abruptly snatched up the littler dragon, wrapping her arms around him and pulling him close in a sudden bear hug while she continued to quietly cry.

Spike was again shocked by this, more so than before, as Ember had never been a fan of hugs in the whole time he had known her. But seeing these were certainly unusual times and both of them needed the comfort, Spike relented and proceeded to return the hug, trying to be the one to wear the strong face seeing that Ember couldn’t at the moment. Somewhat to his surprise, because he could feel his own grief threatening to surface too, he managed to do so, and waited until Ember had gotten her grief vented and out of her system enough. He didn’t have to wait long. Almost as if ashamed of herself, Ember quickly started to regain control of her tears, and after sniffling a few times, released Spike to wipe her eyes, then stood up, scooping up her scepter to hold once more. In all of a moment, she was standing at her full height over Spike like it had never happened.

They debated to themselves on what to say next. “Are you going to be okay?” Ember finally asked.

Spike glanced up at her seriously. “Are you?”

Ember ultimately didn’t reply. She took another mournful glance at Thorax’s body then silently decided it was time for her to leave, turning for the door. Spike watched her go, but he made no protest in her leaving, honestly still just surprised she had come to say and do as much as she had.

But before she exited the room, Ember paused for a moment in the doorway, debating to herself, then looked back at Thorax lying on the mossy bed once more. “You know, he was a brave for a changeling,” she said softly. “Braver than any dragon I have ever known.” Her eyes then turned to lock directly with Spike’s. “Except for one.”

She then turned and left the room without elaborating on whom, but she didn’t need to. Spike understood who she meant. He didn’t feel the least bit worthy of that claim though, but he made no attempt to deny or protest it in the slightest. Instead, he chose to cherish that rare display of emotion from the dragoness, that somehow meaning far more to him.

The steady flow of reformed changelings resumed as Ember left, but after talking with the dragoness, Spike found he couldn’t focus on the changelings and their words of sympathy as much, lost in thought about what Ember had said and what she meant by it. In reviewing the conversation back in his head, it seemed Ember still thought good could come from this tragedy, despite how much Thorax’s death had pained her as well. It was impossible for Spike to share in that enthusiasm at the moment though. Certainly, he could see the good in the changelings undergoing their reformation, their “Enlightenment” as they called it, but for Spike, the price it had come at with Thorax’s death was one he hadn’t been willing to pay. Thorax was his greatest companion and ally after all, and Spike dearly wished he hadn’t needed to die at all.

The changelings continued filing in to pay their respects for some minutes after Ember’s visit, and Spike believed she was going to be the only non-changeling to do so. He at least couldn’t see a reason why others would be inclined to come and pay their respects at least, not when they weren’t nearly as close to Thorax in comparison. With this expectation in mind, he was not paying too close attention to those filing in and out of the door to the room, more focused on gazing upon Thorax and quietly mourning to himself.

Because of this, when the latest visitor timidly stepped through the doorway, Spike was not looking to see who it was and assumed it was yet another changeling wishing to say well-meaning but increasingly empty-feeling words of comfort. So he didn’t take note of who it was until he heard the visitor’s familiar voice softly address him. “Spike.”

Surprised, Spike twisted around at last to look at the butter-yellow pegasus mare standing in the doorway. “Fluttershy,” he murmured. “I…I didn’t think…” he trailed off, unable to find the right way to voice his thoughts at her unexpected appearance.

Fluttershy, somewhat disheveled still and her pink mane matted from her time in a cocoon, didn’t seem to mind this, as, having gotten Spike’s attention, she proceeded to walk into the room. Though she couldn’t seem to keep her gaze on Spike for long, continuously averting it every few seconds, the dragon could see in her eyes that her mind was awhirl with thought and no doubt trying to piece together what to say herself. But the more she looked from Spike to Thorax’s body on the mossy bed, the more distressed she appeared to get, clearly distraught. Finally, as she neared where Spike sat, her emotions got the better of her and, tearing up, she closed the remaining gap between them at a gallop and seized Spike in a tight hug, weeping without restraint.

“I’m sorry!” she gasped out through her weeping. “I’m sorry!”

“Fluttershy…” Spike started to object, but seeing her weep stirred up the intense emotions boiling within him enough to spill over and further conversation was cut off as he quickly joined the weeping, pressing his face into Fluttershy’s chest as he cried.

They spent the next several minutes in each other’s grasps, intensely shedding tears so to express their grief for the loss of Thorax. It seemed to be the best way for them to vent their sadness at the moment, something that simply needed to be done and out of the way first before either could consider proceeding. Nonetheless, Spike, having already shed plenty of tears for Thorax already that afternoon, finished with his weeping first, but sadly remained where he was so to allow Fluttershy the time she needed to finish and slowly start to recompose herself. Even when she had done so, she kept holding Spike close, sadly and blankly gazing past Spike and at Thorax.

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” she finally repeated once more, but this time actually getting further into the thought. “I should’ve done something sooner…if I had done so…maybe Thorax…Thorax…” she let out a sob as she struggled to bring herself to say it aloud.

“You couldn’t have done anything to prevent it though,” Spike chose that moment to remind her, his voice catching slightly and coming out as a sort of croak. “You were still in a cocoon and—”

“No, no,” Fluttershy interrupted, squeezing her eyes shut as she shook her head. “You don’t understand, I mean before all of that. I knew for moons that you and Thorax weren’t what the others were saying ever since I helped treat Thorax’s illness, but…but I didn’t say anything to the others about it, not until Twilight had already found you herself…if I had just been braver and spoken up for you two right away, stood up to defend you…”

“Fluttershy, you did precisely what I had hoped you would do at the time and kept quiet,” Spike interrupted back, pressing his own eyes shut as he gave her a comforting squeeze, trying to reassure of her actions. “If you hadn’t, you may have only brought Twilight down upon us that much sooner. Instead, you gave us two more moons to be together and friends…and even though I wish I could’ve had many more than that with him…I’m still glad I at least got that much. I wouldn’t want that taken away from me, Fluttershy. Please…don’t blame yourself for that, because there’s nothing to blame. You did what you thought was right, and so did I, in circumstances that were far from ideal. That was enough.”

“But it wasn’t,” Fluttershy persisted, still shaking her head. “No one should’ve died at all.”

“No,” Spike readily agreed. “No one should’ve.” He gave her another friendly squeeze as tears threatened to stream from his eyes again. “But you and I both know that there’s no point discussing it now, because it’s already done.” His attempts to hold back the new onslaught of tears failed and they started to drip from his shut eyes, his voice cracking. “Thorax is gone.”

Fluttershy was quiet for a moment, suddenly composed as she let Spike shed a few more tears. “He shouldn’t be,” she whispered at last.

“I know,” Spike agreed. “Believe me, I know.”

Fluttershy seemed to calm down a little, but she still didn’t seem reassured. “I still should’ve done more,” she persisted. “By doing nothing…I was failing to show trust in myself, in my friends, and worse of all, in you and Thorax, and…” her eyes squeezed shut again, her head shaking as she forced herself to keep from breaking down into tears again. “…and if I had just done so in the first place, then everything could’ve been different.”

“If you had done so,” Spike again reminded firmly, “Twilight would’ve only—”

“Spike, she could’ve still seen the truth,” Fluttershy interrupted, suddenly pulling back so to hold Spike in front of her and look him seriously in the eye. “I know she could’ve. And now after everything that’s happened, Twilight…she’s…”

“No…NO!” Spike declared, cutting her short as he ripped himself away from her, suddenly angry. “I don’t want to hear it from you.” He turned away and paced around aimlessly as he struggled to decide what to do next while Fluttershy sat and sadly watched him for a moment. At last, Spike stopped beside the wall of the room and leaned against it with both sets of claws, hanging his head. “If Twilight has something to say, she can come in here and say it herself.” He stood there breathing heavily for a moment, then upon thinking about it, glanced back at Fluttershy. “Is she coming here?”

Fluttershy hesitated, clearly uncertain. “I don’t know,” she admitted. “At least…I don’t think I’ve seen her out there.” She motioned a hoof back at the doorway to the room, outside of which Spike was now certain a line of changelings a mile long were waiting for their chance to enter. “But…there’re so many wanting to…to…” she hesitated again and eventually chose to cut to her chief point, “…she could easily be out there waiting for her turn too…I certainly hope she is, at least.”

Spike took his gaze off of Fluttershy and back on the wall he was leaning against. He didn’t comment on the matter, but his body language still made his thoughts clear.

Fluttershy couldn’t help but notice. “Spike, I know you don’t trust her right now, and have been given every reason not to,” she relented softly in her usual gentle tone. “But…she should still have the chance to at least speak…shouldn’t she?”

Spike was quiet for a moment, taking in deep breaths as he tried to keep himself calm. “It depends on what it is she says,” he concluded.

This didn’t seem like the answer Fluttershy wanted to hear, but she knew better than to try and press the matter and she respectively backed off. Instead, her attention left Spike and focused on Thorax, viewing the changeling’s body sadly. “Why didn’t he change too?” she asked aloud suddenly, observing the dead changeling’s body still bearing the classic traits of changelings of old, before the transformation. “Like the others?”

Spike shrugged half-heartedly. He had already run through several possible answers to this question his head. “I don’t know,” he admitted sadly. “Maybe…maybe he had already gotten too weak by that point to be able to.” He squeezed his eyes shut and let his head sink lower in dismay. “All I know is he just didn’t.”

Fluttershy turned her gaze back to Thorax. Respectively, she bowed her head. “I’m sorry you didn’t get the chance to share in the experience like the rest of the changelings, Thorax,” she murmured aloud. She then glanced back at Spike and rose, trotting closer to him, placing one hoof on his shoulder. “And I am truly sorry you have to be put through this, Spike…I can’t imagine how much this is hurting you.”

“Please don’t,” Spike said, placing his claws over the mare’s yellow hoof. “Trust me…you don’t want to know.”

Fluttershy took a deep, steading breath. “If you need anything…” she began.

“What I need, Fluttershy, I can’t have,” Spike replied, cutting her short as he sadly turned to face her. “But for everything else…I…I just need some time…to try and figure this out.”

Fluttershy was quiet for a moment. “The offer still stands,” she reiterated. “If you need anything…I’ll be happy to try and help to the best of my abilities.”

Spike looked at her for a moment then gave her an appreciative hug which she readily returned. “Thank you, Fluttershy,” he said simply.

Fluttershy nodded, then, giving Spike and Thorax one last mournful glance, she turned and slowly stepped out of the room. After she left, the familiar flow of changelings resumed. As before, Spike humored them while he mulled upon Fluttershy’s offer. He knew it was both courteous and one he probably should take her up on. But it seemed like doing so was admitting defeat, only speeding up this closing chapter of his time with Thorax. And Spike knew he wasn’t yet ready for that.

He settled in for what he expected would be another long stretch of visiting changelings, but actually the stream was notably shorter this time before it was broken once again by another familiar face, this time in the form of Applejack. Like Fluttershy and Ember before her, Applejack still bore the grime of a cocoon and sorting through rubble. But as was always the case, the apple farmer wasn’t about to let grime slow her down and she proudly wore her trademark Stetson hat upon her head as she always did, the hat somehow defying the trend by appearing completely unscathed from the experience. She stepped into the room looking very composed, but still sullen, like she was only just ready enough to face the unpleasant duty awaiting her.

She moved first to approach Thorax’s body upon the mossy bed, but as she did so, she locked eyes with Spike. “Hey,” she greeted softly, almost without feeling.

“Hey,” Spike echoed back, unable to think of anything else meaningful to say at the moment.

“It’s been awhile since Ah’ve laid eye on ya last,” Applejack pointed out as she arrived at the side of Thorax’s bed, her eyes still on the little dragon. “Ah hope that ain’t gunna continue ta be a trend though, not after all of this.”

Spike only averted his gaze and didn’t reply. He didn’t really know what the future held for either of them.

Applejack took this as her cue to change the subject and refocused her attention on Thorax before her. Sighing, she respectively removed her hat, holding it before her. “Thank ya, fer all ya did savin’ our lives,” she murmured aloud to Thorax. “We didn’t git ta see much of each other…but Ah’ve been hearin’ plenty of good things ’bout ya lately…Ah’m sorry we ain’t gonna git the chance ta meet proper-like. And Ah’m sorry we didn’t give ya the chance at friendship ya deserved…Ah wish it didn’t have ta end like this.”

Applejack then fell silent, looking like she had run out of things to say and simply remained seated where she was, looking at Thorax. As she did so, Spike watched, mulling upon her words. It wasn’t lost upon him that it sounded like Applejack regretted her role in rejecting Thorax along with the others. A small part of Spike was pleased to see that…but most of the rest of him knew it was also too little too late. Such a development should’ve been made well before now, when Thorax was still alive to hear it for himself.

Despite that, Spike found he couldn’t hold much against Applejack. As he studied her, he was particularly struck by how well she was keeping a straight face in light of this tragedy. But he also knew that Applejack was famed for being one who “cried on the inside.” Spike never really understood much what that meant, but now that he was looking at her, he could just make out in those green eyes of hers a deep sadness greatly defying her collected outward appearance. She was concealing it for whatever reason—pride, sympathy, whatever—but inside of her right now was a very distraught mare, weeping her eyes out someplace where the world couldn’t stand and ogle at it. For a moment, Spike almost envied that ability.

Finally, Applejack heaved a great sigh and turned her attention onto Spike, moving to approach him. “Ah’m deeply sorry, Spike,” she said. “This ain’t the least bit fair fer ya.”

Spike licked his dry lips as he averted her gaze, looking down at his feet. “No offense, Applejack,” he began softly, “but right now that’s got to be the greatest understatement I’ve ever heard in my life.”

Applejack was unfazed by Spike’s response. “Look, if Ah could actually do anythin’ ta change it…”

“But you can’t,” Spike said, his head snapping up suddenly to shoot her a glare. “I know. I’ve already heard that a thousand times already, and frankly…” he shook his head sadly, “…I’m getting sick of hearing it.” He blinked his eyes a few times, feeling his tears threatening to return, something else he was getting sick of. “I just…I can’t deal with it, Applejack, I just…I just…” he squeezed his eyes shut and turned in his seat, facing away from her, “…how can I possibly be expected to cope with this? How could this…this…pain…ever go away?”

Applejack looked at him long and hard. “It doesn’t.”

Spike shot her a look. “And how would you know?” he snapped without thinking, the words out of his mouth before he even realized it.

Applejack’s gaze instantly turned cold and distant. “Ya should know darn well how,” she replied sternly. “Ya ain’t the only one here who’s lost someone close ta them before.”

Spike closed his eyes again, realizing what she was getting at and hung his head, ashamed. “You’re right, of course,” he admitted, having forgotten briefly Applejack and her family’s often unspoken past. “I’m sorry, I just…I wasn’t thinking.” He paused, expecting Applejack to berate him for his insensitivity, but instead Applejack only gave him a sympathizing look, silently understanding. He sighed. “How do you deal with the pain, then?” he asked finally, softly. “How do you get past it?”

Applejack didn’t answer for a long moment, but Spike could see the flickers of emotions in the farm pony’s eyes. “Like Ah said…ya don’t,” the tan mare finally responded. “It just sort of…becomes a part of ya after a while. Part of wut makes ya who ya are. Makes ya stronger, in some ways. In others…Ah guess it humbles ya. Keeps ya aware that ya ain’t almighty. That everythin’ has an end.” She rubbed two of her forelegs together awkwardly for a moment. “Ah really am sorry though, Spike,” she repeated, and with strong meaning. This time Spike believed her. “None of this should’ve happened, but it has. We messed up. Now we’re payin’ the consequences.”

“Darn straight you are,” Spike couldn’t help but grumble, folding his arms.

“If it helps, Ah ain’t the only one who’s gittin’ that now,” Applejack assured, taking another step towards Spike until she was standing directly before him. “Ah admit, Ah can’t say where they’re all standin’ exactly on this, but…the other girls, Rainbow, Pinkie, and the rest…they sure ain’t treatin’ the loss of Thorax lightly. They’re just…all handlin’ it in their respective ways…gotta figure out first how ta proceed on their own.” She raised a hoof and placed it on Spike’s shoulder. “Rainbow wuz gunna come with me fer this, y’know, comin’ ta see Thorax…but she changed her mind partway here.” Seeing Spike’s expression droop a little at this, she quickly continued, explaining, “Ya gotta keep in mind…this ain’t the sort of thing Rainbow does well in. She ain’t one who likes wearing her emotions on the side of her fetlock fer all ta see, doesn’t like it when she ain’t in control of wut she’s feelin’…she wants ta come and pay her respects, but…she ain’t confident she can keep it together enough fer her likin’ ta do so. Don’t take it personally though, she don’t mean disrespect ta ya or Thorax…she’s upset about this just as much as Ah am, and she’s worried ’bout ya just like all the rest of us.” She managed to give Spike a small grin of minor encouragement. “Ya’ll see…she’ll be in here ta do it soon enough…Ah think they all will.”

“Fluttershy already has been,” Spike pointed out suddenly.

This made Applejack’s grin grow a bit more, pleased to hear that. “Ain’t too surprised…y’know, after everythin’ that went down in Vanhoover, Fluttershy was the one who first started speakin’ up fer ya and Thorax, the first ta set the example fer the rest of us an’ challenge that wut we were doin’ an’ how we were approachin’ things was…well…plum wrong. She’s been very passionate ’bout that, and it, uh, helped to start gittin’ us swayin’ ’round ta yer side. If any of us gits just who Thorax wuz and wut we’ve lost with him dyin’…it’s that gal right there.” Applejack moved her hoof under Spike’s chin so to raise it a little. “Ah hope ya weren’t cross ta her.”

Spike averted his gaze and shook his head. “Hardly,” he admitted with a sigh. “I have no qualms with Fluttershy…or you, really, for that matter…or most of anyone I guess.” He closed his eyes. “I just deeply miss my friend, Applejack…and I’ve barely been without him for a mere few hours now. I just can’t picture the fact that…he’s gone forever.”

“Aw, sugarcube,” Applejack said, pulling him closer in a comforting one-hooved hug. “I know. He shouldn’t have died at all. But…Ah can’t change wut happened. Ah dearly wish Ah could, but Ah can’t. And Ah know ya’ve been hearin’ that a lot already but…dang it, it’s just true. But while it seems like life’s kickin’ ya while yer down right now…it don’t mean it’s gunna keep doin’ so. After all when ya hit bottom, sugarcube…the only place left ta go is up. And Ah know…it seems impossible right now after losin’ someone as close ta ya as Thorax…Ah git that and Ah don’t mean ta cheapen that any…but if yer really gonna git past this Spike…ya need ta keep in mind that this doesn’t have ta be the end fer you too. There’s still gunna be places ya can go and do, even after…this.”

The two fell quiet for a moment.

“Are ya gunna be okay?” Applejack asked after a moment.

“I have absolutely no idea,” Spike admitted in reply.

“Well…Ah know none of us where there fer ya before when we should’ve, and that’s on us, and Ah’m greatly sorry fer it somethin’ fierce…but we’re here fer ya now. If ya need ta talk, or…just anythin’ at all…we’re rarin’ ta help. All of us. Especially me.” Applejack looked him in the eye again. “If ya need ta talk or anythin’…even if it’s just ta vent…Ah’m willin’ ta listen.”

Spike took a deep breath and pulled away from the farmer, gently. “I don’t think I could do that to you, Applejack,” he admitted. “Me venting won’t…end well, so…I’d rather save it for someone who deserves it…and you’re not the one.”

He went silent for a moment. Applejack sat and watched him, letting him be.

“Where’s Twilight?” he asked suddenly.

“Ah don’t rightly know this exact moment,” Applejack admitted. “But ya can bet yer tail that she’s gonna be comin’ ta see ya soon too, Spike.” She paused, giving Spike a chance to respond, trying to gauge his reaction. He didn’t give much of one, but guessing why he asked, she pressed on. “She’s still deeply missed ya, y’know, despite everythin’.” Her gaze saddened slightly. “Have you?”

Spike didn’t reply for a moment, and when he did, it wasn’t to answer the question. “I’m not sure I want her coming,” he said at last.

Applejack straightened. “Ah’m sorry ta hear that,” she said, “she can’t try ta fix wut she did if ya won’t give her the chance to.”

Spike scowled. “What makes you think this can actually be fixed?”

Applejack’s response was immediate. “Wut makes ya think it can’t?”

But otherwise she made no further attempt to try and talk Spike out of that view. Further seeing that the conversation was drying up and feeling she was beginning to overstay her welcome, she rose to her hooves, returned her hat to her head, and turned to go. “Look…there’s a lot of others out there wantin’ their turns at this, and Ah don’t want ta keep ‘em waitin’…ya okay with me goin’?”

“Yeah, go ahead,” Spike said with a distracted nod, turning to resume his customary position of gazing at Thorax’s fallen form. “But…thank you for coming Applejack…I do appreciate it.”

Applejack took a deep breath. “Ah meant wut Ah said…if ya want ta talk at any time, night or day…Ah’m more than happy ta lend a listenin’ ear.”

“I don’t know if I’m going to take you up on that offer anytime soon, Applejack,” Spike admitted. “But I’ll keep that in mind nonetheless.”

“That’s all Ah ask.” She gave the dragon one last look over. “Be strong, Spike,” she finally murmured in conclusion. “It’ll still hurt, and Ah can’t do anythin’ to change that…but ya’ll still push through okay. Ah just know ya will.”

And with that vote of confidence, she walked out the door and was gone. The flow of changelings resuming in her stead wasn’t long before it was broken once more and this time Spike was visited by two non-changelings at the same time, Starlight Glimmer and Trixie. Both entered the room slowly and in no hurry, but both were clearly and deeply distressed by Thorax’s passing. Starlight, still with dried flecks of Thorax’s blood in her fur, was doing the better of the two, keeping herself fairly steady and composed…but only just. The sadness was so clear on her face that Spike genuinely wasn’t sure how her eyes weren’t flooded with tears at the moment. But it seemed Starlight was keeping herself that way purely out of force of will, determined that if someone needed to be the calm and collected one in this room, it might as well be her.

Trixie, by contrast, was actually the one who wasn’t composed at all, clearly devastated by Thorax’s death and could be heard openly weeping before she had even appeared in the doorway. Spike knew ponies who could publicly cry gracefully, in a sort of picturesque kind of way, but Trixie was not one of those ponies. Her sobbing was very noisy and she was in a mess of a state as a result, not helping with the mess she had already been left in after getting pulled out of a cocoon earlier. In fact, she was so distraught that she had to be led into the room by Starlight, taking Trixie’s weight as the azure unicorn leaned heavily on her friend, so much so that at first Spike briefly worried Trixie had somehow gotten herself hurt before realizing she was instead just crippled with grief. He could relate, and it wasn’t lost on him that of everyone who had come to pay their respects to Thorax, Trixie was probably the one who knew as well as he, if not even more so, just how stunningly painful it was to be losing the changeling like this.

Like others who had come to visit, Starlight and Trixie first focused their attention on Thorax, stepping up to the mossy bed he lay upon. Seeing the changeling like this up close only caused Trixie to redouble her weeping and left her virtually unable to speak clearly more than a few words at a time…and even that was difficult for her. Instead, Starlight was left to do most of the talking, briefly pausing a few times whenever Trixie would, through her tears, butt in with a word of agreement. As for what Starlight said, it was much the same sort of thing Spike had been hearing the whole time—an apology for Thorax having to die, wishing there had been some way to prevent it or change what happened, and promises to not let such events play out like this again, instead seeking to do better and try and follow the example Thorax had attempted to set during his life. To Starlight’s credit though, it seemed clear to her that this was woefully inadequate and hated that she was unable to do better, even though not even Spike knew what that could be.

At the conclusion of their remarks, Trixie was left even more distraught than before, to the point that Spike dearly wished he could do something to comfort her, even though she was probably wishing to do the same for him. He couldn’t bring himself to try either way. As she stood there viewing Thorax’s body, the poor mare seemed torn between either keeping a respectable distance and not doing anything to disturb Thorax’s body, or forgoing the precedents by just surrendering to temptation and throwing herself upon Thorax to wail her miseries aloud. Of the latter, Spike was actually rather torn on whether or not he wanted her to do it, because on one side, he didn’t want her to have to withhold expressing her misery like this, but at the same time feared that if she did, he wouldn’t be able to keep himself from running over and joining in.

For now, she seemed to be keeping herself restrained. But seeing she clearly needed a moment, Starlight ensured Trixie was going to be okay for a moment without her there to physically support her, then she silently looked Thorax over again before squeezing her eyes shut, trying to hold back tears. Finally, she turned to face where Spike sat. He looked back at her expectantly, but though Starlight clearly wanted to say something, she was at a loss for the right words, her mouth opening and closing several times as she despondently sought for the right thing to say.

“I’m sorry, Spike,” she concluded finally, waving one hoof half-heartedly in the process, making it clear that this was all she really could say. “So deeply sorry.”

Spike lowered his gaze, heaving a sigh. He closed his eyes as he felt his tears threaten to pool into them again. “I know,” he replied softly. “But if apologies were miracles…we wouldn’t be here talking about it.”

Starlight snorted and shook her head in dismay. “In all honestly, we really shouldn’t have to be,” she stated in sudden frustration. It was short lived though as her sadness quickly returned and she turned her head to gaze back at Thorax. “This is my fault,” she went on to murmur. “I was the one who put the idea in Chrysalis’s head. If only I had…”

“No, no, don’t do that to yourself, Starlight, please,” Spike quickly interrupted, rising to his feet and closing the distance between himself and the unicorn. “It’s not your fault…what happened in there was out of your control…out of the control of all of us.”

“That doesn’t make it right, Spike,” Starlight persisted, not backing down from berating herself. “I could’ve done more…I should’ve done more…it never should have had to come to this.”

“No, it shouldn’t have, but Starlight, I don’t blame you for one second for that,” Spike stressed. He tugged on her leg, getting her to turn her head back to face him. “You did everything you could. I know that. You know that. You were simply trying to help save everyone through whatever means you could and you couldn’t have predicted what happened, or, I fear, done anything to stop it at that point.” He wrapped his arms around her legs and gave her a hug, sadly closing his eyes shut. “And what you did do…I still appreciate deeply.”

Starlight looked down at the little dragon for a moment, making no motion to return the hug. “How?” she finally asked in something of a whisper. “Thorax still died. Chrysalis got away.”

“But you helped save the others,” Spike pointed out, tilting his head upwards so to look at her. “More changelings than I can count have reformed. I keep hearing that not all of them have yet, but thus far I haven’t seen any sign of it.” He paused, averting his gaze for a second. “You also gave Chrysalis a chance to change.” He returned it looking back at up her. “Why did you do that?”

Starlight hung her head for a second, shrugging. “I don’t know,” she admitted, sounding like she really didn’t. “Maybe it was because I didn’t know Thorax had…died…yet, and that meant she had killed him, but…” she shrugged again, “…I didn’t even really think about it. I just…sort of acted, and that was what came out of my mouth.” She shook her head, squeezing her eyes shut in frustration. “But what difference did it make, Spike? She didn’t take that chance.”

“No, but you still gave it to her, when no one else would’ve,” Spike pointed out. Turning sadder, he glanced at his fallen friend. “Unlike Thorax, who never got such a chance, even though he was far more deserving of it.” Sniffling slightly as he worked to keep his emotions in check, Spike returned his gaze to Starlight. “I heard what you told Chrysalis when you gave her that chance…and what you said about Thorax when you were defending him to Chrysalis before that. The fact you went out of the way to do that and stand up for them, give them that chance to be better, when no one asked you to or had to do it at all…Starlight, that alone redeems you in my eyes.” He pressed his head against her legs and gave them another squeeze. “You get it now. You get what he was all about.”

Starlight gazed down at Spike for a long moment, pulling free one of her hooves so to pat him on the back. “Yeah,” she admitted. “I get it all right.” She gazed back at Thorax’s fallen form. “I just wish it could’ve done more for him.”

“So do I,” Spike whispered, squeezing her remaining leg harder as he started to tear up.

Starlight let him do so for a moment, breathing deep so to try and keep her own emotions reeled in. She then dropped down so to be on the same eye level as the littler dragon. “Look, Spike…I’m glad you’re still on good terms with me after all of this, but it’s not me that I’m worried about right now. What about the others?”

Spike averted his gaze for a moment. “I don’t know, I guess it depends on who it is,” he admitted. “Some I can’t blame at all for what happened, especially after they’ve come in here to pay their respects to Thorax like you and Trixie have.” He then frowned, his expression darkening. “But…there are still some I very much blame.”

Starlight had a few good hunches as to who. “Look, about the others,” she began. “After…all of this, I’ve taken the time to speak a little with a few of them, and yeah, I can’t vouch entirely for them and I deeply apologize for all the wrongs you feel they have done to you, many of which I agree weren’t justified…but you need to know…they’ve been moved by everything that has happened too…and they’re starting to see things in an entirely new, and better, light.”

“I know,” Spike assured her softly, but was still unable to meet her gaze. “I’ve already heard.”

“They’re just still coming to terms with it, Spike,” Starlight went on. “Please give them time to do so. When they’re ready, they’re going to come to you and talk to you about it, and you need to at least let them have that chance before you pass final judgment.” She turned her gaze back at the fallen changeling. “I think you owe it to Thorax for doing that. I mean…that was what this was all about, wasn’t it? You sided with Thorax, because no one else was willing to let him speak his part. Don’t make that same mistake we did, no matter how angry you are. You’re better than that, I know you are.” Spike didn’t respond for a long moment, falling quiet so to play with his claws, leading Starlight to look him over, trying to determine what he was thinking. “Do you have anything more you want to say, Spike?” she asked, sensing that he did.

Spike bit his lip for a second, then nodded his head. “Should that really include Twilight?”

Starlight was a little taken aback by the bluntness of the question, but then quickly reminded herself why and averted her gaze, ashamed. “I’ll be honest, Spike,” she admitted. “I have no idea where Twilight stands on this exactly.” She glanced back at him. “But I also know her well enough to know she’s not going to let it lie unresolved. She will be coming to try and speak to you about what happened, sooner rather than later.” Starlight tilted her head at Spike. “Will you let her?”

Spike didn’t answer for a very long moment, pulling away from Starlight and turning away as he stared glumly at his feet.

“Spike?” Starlight prompted as that silence dragged on. “Are you going to answer?”

Spike still took a long moment to decide if he would or not. “No,” he finally replied.

He didn’t specify to which question he was answering exactly, leaving it open for it to be either one. But Starlight knew which one it was anyway.

Any further comment was cut off however, when Trixie, who’s noisy mourning in the background had faded in volume until now, came galloping over and pounced on Spike with a massive bear hug. “I’m sorry!” she wailed to the dragon in a croaky voice, still in tears. “I’m so sorry!” She tried to go on speaking, but had devolved into weeping so thoroughly that she couldn’t seem to finish any sentence she spoke in full. It didn’t help that her focus was torn between continuing to mourn for Thorax directly and trying to comfort Spike. Eventually, she ended up doing an odd blend of both.

Spike couldn’t help but take pity on the poor mare, knowing she had lost someone deeply important to her too, and so the next several minutes were spent letting Trixie express her jumbled emotions, ranging from weeping, to venting, to just wailing her sorrow while Spike numbly listened and took it in. Starlight quietly fell into the role of trying to comfort the pair of them, but it was clear she could really use some comfort of her own that neither the dragon nor unicorn were in a position to give at the moment. It still all seemed to help Trixie though, because as she got the worse of her feelings out of her, she gradually started to calm down…though every time her gaze happened to look in the direction of Thorax, it all threatened to start back up again. Eventually it was Trixie herself who decided it was time to leave, saying that she saw that there was “little else productive that could be done” in staying here, and felt like she was being more bother than help to the other two, even though both quickly assured her that she was nothing of the such, Spike especially, who reminded her that he understood very well what griefs she was feeling because he was feeling them too.

Regardless, Trixie had made up her mind, and after a few final apologies and words of respect to both Spike and the deceased Thorax, the two mares exited the room again much like how they had entered, with a distraught Trixie leaning heavily on a sullen Starlight that was trying, and failing, to put on a brave face. And the flood of changelings coming to pay their respects resumed after that, continuing without breaking for another long stretch of time. Spike by now had long lost track of what time it was, not helped by the fact that sitting in a room this deep in the hive made it hard to have any idea what time it was outside. But he knew it had been hours since he had first walked into this room to sit protectively with Thorax’s body, and thus could safely assume that it had to be nearing evening now.

By this time, Spike was growing numb in general. Numb to the pain of his grief and numb to the words of sympathy everyone was giving him, trying to do something to make this loss easier to deal with. It wasn’t really working. Spike was still struggling to accept that the changeling’s body that lay on the mossy bed before him was all that remained of his friend, an empty shell left behind and thrown aside, like a pony throwing out an empty carton of milk. Even though everyone who stepped into the room showed the corpse the utmost of respect, fully aware of the great being they had come to recognize it had once contained, Spike still had to see it as the mere leftover that eventually had to be discarded. And no matter what, the ache he felt in his heart, missing his lost friend, was still almost unbearable. He was frankly amazed at himself that he had managed to last this long without breaking down worse than all the times before or going insane.

But he somehow managed, dealing with the pain for long enough now that it was starting to lose some of its edge, something that was both a blessing and a curse. On one side it was a relief to not have that digging into his soul so grievously, but on the other side, Spike still wanted it to be digging in like that—because then it felt like Thorax’s passing still meant something significant to him. Without it, he greatly feared the significance of what he lost today, and everything that had come with both good and bad, would go away. And that seemed like a horrible thing to let happen.

Finally, after some time of changelings coming to pay their respects, to the point that they had started to blur together again—which Spike was starting to feel bad about, as he knew these changelings all meant well—Rarity, Pinkie Pie, and Rainbow Dash all entered the room together as a trio. Pinkie entered the room with tears already leaking from her eyes, a startling sight for the otherwise eternally optimistic mare, and it seemed like her pink mane had lost some of its curl, not nearly to the point that it had gone entirely flat, but still enough to remember that it was never a good thing to see on Pinkie. Rarity was also watery-eyed as she entered, but per her norm, she still tried to enter with a bit of grace…albeit half-heartedly. Like nearly every pony else that had visited him, all three of them still showed slightly matted fur leftover from their time spent in cocoons, which wasn’t a surprise to Spike. What was surprising to him was that though there were signs Rarity had tried to clean herself up a little after being freed, she had still left herself in an uncharacteristic messy state. The events of the here and now seemed to be more important than her appearance, and as Spike knew that Rarity didn’t take ignoring her appearance lightly, the fact she had neglected it like this in favor of coming here to visit him and the fallen Thorax was moving for him.

Upon entering, Pinkie and Rarity both beelined straight for Spike and grabbing him up in a two-sided hug as they started to weep for the little dragon and his loss. As was usually seemed to be the case whenever seeing others weep for him like this, it led Spike to miserably shed a few tears too. Rainbow Dash, however, hovered in air around them aimlessly for a moment and looking very uncomfortable. She chose to leave the hugging and weeping to the other two mares and after a moment of indecision, possibly to make sure Spike was seen to, she instead turned her attention to Thorax, gently landing and seating herself beside the bed of moss he laid upon. She sat there for a long moment in silence, staring at the changeling before her as if trying to comprehend it. Spike watched her while Pinkie and Rarity fretted over him, wondering what Rainbow was going to do. The pegasus paid her respects in silence though, and it wasn’t long before her breathing started to accelerate, beginning to get emotional the longer she sat there. Spike hoped it was because she understood the price Thorax had paid in helping to rescue the likes of her.

If it was though, Rainbow never admitted as such aloud, though to be fair, she may just never thought to, more focused on trying to maintain her trademark cool demeanor and only rapidly failing. Finally starting to tear up after long moments of trying to fight it, Rainbow turned herself away, ashamed, but in the process noticed that Spike had been intently watching her and their eyes locked together. “I’m deeply sorry, Spike,” the mare managed to croak out before, about to break down entirely, she quickly galloped back out of the room, unable to publically bear with the grief any longer.

Spike watched her go, a little sorry Rainbow couldn’t have stayed longer. Rarity and Pinkie pulled their attention off of Spike long enough to do likewise, eyes following the cerulean pegasus as she speedily exited the room, and an awkward moment fell upon them, unsure how to respond or continue in light of Rainbow’s hasty departure.

“We’re sorry too, Spike,” Pinkie managed to murmur out, her voice unusually soft-spoken. “Real sorry…like…like…” she scrunched her face up in frustration. “I can’t even think of a good simile to compare it to, I’m that sorry.”

Spike managed a weak grin at this, believing that Pinkie meant it too.

“Oh dear, you are such a mess, you poor thing!” Rarity was meanwhile fretting, trying to rub off some of the dirt Spike had accumulated upon himself through the day’s events with one hoof.

“I’m okay, Rarity,” Spike assured her in an unfeeling tone.

“You are not okay, Spike,” Rarity reprimanded quickly as she continued to work. “You are quite obviously a disaster both physically and emotionally!”

“Fine, I’m not okay then,” Spike relented, not interested in arguing.

“Is there anything we can do to help, Spike?” Pinkie asked instead. “Something to…I don’t know…make you more comfortable?” Her moist baby blue eyes wandered over the room in search for inspiration on something she could suggest. Her gaze eventually fell upon the cool floor they sat upon. “Maybe some kind of cushion to sit on? I mean…this floor’s kinda hard…my bottom would fall asleep sitting on this for as long as you probably have…”

To the mild surprise of the two mares and Spike himself, he chuckled faintly at this, glad to see Pinkie’s quirkiness still remained intact. “A cushion would be nice,” he admitted slowly.

So Pinkie immediately pulled one out of her tail somehow and hoofed it over to Spike, who accepted it and made quick use of it. He had to admit that it did feel a lot more comfortable than sitting directly on the floor itself.

Both mares continued to fret over Spike for a few more moments. Unlike most of Spike’s other visitors, very little was said between them, in seeming acknowledgement that there was little more than could be said at this point. Eventually though, both mares conceded that they had all they could do for Spike in his grieving—the rest would have to be left up to him. So gradually, after making sure Spike was seen to the best they could, they both rose and moved to pay their respects to Thorax too. Pinkie could only repeat the same apology she had given Spike to the deceased changeling, but she made up for this verbal failure by quietly reaching into her mane and again impossibly pulled out a freshly cut stalk of purple hyacinth blossoms, which she then proceeded to gently tuck under Thorax’s forehooves crossed on his chest before stepping back, waiting for Rarity to finish.

Rarity seemed to debate to herself how to best convey her respects, sitting there for a moment quietly viewing Thorax’s body, but finally she bowed her head long enough to take in a deep breath before addressing the fallen changeling. “Thank you,” she said softly, “for everything you did to protect Spike,” then after a brief pause, amended, “for protecting all of us, really.” She then hesitated for another second before leaning over and tapping a gentle kiss on the changeling’s cheek as a show of her thanks.

The two mares lingered there for a moment longer, but then Pinkie mumbled something about “finding the others” and the two turned to leave again. Both gave Spike another remark of sympathy as they departed, but at the door, while Pinkie walked right on out of it without pausing, Rarity lingered there for a second longer, turning back to the dragon in mourning.

“Spike,” she began softly, “Really…if you need anything, you know you can come to myself or any of the others, correct? We still want to be there for you, if you will let us.”

“I know.” Spike didn’t continue further for a long moment. “Is Twilight coming?” he asked next.

Rarity nodded her head, the first to definitely confirm it. “I believe so,” she stated, sounding confident. She studied the dragon for a long moment, looking like she understood why he would ask. “What do you intend to say to her, Spike?”

Spike’s gaze turned distant as he mulled upon the question. “The truth, Rarity,” he replied simply.

Rarity gazed at him in dejectedly for a long moment. “Please try to stay strong, Spike,” she murmured. She averted her gaze, starting to turn to exit. “We’ve all lost too much today already.”

Spike made no reply as she exited, and he remained quiet as the next visitors, changelings again, entered the room. The minutes continued to pass by as visitors came and went paying their respects, but slowly the flow started to wind down, the next one to enter not always so immediately after the one before. This told Spike that, at long last, they were reaching the end of those who were coming to pay their respects. By this time it had been long enough that Spike was certain evening was coming upon them now. Even though the ambient lighting within the hive hadn’t seemed to have changed much, it still felt like to Spike that things within the hive had dimmed in some manner, reminding him of the evening time. He found he didn’t especially care, though. Evening, morning, afternoon…it could be any time at all, but all Spike was concerned about was deeply missing his changeling friend. For the first time, he really started to think about what he was going to do next in life and what life would be like without Thorax by his side.

Admittedly, he didn’t like the prospects before him much.

As the flow of visitors coming to pay their respects slowed to a trickle though, Spike was finally paid visit by someone he had actually been dreading would appear, his gaze immediately locking onto her as she timidly stepped into the room, lacking her normal commanding but respectful and gentle guise in favor of a far more sullen one, though she remembered her rank and attempted to remain professional regardless. The effort was lost on Spike, though.

“What are you doing here?” he asked Princess Celestia as she entered. His tone was utterly lacking in emotion, but for the first time, Spike felt his sadness replaced with a flare of disappointment in the tall mare and almost wanted to send her away immediately.

Even if he did though, he suspected Celestia planned to resist, and seemed more relieved she might not have to as Spike permitted her to approach Thorax’s resting spot. “I came to pay my respects, Spike,” she said softly. “May I proceed?”

Spike stared at her for a long moment. “Might as well,” he finally concluded and averted his gaze.

He heard Celestia suppress a sad sigh, but the permission given and Spike no longer focused on her, she shifted her attention to the deceased changeling lying before her. She was silent for a long moment, mulling over what to say. “I’m sorry,” she admitted finally to the changeling. “I’m sure I am far from the first to say so, but I am deeply sorry. You did not deserve this in the slightest, and…I am ashamed you had to be put in a position where sacrificing yourself for the rest of us so was the only way out. But I promise you…that sacrifice is not lost on me, or numerous others, and I intend to see to it that it is never forgotten…especially after all you managed to do to help your fellow changelings…see there is a better way.” She gazed at Thorax for a silent moment. “That gift you gave them is a grand one indeed…and I admit I never thought it could have been possible…but I am glad you believed in it so strongly, when I didn’t and should’ve, that you were willing to die for it. I just wish you didn’t have to…and that you and I could instead be here discussing the brighter future that is waiting ahead now.”

That said, the tall and white mare took a deep, steadying breath and turned back to the dragon, approaching him. “I’m sorry, Spike,” she murmured softly, placing one hoof on his shoulder.

Spike immediately shrugged it off. “It doesn’t change anything,” he reminded, refusing to look her in the eye.

The fact he was doing so pained Celestia, but she knew better than to try and protest it right now. “I know you’re not happy with me, Spike,” she continued as she lowered her hoof and instead seated herself beside him. “Honestly, I can’t blame you. I fear I have failed you.”

“You don’t have to fear anything,” Spike responded back with a snort. “You absolutely did fail me.” His gaze fell upon Thorax and turned deeply sad. “You failed us both.”

Celestia was quiet for a moment. “Spike, what I allowed happen to both of you was wrong,” she admitted straight up. “I will not deny that. What I’d like to do instead…is try and prove to you that I will do better in the future.” She paused, studying Spike and watching his reaction to this. When he gave little, she continued. “For the moment, above all, I want to make sure you’re still going to be okay after all of this.”

Spike didn’t respond right away. He still was refusing to make eye contact with Celestia. “I’d be doing better if I had Thorax with me again.”

Celestia sighed through her nose. “I know,” she said. “I didn’t want him to be taken away from you like this, Spike. I didn’t want him to be taken away at all.”

“Yes you did,” Spike murmured, not convinced. “Why else would you have taken the side of banishing him?”

Celestia averted her own gaze now, ashamed. “I was acting upon what information I was given and doing what seemed at the time to be the best decision based on that,” she explained simply. “But I didn’t stop to consider that I might not have been getting the whole story, or that the side I was getting could be incorrect.” She regarded Spike once more, her gaze suddenly serious. “I let my own fears of the changelings get the better of me, basically…and ultimately I made the wrong call because of it.” Getting frustrated that Spike still wouldn’t meet her gaze and feeling it was more important she ensured he had his attention, she reached out with one hoof and used it to lift his head and meet her in the eye. “But the second I realized my error and just how grave it was, Spike, I was doing the best I could to try and make it right again. If Chrysalis and her attempts to seize control of Equestria hadn’t gotten in the way…I’d like to think I would’ve succeeded in the end.”

Spike’s brow scowled and he shoved Celestia’s hoof away, averting his gaze once more. “Then why didn’t you respond to our letter after Twilight chased us out of Vanhoover, pleading for your help?” he demanded.

Celestia pulled back a little at this, and again the shame for her poor choices in judgment was clear. “I was trying to make this easier for everypony by trying to avoid it becoming more of a relations disaster than it already was,” she explained. “The easy choice was obviously agreeing to meet with you two pretty much exactly as you had suggested in your letter, of course…but I feared that, with the state of mind of…those involved…being what it was at the time, any such meeting would be met with much resistance and only create trouble from those that wished to act first and judge later, and not only was I fearing the political ramifications of this—” Spike snorted at that, but Celestia ignored it and pressed on, “—I felt that would be unfair for you and Thorax, nor help improve your very low views of us at the time. Dragon Lord Ember’s threat of war if Equestria attempted to get involved was especially worrying. So…I felt it best to first try and collect more evidence supporting your case from third-parties first, using that as evidence to justify such interactions and to encourage…those involved…to allow me to proceed, if not sway them to your cause. At which point I had hoped to discreetly locate where you and Thorax were at and then personally meet with you in secret, work out some sort of solution.”

“That never happened though,” Spike observed pointedly.

“No,” Celestia agreed. “And I will take the blame for that. I waited too long to act, not confident enough in the cause to show direct support in it immediately when I should have. Even though by then I had Luna shifting to support you from her own efforts in investigating, had word of Dragon Lord Ember’s disastrous attempts to seek peace, and had taken Twilight off the search due to believing she had misjudged and was acting recklessly. And when I did respond to your letter, in hopes of getting some clue to your whereabouts or to try and get Ember to allow me a chance to resolve this properly without the threat of war hanging over my head…I either got no response, or my response was unable to get through to you and was merely sent back to me, telling me I had missed my chance.”

Spike frowned to himself. “By then, we…or at least I did…thought you weren’t going to help, so…I had Thorax block my abilities to receive messages via firebreath again.” He realized inwardly that this was perhaps a critical error preventing Celestia from acting in their favor sooner and hung his head further, this time in mild shame. “I’m sorry…I just thought…”

“No, I won’t have that, Spike,” Celestia immediately interrupted, cutting short Spike’s attempt at an apology with the wave of her hoof. “The blame is still fully on me, not you, and I don’t want you thinking otherwise, please. If I had acted when I should’ve and responded immediately when I got your letter, I wouldn’t have given you the motive to do that.” Her gaze wandered back to Thorax. “And perhaps things would’ve been different.” Shifting her gaze back on Spike, she continued. “Regardless…I was looking for some other means of contacting you or proceeding from there when I was caught by Chrysalis’s changelings. My next reliable memory was of me waking up here at the hive…with what was done already done.”

Spike mulled upon this explanation to himself. “Starlight indicated you had sent a messenger to the Dragon Realms to try and contact us,” he remarked aloud, realizing Celestia hadn’t mentioned this.

“So I have been told already, but it was not I who gave the order. I assume it was instead given by Chrysalis or whatever changeling had replaced me in Canterlot, to further their own agendas.”

Spike recalled Julius, who had tried to attack them by posing as just such a messenger. “It would explain why that messenger proved to be an enemy changeling,” he muttered under his breath. He shook his head, feeling overwhelmed by how disastrous things had gotten. “How did this get so out of control?”

“Fear, Spike,” Celestia responded wisely, “and by failing to face those fears sooner.”

A heavy silence fell upon them, lightened slightly by that the two shared a moment of understanding. It was short-lived though, and soon Spike was back to bearing his disappointed attitude towards the princess of the sun. “So you’re the only royal that’s going to bother to even try and apologize, huh?” he asked with a small note of annoyance.

Celestia sighed at the return of this attitude, but feeling it still wasn’t unjustified, she didn’t object and instead moved to address the concern. “I’m sure Twilight at least will be coming soon, but otherwise I do apologize for the absence of Luna and Cadance,” she said, “though please don’t take it personally as it’s not out of malice. Cadance and Shining Armor are…feeling very ashamed of their roles in all of this, but they have chosen to keep their distance for now, under the impression that you would not be interested in seeing them right now.”

Spike was quiet for a moment. “They’re not wrong.”

Celestia was also quiet for a moment after that remark. “As for Luna,” she continued, choosing to not comment on Spike’s remark, “she dearly wished to come and pay her respects too, and asked me to send her deepest condolences for Thorax’s passing, but one of us was needed to return to Canterlot and ensure Chrysalis’s attempts to invade had indeed ended, everypony was safe, and the realm is secure.”

“And she volunteered?”

“No.” Celestia shifted awkwardly, knowing how this was going to sound, but she said it anyway. “…we actually drew straws.”

Spike nodded sarcastically to himself. “Lemme guess…you lost.”

But Celestia shook her head. “No, Luna did.”

Realizing that meant that the winner was the one who got to stay here and handle the aftermath of Thorax’s death, Spike felt a chill run down his spine for the implication that both princesses had wanted to stay. Disturbed by that though, he tried to shrug it off and turned himself away from Celestia as he continued to avoid eye contact with her. “Please get to the point of all of this already,” he murmured dejectedly.

Celestia sighed once again, seeing that Spike wasn’t interested in talking the matter out further and let down by it. “Very well,” she relented and drew herself up as she took on a more formal stance, looking again like the princess she was. “By order of the diarchy, high rulers of Equestria, I hereby exonerate the dragon Spike, the changeling Thorax, and all affiliated with them of any charges of wrong doing, criminal or otherwise, regardless of whether or not such charges are still pending at present time, and hereby rescind any orders of, imprisonment, banishment, or outcasting in or from any lands within that of Equestria that were or have been placed upon them.”

She then went on very formally announcing all of the usual political legalese that came with such an order as the law required of her, as well as taking the time to issue a formal apology on the behalf of Equestria as a country and praising Thorax and Spike’s characters for their roles in protecting Equestria, with giving extra notice towards Thorax on that matter considering the sacrifice he ultimately paid for it. Hearing all of this generated very mixed feelings in Spike, as on one side, this was long awaited and felt good to finally hear it be given, to have that weight of banishment and criminal charges off his back. But on the other, the fact it was coming posthumously for Thorax, the one who needed it the most, immensely soured the victory for Spike, and if anything, only saddened him further. Celestia noticed at one point the dragon shedding tears over this, but as she was still in the middle of finishing these formal announcements, she didn’t stop to comment on the matter. She later wished she did, because by the time she had finished, Spike had recomposed himself again and had turned distant, making it very apparent that he did not really wish to speak further.

Seeing there was little to be gained trying to force the conversation to continue then, the princess of the sun turned to leave, her head hung in dismay. Stepping into the doorway though, she paused and looked back at the dragon, still keeping his back to her. “Spike,” she said slowly, giving him a mournful gaze, “when she comes…try and show her mercy.”

Spike didn’t move to face her. “I can’t promise that,” he replied flatly and without emotion.

Celestia was quiet for a moment, wishing to not end the conversation like this. “What else can I do for you then, Spike?” she asked finally.

Spike kept his back turned to her as he considered the question for a second. “You could not let her come at all,” he replied pointedly. “Tell her I don’t want to see her.”

Celestia, however, knew better. “Yes you do,” she opposed knowingly in a soft voice, before she turned and exited the room without further remark.

After that, it seemed most of everyone who was going to come and pay their respects to Thorax had come, the visitors winding down dramatically to the point that long gaps between visitors were becoming more and more frequent. Spike was actually looking to it, feeling tired of communicating with others and just wanting to be left alone with Thorax now. It must have showed, because those remaining who did visit started to focus their attention on paying respects to Thorax than they did to Spike, who they at most gave passing looks of sympathy but otherwise kept a respective distance. Spike appreciated the motion and hoped it would last. But of course, it didn’t.

After an especially long gap between visitors, so much so that Spike took notice and started to think that had been the final one and no more were coming, he heard the timid hoofsteps of another visitor slowly come to stand in the doorway but proceeding no closer, as if afraid to. Spike had his back turned to the door and he made no attempt to change that, but he didn’t need to. He knew deep down who it was without even looking.

“I don’t want to do this, Twilight,” he warned aloud.

Twilight Sparkle made no motion to leave though, and instead was heard shuffling her hooves uncomfortably for a moment. “We need to talk, Spike.”

Spike felt his brow furrow into a scowl. “I have absolutely nothing to say to you,” he said, still not turning to face her.

“Please Spike,” Twilight pleaded, hearing her take a step, but only one, closer. “It’s been over four moons since I saw you last, four moons in which I spent most of it not even certain if you were alive or dead, it’s been so long that I…” she trailed off, as if sensing she was overstepping a boundary. “Please…we need to talk.”

Spike was quiet for a moment before deciding to relent, glancing at Thorax’s fallen form. “It’s because of you he’s dead.”

He could just picture Twilight’s face screwing up as she attempted to find something, anything, that enabled her to deny it. “You don’t know that.”

“Yes I do!” Spike shouted, stubbornly keeping his back turned to Twilight. “If you hadn’t pushed him away and instead trusted him and let him stay where he was, he would’ve been still alive, here as an ally, where he could’ve been in a position to see Chrysalis’s invasion plans coming and helped us prevent all of this! If you had opposed that banishment, we both know Cadance and Shining would’ve listened to you! But that didn’t happen, did it? You just had to banish him and ruin it all!”

“Spike, I was left in a terrible position back then, where I had to make some kind of call, good or bad, but I assure you, I tried…”

“Oh, don’t even—you didn’t try, you never tried!” Spike interrupted, cutting her short. “You didn’t even try to save his life! Don’t think I didn’t notice how you failed to join in with the others in trying to cast that healing spell on him!”

He could hear Twilight’s voice turn apologetic at this. “Spike…” she began softly, “…it wouldn’t have mattered. He was already gone by then.”

“You still should’ve tried,” Spike snarled, still without facing her. He shook his head to himself, flustered. “Look, if you’re coming here asking for forgiveness, you are not getting it. Not now. Not with him dead.” He shook his head to himself, hot emotions bubbling up and threatening to surface. “He was my dearest friend, Twilight. And your actions have gotten him killed.”

Twilight was quiet for a moment. He suspected she was processing this, trying to work out how to respond and defuse the argument. “Spike, at the time I didn’t know anything about him or his intentions, just that he was there and had showed up under seemingly suspicious circumstances that you have to see were not in his favor no matter what, and I, like all the others, had to think about the safety of the ponies of Equestria, so to try and protect the realm, and with the knowledge I had at the time…” she trailed off for a second. “…what did you expect me to do?”

“I expected you to trust me!” Spike bellowed, finally whipping around to face her, glowering at the purple mare standing in the doorway with all the fury her could muster. “To trust him! Sweet Celestia, Twilight, you’re the princess of friendship! It was literally your job to befriend him! But you didn’t! And now he is dead, and I! Blame!YOU!”

He stood there panting as he continued to glare at the alicorn. Twilight, to her credit, had pulled back a pace, intimidated by the intensity of Spike’s rage, but she still didn’t back down. She stood there for a moment, thinking through her options on how to delicately respond, hanging her head and licking her lips as she worked it out. “Spike, I understand you and the changeling were close,” she began slowly. “And yes, I have failed to acknowledge that. But Spike…you hadn’t left me much choice…if you had just heard me out and hadn’t been so quick and naïve to so blindly follow him, things—”

“GET OUT!” Spike roared, grabbing the nearest object, a loose hunk of changeling resin, and hurling it at Twilight. With a yelp, she attempted to duck it, but failed to react quickly enough, the clump still grazing one side of her head. She had no time to respond accordingly though as she had to continue to duck and dodge as Spike only proceeded to grab more objects and hurl them at her in rapid fire, bellowing at the top of his lungs all the while. “GET OUT, GET OUT, GET OUT! YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND, YOU WILL NEVER UNDERSTAND, AND I WILL NOT STAND HERE AND LET YOU INSULT HIS GOOD NAME SO JUST! GET! OOOOOOUUUUUUTTTT!”

The last object he hurled bounced out an empty doorway as Twilight had already long turned and fled, heard galloping on down the tunnel beyond in tears. Spike let out an animalistic roar of raw fury after her as he took several steps forward, as if meaning to give chase, but he had only managed to cross the room halfway when he collapsed to the ground, pounding his fists on the floor loudly for several moments before, pitifully curling into a small ball, his anger turned to sorrow and proceeded to weep bitter tears.

Author's Note

In response to the reactions from last chapter, I want to assure that the perception I accidentally gave that this was all a last minute change to the story is not the case. In reality, I had planned for this event to take place in the story the whole time all of you have been getting to read it, so no, it was not something I rushed into nor didn't plan ahead for, and I did drop hints that this was coming throughout the story...though it appears they were too subtle as it seems readers either missed them or didn't take them seriously. I apologize to those who feel they need one.

That said, my plans for the story still have not changed. I got this far, I intend to see it through now regardless.

I also want to say that the matter of Twilight and Spike has only just begun, so do NOT take this as a resolution on that front just yet.

For those wondering why I have used this Synthorax fellow instead of Pharynx, there are a few reasons:

I had already devised the character of Synthorax and made plans to use him well before I got word that Pharynx would be entering the picture.

As such, I had already conceived of this scene using Synthorax instead of Pharynx and it would be difficult to change it now.

Pharynx's tone also would not have fit the sort of tone I was looking for this scene, plus I knew Pharynx would be no more skittleling now and here in the story than he obviously would've been in canon, whereas I already had plans for Synthorax to be as such.

I had already established in "Grief" that Thorax has more than one clutchmate, and as canon hasn't explicitly stated that Thorax does NOT have more than one sibling there either (indeed, the fact he felt obligated to differentiate Pharynx as his elder brother in "To Change a Changeling" almost supports that in my mind), I figured I would be excused on the supposed "grandfather clause."

Nonetheless, I took the time to mention Pharynx directly, and if I can find a way to do it, I might give him some sort of cameo before story's end...though I won't make promises, as it'll be a difficult thing to do at this point in the story.

But Now I See

Spike was finding it very hard to calm himself down after Twilight’s disastrous visit, so much so that he spent the next several or more minutes (he wasn’t sure of an exact timeframe, truthfully) following it still curled up on the floor, weeping outwardly but inwardly his blood was still boiling. By the time the tears slowed to a stop again, Spike had rolled onto his back and glared up at the ceiling of the chamber, angrily reviewing what Twilight had said to him during her relievingly brief visit.

How dare she, he thought to himself. How DARE she come in here and say such things, and with Thorax lying RIGHT THERE no less! How DARE she speak of him in such a callous manner, like his life had meant NOTHING, and how DARE she try to shift ANY of the blame off herself, let alone onto me! ME! All just because I had the GALL to stand up to her!

And so on his internal seething continued, all of it directed at the alicorn that had wronged him so. He had known well before Twilight had ever set hoof into the chamber that such a meeting was only going to end in disaster, but not even he thought it would’ve gone like this. He had expected her to come in trying to pick up their relations from where they had left off, like Thorax had never happened, which Spike wouldn’t have stood for a second any more than what did transpire. But it stung to hear Twilight so blindly miss the point, and he was insulted Twilight even thought she could try to wave aside her blame like she did. Even after the literal changeling hive full of evidence proving Thorax’s honor that she had been witness to, Twilight still couldn’t see him as anything but an enemy, and even with all the evidence piled up against her, her little stunt only proved to Spike that all she cared about was proving to him that she had still been right.

But she wasn’t. And the idea she couldn’t see that, that her own ego meant more to her than his own grieving heart and his lost friend, infuriated Spike…as well as cause him to pity her, which was the saddest part of all of this. Deep down…he knew she could’ve done far better.

Spike continued to lay there on his back, glaring at nothing, for several minutes without interruption. He had effectively forgotten that, despite it having wound down considerably, Thorax’s viewing was technically still underway, until a hapless changeling, unaware of what had transpired and whom Spike didn’t know, entered and quickly tried to hurry to Spike’s aid upon seeing him lying on the floor, thinking him hurt. Annoyed at having his resentment interrupted, Spike only snapped at her, chased the baffled changeling out of the room, then dragged the chamber’s beetle-like doors shut, sealing himself inside and barring entrance of anyone else who might choose to come and disturb him. Any who tried were all immediately told to leave by Spike. He didn’t want anyone right now.

As the hours then slowly passed by, Spike spent his seclusion quite restlessly, unsure or unable to settle down into any one particular activity. He spent the first several minutes just pacing aimlessly about the room, brow tightly furrowed as he let his anger bubble. Every now and then the pressure built up to the point that Spike would break down and bellow the raw rage out into the chamber. Eventually, realizing his anger for Twilight wasn’t diminishing any, he took to ways to try and vent it however he could. At first he took to yelling very foul-mouthed triads against the pony, but when that proved to be insufficient, he took to hurling chucks of changeling resin at an unflattering caricature of Twilight he scratched out on the wall with his claws. When he ran out of loose chucks to throw, of which there really weren’t that many lying around to begin with, Spike took to yanking out new ones directly from the walls and throwing those.

But soon even that proved to not be enough, even after Spike had torn chucks of resin from what seemed like every place in the room he could reach except for the floor and of course the resinous base for the moss bed Thorax’s body laid upon. At that point, Spike ended up throwing himself upon the caricature, pounding and clawing at it with his feet and claws until it had been scratched into oblivion and, wearied from the effort, Spike let himself sink to the floor, weeping again. He remained leaning against the wall shedding tears for a long period, but still feeling restless, he eventually rose to his feet and proceeded to pace aimlessly about the room again, mulling upon bitter thoughts while half-heartedly kicking at the pieces of resin left scattered about the floor.

Before long, his pacing gravitated back towards Thorax and he started walking back and forth or in a circle around Thorax’s resting place, viewing the changeling and mourning for his death. As he had been doing ever since his friend’s death, he kept wishing Thorax hadn’t died at all. Eventually this wishing turned to desperation, and as the increasingly late hour and lack of sleep started to wear on him, it ultimately led to the dragon coming to Thorax and helplessly shaking his body in a very vain attempt to try and get him to “wake up.” This stopped abruptly once Spike realized what it was he was doing, and, ashamed, let his head drop onto the side of the mossy bed to go into another bout of weeping. At the end of it, he reverently took the time to restore Thorax’s position upon the moss his shaking had bumped him out of.

Though, depressingly, he noted that despite the shaking, Thorax’s position hadn’t shifted much at all, the changeling’s body now feeling cool and stiff under his claws. And with that realization, the fact that Thorax was dead and gone sank into Spike’s mind with full finality. Up until then, Spike had found some way to shirk it, some way to convince himself otherwise, warding off this full realization…until now. To his genuine surprise, he found himself taking it better than he expected, and it wasn’t long after reaching this point that Spike found himself accepting that Thorax was dead and not coming back. Despite this progress though, it still left the dragon extremely depressed and sad, and he found himself sinking to the floor again, leaning against the side of the bed with glazed eyes staring at nothing.

He remained there for a very long time, just letting his mind wander. He felt listless…he dimly thought it might have something to do with the late hour—he was certain it was well into the night now—and that he hadn’t slept or eaten since that morning leaving his body gradually running out of energy to keep going. Weirdly though, he found he couldn’t care…even though he figured he probably ought to. Instead, he just sat there and let the time slowly continue to slip away from him.

At one point he picked up one of the hunks of resin he had been throwing around earlier and started whittling away at it with one of his claws, scratching away random flecks of the block and not really having any intended shape in mind. That is until he realized he was whittling away one end more than the other and he continued with that trend for a while until he had given the block a pointed and extremely sharp tip. He held it in his claws for several long moments, debating to himself what he could do with such a sharp thing…but ultimately he snapped off the pointed tip with his claws, making it uselessly blunt again, and tossed the pieces aside. He did not pick them up again.

He continued sitting there, letting the hours slip by as his mind retreated inward upon itself and outwardly turned more and more distant. At some point, he let himself slump over until he had flopped onto his side, laying there on the floor with his back against the moss bed and vacantly staring out across the chamber, but he couldn’t recall when exactly that had transpired. At one point he lazily reached for the cushion Pinkie Pie had left for him so to slide it under his head, sparing it from having to rest on the hard and cold floor underneath. He noticed that it had been a long time since someone had attempted to enter the room now, but he wasn’t terribly surprised given how late it had gotten, nor was he particularly bothered by it. He was facing the chamber doors still anyway, so he would see if there was ever any activity there.

Unbothered, then, he remained where he was, until a moment when he slowly let his eyelids close for a prolonged blink of a second at most, only to open them again and see that Princess Luna had suddenly appeared within the chamber, standing by the still-closed doors.

More surprised than annoyed, Spike sat up, ogling her. “How did you get in here?” he asked aloud.

“The changelings, it seems, were quite reliant on the magic of Chrysalis’s throne for security,” Luna replied, then upon seeing that Spike didn’t understand, elaborated more simply. “There are no wards anywhere in the hive prohibiting teleportation.”

“Oh,” Spike grunted. He blinked blearily a few times at her. “So…why are you here?”

“I have not yet paid my respects to Thorax, first of all,” Luna replied calmly as she moved to approach Spike, glancing about the chamber as she did, no doubt noting the aftermath of all his actions since sealing himself inside. Spike noticed she was carrying a tray in her magic, but from his angle sitting on the floor, he couldn’t see what was on it. “Second of all, I wished to visit you.”

“Oh,” Spike grunted again. He frowned a little. “I don’t get a say in it, then?”

“I did not mean offense,” Luna assured, pausing her approach but not really denying it.

“Whatever,” Spike mumbled, instead choosing to rack his brains, trying to determine how long he’d been in here now. “What time is it, anyway?”

“Not quite sunrise,” Luna replied. She tilted her head, regarding him critically. “You have not slept.”

“I’m not tired,” Spike replied while proceeding to rub groggily at his eyes.

Luna watched him do so for a second. “Of course,” she said, but sounding unconvinced. “You should still consider getting some sleep at some point though.”

Spike shrugged off her advice immediately. “I will when I feel tired,” he grumbled, ignoring the fact that he was clearly already there. Luna regarded him in silence for a long moment, her lips slightly pursed, so Spike nodded his head at the tray she carried. “What’s that?”

Luna glanced at the tray and floated it to him so he could see. “I thought you may like something to eat, so with the assistance of the changelings, I have taken the liberty of obtaining an early breakfast for you.” She moved closer to point out the foodstuffs arranged on the tray. “It is not elaborate of course, as this being the changeling hive, there are only so many foods edible to the likes of us accessible, but I think we were able to manage.” She pointed her hoof at each of the foods in turn. “There is a potato-like tuber, a couple of native mushrooms, a type of a fibrous but edible plant here that the changelings call hive’s purslane, and a wedge of cheese that the changelings make themselves.”

“Changeling cheese,” Spike noted aloud, regarding the faintly mint-green wedge of cheese as he accepted the tray into his claws.

Luna nodded. “You are already familiar with it, then,” she remarked aloud and regarded the wedge whimsically for a second too. “It reminds me a bit of camembert actually, except a bit more savory in flavor. I admit to being rather surprised to learn of it though…as they feed primarily on emotions, I was unaware the changelings made anything like it.”

“Just don’t think too hard about where they get the milk to make it,” Spike advised. He continued to regard the cheese for a long moment, reminiscing. “Thorax was a big fan of this cheese, though.” He heaved a heavy sigh, then, carrying the tray in his claws, he stood up. “Anyway…I’ll get out of your way.”

He moved away from the base of the mossy bed and over to the side wall of the chamber to sit back down, taking the tray with him, while positioning himself so to watch Luna proceed with paying her respects. Luna watched him move, actually wishing to speak a bit further with him first, but upon seeing that would have to wait, she turned her attention to the deceased changeling, stepping closer.

She heaved a sad sigh as she looked the fallen changeling over, turning visibly sullen. “So, we meet in person at last,” she mumbled aloud to Thorax. “I confess…this is not at all how I had hoped we would do so. But…having seen many of the same omens as you had…perhaps I should have foreseen it coming.” She went quiet for a moment after these cryptic words, closing her eyes. She drew in a shuddering breath before continuing. “I am deeply saddened and sorry that it had to come to this, young Thorax. Much like you had, I did not wish for anyone to die from these events. But that said…I am glad that the good your sacrifice has presented for both of our races suggests it will not be in vain. If you are still witness to that in anyway, I at least pray that you have few regrets for paying that price.” She drew another deep breath, opening her eyes again, in which her dismay for his passing was clear. “May you rest peaceably, Thorax, and…thank you for what good you were able to bring to us…regardless of the grave price that came with it.”

After these words, she went quiet, falling into a long moment of respectable silence in salute to the changeling’s passing. Afterwards though, she turned to face Spike again, the dragon still sitting to one side and idly watching her. She noted with a frown that he had set aside the tray of food without partaking of anything upon it. “Are you not going to eat?” she asked aloud, moving to approach him.

“I’m not hungry,” Spike replied simply.

Luna stopped to regard him seriously for another long moment. “Starving yourself will not bring him back, Spike,” she reminded seriously.

Spike frowned and his mostly amiable attitude towards her up to now vanished. “Are you finished?” he asked sternly, changing the subject.

Luna paused for a second then resumed approaching him. “Actually, I wish to speak with you further, if I may,” she said, moving to seat herself beside him. “I feel there is still much to discuss.”

Spike’s brow furrowed, and he bodily turned himself away from Luna. “If it’s about how oh-so-very sorry you are, lamenting about what happened, how wrong you all were, or anything to do with Twilight, then you can forget it,” he growled in warning.

“On the contrary,” Luna explained calmly, proceeding carefully. “I wish to tell you a tale…if you are willing to listen.”

Spike was quiet for a moment, but slowly turned back to glance at her, his expression a mixture of skepticism and curiosity. “What sort of tale?”

Luna made a small grin, heartened by Spike’s show of interest, even if small. “Well,” she began, “a great many years ago now, back in the early days of Equestria, things were not nearly as peaceable or without struggle as they are now. The country was still quite young and there were many things about governing that were not yet worked out. Celestia and I were still young and relatively new to roles as princesses, though we had certainly been ruling long enough to have earned the trust and respect of our subjects. Despite that, we were overwhelmed with the problems we all faced as a country and uncertain how we might overcome them. Starswirl the Bearded had vanished by this time, and without our beloved mentor aiding us through governing like we had at the time of our coronation, it often felt like we had no one else to turn to for aid.”

She fell silent for a second. Spike assumed it was to wait for his reaction to this, seeing if he would permit her to continue. Upon debating it briefly, he shrugged to himself and decided he might as well. “So what happened?”

“Well,” Luna said again as she continued. She licked her lips as if debating how to proceed. “There were two ponies that were at that time established at the heart of Equestrian politics of the day, eager to do their part to help as citizens of their still-fledging nation. They both had many grand and bold ideas about where the country could go, were eager to both share them and help make them a reality if possible, and pleaded for the chance to do so.”

“And I’m guessing you and Celestia granted them that chance.”

Luna smiled distantly. “But of course. So those two ponies, granted the opportunity to help guide the country into the future, set to work making their respective visions possible. And what bold and grand visions they were. It was hard to not be excited at the prospects they foresaw bringing to Equestria. The problem, however, was that their respective visions for Equestria were not mutually compatible. One viewed the country going one way, the other viewed it going a different way. Both were highly promising, but we could not have both. And as their visions pulled increasingly apart from each other, debates started to arise over which of the two plans would be best to pursue. Sides were chosen. The arguing grew to be quite fierce and at times vehement. It was hard not to be—the fate of Equestria rested on the outcome, or so it felt at the time. Finally it came down to a final and intense vote to decide which path the country would take. And after much arguing and conflict, the ponies spoke and selected the path they would take, abandoning the other. The victorious pony immediately set off to carry it out, abandoning anything to do with the other plan, there being little point in doing so now. The loser, however, felt jilted, dismayed that the plan that pony had taken so very long to conceive was being so completely dismissed without a second thought, and disagreed that the victorious plan really should win out.

“That pony attempted to bring new life to their plan, at first by trying to fuse it with the winning plan, then upon that failing, attempting to try and replace the winning plan with theirs, all in the belief that this plan was the one the country really needed. The pony had convinced themselves that any plan that wasn’t their own was only going to bring trouble. The two ponies had been close up to that point, so the losing pony tried to gather support from the winning pony, but the winning pony respectfully declined and only continued to pursue their own plans, dismissing the other’s entirely without giving it the attention the losing pony felt it deserved. Becoming increasingly frustrated though, the losing pony refused to give up, continuing to try and force their losing plan upon the populace, trying to gather supporters. As the years went by, it caused the losing pony to grow increasingly more and more bitter, angry, and distant from all around them…and all in vain. Their plans were no closer to coming to fruition than they had before, and by now the winning plans were well underway towards implementation. Indeed, those plans were proving very beneficial to the country as hoped, and the losing pony was urged to accept it.” Luna’s tone gradually turned distant as she continued relating the tale. “However, that pony refused. Anyone that would not accept their views was now considered a rival, and decided such a thing was intolerable. The pony’s continued attempts were only getting quite embittered and destructive over it and only causing harm for all…most especially themselves. There was no way it would end well unless the pony realized that continuing on down this path would only bring them more suffering, not the victory they desired.”

Spike snorted, believing he saw where Luna was going with this and why she thought the tale related to him. “So what did he do about it?” he asked wearily, urging Luna to just get to the moral of everybody living happily ever after and how he could too if he just did the same, so he could go on with telling Luna precisely why he did not agree.

Luna, however, surprised him. For a long moment, she did not reply, turning very withdrawn and her eyes vacant as she recalled distant memories. When she finally did, it was not to speak the outcome Spike was expecting. “She became Nightmare Moon.”

Spike felt a chill run down his spine, eyes widening as he realized these weren’t just any two ponies Luna spoke of. He twisted around and gaped at her, who remained distant and sullen, no doubt recalling unsavory memories of the event. He of course knew all about the rise and fall of Nightmare Moon, but this was the first time he was hearing the tale uttered from the mare herself.

Luna took a deep and sorrowful breath before proceeding. “Spike, I know that after what has happened you feel extremely bitter, and by all accounts you are quite entitled to,” she remarked. “But that bitterness will never bring you anything, and most certainly not the closure you so desperately need. It is easy to lose yourself to that bitterness, to convince yourself that it will all still work out that way, but I promise you…that time will never come. If you continue down that path, you will only live to see yourself become a monster doing harm far greater than any wrongs you feel were done to you…far too late to do anything to prevent it, or take it back.”

“So, what, you’re saying I’d eventually become like a…Nightmare Spike…in the end?” Spike asked incredulously, the words blurting out before what Luna was telling had sunken in fully.

“Not per se. No one needs to become a Nightmare anything to still make grave mistakes in their anger and hatred if they choose to succumb to it.”

“I’m not.”

Luna gave him a cold glance. “Then your behavior has been doing little to convince me otherwise, Spike.”

Spike opened his mouth to angrily deny it, but then caught himself as he realized he would only be proving Luna right. Shocked by that thought, it forced him to fall quiet.

Seeing this, Luna continued. “I do not say this to be mean, of course, but I know very well the power of that temptation…and for your sake, I plead that you fight it off instead.” She took a deep breath. “If I wish to achieve anything with all of this, Spike, it is to spare you from reaching the point of having to live the rest of your natural life knowing that you had ever let your anger cause you to do such a horrendous thing.”

Spike continued to gape at her, stunned by this adamant argument Luna was giving. For a long moment, he simply sat there, trying to process what it meant. Soon, his mind entered a conflict where it couldn’t agree whether Luna was absolutely right or whether remaining bitter like he deeply wanted would be preferred. The latter was proving very hard to let go with Thorax’s body still lying there in the room in front of him, and he found himself staring longingly at his fallen friend while his mind whirled on.

“Luna, he was the greatest friend I have ever had, more than any I’ve had before in my life,” Spike spoke abruptly. Tears started to form in his eyes as he gazed at the deceased changeling, his voice starting to crack. “…and he’s dead!”

“Yes,” Luna acknowledged seriously as she took him by the chin and turned his head to face her. “But he did not die in vain. He died, saving your life, saving my life, saving all of our lives, saving all of Equestria, potentially saving numerous other countries, and even saving his own kind by showing them a better path. And yes, he paid the gravest of prices to do it, but it is still a great victory for everything he lived, died, and believed in. Are you really willing to take that all away from him just because you can’t accept that this is what needed to happen to do it?”

Spike gazed at her, tears dripping down his cheeks, before he wrenched his head away so to gaze back at Thorax again. Slowly, he closed his eyes, knowing there was only one answer he could give. “No,” he admitted in agreement. Slowly, he started shaking his head. “But…everything I did these past four and a half moons was to prevent him from facing any fate like this…only to be forced to sit to one side and watch it all be for nothing.”

“And I firmly believe that Thorax would disagree,” Luna stressed, “because your actions still gave him four and a half moons of your friendship, something I know he cherished greatly, and I may not have gotten to know him anywhere near as well as you did, Spike…but I don’t think for a second that he would have given that up for anything.” She again gently turned the little dragon to face her. “And I don’t think you would either. No matter how it may have ended…to the both of you, I think that friendship still made it all worth it more…don’t you?”

Spike looked at her, weeping, for a long moment, then he again twisted away, averting his gaze from the princess of the night and continued to mournfully regard Thorax lying on the mossy bed. Luna sat and sadly watched him during that time, hoping Spike would choose to resume the discussion, or at least show some sign she was getting through to him. But even as the tears the dragon shed slowed and vanished, Spike remained silent and spoke no further.

Luna breathed a heavy sigh, closing her eyes as she hung her head for a moment. “Very well, then,” she concluded softly and rose to her hooves, turning for the exit. She was soon arriving at the door and debating whether she wished to teleport back out of the room or simply use the door this time, wondering if it would really matter at this point.

“Irritati.”

Luna blinked and twisted around to look back at Spike. “I beg your pardon?” she asked, confused.

“Irritati,” Spike repeated. “It’s a changeling word…it means ‘embittered.’” He sniffed and rubbed at his nose with the back of his claws before turning to look at the princess, explaining. “Changelings typically feed only on positive emotions, but they have the capability of feeding on any emotion at all, including negative emotions. The reason they don’t, however, is because feeding on such negative emotions is addictive, making them become unstable emotionally and mentally, eventually becoming aggressive and violent without reason…only to end up hurting themselves and those around them. They call those that are like this irritati.” Spike’s gaze went back to Thorax. He placed one set of claws upon his chest. “I’m not a changeling,” he continued softly, sadly recalling what the changeling had said to him when they first spoke of this, “but bottling up my own anger and hatred like this is poisoning me too, and if I keep doing it…I’m going to end up hurting myself too…in ways far more painful than any physical injury.” He let his claws fall into his lap again as he continued to gaze at Thorax’s body. “He’d want me to let it go and just move on…wouldn’t he?”

Luna studied the dragon for a second. “I believe he would, yes,” she agreed. Slowly, she trotted back to Spike’s side. “I know this is the first time you’re dealing with the death of someone so close to you, and that is not easy to deal with. It never is. And I fear it never will. But it is simply something we all still must accept.”

Spike was quiet for a second. “And if we don’t?”

Luna made a small and forlorn grin, not out of happiness, but because she could relate. “Undoing death is something every living thing upon our world has wished to do at some point. Some of them have seriously sought some way to do it, either through science, magic, or a combination of both. I must admit there was a time when even I kept up with such studies back before my banishment. After all, I have faced death many times myself, and it has never any easier to deal with every time.” She sat down beside Spike again. “But I’ve since come to realize that, no matter what, death will always be unconquerable, at least in this plane of our existence, and sadly no amount of magic can undo it. Some have found ways to fake it, but it is never a true restoration of life for the dead. Once dead, the deceased are not going to come back—the very mind and soul that had once made up that being is gone now, leaving the physical world for realms beyond and unknown, or so I have always liked to believe.”

She reached out and wrapped a hoof around Spike. “I’m telling you all of this, Spike,” she continued, “because it is important you recognize and accept it, or you will never be able to begin the healing process and come to terms with his death, instead losing yourself foolishly and fruitlessly chasing after something you can never have again. I’ve seen it happen before to others, of all species, who were twice as strong and knowledgeable as you. In the end, it is simply better to cherish that you ever had something so great in your life at all.” She leaned closer. “I know he was a dear friend, Spike. But he wouldn’t want your life to end just because his did. That wasn’t why he gave himself up in the first place…you know that.”

Spike didn’t speak for a very long moment, mulling upon her words. “Luna,” he began slowly, “the pony in your story…did she ever find the peace she was looking for?”

Luna gazed at him for a moment. “Yes,” she replied earnestly, blinking back a tear, “in time.”

Spike nodded to himself. “Okay,” he mumbled. He let himself tip over until he was leaning on Luna’s side, the princess wrapping her hoof tighter around the grieving dragon. When he spoke next, it was directed at the fallen changeling before them. “For you then, Thorax.”

The two remained silent after that. There was nothing more that needed to be said.

At some point Spike dozed off, falling into a much needed deep sleep. It was blissfully dreamless, and Spike suspected Princess Luna had something to do with that. Upon waking though some hours later, Luna was no longer in the room, having left him to sleep without disturbance. Nevertheless, he felt rejuvenated and more alert, so much so that the past several hours seemed like a daze by comparison. He still felt grave sorrow for Thorax’s passing, and one of the first things he did upon waking was to stand beside the changeling’s body, lamenting his passing, but somehow, through means he couldn’t explain, he felt a bit more prepared to face the no doubt grievous road still ahead of him.

More immediately, he also felt hungry. As Luna had left the tray of food behind when she departed, no doubt in hopes that he would take the time to eat it, he helped himself to the food, downing it all ravenously. At first he was going to eat all but the wedge of changeling cheese, not having forgotten what had gone into making it, but his empty stomach demanding filling eventually won out and he ate it anyway. The savory taste reminded him of the Thornton Cheese that Thorax would make back in Vanhoover, yet not entirely, the changeling cheese still being notably different in terms of texture and strength in taste. He quickly could see why Thorax had been so very fond of it and so determined to try and recreate it, but then again he had thought the same thing after tasting Thornton Cheese for the first time.

After eating, he remained in the room, quietly keeping watch over the body of his friend, wondering to himself what to do next. He knew that, as much as he wanted to, he couldn’t stay here forever—sooner or later he was going to have to get up and do something else besides sit there and mope. But he put it off until finally, as the morning following Thorax’s death began in earnest, the choice was made for him and two reformed changelings entered the room with Spike’s permission.

“If you are ready,” the first of the two changelings told Spike, “we would like to proceed with the final steps of preparing Thorax for burial.”

The thought gave Spike pause, turning to regard his fallen friend with a heavy heart. The idea of burying Thorax had such finality to it…he knew it would signify a closing farewell to his dearly departed friend. He didn’t feel nearly ready for it…but he also suspected that, were it left up to him, he never would be. He looked over his friend lying on the bed of moss for a long moment, before taking in a deep breath and bracing for the step he knew he had to take. “Yeah,” he said. “Yeah, you guys can go ahead.”

“Will you be staying to watch, as before?” the changeling then asked.

Tempting as it was, Spike immediately shook his head, figuring the preparations probably wouldn’t bring him any comfort anyway—he was loosely familiar with some of the steps generally required. “No,” he said aloud, stepping away from Thorax. “I’ll leave you two to it and won’t get in your way.”

“Are you certain?” the changeling pressed as Spike turned to leave, no doubt very aware of how emotionally trying this all was for the dragon.

“Yeah,” Spike said as he paused at the door, wistfully looking back at his friend. “Besides…I’ll get to see him for one more time at the burial, won’t I?”

The changeling grinned sadly. “I suppose so,” he said, then nodded respectfully. “Very well. We will make an announcement throughout the hive when the burial is ready to begin. I imagine a great many will want to join you for it.”

“I hope so,” Spike said, and with a final nod to the two changelings, he turned and exited the room. Though he did so very self-conscious about leaving Thorax’s side, he still felt confident this choice was the right one to make, no matter how difficult.

After he left the room though, he quickly found he didn’t really have anywhere else to go…and no real idea how to get anywhere in the hive even if he did. So instead he chose to wander about the hive randomly, allowing his mind to lapse into deep thought. Of chief focus was what he would do once Thorax was buried and where he would go. It was still a difficult subject for him to face, but he was perfectly aware he couldn’t ignore it forever. Thorax was gone, but Spike wasn’t. Like it or not, his life would trudge on, and he knew he needed to prepare for whatever lay ahead still, no matter how challenging.

So he mulled upon the matter as he wandered aimlessly about the hive, occasionally crossing paths with other changelings that greeted him as he passed. He didn’t think much about his wandering, but as it turned out, he wasn’t the only one up and aimlessly walking about the hive…which he saw when he rounded the corner and stepped into a corridor the same time Twilight Sparkle happened to enter from the other end. Both abruptly halted upon seeing each other and waited for the other to react. Neither of them did though and instead they simply stood there, staring the other down in silence. Twilight did so with clear apprehension, fearing Spike’s wrath towards her. Spike, however, simply watched her without expression, waiting for her to make the first move.

Gradually, perhaps realizing this, she did. “Um…out and about, huh?” she remarked softly. It was weak and lacked genuineness. But Spike simply nodded in reply, so Twilight continued. “Heading anywhere in particular?”

“No,” Spike replied. He looked Twilight over for a second, noting she had a still fairly fresh cut on her left temple and briefly wondered about it. “You?”

“No,” Twilight replied back. “I’m just…wandering…thinking.”

Spike nodded to himself. “Likewise.”

Twilight was quiet for a second. “You’re still furious with me…aren’t you?”

Spike averted his gaze for a second, not seeing how answering that truthfully would help. “I’m still trying to give you the chance to say whatever it is you need to right now, Twilight,” he eventually said instead.

Twilight nodded to herself a bit, taking a few cautious steps towards him and her face falling. “I’m sorry, Spike,” she said softly, as earnestly as she possibly could, “Truly and deeply sorry.”

Spike’s gaze dropped to the floor. “That isn’t going to bring him back, Twilight,” he pointed out, his voice cold and distant.

“I know,” Twilight replied. “But for your sake…I dearly wish it could.”

“How can you even begin to claim that?” Spike hissed suddenly. “Everything you’ve done only suggests you didn’t care about him at all. Twilight, last night you couldn’t even call him by name!”

Twilight went silent for a moment, averting her gaze in shame. “A lingering bad habit I’d developed,” she confessed.

Spike wasn’t swayed. “Don’t give me excuses, Twilight.”

“Spike, what I said last night…I…I didn’t mean disrespect to you or your friend, Thorax, or to make you think that I…I hadn’t…” Twilight trailed off for a second then started again. “I just…I’d felt I needed to explain myself, and…I spoke without thinking…” she trailed off again, squeezing her eyes shut. “…no…no, you’re right, I can’t try to justify it…because the long and short of it is that there is nothing I can say that will make up for what I did. I made a grave mistake and you ended up paying needlessly for it. After everything I’ve done to you…I can’t possibly blame you for hating me.”

Spike looked at her wearily for a long moment then heaved a heavy sigh, averting his gaze again. “It’s not that I hate you, Twilight,” he spoke abruptly, drawing Twilight’s attention back onto him, “Not really, at least. I’m just…extremely, extremely, disappointed in you.” He returned his gaze on her, his eyes sad. “What happened at the Crystal Empire…that was when I needed your support, then more than ever before…” he shook his head, “…and you weren’t there for me…it was like what I was trying to tell you meant…nothing…and it left me wondering if you were ever really there for me to begin with.”

“I know,” Twilight admitted, nodding her head. “At least…I do now.”

Spike’s eyes narrowed. “Now is entirely too late, Twilight.”

“I know.” Twilight bit her lip. “You were right, Spike…you were always right, but I refused to see it. And I ended up pushing you away, risking your life needlessly repeatedly, hurt pony relations with everybody, turned Equestria topsy-turvy, accused innocent beings…and helped get somebody killed.” Now Twilight shook her head, suddenly furious at herself. “Sweet Celestia, I’m such a fool!”

“Then why did you do it, Twilight?” Spike demanded firmly, stepping closer to her. “It’s the one question that keeps running through my head again and again that doesn’t have an answer. Why in Equestria did you do this?”

“Because I was scared!” Twilight snapped back. Then, taking a deep breath and closing her eyes in shame, she continued on in a calmer voice. “When you looked at Thorax, you obviously saw a friend…but when I looked at him…all I could recall was every past time I had encountered a changeling…and how none of those encounters had ended well.”

“Then it was a racist thing,” Spike deduced, feeling a bit vindicated. “You wouldn’t trust him simply because he was a changeling, judging him because of the past actions of other changelings, ignoring completely who he was as an individual.”

“But there’s even more to it than that,” Twilight continued anxiously, cutting Spike short before he could continue with his criticisms. Her gaze wandered about aimlessly as she sought how to best explain. “You of course remember when the changelings tried to invade Canterlot?”

Spike nodded. “I assume you were afraid something like that was going to happen again with Thorax,” he deduced coldly.

“Well…yes and no,” Twilight admitted. She again paused. It was clear saying all of this was very hard and uncomfortable for her, so Spike didn’t rush her. But he also waited expectantly for her to finish too, not about to let her get out of saying it. “It was more…when I had caught on that something was amiss about Cadance…before she was revealed to actually be Queen Chrysalis…I tried to do something about it, to bring it to everyone’s attention and stop things before harm could be done…but no one would listen to me. And for a moment, I was stripped of the support and companionship of all my friends, family, and my mentor all because one changeling had swayed them so thoroughly they couldn’t see what I saw…and hundreds nearly suffered greatly because of it. Because of just one changeling, Spike. I saw the warning signs and could’ve prevented it…but everyone turned their backs on me instead…leaving me alone and feeling helpless…only for a matter of a couple of hours…but it still felt like an eternity to me.”

A moment of silence fell then Spike folded his arms, resolutely gazing at Twilight. “That was precisely how I felt when this all went down, Twilight,” he reminded coldly. “Don’t you see that you had only done the same exact thing to me?”

“But then you know what I was feeling when Thorax appeared!” Twilight stressed determinedly, her apprehension suddenly forgotten in her determination to make this clear. “Spike, I was beyond terrified that what happened in the Canterlot invasion was happening again then and there at the Crystal Empire, and it seemed to me I was already losing you to the sway of a changeling…I was determined to at least make sure it got absolutely no further than that.” Twilight’s eyes turned frightened. “I did not want to be put in that same sort of situation again, where I lose all who I care about to the smooth-talking of a changeling…I was desperate to avoid that…” she averted her gaze yet again, “…clearly to the point of excessiveness.”

“Yes!” Spike hissed, and jabbed a claw furiously downwards as he went on to make his point. “You were so desperate to spare yourself that you ended up doing precisely the same thing to ME! In this instance, Twilight, you were the changeling you were so afraid of!” He shook his head, fuming for a moment, before, while forcing himself to calm down, he leaned against the nearby wall of the corridor and hung his head. “Twilight, all you’re doing here is proving to me more just how very flawed your reasons were in all of this…and just how oblivious you’ve been…” he squeezed his eyes shut, continuing on in a whisper, “…or might still be now.”

Twilight went quiet for a long moment, but eventually she took a deep breath and continued on. “Spike, you asked why I did why I did…and that’s why,” she reminded gently. “Everything that I’ve done since what happened in the Crystal Empire, has all been a…very misguided attempt to try and stop what I feared would only drive me apart from those I cared about. I won’t pretend like any of it was right of me to do because I recognize now that it wasn’t. Yet while I know that it hasn’t seemed like it, Spike…that still always included you. So when you started siding with someone I knew to be a changeling over everything else, rejecting everything I was trying to say…”

“Then why. Did you. Let. Me. Go?” Spike demanded slowly and deliberately through clenched teeth. He put strong emphasis on the words of the sentence as he slowly turned his head to look at the mare with expectant eyes. “If you really feared for me…falling away…like that, then when I told you that if you banish Thorax, I was going with him…why did you let me go?”

Twilight hesitated. “You made your intentions very clear…would it have mattered if I did, Spike?”

“I was bluffing, Twilight,” Spike growled. “I was just trying to blackmail you into not banishing Thorax.”

“Clearly not though,” Twilight argued back, “because you still acted on that threat, making it clear you meant what you said. You never even tried to come back, did you?”

Spike stared at her with cold eyes. “By then you had already made it clear to me that I wasn’t wanted.”

Twilight stared back at him for a moment, but her resolve quickly caved again and she lowered her gaze, her shame surging upon her like a crushing weight once again. “Look, we can argue this in circles for days and still get nowhere,” she said, cutting the argument short. “It was the same then, too. By that time, I…I didn’t foresee anything good from trying to argue it further…no one did. You were so fiercely determined to side with Thorax that…we feared any attempt to force you to stay away from him…was only going to push you further away, demonize us even more in your eyes. We thought…I thought…that if we let you go…that would still leave us enough of a good standing to…to try again and convince you to come back…when the chance next arose.”

“And what exactly was that next chance you were thinking of, Twilight?” Spike asked. “I’ve already been told that you and the others still thought that Thorax had this whole swarm of other changelings hiding somewhere to support him, waiting to take us in, but you must realize you had no proof of that, and Thorax and I both told you there were no such changelings! We were both acting alone.” He pointed a claw vaguely in the direction of the Frozen North. “You realize we both could’ve frozen to death out there in that wilderness, right? By sending us away, you could’ve very well just been sending us to our deaths. In fact, that’s precisely why I did leave! Because I was scared to death that was the fate awaiting Thorax unless he had someone he could count on…and as I was the only one willing to do it…” he trailed off, leaving his thought unfinished, but clear.

By this time, Twilight had teared up, quietly weeping. “But I really, truly, believed you were in no danger of that, Spike,” she confessed softly. “I really did think there were other changelings waiting to snatch you up, and while that was still an awful prospect to even consider…I knew the changelings would still keep you alive and safe at least. Shining thought for certain that if we let them have that apparent victory, it’d let them back off and drop their guard down, and then he could go out with the Crystal Guard to capture them and secure you back and…” she let out a miserable sob, and despite himself, Spike felt his anger cool a little at the sight. “…when we realized nothing was out there though…that you two had instead fled the area entirely…Spike, I think that was when I first began to realize just how disastrously we had messed up…I didn’t want to admit it…but after that point…all I really wanted to do, was set things right and get you back, where I knew you were safe again.” She abruptly let out a frustrated yell, and angrily stomped a hoof on the ground. “I’m such an idiot…it was all there…right in front of me…but I…I just…how could I have been so oblivious to something so obvious?”

Spike was quiet for a second. He slowly lowered himself onto the ground, seating himself with his back resting against the corridor wall, his eyes going unfocused as he turned the matter over in his head. “You were blind,” he remarked aloud, recalling the words one changeling had spoken to him while paying their respects to Thorax, “but now you see.”

Twilight watched him through her tear-filled eyes for a second. Slowly, she started to nod. “Yes,” she echoed, “but now I see.” She closed her eyes for a long moment, trying to clear them of tears and sniffling to herself as she worked to calm herself down. She was only semi-successful, but it was enough that she took another step closer to Spike, speaking humbly and with confidence. “Spike, look…in a way, I was bluffing too, because I didn’t expect you to actually make good on your claim to follow Thorax, and…even when you did, a part of me still expected you to come back…once you saw for yourself what I foolishly believed was the truth. Further, I never thought both of you would actually try and flee until I was told that was precisely what happened.”

“Do you really think that helps your side of things any?” Spike asked with a small amount of spite, but mostly he was just making a point.

One Twilight saw as more than valid. “Of course not,” she admitted. “It’s just…I didn’t understand…I didn’t appreciate…what Thorax meant to you…much less understand that he was being such a genuine friend to you.” She stopped to take a deep breath, bracing herself. “But now…I understand why you did leave. It’s like you said…I hadn’t given you any reason to think you were welcome there anymore…something I now regret deeply. Spike, with every fiber of my body, I swear to you…I never meant to give you that impression.” She licked her lips again then pressed on. “And as for Thorax and my bias against him…I think I understand where my thinking went wrong. I had wanted to compare the situation with what happened at the invasion in Canterlot, but…in reality…the real reason I lost support like I did in Canterlot was never because of any changeling…it was because of how misguided I was in trying to address the problem…a mistake I only repeated here, because I failed to learn the lesson when I should’ve the first time.” She paused, watching Spike and trying to judge his reaction to all of this, but there was little change in the dragon’s composure. “Spike, I’m not trying to justify what I did, and honestly, I don’t really think there’s anything I can do to fix this anymore…but it’s been pointed out to me that…just giving up, succumbing to fate and doing nothing isn’t going to change anything either. So…if it helps at all…I promise you, after everything that’s happened…I’m going to try everything in my power to keep myself from making that same mistake again, and try and warn others who might do as I did. Hopefully…it’ll prevent anyone else from suffering like you and Thorax have.” She watched Spike for a second again, but still didn’t see any change in his distant expression. She sighed heavily, sinking into her guilt and regret yet again. “You still blame me for his death,” she observed heavily.

“Absolutely,” Spike replied without an iota of hesitation. He sighed, closing his eyes for a second too. “I mean…the blame’s not all on you…I recognize there were lots of other factors that led to it too. And I see Chrysalis as the actual murderer, so for her sake, she had better hope that she never crosses paths with me again, or…or I don’t know what I’ll do.” Spike shook his head for a second. “But there is still no doubt in my mind, Twilight…if you hadn’t done what you did…he’d still be here, alive.”

Twilight shuffled her hooves heavily, fighting shameful tears again. “I’m sorry, Spike,” she said again. “But…there’s nothing I can do to change that now.”

“No one can,” Spike agreed heavily. He teared up too, and suddenly the anger and fury vanished, revealing the hurt little dragon he was. “That’s probably what hurts the most about it. At the end of the day, Twilight, I don’t want redemption, revenge, apologies, or anything like that.” He let out a sob before continuing on, choking on the words as he spoke them. “I just want my friend back.”

Twilight averted her gaze sadly. “And here I am,” she murmured darkly to herself, “the supposed princess of friendship, taking that friend away.” She shook her head. “I’m such a fool.”

“Yes, you are,” Spike agreed. He fell quiet for a second, leaning his head back in thought. “But then maybe I am too.”

Surprised, Twilight looked back at him, blinking owlishly. “Spike?”

Spike didn’t open his eyes or reply back for a moment. “When I left the Crystal Empire with Thorax,” he began slowly, “I also gave up you…on everyone…except myself and Thorax. And because of that, I turned my back on any chance of fixing things.” He sighed heavily. “I had my chances to end this sooner too, Twilight…opportunities to seek to set the record straight, make peace, or even seek additional help…but I turned them all away…refused to even consider them. I was just so angry…I refused to believe I could be anything else ever again.” He let out another sob, somewhat suppressed this time. “What’s worse is that Thorax saw what I was doing ages ago, but…bless his heart…he was too good a friend to try too hard to call me out on it…so when you get right down to it, even I didn’t listen to Thorax as much as I should’ve…and as I result, I just let things keep getting worse, and worse, and worse…and now here we both are…wishing we had never let our petty grudges get so bad. If we had…maybe things would have been different.” He opened his eyes and gazed mournfully at Twilight. “We were both blinded by hate, Twilight…but at least you hadn’t been so blind as to stop looking for a solution…whereas I was.”

Chilled yet humbled, Twilight simply stood there in silence for a long moment, staring at Spike. “Spike, you had more than enough just cause to think that way at the time,” she reasoned. “You were simply being realistic.”

“Was I?” Spike challenged. “Everybody is always dismissing ideas or calls for such peace and friendship among all because they’ve all conditioned themselves to think that such a high ideal is too unrealistic. But now I’m wondering if Thorax was always completely right. What if such thing is much more within our reach than we all allow ourselves to think, and we just aren’t reaching it, because we aren’t letting ourselves actually try and obtain it?” He shook his head, looking away. “Whatever the case, Thorax was still right about one thing…the best way to defeat an enemy isn’t to beat them down until they submit, it’s to make that enemy into a friend, because you can’t have enemies when all you have are friends.” He sighed. “We just didn’t listen to him soon enough…and now he’s gone.”

Twilight gazed at him quietly for a long moment. Slowly, she closed the distance between them finally and sat herself down beside him. “I can’t imagine how awful you’re feeling right now, Spike,” she murmured softly. “You did so much trying to protect him…only to have him die anyway. It must seem like you failed him.”

Spike gazed at the floor with sad, wet eyes. “It’s not entirely untrue,” he confessed. “But that’s just it, Twilight. Even with all of that hanging over me…when I look back at everything that we did together these long four and half moons…” slowly, he grinned a little, a warm and cheery small grin that batted away a little of the gloom seeking to engulf him, “even if I had known then what I know now, that the whole adventure was only all going to end in his death…I would still do it all exactly the same, because, no matter what…those four moons I had with Thorax were the greatest four moons of my life… even with every bad thing weighing on my mind during it all…and even if it meant he would get to live in the end…I wouldn’t give that up. Not for anything, Twilight, not ever.” He was tearing up now, but confusingly, he suddenly let out a laugh at the same time, realizing Luna had been right. “And because of all that, I intend to cherish those four moons I had with Thorax as my friend always and forever, never forgetting one iota of it…because to me…even though I now have to face the terrible pain of losing him and the frightening prospect of living life without him…somehow…it was all still worth it.”

Twilight watching him for a moment, unable to share his baffling cheer. “I still wish I could do more to take that pain away, Spike,” she murmured aloud. “And I never wanted to put you in such a painful situation in the first place.” She sheepishly played with her hoof for a second. “I know it seems meaningless…but I really am sorry, Spike…deeply so.”

“I know you are,” Spike acknowledged, his brief flare of cheer fading again. He slowly shook his head. “But the forgiveness you’re looking for, Twilight…I’m sorry…I just can’t give that to you…not right now. I’m still not sure if I ever can. Never mind Thorax…you hurt me. Neither of us can ignore that. And no matter what…I think that’s always going to stand in our way.” He sighed heavily. “I know what you want, Twilight…you want things to go back to the way they were before. In a lot of ways, I do too. I do miss the old days, Twilight, when I was the assistant trying to help the neurotic princess of friendship trying to make the world a better place…”

“You’re more than that to me, Spike,” Twilight said. Her voice caught suddenly and she started tear up as she struggled through her next statement. “I know I never said it very often…but I always have considered you…like a sibling to me.”

But Spike shook his head sadly. “No, Twilight,” he said slowly. “I had a sibling…but he’s gone now.” Twilight blinked once, but then closed her eyes and bowed her head, crushed to hear this. Despite the sadness it was clearly bringing her though, Spike continued on. “I’m sorry, Twilight,” he said. He spoke in a very level and stone-faced manner outwardly, but inwardly he felt, clogged within his body, a deep and massive amount of sadness for having to say this that he just couldn’t express fully. “I know it’s painful for the both of us to admit it…but we’re not siblings, and perhaps we never were. I think we both know that, if that was ever really true, neither of us would have ever let this happen.”

Twilight was quietly weeping now, if anything only even more dismayed to hear this, but even through all of that she was slowly nodding her head in agreement. “I do,” she whispered finally, “but that doesn’t change how I feel about it.”

Spike slowly shook his head. “Unfortunately, it’s not going to change how I feel about it either, Twilight.”

A long moment of silence fell between them in which the two sadly sat and mulled upon this admission, realizing the scope of the great rift that had divided them and how impossible it seemed it could ever be closed again.

Which was probably what led Spike to say what he did next. “But I don’t think that means we have to be enemies still,” he spoke abruptly.

Twilight turned her heard to stare at him, eyes suddenly alight with the smallest flares of hope. To his mild surprise, Spike felt heartened seeing that hope in Twilight again, no matter how small.

But he took in a deep breath and kept speaking, turning stern and dark. “But you have to promise me, Twilight…that you will never do something like this to me, or anyone, ever again.”

“I promise, I promise I will, Spike,” Twilight immediately vowed, almost too quickly, but her eagerness to have that chance to prove herself was quite clear. “I swear to you, I have absolutely no desire to make this same mistake again, not after all the damage I’ve seen it cause, damage I could’ve prevented. I swear it on my life, Spike.”

Spike remained uncertain though. “Do you?” he challenged firmly.

So Twilight took it a step further, proceeding to mime out a familiar motion. “Cross my heart, hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye,” she recited the rhyme solemnly. She then lowered her hoof and regarded Spike watching her. “I foolishly nearly pushed you away once before, Spike. I have no want to do anything that could do that to you again.”

“FOREVER!” the voice of Pinkie Pie unexpectedly echoed out from somewhere else in the hive, startling the dragon and alicorn as they twisted their heads around, peering down the corridor in the direction the shout came from.

No sooner had Pinkie’s shout echoed out though did the voice of Rarity suddenly and loudly follow. “PINKIE! YOU MADE ME SPILL WATER ALL DOWN MY FRONT!”

The two sat and stared as the echoes of the random exclamations faded away, needing a second of silence for it to sink in. But it was shattered when Spike involuntarily snorted and suddenly the two were in hysterics, the peals of their laughter ringing off the walls of the resinous hive corridor. It was cathartic, releasing. For a moment all the grief and pain and sadness they had been weighed down with was swept away, gone from sight, and all that remained was the joy of laughter. It got Spike thinking about better times, when there was no animosity between him and Twilight, and longing for the days when they could hang about, joking and laughing like this. It with that thought that made him realize that those days were over, not coming back, and just how much he was going to miss that.

And in moments, his laughter had transformed into sobbing. Whether out of realizing the same things herself, or simply picking up on Spike’s emotions, Twilight joined in with the sobbing shortly thereafter. For several long moments the two just sat there, sitting apart from each other and weeping over the situation they had put themselves in.

“Oh, Twilight,” Spike moaned as he leaned his head back against the wall, “just what have we both lost from all of this?”

Twilight averted her gaze before replying. “Too much, Spike,” she replied. She stopped to wipe at her eyes with one hoof, but it didn’t help as she kept on shedding new tears afterwards. She looked back at the dragon, the sorrow clear on her face. “I’m so sorry,” she repeated again. She leaned her head back against the wall too, closing her eyes and heaving a heavy sigh as she fought to regain her composure. She lapsed into thought for a moment, but then spoke again. “Will you ever be able to forgive me?”

Spike was quiet for a second. “I don’t know, Twilight,” he admitted truthfully. His gaze turned distant as he thought of Thorax, longing for his dearly departed friend. He felt his heart flutter sadly at the memories and he was forced to sigh, bracing himself. “But…I think he’d want me to at least try.”

Twilight watched him for a moment. “Tell me about him,” she requested gently. “Please.”

Spike processed the request for a second before slowly nodding his head. “Okay.”

And while Twilight quietly listened, he began to relate to her everything he had ever known about the changeling named Thorax.

Author's Note

...And we're back. Apologies about the suddenness of that holiday hiatus, but it felt like it was the right time for it. And the holidays went well for me. Didn't get quite as much writing done as I would've liked (which is weird, because I often write to relax) but the important thing is that it still went well. :pinkiesmile:

There was going to be an additional scene at the end of this chapter discussing how a certain cutie mark map is reacting to all of this...but I decided the current mood of the story wasn't right for that scene right now. We'll see if I get another chance to include it before the story's end, but it's not too important that it gets in there, really. If nothing else, it'd make for a good deleted scene to share after it's all said and done (I've actually garnered quite a stockpile).

Don't have much else to say about the chapter, really...it sort of speaks for itself, I think. Pretty pleased with it, at least.

Oh, one more thing--it is my understanding that there was a big leak about all things on the upcoming season eight recently. It hasn't really been too big of a problem yet, but just so we're clear, if any of you know anything about these spoilers, I beg of you, TELL ME ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. No offense, but I'd rather and find out about all of that when it properly airs as intended. :pinkiehappy:

Parting of Ways

Spike and Twilight remained sitting in the hive corridor for some time while Spike told Twilight about Thorax and their friendship together. Though emotions ran high in both, they managed to remain respectful and fairly calm faced throughout most of it, each letting the other to have ample time to say their part—though this wasn’t hard as Spike did most of the talking. Nonetheless, both were secretly surprised at how calmly, relatively speaking, they managed to get through the conversation. Fate seemed to be on their side in this matter too even, as they spent that whole time never once getting interrupted by anything else, remaining perfectly alone in the corridor and no one passing ever passing by except precisely as they were finishing and Rainbow Dash abruptly found them.

She seemed surprised to see the two talking like this given how they had been on such bad terms and seemed almost ashamed to interrupt this progress. But once assuring Rainbow that she was fine to proceed, she explained the changelings had prepared a breakfast for all of the “non-changeling” guests presently staying in the hive and extended the invitation to join them. Though Spike had already eaten, he found he was still hungry enough to eat more, while Twilight hadn’t eaten anything yet at all that morning and was understandably ravenous, so both accepted and followed Rainbow back to the room the changelings had set up as a guest dining area.

Little was said as they did so, but it was noteworthy that Spike and Twilight maintained a respectable distance from each other, often using Rainbow as a sort of physical buffer between them. Upon arriving in the room, which was already occupied by Luna, Celestia, and most of Twilight’s friends, Spike chose to sit apart from the others, distancing himself from them. It showed that while there had been some improvement in relations between the dragon and the other ponies, there remained a rift between them, smaller now than before, but still considerable. It proved just how much further they had to go before reparations between them could be complete…and even then there hung in the air the strong sense that things still wouldn’t ever be the same because of what happened.

The meal was carried out in solemn silence save for a passing remark or two. Spike remained sitting by himself for most of it, but that changed when Starlight Glimmer and Trixie arrived in the room late and Trixie decided to sit with the dragon herself, Starlight following. They did so without speaking—though sitting with him was their way of showing support, both mares could tell without asking that Spike wasn’t in much of a mood to talk presently. This suited them fine—they weren’t especially either.

Nonetheless, Starlight still felt obligated to check on him. “You doing okay, Spike?” she asked the dragon softly at one point.

Spike had to think about it for a long moment before answering. “I could be doing better,” he admitted finally before adding, “but I guess I could also be doing a lot worse.”

Starlight nodded in agreement. “And we certainly wouldn’t want that.”

A long moment of silence fell between them before Spike spoke again. “How are you doing, Trixie?” he asked spontaneously.

Trixie briefly seemed surprised to be asked, and like Spike, wasn’t certain how to respond at first. “I don’t know,” she confessed finally. She shrugged helplessly. “I don’t…feel great, obviously, but…” she stared at her breakfast for a second, “…I just miss him…a lot more than I ever dared to believe I would, I guess.”

The other two were quiet for another moment. “I’m sorry for treating you the way I did before, Trixie,” Spike abruptly remarked as he finished the last of his meal.

Starlight looked at him with a look of surprise, but Trixie simply sighed. “Don’t be,” she told him. “I deserved it.”

But Spike shook his head. “No,” he disagreed as he stood up from the table, “you didn’t. Thorax was right about you.” He turned to go, but then paused and looked back at Trixie, tearing up a little. “I’m sorry you couldn’t have had more time with him.”

He then departed, leaving Starlight and Trixie staring after him, stirred by the dragon’s unexpectedly simple, yet gentle and sympathetic words.

After leaving the makeshift dining area, Spike went back to wandering the corridors of the hive. They were busier this time, and as such he crossed paths with other changelings more frequently, about half of which would stop to ask if there was anything they could do to help him or make him more comfortable. One voiced the reason why; to them, he was quite obviously feeling unhappy. But though Spike thanked them for their concern, he politely turned them down every time. For the moment, this was something he wanted to try and work through himself.

Regardless, he knew he wasn’t ready when word reached him preparations for Thorax’s burial were done, and the invitation for all who wished to attend to gather outside began to filter through the hive. It took him several minutes to even gather the nerve needed to follow the numerous others starting for the hive’s exit, and when he finally did, it was initially slow and with great reluctance. He did not want to do this. And yet with every step he took it got a little easier and he could go a little faster. He may not want to face this…but he knew he still needed to.

With the many other changelings all heading the same way, Spike only needed to follow them to find his way out the hive’s main entrance. As he was stepping outside for the first time since yesterday, he stopped and took a moment to look around. It was about mid-morning right now with the sky clear and the air pleasantly cool. It actually was a rather picturesque day it seemed, but it felt to his heavy heart almost out of place considering the grave duty he had yet to face.

Once outside, everyone filed into a sizeable progression, marching across the barren lands towards a gathering forming at the edge of the enclosing acorn grove beyond. As this was clearly where the burial proceedings were going to take place, Spike joined in. There were mostly only changelings around him, all solemn, quiet, moving with sullen looks in their faces, and all at different speeds, so whoever might be standing beside him was regularly changing. Likely thanks to this, Spike eventually crossed paths with Ember who was also marching along within the progression.

Spike happily greeted her, but he was surprised to see the dragon lord. “I thought you had already gone back to the Dragon Lands by now,” he remarked.

“No, I stuck around,” Ember replied as she marched along, carrying her scepter with her as always. She nodded her head at the gathering they were heading towards. “For obvious reasons.” She then gave Spike a glance. “I figured you might need the…moral support, anyway.”

Spike debated how to respond for a second. “Thank you,” was all he could think to say though.

It was enough for Ember, who nodded her head. She deliberately matched his pace and stuck by his side as they kept walking in silence for a few minutes.

“So…where’s your dragon escort guy?” Spike asked next in an attempt to make small talk, realizing he hadn’t seen the larger dragon since yesterday. His mind went embarrassingly blank as he suddenly struggled to correctly recall his name. “What was his name…uh…something starting with an O…”

“Obsidian,” Ember offered, not bothered by Spike’s lapse of memory. “And I’ve already filled him in on what happened…sent him back to the Dragon Lands to report in and pass word that the all-clear’s been given.”

“Yeah, I suppose the dragons back there were probably anxiously waiting to hear back from you, considering the circumstances we left them in,” Spike relented with a small wince.

“And I didn’t want to leave them any reason to do anything rash…especially now that the changelings are…well…like this.” Ember motioned around at the crowd of colorful and reformed changelings they were following to the burial site. She went quiet for a moment, and Spike could tell she was still coming to terms with the sudden shift in allegiance. “Obsidian objected, of course,” she went on to mumble.

“Didn’t want to leave his fearless leader unguarded, huh?” Spike quipped gently, making a small grin.

Ember wasn’t amused. “More he doesn’t trust the changelings yet,” she said. “To him, all they did was get more…colorful…which, with them being changelings, doesn’t necessarily signify much when you think about it.” She looked around at the line of changelings they were following. “Why are they all colorful now? I mean, doesn’t it seem to be a bit…you know…much?”

“I don’t know, I haven’t really bothered to ask or think about it,” Spike admitted. He shrugged. “Besides, you might as well ask why ponies, or for that matter, dragons, are all multi-colored too.”

Ember didn’t reply and instead fell quiet, her mind moving on to other topics. “While I’ve been here, I’ve been working to set up an alliance between the dragons and the changelings,” she announced suddenly.

Spike, surprised, sharply turned his head. “An actual dragon-changeling alliance?” he repeated.

“That’s what I said, didn’t I?” Ember shrugged. “The changelings are all for it too…or at least they’re certainly…eager.”

“They want to prove to others they have genuinely changed after the Enlightenment,” Spike explained distractedly, but he wasn’t deterred from the original topic. “I’m just surprised—aren’t the changelings and dragons historically longtime enemies, even more so than for the ponies?”

“Quite.”

“Then…won’t there be plenty of dragons who’ll object to that?”

“Probably, they’ll most likely see it like Obsidian did,” Ember reasoned, yet sighed and motioned a set of claws at the many reformed changelings surrounding them. “But look at them all now, Spike. They…aren’t the same. They’re more friendly and docile and…” she shook her head. “…I just can’t see them trying to pick a fight anymore. I mean, it boggles my mind to consider too, but…I really can’t, not when I look at them and see…what they are now.” She snorted to herself. “Actually, now they kind of remind me of the ponies a little.” She then frowned, lowering her gaze. “They’re also basically defenseless. Maybe they have changed for the better, but they’re also all acting…listless and uncertain…like they don’t know what they need to do with themselves anymore. More importantly, they’re leaderless. And until they can fix all of that, they’re vulnerable to any outsiders that might want to do them harm…so I figured…they could use protection. And I didn’t feel comfortable with it coming from anyone other than me right now.”

Spike processed that for a moment. “You don’t think Equestria will be any help with that then, huh?”

Ember snorted. “No.”

Spike merely made a subdued hum in reply to that, and they went quiet for a second again. “How long are you going to be staying?”

“However long you need me to stay,” Ember replied, giving him a knowing look.

“Ember, as much as I appreciate it, you can’t stay by my side forever,” he replied back wearily, catching on. “You have your own people to look after.”

“Yeah, and you’re one of them.”

“Don’t prioritize me, one dragon, over the hundreds of others that also need your leadership still. I can’t ask you to do that…not for me.”

“You need the support.”

“I have the support, from Starlight, Trixie, and the others.”

“The ponies?”

“Starlight more than proved herself worthy back when confronting Chrysalis, and you know Thorax thought the world of Trixie, that fact alone should be enough to sway the both of us on her. As for the rest…anyone can see that they’re trying to make amends…and yeah, they aren’t there yet, but…I’m still inclined to let them for now. They haven’t given me any reason not to since…since Thorax…died. So the only pony either of us really should have any issue with is Twilight.” Spike shuffled sheepishly, a sullen expression returning. “And…despite it all…I kind of want to try to give even her the benefit of the doubt right now too…see what happens.”

“But why?”

“Because no matter what she did…I still feel like it’s the fair thing to do. I know it doesn’t make sense, especially since you can still bet that I have an issue with her, one I don’t foresee changing anytime soon, not when it got Thorax killed, but…regardless…” He shook his head. “Look, the point is that while I appreciate you’re looking out for me, Ember, and I’m certainly not saying I don’t want that…you’re not the only one who’s been doing so.” His gaze turned to the gathering ahead of them. “Besides…I’ve been thinking about it and…I think all I need now is to just get through this last bit, and then…” he averted his gaze briefly, “…and then I can move on. Either way, I think I’m…I’m going to be okay, Ember.”

Ember’s gaze softened. “Are you sure?”

Spike closed his eyes and took in a deep breath to steady himself, but he nodded. “Yes.”

Ember nodded back. “Okay then,” she relented. “If that’s what you really want…then I trust you, Spike. But if you ever change your mind…just say so.”

“Understood.”

They then fell silent for the rest of the march towards the gathering. By the time they arrived, a great number had already massed, more than Spike could count, but he estimated it was easily into the hundreds already with potentially hundreds more still coming. Naturally, they were nearly all reformed changelings bearing their new forms, but even then Spike spied a few changelings not yet reformed, still bearing their more aggressive and black original forms. They appeared greatly out of place, and they seemed very aware of it. Yet even they seemed to have a sense of understanding about them, that something good was lost that needed acknowledging, even if they didn’t seem to understand why or how to show it. It seemed to humble them just enough to take a bit of their menacing edge off. A gruff looking one with a uniquely red crest upon his neck that Spike passed fairly close to was even trying (and not quite succeeding) to hide a tear he was shedding.

Spike and Ember filed through the crowd of changelings until they were closer to the front where they found the only other non-changelings in attendance, all of whom was present, from Twilight Sparkle, to Starlight Glimmer, to Princess Celestia, to little Flurry Heart, even though the tiny foal seemed blissfully unaware of the solemn event her parents had carried her into. As they approached the ponies, Spike was motioned to join them by Fluttershy and shortly thereafter, Rarity who stood next to her. After a moment of hesitation, Spike silently obeyed, coming to stand between the two ponies, with the others surrounding them. Ember lingered nearby, but she did not accompany him, instead keeping her distance and shooting very foul glares at the ponies, her way of making it clear that she hadn’t yet forgiven them for what had transpired.

And they were quite aware of it—Twilight couldn’t make eye contact with Spike and kept her distance, as Spike did back in turn. Whenever Spike’s gaze managed to cross with Celestia’s, there was a hollow glint of severe guilt in her eyes. And both Shining Armor and Princess Cadance actively kept themselves as far from Spike as they could without separating themselves from the group at all times, not out of apparent malice but out of their own guilt for their role in all of this, appearing to fear what Spike might think of them, and like Twilight, they were unable to meet his eye either. In fact, they actively worked to avoid it more so than Twilight did. It all troubled Spike in many ways, but for the moment he didn’t wish to think about it and forced it from his mind. For right now, all he wanted to think about was Thorax.

Who at the moment wasn’t actually present, but it was clear he was meant to be soon. The onlookers were all standing in a large semi-circle around a point right on the border dividing the wastelands and the acorn grove. At this spot a large collection of changeling resin was freshly deposited in a towering, unshaped, lump several feet tall. Why wasn’t exactly clear yet, but Spike—who had clambered onto the back of Rainbow Dash at her offer so to see better—suspected it was meant to be a sort of tombstone or grave marker…for there had already been a rectangular hole about six feet deep dug into the ground directly in front of it.

They all waited for everyone coming to arrive before continuing, and as there was so many, this required several more minutes. By the time the last few had arrived at the gathering, which had been constantly spreading out, changing shape and position so to allow everyone the equal chance to witness to the proceedings, the number of attendees had been well over doubled in size. Spike couldn’t be sure if it was the entire populace of the changeling hive that was standing out here with the rest of them, but it certainly looked like it was in that same ballpark. Once all had gathered though, one changeling took position beside the open grave and silently made a signal to the crowd. The changelings apparently knew what this meant and quickly a pathway through the center of the group was opened between them. Several long moments passed as they then all silently waited.

Not understanding what they needed to be doing or what was happening, Spike impatiently waited, gazing about and trying to find some clue as to what was going on. He didn’t understand that it was the obvious answer until he spied them coming—a small group of five changelings journeying from the hive and into the path opened up through the crowd. One of the five changelings led the way, carrying a light on the end of a long pole which cast a solemn pale green glow on its surroundings, though it did not stand out much in the current daylight. The other four followed closely behind them, helping each other to carry something between them. As they drew closer, Spike realized what, or rather who, it was.

Thorax had been cleaned up even further since the last time Spike had seen him so that every speck of dust or blood that had been staining the deceased changeling’s body was wiped away, leaving Thorax’s black chitin glossy enough to almost be reflective. As before, he lay peacefully on his back upon the stretcher the four changelings were carrying, with his forehooves neatly and respectfully placed atop of his chest. It appeared they had been positioned in such a way that they hid the stab wound that had killed the changeling, for Spike couldn’t see it from where he was. It all made Thorax look like he was simply asleep even more than he did before, but this time Spike wasn’t fooled. He didn’t know how exactly he could tell, but he knew at sight that his friend was dead, a thought that made his heart clench but one he knew better than to try and deny now.

As Thorax’s entourage solemnly progressed through the onlooking crowd, Spike also saw a teal-colored blanket of sorts had been draped over Thorax’s torso, covering his lower half so to maintain his dignity. Unsurprisingly, acorns and oak leaves had additionally been neatly placed encircling Thorax’s body, no doubt both as added decorations and with respect to the symbolism they held with the changelings. The stalk of purple hyacinth blossoms Pinkie Pie had reverently placed between Thorax’s hooves the night previous still remained, and still just as impossibly looked as fresh and new as if the blossoms had only just been picked moments before. When the changelings carrying the body arrived beside the open grave at last, they were very careful not to disturb any of this as they lowered him and the stretcher slowly onto the ground. Once they had, they and the fifth changeling carrying the light moved to stand to one side, allowing the proceedings to continue.

Once they had, the changeling representative that had signaled for things to start now stepped forward to address the gathering. She was a reformed green changeling, appearing older than others, and was decorated only with three pale pink-white orbs on her chest, like many other reformed changelings had gained in their transformation, and a narrow band of brown cloth around her neck just above them. She bore no horn and instead her forehead remained bare. When she spoke, she spoke with a voice that was gravely, but heartfelt and almost sympathetic.

She began with a heavy sigh. “For the benefit of the outsiders we have present today,” she began by noting, nodding her head in the direction of the ponies and dragons in the crowd, “I will be speaking in their native Equestrian as a courtesy for the duration of the proceedings.” She then paused to collect her thoughts. “Normally, it would be the hive’s ruling queen that would be conducting these proceedings and not a drone such as myself, but obviously these are not normal conditions. We have of course dethroned Queen Chrysalis, and in light of the events that caused this, I cannot say I regret us doing so. Of the many queens that have ruled the changelings over the generations, I think many of us will agree that Chrysalis was never the best of the best. We are frankly better off without her. But that still means we are without a queen, or any clear leader to fill in this role. I ended up selected for this role because I am a ranking praefectus, a hive administrator who simply stepped up to assist maintaining order within the hive during this tumultuous past day, and it was decided that was enough for me to fill in for this duty. I do not feel nearly worthy for it…but nevertheless, I am still happy to do so, considering who it is we have gathered to bid farewell to.”

She turned her gaze to Thorax and heaved another sigh. “We changelings seem to have been given a new lot in life, a chance to reinvent ourselves, hopefully for the better, and choose for ourselves what direction we need to go next, and for that honor, we will be forever indebted to all those who helped to make it happen.” She again nodded her head in the direction of the ponies and dragons in the audience, acknowledging that it wasn’t just Thorax who had helped to make this happen, even if it wasn’t entirely planned that way. “But regrettably, one of those helpers cannot be here with us now to share in that victory, having paid the ultimate price in bringing about this Enlightenment…and it was Thorax, of all changelings.” She again gazed at Thorax, this time apologetically. “I did not have the chance to ever really get to know this changeling personally, but like many of you, I still knew of his reputation. He was a peace seeker and an idealist, one who wanted to look beyond what we already were and towards what we could yet become, and despite everything, he was always eager to do so. Sadly, few of us gave him the chance. We saw him as an aberration in the normality we had come to expect from the hive, presenting ideas that challenged our viewpoints and struck us as absurd and farfetched. Thorax spoke of a future that simply seemed too far out of reach to ever have. We turned our backs on him. But, may the Shapeless One bless his soul, it’s clear he never turned his back on us. And now, here we all are, perched at the very precipice of that future he spoke of, now ours for the taking. Of everything that has happened since yesterday, the fact he could not live to see it along with the rest of us is the greatest tragedy of them all.”

“But his role in all of this will not be forgotten,” she pressed on. “He was noble enough to show us a truth we had all been missing, and now it is our duty to make sure that his sacrifice will not go in vain. We owe it to him to take up the creed he bore and carry it on into that future he wanted for us and beyond. We owe it to him to finish what was started yesterday, and I hope I speak for all of us when I say I am ready to rise up to that challenge, and see it through to the end, wherever that may be! And may that path he has so selflessly and graciously opened up for us lead us to a greater future, a changeling hive that is happy, healthy, fed, at peace, and with many friends and allies that we can always count on. It has been eons since the changeling race could count on someone other than themselves like that…and perhaps now the time has finally come to change that. Perhaps there really is no shame in making friends and counting on the support of others. Perhaps we need not be so alone and isolated after all.”

She stopped to sigh yet again, this time to calm herself slightly. “But I digress,” she remarked. “May whatever will be coming our way come, and may we be ready to face it, whatever it may be. But for now, let us all join together and show Thorax here that we have heard his message…and we deeply thank him for it. And above all, let us show just how deeply he will be missed by us all.” She turned to address Thorax’s body directly. “Thorax, you have left our company in this life, and your hive will miss you. May whatever new journeys the noble Shapeless One grants to you next be fruitful and rewarding, but we ask you to never forget your fellow changelings still finding their way through this quest of life. And as the First Changelings had sprung up into this life from the earth we stand upon, we now grant you the closure of bringing you full circle back to it, to join you again with the Shapeless One who had so courteously created you. May you live on in our memories, our hearts, and our feelings, Thorax, and may you receive the closure you seek.”

And with those moving final words, the changeling representative stepped back, allowing the four changelings who had carried Thorax to the graveside take position at each of the four corners of the open grave, lighting their horns…and with a jolt, it sank into Spike’s mind what was about to follow. He stared at his friend lying there on the ground and felt almost lost in a dream as he realized this was really happening, that Thorax was about to be buried, once and for all, into the earth, never to return in this life. As the changelings took up the stretcher in their magic, Spike involuntarily gasped and leaned himself forward into the back of Rainbow’s head and neck, heart beating furiously as he helplessly watched this final act unfold. His emotions must have showed on his face, because shortly thereafter Fluttershy gently reached up with one yellow hoof to reassuringly rub his side, trying to comfort him.

Spike greatly appreciated it, but it still did little to soothe his roiling emotions, watching the changelings lift Thorax into the air then proceed to lower him gracefully into the open grave. His breath caught in his throat as Thorax vanished from his view, followed by tears proceeding to break out as he watched the changelings turn to levitate dirt that was set to one side and start to pour it into the hole, slowly filling it in and covering up the body of the changeling within. Yet Spike still stubbornly tried to fight off his warring emotions, trying to put on as brave a face as he could muster, forcing himself to stand to one side and let this happen, knowing deep down that it had to be done.

Soon the hole was filled in entirely and the surface smoothed over and level, sealing Thorax inside. Once done, all of the changelings still standing around the grave moved to join the rest of the gathering, and then all changelings who had magic lit their horns and, as one, pointed them towards the mass of resin standing at the head of the grave. Together, they all fired off hundreds upon hundreds of magical beams into the resin, charging it up to the point that it burst into a ball of multi-colored flames, the same magical flames seen when a changeling transforms. As the many changelings pumped more and more magic into it, the brighter and bigger the ball of energy grew, to the point that it was almost blinding and eyes needed to be shielded. Almost too late, Spike suddenly realized that the changelings were magically transforming the resin into a new shape, which when the magic and light ceased as suddenly as it started was revealed to be a statue about ten to twelve feet tall.

Bearing Thorax’s image, the statue’s body was made of polished black obsidian, with thin plates of diamond as the wings, white marble for the fangs, and multi-faceted sapphires serving as the eyes. The pose was not complex, noble, dramatized, proud, or even showy, but rather simply portrayed Thorax neatly and politely seated upon the podium that had also been shaped from the resin, with his head tilted upwards to so gaze curiously and innocently up into the sky above them. It was so perfectly Thorax that the sight of it caused Spike to gasp and was soon choking on his tears, letting his head sink into Rainbow’s colorful mane. Watching his tears slip through the hairs, he inwardly thought to himself that this was leaving Rainbow in the no doubt awkward and uncomfortable of having to put up with it, and for the mare’s sake, Spike quickly tried to reel in his emotions again—to little success.

If Rainbow had a problem with the weeping dragon on her back though, she said and did absolutely nothing to outwardly convey displeasure or to protest. Blissfully, she instead left Spike unbothered and let him proceed. Besides, her attention was on the statue too, as was most of everyone else’s, but she was the one to notice there was an inscription on the base of the statue’s podium, written in the notched circular letters of the changeling language.

“What’s that say on the bottom there?” she asked aloud in a soft whisper, squinting her eyes at the lettering and trying to make out something that made sense to her.

“Ad memoriam Thoracis,” a changeling standing to her right answered, reading the inscription in linguae mutationis. “Brevis annis abiit, plenus honoribus, sed quam bene vivas referre, non quam diu. Nulla dies umquam memori vos eximet aevo.”

Rainbow turned her head to look at the changeling. “But what does that mean?” she asked, not understanding the language.

“To the memory of Thorax,” Spike replied without warning, solemnly translating for the pegasus. “He is gone from us, short of years and full of honors, but it is how well you live that matters, not how long. No day shall erase you from the memory of time.”

Rainbow blinked to herself a few times as her gaze returned to the statue, humbled. “It’s deep,” she replied simply.

Further discussion on it was cut short as Spike started to be overcome by a well of grieving emotions enclosing upon him. Startled by the suddenness of it, how strong it was, and how quickly it had grown and was continuing to grow, Spike turned inward wondering if attending Thorax’s burial was getting to him far more than he feared…but then he caught a glimpse of Rainbow’s face and saw from her expression she was feeling something similar—all of them were, as a quick glance at everybody around him proved…until he noticed how intently the changelings were gazing at the statue of Thorax they had created and the answer struck him.

These emotions he was feeling weren’t his own…they were the emotions of every changeling present in the crowd, all openly sharing and displaying their emotions with one another, all at once and as one, forming a great wave of emotion that was now washing over the whole of the gathering. It was their way of showing just how much Thorax’s sacrifice had moved them, how apologetic they were for their past treatment of him, and just how much they were going to miss him. The emotive flood was so moving and potent that soon there was no one present that wasn’t shedding sad and sympathetic tears. Even the famously stone-faced Applejack was soon openly bawling.

Tears streaming from her own face, Spike watched as Rainbow Dash raised one wing, bent so that the longest of her primary feathers touched the tip of her forehead while she gazed resolutely at Thorax’s grave. Familiar with the pegasus salute, Fluttershy saw and mirrored it with her own wing. The princesses, though not all of them were as practiced in the motion themselves, soon did likewise too.

This went on for some moments as everyone expressed their sadness for the lost changeling, but once the emotions reached their peak, they started to slowly taper off again in a manner that felt, to Spike at least, natural, and before long, the onslaught of emotion had returned to more natural levels and the salute ended, at which time the changeling representative stepped forward again, asking those that wished to pay their final respects before returning to the hive to please form an orderly and respectful line. Not everyone present moved to join that line, but easily half still felt obligated enough to do so and quietly formed a line that stretched for some feet along the border of the acorn grove. Spike, Ember, and the ponies all wordlessly moved to join the line too. Spike was asked as they did so if he wished to be close to the front of the line, but Spike, feeling intimidated and unprepared for this last step, instead asked if he could be allowed to be the very last, in hopes that would give him time to prepare. Twilight and Trixie both seemed to have similar ideas, and though they granted Spike the spot as very last, they too wished to be near the very end. So the group allowed all the other changelings to go ahead of them and took position together at the back of the line.

The line moved slowly, but there was no sense of anyone trying to rush the other, and was instead given however much time they felt required as they each walked past the grave. On average, it seemed most changelings only took about two to five minutes to do this before turning away and starting the long hike back for the hive, so this still became the unofficial standard to shoot for. But every now and then there was still someone who broke that trend and took a little longer. Being at the very back of the line as he was, Spike was too far away to hear or even really see what, if anything, most of those ahead of them had to impart to the buried changeling, but he suspected it was mostly the same things that had been said before during Thorax’s viewing—voices of regret, a desire to learn from it, and words of thanks for Thorax’s example followed by an apology that it was not appreciated sooner.

After a period of time that to Spike didn’t feel that particularly long but not that particularly short either, the line had shortened considerably and he and the others started to reach the end. As it happened, Ember was the first non-changeling to reach the grave, and though she was still too far away for Spike to hear what she was saying exactly, she was still close enough that he could clearly see that whatever it was, it seemed passionate. It was similar for Celestia, Luna, Cadance, Shining Armor, Rarity and Pinkie Pie in that order as they all took their turns, but he assumed they said more of the usual. He found he was mostly right as he started to catch snippets while Rainbow Dash (who didn’t seem so ashamed to express her feelings this time) and Applejack then took their turns. Soon all who remained in line was, in the following order, Starlight Glimmer, Trixie, Twilight, and himself standing at the very end.

Starlight Glimmer spent most of her brief remarks lamenting she couldn’t have gotten to know Thorax better. “It’s a pity we only got to meet for a brief couple of days,” she spoke aloud to the grave and its occupant. “I see now that you would’ve been a great friend to have…if only we had given you the chance. Regardless…I’m glad I had the chance to get to know you at all…and I hope we can all work to continue what you’ve helped to start.”

Considering she was the pony he could completely confidently know was mourning for Thorax’s death as equally, if not more so, as him, Spike was admittedly curious to hear what parting words Trixie would give as her turn came. But, subdued and composed, Trixie kept it simple and straightforward. “You can rest easy, Thorax,” she murmured aloud to the grave after an initial period of silent grieving. “You’ve made a difference in the world after all.” Then, after another stretch of silence during which Spike saw a solitary tear roll off her cheek, she ran a respectful hoof along the edge of the new grave and continued. “You know Trixie doesn’t like goodbyes, so…see you later, Mister Jar Catcher.” Moving reluctantly, she then turned and slowly started heading back for the hive, her head bowed.

It was then Twilight’s turn to approach the grave. Like Trixie, she spent the first several moments sitting there in silence, but where Trixie had spent it grieving, Twilight stared up at the statue of Thorax with a deeply guilty expression on her face. It lead Spike to believe that Twilight’s comments would be revolving around that subject, but instead, all Twilight said on that matter was to murmur a simple “I’m sorry,” which part of Spike wanted to treat as insufficient…but he knew Twilight well enough to know that, by the tone she said it in, she still meant it. What actually surprised Spike the most was what Twilight said next, after yet another long pause—“Thank you for keeping Spike safe.”

She then glanced at Spike, the last one waiting, and silently stepped back, motioning for him to step forward and take her place. Wringing his claws and not feeling nearly ready for this despite giving himself as much time to prepare as he could, Spike hesitated, then slowly moved into position. Twilight remained standing just behind him for a long moment though, watching him with a very concerned look and clearly reluctant to leave him alone like this.

“Do you need someone to stay here with you?” she asked finally in a soft voice. Spike noted how she opted not to volunteer herself specifically for it, no doubt thinking Spike wouldn’t want her.

In reality though, it wouldn’t matter who it was, and after a moment of fretful indecision, Spike still shook his head no. “I need to do this on my own, Twilight,” he murmured in reply.

Twilight studied at him for a moment then nodded her head. “You know where to find us if you change your mind,” she reminded, before she finally turned and started walking back for the hive. She went slowly at first, repeatedly stopping and looking back at Spike, fearful about leaving him alone like this. But regardless, she heeded his wishes and kept on going.

Leaving Spike alone before Thorax’s grave.

His stomach feeling like it was tying itself into knots upon knots, Spike kept standing there, still wringing his claws, wanting to say something but not knowing what he should say. Looking at the freshly filled grave wasn’t helping as all he could do was think about his friend within buried under six feet of dirt, a thought that was making him all the more uneasy and even a bit sick with grief, so instead he focused his attention on the statue that towered over it. The likeness the statue bore to Thorax was so great, that for a moment, Spike could almost convince himself it was really him. But of course, it wasn’t. The statue was cold and lifeless, a mere shadow of the real changeling Spike had known. And as Spike stood there trying to find the words, he found that what he was feeling was simply a profound longing for his friend, missing him greatly.

“I don’t want you to go, bud,” he finally murmured aloud, his voice catching as his eyes teared up. He adamantly forced himself to keep them from spilling down his cheeks though, determined to get through this without totally breaking down. “And I wish you didn’t have to. I wish there was some way you could still be here.” He opened his claws and waved them about helplessly for a moment, trying to find something to do with them, before clapping them back together and proceeding to wring them once more. He sniffed and wiped at his nose with the back of his arm. “I don’t know what to do without you,” he went on, “where to go, how to move on…I guess I got so used to having you around that…having to go without you now…it’s just…it’s just…”

Squeezing his eyes shut and feeling himself losing the battle against his emotions, he started letting out an involuntary moan in the back of his throat and quickly grew in volume until it turned into a loud wail, sinking to his knees and proceeding to sob for several moments. There was nothing around to stop him, and no sounds except that of his sobbing and the sound of the breeze rippling through the branches of the adjacent acorn grove. Once he got the initial wave of his sadness out of him though, he started to calm down, and oddly, he started to feel more soothed and relaxed. Not expecting that and unsure what caused it, Spike looked about him as if there was some explanation. Part of him expected Thorax to be sitting right there behind him, one hoof on the dragon’s shoulder, but of course there was no one but himself.

Regardless, it got Spike thinking about what Thorax would do or say if he was here, and turning a bit more resolute, he gazed up at the statue once more. “I know what you’d want me to do,” he said aloud to it. “I know you’d want me to move on in life.” He snorted to himself, suddenly amused. “In way, you’ve been trying to get me to do that the whole time you’ve known me.” He shook his head and sighed. “Whatever the case…the reality is that you are gone…and I can’t bring you back here, as much as I’d want to. And…I’m slowly accepting that. But I’m still going to miss you, bud…deeply…and probably forever. For you, I’m still going to live my life, wherever it’s taking me next, because I know what you did was just as much for me as it was for everyone else…but I’m still going to miss you…and I hope…wherever you are now…if you even are anywhere…you’re missing me too.”

He hauled himself up to his feet and took a deep breath. He gazed up at the statue for a long moment, taking in the likeness of his friend before him and burning it into his memory. As he did so, an oak leaf, having turned a faded orange, floated before him before the breeze pressed it against his chest. Spike gingerly took it into his claws and distractedly fingered it as he braced himself. “That just leaves one last thing I need to do now,” he murmured aloud to the statue, brow drooping with sorrow. “The hardest thing of all, but I think we both know I gotta do it, or I’m never going to get through this.” Actually saying it was hard though, and his first several attempts only ended up being false starts, turning into nervous lip-licking as he tried to get the words out. But at last, with one final mental shove, he managed to force them out.

“G…Goodbye, Thorax.”

And before he could give himself the chance to react, he spun around and forced himself to start the long hike back for the hive. He never once looked back, but only because he knew that if he did…then he could never move on.

As he neared the hive again, he found Princess Luna was standing alone in its entrance, waiting for him. When he approached her, she explained that they had received word from the royal guard—they could find no sign of any lingering changelings of malicious intent in Equestria or the Crystal Empire, and they had been given the all clear to return at their leisure. A train had been requested to be at Dodge Junction by noon and they were beginning preparations to head out to meet it.

Spike was taken aback by the suddenness of this announcement. “Just like that?” he asked.

“I’m afraid we do have other duties and responsibilities we all need to be getting back to, Spike, whether we like it or not,” Luna reminded kindly as they both walked into the hive. She nodded her head at Spike. “Of course, whether you follow is up to you, but you are still invited to accompany us, if you wish.”

Spike hesitated to reply just yet, still needing to time to process this. He glanced around the hive as they proceeded deeper into it, noticing a pair of reformed changelings watching them walk past. “What about the changelings?” he asked.

“Celestia has already decided to remain here a little longer, to keep working with them to set up some kind of provisionary government the hive can operate on in the stead of a queen until something better can be worked out,” Luna explained. “But even she will need to head back to Equestria at some point fairly soon.”

“Right, because she has duties and responsibilities too,” Spike said, nodding his head and reluctantly understanding. “I just don’t like doing anything to leave the changelings high and dry like this…especially after what’s happened.”

“I understand, but I think they will be all right, Spike,” Luna assured him in a soothing voice. “Perhaps the best thing we can do now is to leave the Changeling Kingdom to the changelings.”

“Maybe,” Spike mumbled, undecided on that.

Luna looked him over for a moment. “How are you doing?” she asked.

Spike sighed heavily and shrugged. “I’m not sure,” he admitted wearily. “But I’m trying to…cope.”

Luna closed her eyes and nodded sagely. “Sometimes that is all you can do in situations such as this,” she reasoned.

They walked on through the tunnels of the hive for a few more moments before Spike realized something. “Where are we going, anyway?” he asked.

“To where the others have been staying and are no doubt making their preparations to leave,” Luna explained. “It was my thinking that we could all meet together and then discuss how to pro—”

But they were cut short when a mint green changeling suddenly approached them. “Excuse me!” she said politely to the two as she got their attention. She gave a respectful bow to Luna which seemed to surprise the princess before turning her full attention to Spike. “I’m sorry to interrupt, Spike the Dragon, but our patient in the valetudinarium is asking to speak with you as soon as possible.”

“Patient?” Spike repeated, confused. “What patient?”

“You’ve met before,” the changeling explained. “His name is Julius.”

As Spike was led to the valetudinarium, the changeling version of an infirmary, his escort began to fill him in on what had happened with Julius since Spike last saw him. While going out to meet with Obsidian along with a group of changelings going to recall the squadron of changelings Chrysalis had sent to try and find the Vergilius, Ember remembered Julius in his cocoon and alerted the changelings of it, hoping they could do more with it than she could. They quickly recovered Julius’s cocoon and brought it back to the hive, taking him to their healers who immediately started to give Julius the treatment he needed to stay alive. To this end they had succeeded, though it was reportedly a bit touch and go when first pulling Julius out of the cocoon for treatment. Now Spike was assured that though it would be slow-going and that there would likely be lingering scarring afterwards, he would recover. Regardless, Julius had only regained consciousness just recently, and upon being filled in on the hive’s current situation, he insisted to speak with Spike as soon as possible. Spike assumed he was angry, but his escort assured that Julius just seemed more confused…which Spike could certainly understand. Considering how much Julius had missed since he was last awake, it all was probably coming as a shock.

When Spike arrived, he found Julius calmly lying on his side on top of a bed of moss. He had not reformed, but all things considered, this didn’t surprise Spike at all. The heavily burned left side of his black body faced upwards and was almost entirely covered with herbal poultices plastered to it with large amounts of green changeling gel. He had both eyes closed and appeared to be dozing, but as Spike approached, he opened his eyes—or at least his right eye, as his left seemed to be adhered shut with gel at the moment—and gave Spike a critical look over.

“Well,” he remarked in a snide, albeit slightly croaky, voice, “look who finally showed up.” He motioned for Spike to come closer with one hoof. “C’mere dragon, I want to talk to you.”

Spike approached a little closer, but not trusting the changeling’s intent, he made sure to remain out of his reach. “You seem to be recovering,” he noted aloud in an attempt to sound positive.

“Yeah, why is that?” Julius asked, raising the eyebrow over the eye he couldn’t presently open.

“I assume because the healers here are doing a good job.”

“That’s not what I mean and you know it, dragon.” He nodded his head in the direction of a couple of the healers, all reformed and standing across the room doing idle work. “But since you’ve brought it up…just what have you done to my hive, anyway?”

“Your hive?” Spike repeated critically.

Julius frowned. “You know what I mean,” he repeated again. “It’s my home, too. Or it was. Now I wake up and find everyone’s become multi-colored freaks, my queen’s been chased away, and suddenly changelings are being all buddy-buds with prey. So what in the name of the Informis Una did you do to make everyone like…well…that.” He practically spat out the last word as he said it.

Spike folded his arms. “I didn’t do anything, except maybe help open the gate,” he replied and nodded his head at the reformed healers too. “They did the rest themselves.”

“So you’re telling me changelings actually wanted to become frolicking rainbow-colored milksops?” Julius asked doubtfully and with heavy scorn.

“From your perspective, I can see how that’d be…disorienting,” Spike relented, speaking coldly but patiently. “But do you really think they would have done it if they didn’t first have a good reason? Maybe you should consider what that is before you judge.”

“From what I heard, it was because Queen Chrysalis was being a blockhead as usual.” Julius snorted. “But so what else was new? We all already knew that well before now…so really, why would it cause this now when it hadn’t before?” He shook his head, or at least as well as he could have given his current condition. He did seem to be a bit stiff. “No, you must have done something to push them all into this.”

“I swear to you that we didn’t,” Spike pressed, and in his mind, they hadn’t. Even all Thorax did was set the example as he died, leaving it really to the other changelings to choose to stand up and take the initiative for the rest.

But Julius still wasn’t convinced. “Considering how much your kind stands to gain from this stupid development, forgive me if I remain dubious.” He attempted to shake his head again. “But never mind that, that’s not what I want to talk to you about anyway.”

“Then what is?”

“Simple.” Julius leveled his one open eye on Spike. “Why am I still alive?”

Spike raised an eyebrow for this question and the almost incredulous and unappreciative tone Julius seemed to speak it in. “You have a problem with being alive?”

“Not especially,” Julius admitted. “But I do recall blacking out, fully expecting to next be meeting with the Informis Una herself, only to, as I already explained, wake up instead with a bunch of weird sickly-sweet colored changeling degenerates hovering over me and learning that it was instead my last target who’s really gone to meet the Informis Una.”

Spike frowned as he felt heart ache at the reminder of Thorax’s passing, but he attempted to push it aside. “Thorax refused to let that happen to you, not believing you needed to die. So if anything you should be thanking him for saving you.”

“Yes, but I just don’t understand why Thorax was willing to risk and give up so much of his own well-being so needlessly. Why would he want to? What was I to him?” Julius gave him a leveled look. “You do realize I was there to kill him and all of the rest of you too if I had to, right?”

Spike couldn’t help but look a tad smug. “Yeah, didn’t succeed at that, did you?”

Julius raised his eyebrow again. “Did I?”

Spike’s smugness vanished.

“My point,” Julius pressed on, “is that while I am glad I’m still alive, I just don’t understand why Thorax thought it was so important. I was a threat and a hindrance to him alive. He gained absolutely nothing from saving me, he knew that, I know it. He wasn’t that much of an idiot.”

“Well, you did help out by pointing us where we needed to go to get answers,” Spike reminded. “Maybe Thorax thought you could help again if you recovered.”

Julius snorted, which drew a brief cough from him in the process. “I told you what I did because I figured that I had nothing left to lose at that point,” he explained. “Being on the verge of falling unconscious muddying my thinking probably didn’t help. And I didn’t think telling you what I did would’ve made any real difference anyway. It certainly wasn’t for your guys’ benefit.”

“Then why did you do it?”

Julius remained silent for a moment. He chose not to answer. “Look, I’d thought that you might be able to explain it to me…but thus far all you’ve told me are…empty platitudes.”

“Thorax was a good soul, acting for a good far greater than the both of us,” Spike grumbled. “To him, it wasn’t his life that was important, it was the lives of all those around him, no matter who they were. That included even those that were enemies to him. Unlike you…he acted selflessly, not selfishly.”

“And that worked out oh so wonderfully for him in the end, didn’t it?” Julius quipped sarcastically. “All that selflessness certainly doesn’t get you very far when you’re dead. But it’s not like it’dmatter much anyway…even if he had survived this silly stunt of his, it’s not like it’s going to actually last…he’s only tossed the fate of the hive and all living in it out of the metaphorical frying pan. Right now, as I see it, we’re all still hanging in the air, at the peak of our fall, but soon it’s all going to come tumbling down like a rock and smack right into the fire. Then as we watch it all burn, we can reflect on how his selflessness sure was a hay of a waste of tim—ACK!”

Spike was suddenly upon Julius, furiously grabbing the changeling by his black curved horn and yanking it harshly. Alarmed, one of the healers started to hurry over to intervene, but stopped short when Spike shot her a glare making her cower and back off. He then turned back to Julius, reversing his grip on the horn as his initial fury cooled. “Look,” he said, calmer this time but his eyes still dangerous, “maybe you don’t understand why Thorax did what he did, but in the end you don’t have to. All you need to understand is that, for whatever reason, his actions gave you a second chance at life and he died ensuring you and all of the other changelings get to keep it. What you do with that chance is up to you, but do you really want to waste it?”

Julius’s gaze turned almost curious. “And what would you have me do with that chance?” he asked. He nodded his head at the reformed healer anxiously watching them both. “Degrade myself down so to be one of them?”

“I think you should at least hear them out,” Spike said, glancing at the healer before turning back to Julius. “They’ve been calling what happened an Enlightenment, Julius…that tells me that there’s something great to be learned from it. And seeing all of them could do it, I have to believe you have that same capability too. To paraphrase a friend, Julius…that step would be a big and hard step, but it’s one you certainly can still make…you just have to take the first step.” He released his grip on Julius’s horn and let his claws fall limp at his side. “I think Thorax saw something in you, and if so…I’d hate to see you squander yourself and fall short of it. So think long and hard about it before you decide where you go next, Julius…you’ve got plenty of time to do so, after all.”

Julius studied the dragon for a moment, his gaze unreadable. “I suppose so.”

Spike stepped back. “Are we done, then?”

Julius nodded. “Yeah. Get on out of here, dragon…I won’t keep you here any longer.”

Spike breathed another sigh and turned to go without further comment. Though he could feel the stares of the healers in the room on his back, no one tried to stop or delay him.

But as he reached the door and started to step out into the corridor beyond, he allowed himself a small smile while he heard Julius, turning to one of the healers, remark, “So…Enlightenment? That was really the best name you could come up with for that? I mean, it’s sort of a campy name to use to try and sway ’lings like myself, don’t you think?”

After meeting with Julius, Spike decided he’d better collect his own things, since he figured he was going to go with the others too. Exactly where he was going to go…he was still deciding. But it gave him something to do, so he collected the backpack he had brought with him into the hive and decided to sit and wait at the hive’s entrance for when the others arrived to head out themselves. There, he let himself lapse into thought while also looking himself over. He was still in quite a state as he never did clean himself up from yesterday’s events. He suddenly became self-conscious, especially the fact that he was no longer wearing the navy sweater vest he had become so accustomed to wearing. Some courteous changelings had recovered it from where he had last left it and attempted to clean out the bloodstains, but unfortunately it was simply too stained, and the attempts to clean it made it slightly shrink anyway, so while Spike thanked them for their efforts, he told them it was a lost cause and to go ahead and just dispose of the sweater.

He still had the long-sleeved shirt he typically wore under it at least, though it had been smudged and stained with dirt and other grime that it was now more off-white than the stark white it was supposed to be, and Spike doubted it was ever going to come fully clean either. It was scuffed and torn in spots anyway. He also still had the false eyeglasses, but he had stopped wearing them because of the lens that had cracked. While he waited though, he pulled them out of his shirt pocket, unfolded them, and held them out before him, reflecting back on his usage of them. He had grown so accustomed to wearing them as Spark that it seemed weird now to go such a stretch of time without them.

He supposed there was no real need to anymore after everything that had happened though, even if they weren’t damaged. The Spark identity he had built for himself was basically destroyed now. But as he thought about it, he didn’t feel like he could just go back to ol’ Spike the Dragon either, as things felt like they had changed too much, like he had outgrown his old identity.

“I guess I don’t know who I need to be anymore,” he mumbled to himself as he fingered the glasses in his claws.

The minutes continued to tick by as he sat at the entrance and waited. Eventually he heard someone walking towards him, but the entrance being a major thoroughfare even in these unusual circumstances for the hive, Spike didn’t think much of it until that someone stopped a couple feet behind him and politely, but awkwardly, cleared their throat. “Hello again, Spike.”

Spike turned, quickly recognizing the reformed changeling that was standing behind him. “Synthorax,” he greeted back, surprised. “What brings you here?”

The lime green changeling shuffled his hooves awkwardly. “I’d heard you all were making preparations to leave,” he said softly.

Spike nodded, tucking the false eyeglasses back into his shirt pocket. “The royal guard couldn’t find any sign of the changeling operatives that were trying to infiltrate Equestria, so it was decided it should be safe for us to all go back without fear of those operatives doing…you know…anything troubling.”

“That may not mean they aren’t still lingering around somewhere, planning out a new move,” Synthorax reminded in warning. “They may not be at Equestria’s positions of power anymore, but they also aren’t here at the hive, and they are almost certainly not Enlightened yet either. I fear they may yet cause trouble…especially if they manage to cross paths with Chrysalis, wherever she may be heading now.”

“Problems to worry about later,” Spike said with the wave of his claws, not wanting to think about it. “Personally, I’ve got…bigger things to worry about right now.”

He turned to peer out the open exit in silence for a moment. Synthorax approached closer and sat himself down beside him. “How are you doing?” he quietly asked.

Spike heaved a sigh, hanging his head. “Mostly, I’m just missing him.”

Synthorax nodded. “You are not alone.” He took a deep breath and didn’t linger on the subject. “So where are you going to go next in Equestria?”

Spike shrugged. “I don’t know. Still working that out, I guess.”

“Where would you like to be, then?”

“…somewhere I can find a bit of peace…somewhere friendly…” he glanced at the changeling sitting beside him. “Why do you ask?”

Synthorax let out his breath. “I was wondering to myself if it was going to be worth inviting you to stay here,” he explained.

Spike straightened, looking him over. “Here at the hive?” he asked.

Synthorax nodded, and turned to look him in the eye too. “I know…the hive might not seem like it’d be a good place to live right now, but…” he bit his lip for a second, “…with everything that’s happened, we want to try and…keep the forward momentum this…change that’s come upon us going, to…you know…follow the example of those that helped make it happen.”

“Like Thorax,” Spike concluded with a nod.

Synthorax nodded. “And you knew Thorax and what he stood for better than anyone else.” He shuffled awkwardly. “I’m sorry if I seem like I’m pressuring you, because I’m not trying to, but…we could really use that insight right about now…someone who’d know…well…just what sort of world Thorax envisioned…and how to best make it a reality.”

Spike smiled sadly and looked down at the floor. “You guys really, legitimately, want to continue what he started, don’t you?”

Synthorax averted his gaze, echoing Spike’s sad grin. “I and a fair number of others I’ve spoken with do, at least,” he admitted. “It’d seem like the best way to…not just commemorate him, but…also make up for…abusing him the way we did before the Enlightenment.”

Spike’s grin grew to be a bit cheerier. “I think that’s wonderful, Synthorax,” he said, approving. “I heartily support such a goal, because in a lot of ways…I’d like to do the same sort of thing. And, you know, now that all of you changelings are working so hard to be allies rather than trying to kill me…” Synthorax snorted uncomfortably at that, “…you’re all starting to…grow on me as equals and friends. I wouldn’t mind the chance to stick around and get to know you all better, help out where I can.” He then sighed, his grin fading away as he turned to gaze out the open entryway ahead of him and felt his heart sink in his chest. “It’s just…” He trailed off, unsure the right way to say it.

Fortunately, Synthorax understood. “…we all remind you of him, don’t we?” he observed slowly.

Spike nodded sadly. “I’m sorry, Synthorax,” he apologized. “It’s not that I don’t want to, honest…”

Synthorax waved for him to be silent. “I understand,” he assured.

“…it’s just,” Spike continued on anyway, and raised his gaze to peer at the hive interior surrounding him. “Every time I look at this place…I’m probably always going to think…this is where he died. And…”

“No, I get it, the reminders hurt to think about,” Synthorax said, nodding in agreement. He forced a reassuring grin. “I know exactly how you feel. To be perfectly honest, I didn’t really think you’d want to stay anyway…that was why I was being hesitant to even ask. I wasn’t sure if it even needed asking.”

“Well…at least this way you know with certainty my answer,” Spike reasoned. He still felt bad about it, though. “Look…it’s not like I never want to come back. I probably will at some point. It’s just…I…I need time to…to recover first.”

Synthorax nodded. “Yeah,” he said. He sucked in a fresh breath before continuing. “So…on to Equestria for you, then?”

Spike shrugged. “I guess,” he admitted. “To be honest…Equestria doesn’t seem all that welcoming either, it’s just…” he shrugged a second time, “…it’s always been home for me. And…I guess that seems like the best place to at least start.”

“Equestria’s a big place, though,” Synthorax pointed out. “Where within it are you going to try and settle down?”

Spike’s gaze turned distant, considering the possibilities. “I haven’t the faintest idea. There are plenty of possibilities…I’m just not sure…which one is right.”

Synthorax placed a hoof on the dragon’s shoulder. “Well…I hope you figure it out soon. I’d like to see you recover from this too.” They shared a grin for a second, and then Synthorax sheepishly rose. “Well, I have plenty of duties I need to do so…I better say goodbye now.” He offered one hoof to shake. Spike however decided to forgo the hoofshake and instead wrapped his arms around the changeling’s neck in a warm embrace. Surprised and unsure how he should respond back, Synthorax numbly just sat there for a split second. “Um…”

“It’s called a hug,” Spike explained preemptively, familiar to this reaction as he used to get it all the time from Ember.

“I know what a hug is,” Synthorax defended.

Spike smirked and squeezed him tighter. “Sure you do.” He continued on with the hug for another moment before releasing the changeling. “Well anyway…if you’ve got other things you need to be doing, I won’t delay you.” He paused then added, “But maybe we can still see each other soon.” He then snapped his claws, getting an idea. “In fact, if you need anything, you can write me a letter whenever you like and I can try to help, if you want.”

Synthorax frowned. “But we don’t get mail service out here at the hive, and I won’t know what address to send a letter to you at.”

Spike smiled. “You won’t need one,” and proceeded to quickly explain how to send him a letter via Spike’s dragonbreath, and the spell required to send a letter in lieu of a dragon. Spike may not have been the best one to explain this magic given his limited knowledge of the field, and this was evidenced by the fact that Synthorax struggled to follow along at spots. But eventually he understood Spike’s instructions and mentally filed them away.

“I will see if I can’t be in touch with you again, then,” Synthorax promised with a nod and a grin, before turning to trot off, heading back into the depths of the hive.

Spike watched him go for a second then called after him. “Synthorax?” He watched as the younger brother of Thorax paused and turned to look expectantly back at him. He grinned hopefully as he gazed about at the hive walls and motioned to it. “Help keep the hive safe.”

Synthorax nodded his head, a determined look in his eye. “I will,” he vowed, then to Spike, he added, “Good luck.”

Spike nodded back. “You too.”

Synthorax grinned before turning and vanishing into the winding corridors of the hive, leaving Spike waiting at the entrance again, mulling upon the brief discussion. Luckily, he wasn’t waiting long before the others arrived, all one by one filing in and gathering to leave. Even though she would be remaining at the hive a while longer, Celestia was even present so to bid farewell to the departing ponies and dragon. As they made these final farewells and preparations to leave, Spike was filled in on the travel itinerary. They were going to travel back to the Vergilius on hoof—as there was no desire to leave it here—and then fly the air yacht on to Dodge Junction. Once there, their train should already be waiting for them, which would then take them on to Ponyville, Canterlot, or further still if needed—it seemed some of the others were still uncertain on where they ultimately wanted to be at the end of today’s travels too.

But before they left and were still gathering outside in preparation to start their long walk (currently Rainbow Dash was arguing with Luna, who was to lead, over whether or not those who could would fly ahead to the airship, as that would be faster), Spike, standing to one side while he waited, heard someone call his name, and turned in time to see Ember fly in for a landing next to him. Unlike before at Thorax’s funeral, Ember had regained her more trademark collected demeanor, but she still regarded Spike with a faint look of concern in her brilliant red eyes.

“So, you’re heading out, then?” she asked softly.

Spike nodded as he looked the dragoness over. She carried her scepter as usual, but Spike was surprised to see she had apparently retrieved the armor she had been wearing when she first arrived aboard the Vergilius and had donned it. “I take it you’re heading out too, then?” he asked.

Ember nodded and averted her gaze for a second as she played with the crystal handle of her scepter. Then, to Spike’s surprise, she dropped to her knees and pulled the littler dragon into a gentle hug.

“I’m sorry this had to happen to you, Spike,” she whispered softly, her sadness clear in her voice.

Spike timidly returned the hug. “So am I,” he murmured back.

Ember gave him a light squeeze. “Are you really sure you don’t want me to stay around?” she asked gently. “I can stay however long you need me to. I owe you that much.”

Spike almost agreed to let her, if only to humor her, but as much as he did want Ember’s support around him, he knew she had duties she would be shirking in the process. “I’m sure,” he told her. “Besides…the other dragons are going to need you where they’re at, because I’m sure all of this is going to work them up a great deal once word gets around, if it hasn’t already, and I’m also sure there’s going to be a bunch that can’t accept the idea of the changelings being friends now…you need to be there to tell them differently. You already know that.”

Ember went quiet for a moment. “You know, you could always come with me,” she offered suddenly, “if you need someplace to go. There’ll always be a place waiting for you in the Dragon Realms…if you want it.” She phrased it like it was a vow, and Spike didn’t doubt her on it.

But after only a moment’s pause, Spike slowly shook his head. “Thank you, Ember,” he assured her, “but I’ve already thought about it…and I think my place is still in Equestria.”

Ember’s expression immediately soured. “Equestria?” she asked in disbelief, pulling out the hug suddenly and holding Spike at arm’s length. “And just where in Equestria are you going to go after what’s happened?”

“I don’t know,” Spike admitted, who really didn’t, despite giving the subject some steady thought for most of the morning. “But…it’s still my birthplace, Ember, where I was raised. It’s still home to me.”

“Even after what they’ve done, to you especially, and every horrible thing they’ve brought about in this whole mess?”

“They still helped bring about a reformation in the changelings in the end, didn’t they? And they’ve done nothing but promote it since it started.”

Ember growled to herself. “They still haven’t earned such loyalty, Spike.”

“I agree, they haven’t,” Spike concurred without objection. “Look, Equestria’s certainly hasn’t won either of our favors lately, and I can’t blame you for having a grudge against them because in a lot of ways I still do too. But Ember…don’t forget what started this mess in the first place…it was because there were those who couldn’t see an enemy as anything other than an enemy…and as a result, they missed out on a chance to give that enemy the chance to change when they showed they wanted to, as well as improve relations for everyone else far sooner, making an utter mess in the process…and now they’re all living to regret it.” He shook his head at her. “Don’t make the same mistake they did.”

Ember studied him for a long moment, then, sighing, she released him. “Yeah…okay,” she said. “I…I don’t know if I can agree with all of that just yet…but, darn it…you’ve still got a good point.” She pulled herself up, using her scepter as support, and the two stared at each other for a long moment. She shook her head. “Why aren’t you the Dragon Lord?” she asked suddenly. “You’d be so much better at it than me.”

Spike made a sheepish grin to himself, embarrassed by the flattering comment. “You’ll learn,” he stated confidently. “Besides…I couldn’t lead the dragons. I don’t understand them, not like you do.” He shrugged to himself. “I guess there’s too much pony in me.”

Ember managed a small grin herself. “Maybe that’s not such a bad thing,” she noted aloud. She sighed and turned serious again. “If you ever need anything,” she stated seriously, “you know where to find me.”

“I do,” Spike agreed with a nod.

Ember nodded back, then, unsure what else to say, reluctantly turned to go. She had only taken a few steps though when she turned back suddenly.“You know, you almost sounded like Thorax for a second there,” she impulsively blurted out.

Spike’s gaze narrowed determinedly and had only one response to that. “Good.”

Ember looked at him blankly for a second, but then understanding registered in her eyes. Choosing not to comment on it, she resumed departing reluctantly while silently waving a farewell to Spike, which he returned. After walking a few feet, she spread her wings and took to the air, flying off. Spike breathed a sigh then turned to face the others again. Most were still debating amongst themselves and hadn’t seemed to have paid much attention to him and Ember, but Spike still noticed Twilight standing nearby quickly shifting her gaze, revealing she had been quietly observing. Given her close proximity, Spike wasn’t especially surprised and thus couldn’t bring himself to care at the moment, so he didn’t call her out on it.

Soon they were underway, beginning the long hike across the barren lands surrounding the hive back towards the parked airship. As he walked, Spike kept looking back at the changeling hive gradually getting smaller behind him, feeling odd about leaving it behind like this. In the back of his head, he knew it was more about how he was leaving Thorax behind, but he was trying hard not to bump that very raw nerve and wouldn’t let himself dwell on it. However, it didn’t help that the first stretch of their hike was very sullen and little was said between them. It felt almost like they were all actively trying not to interact with each other, feeling too awkward about it given the seriousness of the past few days’ events. It was clear there were still lingering tensions between them all and they didn’t want to risk getting caught up in all of that, but were finding they didn’t know what else they could do instead except keep walking in general silence.

Fortunately, that changed as they crossed into the acorn grove and its soothing tranquility, unhampered by recent events, enveloped them. That peacefulness seemed to take some of the edge off their lingering uneasiness. Starlight at one point suggested Spike explain to the others what he knew about the changeling beliefs concerning acorns, and thankful for the distraction, he proceeded to do so. The others seemed to show some interest in the subject, and a couple asked a few questions, Luna especially, but what stuck with Spike the most of the conversation was the fact that Twilight didn’t join in. He half-expected her nerdy half to take over and, being fascinated, milk Spike of everything he knew on the changeling beliefs, but instead she never once asked a question or even spoke. She, along with Shining Armor and Cadance (and by association, Flurry Heart but only because she was being carried by her mother) kept a respectable distance from the dragon during the entire hike.

At last they arrived at the Vergilius’s location, still exactly where it had been left, parked at the outer edge of the acorn grove and having been left virtually untouched in the meantime. Eager to be going and knowing how to operate an airship, Luna urged everybody aboard and after a quick inspection to make sure everything was still shipshape and there was indeed enough charge remaining in the engines to get them to Dodge Junction (so long as they didn’t tax the engines above a certain speed, she determined they would), she assumed control of the ship’s wheel so to get them airborne. The others all went below deck so to settle in for the trip, except for Spike, who remained above deck and gazing about with glazed, distant, eyes.

He found being back aboard very surreal and looked about the air yacht as if it was the first time he had boarded it in many years. Of course he knew that wasn’t true as it had only been a day—scarcely anything had changed on or out of the craft since he and the others had left it—but that was precisely why he found it almost unsettling. He still felt as if it had been years, and that everything should’ve changed about the craft. To see it hadn’t caused a disconnection in his mind that it wasn’t prepared to handle. He soon realized that it wasn’t the Vergilius that had changed though…it was him. He was coming back to this airship a changed dragon. And scarily, he wasn’t sure yet if that change was a good thing, a bad thing, or simply neither. Worse, he wasn’t sure which one he wanted it to be…let alone what one he needed it to be.

The most horrible part about it all though were all the little reminders of Thorax still aboard. The most heart-wrenching was finding Thorax’s midnight blue hoodie where he had left it when leaving the air yacht, and Spike realized its owner was never going to be coming back for it now. Reverently though, he collected up the hoodie and other possessions Thorax had left aboard and packed them away in his bags to take with him to…wherever that might be next. While they flew along, Spike also kept expecting to look and see Thorax proudly standing at the controls of his airship as before, and was dismayed—if not annoyed—every time to see Luna elegantly positioned there instead. It eventually bugged him enough that he decided he didn’t completely trust her piloting his friend’s airship alone and joined her in the control cabin, assisting as needed. Luna took note of his assistance but for completely different reasons.

“I see you’ve picked up a thing or two about flying airships over the moons, young Spike,” she observed finally after some minutes of this.

“I’m still no expert, but I guess so,” Spike admitted distractedly as he studied the yacht’s gas board. The readings on all of the gauges of course hadn’t changed since the last time he had checked, but he checked them anyway.

Luna watched him for a second out of the corner of her eye then turned back to flying the craft. “Have you considered what you will do with the Vergilius after this?”

Spike blinked and turned to look at her, confused. “Why are you asking me?” he asked.

“Do you not have a say in the matter?”

Spike frowned. “It’s Thorax’s airship…not mine,” he reminded slowly.

Luna turned her head to look at him again, her gaze soft. “Spike,” she said gently, “I am quite certain Thorax would’ve wanted the Vergilius be left to you in his stead.”

Spike’s frown deepened and he averted his gaze, eyes sweeping across the interior of the craft’s control cabin. He had already thought of this, but the idea made his stomach clench uncomfortably. “What would I do with an airship, though?” he asked sadly, then shrugged. “Besides, I’m not trained or licensed to fly it.”

“A matter that can be corrected,” Luna replied, but seeing Spike looking increasingly uncomfortable about accepting possession of it, she went on. “But only if you want to, of course. If you do not feel now is the time for that, I am certain we can work out other arrangements.”

“Like what?”

“Well, first of all, the engines will need recharging once we land at Dodge Junction or she will not be going much further than that. Fortunately, considering trade ships come and go from the town occasionally, they should have sufficient tools to do so there. Then we can have the airship moved to another location for storage until such time you decide otherwise.” Considering the matter a second further, Luna then had an additional thought. “Prince Shining Armor, as I recall, is permitted and trained to fly an airship…perhaps I shall turn the controls over to him and he and Cadance can use it to fly north for the Crystal Empire rather than take the notably slower train. Considering they have Flurry Heart with them and had concerns about not reaching home before nightfall, that could be to their benefit.” Realizing Spike might have issue with that though, she turned back to him. “But only if you approve, of course.”

Spike, however, just shrugged indifferently. “So long as it stays safe, I guess I can’t really argue,” he admitted, not finding any reason to deny Shining and Cadance the usage of the air yacht despite the feeling in his gut about it. “Just tell them to be gentle with her, and it’s just to get them home…they can’t keep the Vergilius.”

“Of course,” Luna agreed. She went silent for a moment. “Have you spoken with them yet?”

“Cadance and Shining? No, not yet, I’ve hardly had the chance to.” Spike frowned as he reflected on how little he had seen of the pony couple. “They’ve been avoiding me, haven’t they?”

Luna sighed. “Yes,” she admitted, “but even though that’s the case, I assure you, they do feel deeply ashamed for their role in all of this. I believe they wish to do something to try and make it up to you at some point, but as yet are unsure what and how.”

“Can’t say I blame them, I don’t even know what they could do to do that.” Spike sighed. “I’m sure that confrontation between me and them is going to have to come sooner or later…but I’m not eager to face the pain that’s going to have to come with, so…I’m okay in letting them avoid me for now.” Though, mulling over how his talk with Twilight had put him in a slightly better mentality, he went on. “I hope they’ll still eventually try someday though.”

“They will,” Luna assured. “They just wish to be sure that you will actually hear them out first, among other things.”

Spike blinked, confused. “What other things?”

Luna looked at him in mild surprise. “I assume by that then, you remain unaware of Cadance’s injury to her leg?”

Spike was further confused. “What happened to her leg?”

Luna dejectedly turned back to flying the airship as she explained. “When we all first learned that Thorax had…” she trailed off uncomfortably then decided to try a different approach, “…while you were still in the initial stages of your grieving, you threw off anyone trying to approach you and, during one of those instances, I fear your claws cut Cadance’s leg.” Upon seeing Spike go wide-eyed at this, Luna went on. “Do not fear, the wound will recover fine and no one blames you. Clearly, it was an accident.”

“It was,” Spike assured and stared at his claws for a second, stunned he had done this. Looking back, he dimly recalled feeling his claws connect with something at the time, but in his grief he had refused to dwell on it. In all that had happened since, he had nearly forgotten about it. “I didn’t even realize I had done it, to her no less…gosh, I feel so bad about it now…”

“Spike, you didn’t intend harm,” Luna stressed again, trying to soothe the dragon. “And nothing lasting was done.”

“That doesn’t mean it should be overlooked,” Spike grumbled before falling silent for a moment. Despite how bad he felt, he couldn’t bring himself to face Cadance about it just yet, so he looked hopefully to Luna. “Can you tell her I’m sorry for me?”

Luna’s look suggested she didn’t approve of Spike shirking the duty, but she still relented with the solemn nod of her head. “I will, at the next soonest opportunity.”

Spike went back to looking at his claws, ashamed that, intentionally or not, he had drawn blood with them. “No wonder she and Shining are avoiding me.”

“No one is blaming you for what happened, Spike. The situation at the time was…highly stressful. It wouldn’t surprise me if Cadance would sooner blame herself.”

“She shouldn’t,” Spike repeated, but he didn’t argue further.

The flight continued on without much event, and a little past noon they arrived in Dodge Junction as planned and Luna set the airship down so they could disembark. Being such a small town, Dodge Junction really only had a large fenced-off field with a steel docking tower at the center to land in, but it worked well enough for their purposes. Once Luna made arrangements with the scant-few ponies crewing the area so to have the ship refueled, she checked again with Spike if he had any special requests on what to do with the airship after that was done.

When he again deferred to Luna’s judgment on the matter, the princess went ahead and informed Shining Armor and Cadance that they were free to use the air yacht to return to the Crystal Empire, so long as it could be returned unharmed to Spike afterwards, as discussed before. According to Luna, Shining Armor stated that he doubted they could fly the craft all the way back to the empire before nightfall and reminded that the turbulent weather of the Frozen North made it hazardous for most airships to try and navigate anyway, a fact both Luna and Spike had forgotten. Regardless, Shining and Cadance accepted the offer, planning to fly for a town located at the edge of the Frozen North instead, and asked Luna (who grumbled about being the “unwilling messenger”) to relay to Spike both their thanks and a promise that they would return the craft unscathed at soonest convenience.

Their group thus reduced by three, those remaining continued for the train station and found their requested train already waiting for them as requested. It was a specially prepared train and was not full length. Besides the standard coal car and caboose, the train was only hitched to a standard galley car, a passenger car, and a sleeper car, all just enough to provide basic amenities for their passengers which the train’s crew knew in advance would include royalty. The train had been waiting long enough that it was already ready to go, they were just waiting for their passengers. So no sooner had they all boarded the train and settled into seats at random in the passenger car, the train jolted once and was quickly off, heading north for their next destinations.

Light conversation ensued during the first few minutes of the trip, as a few of them bantered with each other, but scattered as they were about the car (there was plenty of seating to do so), none of the conversation included the whole group. That changed when Rarity, watching the scenery roll past her window, spoke up optimistically.

“I will be quite glad once we’re all back home in Ponyville and the worst of this is behind us,” she spoke aloud and turned to look at the others riding with her. “Don’t you all agree?”

Spike, who had a seat to himself but not so far away that he was isolated from everyone else, looked up at Rarity. “All of us?” he asked aloud, finding the thought sounded very odd to him.

“Well, of course, Spike, unless you intend to be heading somewhere else,” Rarity replied with a kind smile.

Spike simply blinked to himself a couple of times, turning blank.

“Well, I for one am ready to be home again, if only so I can get back in my own bed,” Rainbow Dash took that chance to speak up and uncomfortably arched her back, popping it. “No offense to the changelings, but last night those moss beds of theirs really weren’t cutting it for me.”

“So yer first priority when ya git home is basically yer bed,” Applejack remarked, raising a questioning eyebrow, but there was a small tone of jest in her voice.

“Well,” Rainbow relented, “unless there’s something else you need me to do first.”

Pinkie Pie’s head suddenly poked up from over the back of her seat, looking eager. “Ooh! We can have a party celebrating our safe return home!”

But everyone immediately flinched at the idea. “I don’t think a party is the right thing to be having given the circumstances of late, Pinkie,” Starlight Glimmer pointed out gloomily, glancing knowingly at the party planner.

“Ohhh, good point,” Pinkie crooned thoughtfully, and glanced briefly at Spike. Spike, however, was lost in thought and didn’t notice Pinkie looking his way. But unperturbed by that, she tapped her hoof for a second, giving it some thought. “Okay, maybe not a party then…so how about a nice and relaxed…uh…luncheon instead?”

“That would be all good and fine,” Luna said as she turned her head to interject from where she sat at the front of the car, “but I would think it would be much closer to dinnertime than lunchtime by the time we reach Ponyville.”

“Fine, it can be a dinnereon instead,” Pinkie replied without missing a beat.

Luna rolled her eyes in good humor and didn’t debate it further.

“As nice as that all sounds though,” Applejack spoke up, “Ah’m a thinkin’ Ah’ll be busy with more important things t’night. After all, Ah reckon mah family’s worried sick ’bout me by now, and Ah sure as hay don’t want ta keep ‘em waitin’.”

“I might have to pass too,” Fluttershy added. “I think those changelings probably weren’t giving the animals at my cottage the attention they needed while I was away, and I’m just certain they’re going to need some tender love and care right about now.” She averted her gaze a little. “I certainly could.”

“And that’s why we’re having the dinnereon!” Pinkie contended. “It’s a chance for all of us to give each other all a bit of tender love and care by being all together again in Ponyville!”

Rainbow made a gagging noise. “Kinda coming across as extra sappy there, Pinkie,” she said.

“But a little sappiness is called for, Rainbow,” Pinkie persisted. “We’ll all be back in Ponyville like we should be, you, me, AJ, Rarity, Fluttershy, Twilight, Spike, Starlight, Trixie…it’ll be like nothing happened!”

“It’ll hardly be like nothing happened,” Trixie objected suddenly from where she was sitting beside Starlight. Pinkie’s cheery views on the matter weren’t sitting well with her. “And I’m not usually in Ponyville anyway, so why am I getting grouped into this?”

“It’ll almost be like nothing happened, then,” Pinkie amended undeterred, but otherwise ignoring Trixie’s comments.

She looked the group over expectantly, awaiting some sort of response. But the others glanced about at one another for a silent moment, uncertain about committing to the idea just yet.

“I’m not going back to Ponyville.”

All eyes turned to Spike suddenly, shocked for this unexpected announcement.

Spike, to his credit, looked apologetic for it, but he remained resolute. “I can’t,” he offered simply for explanation. “The idea just…” he trailed off, guiltily averting his gaze and unable to convey how sick to his stomach it made him feel.

The continued looks of shock he was getting from everyone else didn’t help. “Spike…” Rarity breathed, “…but why?”

Spike hung his head further. “I don’t feel like I’d belong there anymore,” he attempted to explain.

“Codswallop!” Applejack objected. “Ya belong there just as much as all the rest of us, Spike, no matter wut’s happened!”

“I don’t feel like I should be there, then,” Spike corrected. “Not…not after everything that’s happened.”

“But…but…” Pinkie started to object, looking crushed. “…everything’s supposed to be back to the way it was…”

“But Pinkie, that’s just it,” Spike said, sadly locking eyes with the pink mare. “It can’t be back to the way it was, and we shouldn’t try. Too much has happened. Too much has changed. I’ve changed. You’ve changed.” He shook his head. “I’m sorry. I really am. I…I don’t really want to do this, in a way, but…”

“Then don’t!” Rainbow said. “Spike, you’re just as much as part of this group as the rest of us!”

“It doesn’t matter if I am part of any group anyway,” Spike pressed on. “It’s just…I…I can’t do it. The thought of setting foot back in Ponyville…makes me feel awful…and I just can’t stop thinking…it’s not where I need to be anymore.”

A long and heavy silence fell upon the group as they tried to process this.

“Then where the hay are you going to go, Spike?” Trixie slowly asked.

Spike shrugged, there really only being one place left to him by process of elimination. “Back to Vanhoover, I guess.” He didn’t have any idea what he’d do there anymore than he would anywhere else, but he felt better about it than anywhere else at the moment. “That…that just seems like the place to go to right now…for me, at least.”

Another long moment of silence fell as they all continued to stare at Spike, many of them searching for some way to talk Spike out of it. But then Twilight, who had otherwise kept silent during all of this, rose and, moving slowly, approached Spike’s seat, the dragon watching her closely. Twilight’s face wasn’t too expressive, but it still wasn’t a happy looking face, and he feared what it was she might say. But when she arrived, she sat herself down, looking him over for a moment. Then she leaned over and gingerly pulled him into a hug, taking a deep breath in the process.

“I still have all of your Ponyville things,” she murmured gently as she embraced him. “I can have them shipped to you in Vanhoover, if you want.”

Spike hesitated, then realizing she was giving approval of his choice, sadly returned the bittersweet hug. “I’d like that, Twilight.”

Then, not speaking further on the matter, they pulled apart, and as the others continued looking on, Twilight walked back to her seat, considering the matter settled. “So wait,” Rainbow started to object, rising from her seat too. “You’re just going to let him go, Twi?”

“Yes,” Twilight answered simply as she sat back down.

“What the hay for?” Rainbow continued to protest, turning herself to keep facing Twilight.

“You don’t understand, Rainbow,” Spike said. He sniffled and wiped at his nose quickly, showing this wasn’t easy for him to decide either. “I need to do this. I…I wish I could explain it better, but…I just do.” He shrugged helplessly again. “Look, all I know is that…the next step for me…it’s not in Ponyville.”

“But if not there, then why Vanhoover instead?” Rarity asked.

Spike shrugged. “I gotta go somewhere,” he pointed out then sighed. “Besides…it’s home.”

“Ponyville is yer home last time Ah checked, Spike,” Applejack stated.

Spike looked over at her. “Not for the past four and a half moons it hasn’t, Applejack,” he replied pointedly.

Seeing his point, Applejack averted her gaze, ashamed. The others did likewise.

“But aren’t we all supposed to be getting off at Ponyville?” Fluttershy asked suddenly. She looked at Spike, concerned. “You’d be traveling the rest of the way all alone.”

“At least let one of us accompany you to Vanhoover, Spike,” Rarity added, agreeing.

Starlight raised her hoof, volunteering. “I…was thinking about heading up to my old village, see if I can make it in time to catch the tail end of the Sunset Festival taking place there to…sort of make up for missing it. So I could ride with you as far as Vanhoover on the way, Spike.”

Trixie frowned and looked at her friend. “But wouldn’t you have to change trains at Ponyville to get there? I thought the line we’re on now doesn’t go that far northeast, and…”

“Shush,” Starlight hushed, who was overlooking that detail.

Spike managed a small grin at the offer nonetheless. “Thanks anyway,” he said. “But I don’t want to keep any of you from your own homes. You all have your own places you need to be…mine’s just somewhere else.” He looked up and saw all of their sad faces, and sighed. “Don’t worry girls, really. I’m…I’m going to be fine, I just…I need to do this.”

The others all exchanged glances, not entirely convinced, but at the same time knowing they were in no good position to justify stopping him or objecting much further. One by one, they all started to bow their heads in surrender.

“I hope you find what you are looking for in Vanhoover then, Spike,” Luna spoke suddenly, the first time she had contributed to the discussion. Like Twilight, she seemed to be siding with Spike on the matter.

“Thank you, princess,” Spike murmured. He paused for a moment then rose from his seat, heading for the back door leading into the sleeping car. “Anyway…I’m…I’m going to go rest up a bit…it’s been a long day.”

They all quietly watched him slip into the next car then the rest of them all settled back into their seats, the mood in the car severely dampened as they all sulked.

“Can’t believe you’re just going to let him go like this, Twi,” Rainbow grumbled under her breath, folding her hooves grumpily as she stared at the floor.

Twilight didn’t reply right away as she sat in her seat, her gaze distant. “He has a life of his own now, Rainbow,” she replied finally. “We have to stop denying that and let him make his own choices.” She hung her head. “He’s certainly proven himself capable of that now.” She closed her eyes and sighed. “Besides…he needs some space.”

Luna turned in her seat to look at her. “That was a very brave, trusting, and mature choice you’ve made, Twilight,” she spoke gently. “I know it couldn’t have been easy to make.”

“It was what was needed,” Twilight murmured.

“So to give him that chance to recover, right?” Starlight asked of her mentor. “Like what you’re trying to do?”

Twilight’s gaze wandered to look out her window. “Who said that I was?”

The others only exchanged concerned glances at this.

Author's Note

Could've taken this chapter just slightly longer, but I wanted to keep it under 20,000 words, and I know 17,000 is pushing it for some readers, so I figured the remainder could work as an opener for the next chapter.

The changeling representative that gives a eulogy for Thorax, by the way, is the same changeling that's conducting the feelings forum in "To Change a Changeling" minus her shawl (as I figured she wouldn't have it yet). I'm saying this here, because as she doesn't even have a fanon name, I had to work off a physical description to convey her identity and I knew that was only going to go so far.

Also, I dropped an indirect reference to Pharynx in there...did y'all catch it? :raritywink:

Credit to DarkDMan who suggested a couple chapters back that Thorax be buried in/at the acorn grove. My initial plan had him being buried just outside the hive and even then he wasn't so much "buried" as he was placed on a pedestal and it along with him was transformed with changeling magic into the described statue, as that seemed like a very "changeling" sort of thing to do. But not only did the idea of burying him at the acorn grove strike me as beautiful especially considering the lore I've built around it, the more I thought about it, the more it also made sense the changelings would bury him, considering their beliefs. So I adapted my plans accordingly. :twilightsmile:

The epitaph for Thorax is actually a bunch of real Latin epitaphs that have been used, strung together into a logical phrase and adjusted as needed (originally it said "long in years," but as that didn't make sense seeing Thorax was dying young, I changed it to "short in years").

Julius, Synthorax, and Ember all have had their concluding scenes now. Except for possible mentions by name here and there in remaining chapters, their roles in the story have largely been completed now.

And to all those who feared Spike wouldn't be going back to Vanhoover...do you really think I would've spent all that time having him build a life there if I didn't plan to come back to it? I mean, seriously now... :twilightsmile:

Speaking of Vanhoover...guess who'll be popping back up next chapter? :raritywink:

Home

Spike retired to the sleeping car with the genuine intent to try and nap a little, but finding sleep fleeting, he ended up stretching himself out on a bed, staring at the ceiling, and quietly sulking. He remained there undisturbed for what had to have been a couple of hours, but mentally-speaking, he felt he put them to use. He was very consciously aware of Thorax’s absence in his life now, missing him terribly and feeling lonely as a result, so he worked to try and get himself to mentally adjust to the idea that, as horrible as it was to face, Thorax could no longer be there anymore. Slowly, he felt he’d made some progress towards this goal, but knew he still had a great deal more to go. Nonetheless, he didn’t want to let himself sit and weep as not only had he felt he had done plenty already, he didn’t see what good it would do. He still missed Thorax and he was still devastated over his friend’s death—this wasn’t changing anytime soon—but no amount of tears would change that now, and he knew it would only distract him from moving on in life…something he was starting to recognize was really the only but best thing he could do now. So he was working to do so.

He also figured he’d do it largely alone, but at the end of his stretch of time in the sleeper car, Princess Luna appeared and politely asked to enter, which Spike granted.

“Something wrong?” Spike asked the entering princess as he sat up to greet her.

“No, we’re still on route and should still arrive in Ponyville as scheduled soon,” Luna gently explained as she approached. “We simply haven’t seen you for some time now and I wished to ensure you were still doing well.” She tilted her head at him, studying him. “Are you?”

Spike pondered the question for a second. “Well…I’m still here,” he relented finally. “In all honesty though, I can’t really say I’m doing fine right now, can I?”

Luna lowered her gaze for a second. “I suppose not,” she conceded. “But I hope you are still improving, yes?”

Spike again thought about it. “I hope so,” he replied. He turned to gaze out the compartment window. “I still feel like there’s this big hole in my life now, without Thorax…I guess I’m still looking for ways to…address that.”

Luna followed his gaze, looking thoughtful. “Do you think you will find what you need to resolve that in Vanhoover?” she asked.

“Honestly, Luna?” Spike answered, glancing back at her, “No. This is a hole I don’t think will ever be filled in. But…I am hoping that…back in Vanhoover…I’ll find a way to make that hole…seem less obvious…” He winced to himself at how vague this sounded, “…if that makes any sense.”

“I believe I do understand,” Luna assured. She moved closer while nodding her head back in the direction of the passenger car. “It is more the others that I am uncertain understand. They have been left…rather moody…ever since you told them where you intended to go.”

“I’m sorry,” Spike admitted. “I didn’t mean to, honest. It’s just…”

Luna placed a hoof on his shoulder, interrupting. “I know,” she assured. “It needed to be said, and I agree with your choice, Spike. Though I know it does not satisfy everyone, I recognize that it will probably be the healthiest thing you could do for yourself presently. And I hope for your sake, we’re both right on that, and that the others will eventually come to understand too. I just ask that you keep looking after yourself and not let yourself fall into neglect.” She shook her head. “But no, I was more trying to get at the fact that…they weren’t expecting this train ride to end with a farewell like this. Do keep in mind that this will quite likely be the last time you all get to interact with each other for the foreseeable future. So after everything that has happened…perhaps they could use a send-off that will…reassure them that it isn’t done out of malice.”

Spike hummed to himself, staring out the window for a second longer as he watched the terrain outside speed past. He then turned himself around to face the princess again. “I don’t know if that can be done, Luna…”

“It is a suggestion, not a request,” Luna began by assuring. “But…wouldn’t it be nice to at least end it with one last huzzah as old friends though?”

Spike averted his gaze, clearly undecided.

“At any rate, the offer stands,” she repeated, and then she turned and exited the compartment again, leaving Spike alone once more.

Spike remained where he was sitting for a few more minutes, mulling upon that offer. In his mind, he wasn’t so sure trying would help, not when relations between him and the others were still so…strained. Further, he feared attempting would only give them the chance to try and talk him out of this, which scared him a bit—he wasn’t sure if they would succeed or not if they tried. But ultimately he knew the mares in the other car still meant something to him, and even though he knew he couldn’t stand with them anymore, he didn’t take joy in giving them yet another reason to mourn over recent events.

Luna had a point. He may be parting their company today, intending to pursue his own life, but that didn’t mean this parting needed to happen on such a low note.

So after another moment of debate, he rose to his feet and slowly stepped out of the sleeper car and quietly slipped back into the adjoining passenger car. He wasn’t immediately noticed as he entered and he took the chance to look things over. Twilight hadn’t moved from her seat since the last time he had seen her and was currently gazing vacantly out her seat’s window. Starlight Glimmer was seated nearby and would occasionally glance in Twilight’s direction, but she was turned to face the aisle running between the rows of seats. The rest, including Luna, were seated in a rough semi-circle, some in seats or some on the aisle floor, while Rainbow Dash was in the middle of somewhat haphazardly shuffling a deck of cards.

“I don’t know if we’ll really have time for another card game, Rainbow,” Fluttershy was remarking to the pegasus as she shuffled. “Aren’t we nearly there?”

Rainbow just shrugged. “Still need something to do between now and then, so might as well, right?” She kept shuffling the cards. “Any requests on what we play next?”

“Whatever it is, it should be a party game all of us can join in on,” Pinkie cheerily suggested. Then, without even turning, she spoke again. “Hi, Spike!”

Everyone looked up and turned to look at Spike standing at the door, surprised. Even Twilight turned her head to look. Feeling put on the spot suddenly, Spike sheepishly shuffled his feet. “Uh, hey,” he greeted back nervously. “Um…”

“Is everything all right, Spike?” Starlight asked, sitting up in her seat.

“Do you want to talk?” Fluttershy offered quietly.

“No,” Spike quickly said, then catching himself, shuffled about before moving closer to the encirclement. “Well, maybe…” he shrugged helplessly. “Actually…I’m not sure what I want, I just…” he sighed, trailing off before starting over. “Look…about me going to Vanhoover…”

Rainbow immediately perked up. “Did you change your mind about that?” she asked hopefully.

“No,” Spike admitted, shaking his head sadly. “But…”

Rainbow frowned. “Then what more is there to say, really?” she asked grumpily.

“Rainbow!” Rarity reprimanded, slapped the mare’s shoulder with her hoof. “Be a little understanding here! This is hard for all of us.”

“And I don’t want to make it harder for anyone,” Spike added, jumping on that point. “In fact…that’s sort of why I want to do this…it might not seem like it, but…I think it’d be easier on all of us if I didn’t go to Ponyville with the rest of you.”

“But I don’t get it,” Pinkie admitted aloud as she regarded Spike thoughtfully. “How would it be easier for us if we aren’t all together?”

“Pinkie,” Twilight suddenly spoke up without turning in her seat, “Don’t forget what our roles were in all of this, and what was done to get us to this point.”

An uneasy silence fell over them for a moment at this. Then before anything more could be said on the matter, the door leading to the next car ahead of them opened and one of the train’s staff poked his head in. “Excuse me, princess,” he said, directing his attention primarily towards Luna as she happened to be the first ranking pony in the room to meet his gaze, “but I thought you’d like to know that we will be arriving in Ponyville in about five to ten minutes.”

Indeed, as several in the group turned their heads to look out the nearest window, they saw that the terrain had transformed in the gracefully rolling hills familiar of the land outskirting the village and that the train had already begun slowing in preparation of pulling into its station.

“Thank you for the update,” Luna said to the staff pony. “We’ll make preparations accordingly.”

The pony then nodded his head and ducked back out of the doorway again, leaving the others to quietly turn and look at one another. A somber mood started to settle upon the group again as they all realized what this meant. A number of their gazes slowly started to shift towards Spike, who in turn avoided eye contact.

Rainbow played with the stack of cards in her hooves for a second before, heaving a sigh, she started to tidy up the stack so to slip them back into the box she had gotten them from. “Well, I guess that means we really won’t have enough time to play another game,” she mumbled aloud.

“I kind of wish we did,” Spike admitted suddenly while the others started to stand up, breaking the encirclement they had formed. “Maybe then I could’ve played too…you know, as one last fun time together before we…part ways.”

The others looked at him sadly.

“Y’know yer still welcome ta join us in Ponyville, right Spike?” Applejack reminded gently, deciding she might as well try one last time.

“I know,” Spike responded back, and heaved a sigh similar to Rainbow’s just a moment ago. “Thanks for offering.”

Rainbow frowned as she stuffed the cards back into their box before chucking it onto the floor grumpily. “We’re not going to talk you out of this, are we?” she concluded aloud, looking at Spike.

Spike hesitated only a second, but he still shook his head no. “It’s nothing personal, Rainbow…or at least I’m not trying to make it personal…it’s just…” he bit his lip, trying to figure out how to explain it in terms the others could understand, “…I need to find a way to…heal…after what’s happened…and I just don’t think I’m going to find it in Ponyville.”

Applejack doffed her stetson for a moment and played with it in her hooves for a second. “Well…Ah guess Ah can understand that,” she admitted slowly. “We’ve all got our own ways we gotta heal, an’ sometimes it’s somethin’ a pony—or a dragon Ah guess—has ta do on their own.” She bowed her head sadly. “Just hate havin’ ta see ya go like this, Spike…’specially after really seein’ ya fer the first time in so long.”

“Yeah,” Spike sigh in agreement, hefting himself up onto a nearby vacant seat, feeling awkward as the others watched him, loathe to part ways like this.

“We’re still friends though, right?” Rarity asked suddenly and a little anxiously.

Spike managed a small grin. “For the most part,” he confirmed. He shrugged half-heartedly. “And it’s not like you’re probably never going to hear from me again or anything like that. I can still write and all that.”

“Will you?” Rainbow asked seriously, sounding like she had her doubts about Spike’s genuineness on this claim.

“Of course I will, Rainbow,” Spike promised softly. “Hay, maybe I can still come and visit sometime in the future…it’s just…for right now…my place is somewhere else than Ponyville…and you know…maybe it coming to this was inevitable, and I was always going to leave someday anyway…Thorax or no.”

The conversation lapsed into another heavy silence for a moment as the group mulled upon this thought. Luna chivalrously returned herself to her original seat, withdrawing from the conversation with respect to the privacy of the others. Spike also noticed Twilight had turned herself away from the group so to silently stare out the window again, but even though he could only see the back of her head, he could tell she was deeply saddened by this too. But then moment was broken when Pinkie Pie abruptly bounded forward and grabbed Spike into a bear hug.

“We’re going to miss you so much, Spike,” she murmured to the dragon as she squeezed him tightly, eyes wet.

“We all are,” Fluttershy added, and she moved to, more gently, join the hug as well. “You need to know that we will.”

“Are you really sure you’re going to be all right traveling all the way to Vanhoover on your own?” Rarity asked as she leaned in to stroke Spike’s green spines. “It’s quite a distance to travel by yourself.”

“I’ve done it before,” Spike reminded, closing his eyes and savoring the feel of Rarity’s hoof running through his spines. “I’ll manage.”

“Besides, he will not be on his own the entire way,” Luna reminded, turning in her seat to speak despite her attempts to stay out of the conversation. “I will still be traveling with him as far as Canterlot, and of course the train staff will still be aboard the train seeing to his needs where necessary. I have already made arrangements with them for that. They will see he arrives there safely.”

“But what about afterwards?” Trixie spoke up and moved to approach Spike. Rarity, Pinkie, and Fluttershy all moved away from Spike so to allow her space to do so. “Being a traveler myself, I know what it’s like to be alone in a big city. It’s an intimidating thing to face…Spike, I don’t want to tell you what to do, but…are you sure you’re ready for that?”

Spike shrugged. “I’ve done it before,” he said again.

But Trixie shook her head knowingly. “You and I both know you haven’t, not really, not like this.”

Spike felt the pit of his stomach sink at that, knowing she was right about it being a half-truth—he had Thorax by his side last time. But he forced that thought from his mind and instead looked up at Trixie, trying to look confident. “I’ll manage, Trixie. Besides…what are you going to do when you get back to Ponyville? Climb right into your wagon and trot off into the sunset? You’ve done it before.”

Trixie guiltily averted her gaze. “Maybe not this time,” she murmured. “I might have done it before…but I’m not so sure I want to this time.”

Starlight moved to the side of her friend, wrapping one hoof around her. “You’re welcome to stay in Ponyville as long as you like, Trixie,” she said, then turned to Spike. “I know you’ve already decided what you’re doing, Spike…but know you’re still welcome to as well.”

“I know, Starlight,” Spike said, and he surveyed the whole group with a small grin. “And…I do appreciate it. Really. But…” he nodded his head to himself. “Rainbow’s right…I’ve already made up my mind.”

There was a sudden jolt running through the train cars and Starlight looked up and out the closest window in time to see Ponyville’s train station start to slide into view just outside. “Well,” she announced as she turned to the others, “we’re here.”

Nobody moved. The train jolted again as it came to a full stop.

Then Twilight suddenly rose to her hooves. “Right then,” she said simply as she started for the car hatchway so to disembark.

“Twilight, you’re really just going to let him go like this?” Rainbow objected, staring at the mare as she moved to exit the train. “Are you not even going to try to object?”

Twilight stopped at the still-closed hatchway and heaved a mighty sigh. “I can’t tell him what to do, Rainbow,” she stated firmly. “He knows what he needs better than I do, and after all, I clearly don’t always know what’s right.” Her eyes locked with Spike, sitting farther up the row of seats from where she stood. “Besides…I think he’s making the right choice.”

She moved again to disembark, pulling open the door leading off the train with her magic, but before she could step off, Spike spoke up. “Twilight,” he called, catching her attention. He suddenly felt anxious that he had to say something to her before they parted ways like this, but the words caught in his throat under her awaiting gaze. He fumbled about for a moment, unsure what to say. “Goodbye,” he finally said, simply and softly.

Twilight nodded. “Goodbye,” she echoed back sadly. She then stepped off the car.

Spike then turned his gaze to the others, waiting for them to move to exit the train too, but they were all slow to start. Finally Rarity moved back to Spike’s side to give him a quick but loving squeeze. “Do look out for yourself out there, Spike,” she murmured as, to somewhat to Spike’s shock, the fashionista brushed her snout against his cheek in a caring nuzzle. “And please…do come back and visit soon.” She then tapped a quick peck on the dragon’s cheek and somberly turned to go. Spike rubbed his cheek numbly, feeling his heart flutter slightly, but not anywhere near the normal amount it’d normally would when he received such affection from Rarity—it was all too bittersweet for that this time.

Pinkie then grabbed him for another bear hug. “What Rarity said,” she murmured, sniffling loudly. Then, though she clearly didn’t want to, she released him and went to exit the train too.

Fluttershy chose not to hug Spike, but she did briefly put her hoof on his shoulder in a caring manner. “I’m sorry you feel like you have to do this, Spike,” she said. “But I hope you…get to feeling better soon.”

Spike had to grin a little how she made it seem like he was just down with the flu, but he understood her intent. “Me too, Fluttershy.” As Fluttershy turned away to exit the train, Spike’s eyes fell upon Trixie, who was gazing at him long and vacantly, as if deep in thought. “I’m going to be okay, Trixie,” he promised, reading her thoughts.

“You sure?” Trixie asked. “Because…I think whatever you’re feeling about all of this…is probably not too different to what I’m…going through.”

Spike blanked out for a second as he considered that, knowing there was some truth to it. But not completely. “Trixie, to be perfectly honest…I really don’t think I do understand entirely what you’re going through. Thorax was my best friend…but you were on a whole different level than that with him.”

Trixie choked back something that sounded strongly like a suppressed sob. “Maybe we were,” she admitted, perhaps more to herself than to Spike. “See you later, Spike,” she then concluded, and with more reluctance than anyone else, slowly headed for the exit, dragging her hooves along the way.

Starlight gazed worryingly after her. “I wish I could do more for the both of you,” she murmured, turning her gaze back to Spike.

“Just don’t forget yourself in the process,” Spike advised, seeing sadness in the unicorn’s eyes too. “You’re going to need to heal a bit too, aren’t you?”

Starlight averted her gaze for a second, but then returned it, nodding. “Yeah,” she admitted. “It’s just…I don’t want to shirk the needs of others in the process…and I’m not sure how I ought to, anyway.” She chuckled weakly, shaking her head. “Part of me kind of wants to do what you’re basically doing…just run away from it all, and…start over.”

Spike was quiet for a second. “That’s not what I’m doing at all, Starlight,” he assured her. “I’m just…trying to pick up from where I’d left off…the best thing either of us can do right now is…just move on.”

“I know,” Starlight murmured. She rubbed her fetlocks with one hoof. “I did mean it when I said was willing to ride with you to Vanhoover.”

“You weren’t about going back to your old village though,” Spike replied pointedly. “Trixie was right. You’d have to change trains here in Ponyville to get there…and that wouldn’t take you anywhere near Vanhoover.”

Starlight shrugged, not denying it. “It made for a good excuse, though,” she said with a sad grin.

Spike nodded to himself. “And maybe it’ll still be a good thing for you to do, if you’re up for it,” he reasoned, thinking out loud. Leaving that thought hanging in the open, he then turned to the window, nodding his head at Twilight standing outside on the platform. “Help her get through this too, please.”

“I’ll certainly try, Spike,” Starlight promised, following his gaze. But she looked uneasy. “But honestly I’m not sure she’s going to let me. She just might have to get through this on her own too.”

Spike kept gazing at Twilight, noting how very lost she looked right now. “Still try and help her where you can,” he urged.

“I will.” Starlight then pulled him in for a gentle hug too. “You take care, Spike.”

“You too, Starlight,” he said, then, almost at the last second, added, “thank you everything you’ve done during all of this.”

Starlight smiled sadly as she pulled away. “It wasn’t enough…but you’re welcome.”

As she then turned and walked off, Applejack moved in to take her place, still holding her hat to her chest with one hoof. “Ya really sure ya want ta do this, sugarcube?” she asked Spike.

“I don’t know if it’s that I want to do this, Applejack, but rather I feel I need to,” Spike responded. “But…I guess the answer’s still yes, all the same.”

Applejack nodded to herself for a second. “Ah just wantcha ta know, that…no matter wut’s happened…there’s always gunna be a place fer ya in Ponyville…if ya ever need it.”

Spike nodded, understanding. “Thank you, Applejack,” he said. “I’ll try to remember that.”

“See that ya do,” Applejack said with a snort, but then she grinned sadly as she returned her hat onto her blond mane. She playfully tapped him on the shoulder with her hoof. “Ya stay out of trouble, ya hear?”

“No arguments from me on that,” Spike assured with a grin, nodding his head in farewell at her, a motion she returned as she turned to exit the car too. This just left Rainbow Dash, who stood in the aisle fidgeting, torn between remaining where she was and joining the others outside the train. Seeing how conflicted she was, Spike nodded his head at the hatchway. “They’re waiting for you, Rainbow.”

Rainbow frowned, and her gaze wandered wildly about the train car as she sought an appropriate response. “You’re really serious about this, aren’t you?” she asked, though it was clear she already knew the answer.

Spike gave it again anyway. “Yeah.” He gazed at the troubled pegasus for a long moment, understanding her hesitation. “I’m going to be fine, Rainbow…you don’t need to worry about me.”

“Well, I’m gonna anyway,” Rainbow retorted with a light snort. She shook her head. “Look…I do get it, at least kind of…it’s just…I don’t like leaving you behind like this. We weren’t there for you before, and that was a blunder and a half of absolutely epic proportions…I sure as hay don’t want to do it again.” She swallowed heavily. “…I don’t think I could handle that.”

“I know,” Spike replied. He tried to give her an encouraging grin. “But it’s okay, Rainbow. No one is being abandoned this time. We all just…moving on. And that doesn’t have to be a bad thing…does it?”

Rainbow’s frown deepened. “Feels like it should,” she mumbled. Her gaze wandered about awkwardly for a moment, looking turbulent. But then she jabbed her hoof determinedly at the dragon. “If you ever need anything, just shout, and I’ll come racing, got it?”

“Got it,” Spike replied with a nod.

Rainbow nodded back. She bit her lip and then her eyes were suddenly quite sad. “Sweet Celestia, Spike, it’s not going to be the same not having you around.” She sniffed and turned her gaze heavenward for a second, before returning it to Spike. She didn’t look any more composed than before, though. “But…if that’s that, then…see ya…I guess.”

“See ya, Rainbow,” Spike replied back.

Then Rainbow stepped off the train as well. Luna, still sitting in the front some rows ahead of him, turned her head to look back at him. “You’re welcome to come sit up here, if you want,” she offered.

“Thanks Luna, but I think I’ll stay here, if you don’t mind,” Spike replied back, not leaving his seat.

He wasn’t sure if she actually didn’t, but as she had thus far before, she respected his choice and did not protest. While she went to alert the train staff that they were ready to leave, Spike turned to gaze out the window at the mares gathered outside, slowly working at regrouping and not entirely right where Spike could see them all. Their attention wasn’t fully on the train anymore until Spike heard without looking the hatchway door slide shut again and felt the train jolt briefly as it slowly started forward, and suddenly everypony’s eyes were back on the train, many of them picking out Spike peering out at them from his window. Almost on automatic, Spike raised one set of claws in farewell. Most of the ponies on the platform returned the wave, but the pony Spike was directing it the most at, Twilight, did not, though she did jerk one leg faintly as if she was about to. Instead, she just stared at Spike as the train proceeded to roll away faster and faster, as if she couldn’t take in what was happening.

And then the train station was gone from Spike’s view, and as the train accelerated, soon so was Ponyville, and the terrain was back to open rolling hills once more. His heart feeling heavy in his chest, Spike closed his eyes and let his head rest against the glass of the window with a soft thump. He remained like that for a moment, sullen and feeling isolated, when he felt someone sit down on the seat beside him. Thinking it was Luna, he turned and was instead shocked to see that it was Trixie, unobtrusively gazing down at the floor. Stunned into silence, he sat there gaping at her for a long moment, trying to process this turn of events.

What was going through his head must have been clear on his face though, because Trixie glanced in his direction and forced a small smile. “I decided climbing in my wagon and trotting off into the sunset could wait,” she murmured. “Besides, you can’t fool the Great and Powerful Trixie.” Her smile faded as her gaze turned sad. “You do need the company.”

Spike just sat there at a loss of words for a long moment, mouth moving up and down uselessly as it tried to form unspoken words. He felt his eyes tear up a little and he wiped at them with his claws. “Thank you,” he finally whispered.

Trixie nodded. “You’re welcome.”

They said little more during this next stretch of their journey and spent of most it gazing in opposite directions from each other, as if uncomfortable or unsure. But it seemed they didn’t need more than that—just knowing they had the presence of the other seemed to be comfort enough. At the very least, Princess Luna didn’t seem to have issue with it. She would routinely turn her head to look back at them, making sure they were still doing okay, before turning back without comment. Whenever she did this, Spike would often study her face, try to determine what she was thinking, but he found Luna to be quite unreadable and it left him wondering just what might be going through her mind. Of course, Spike wasn’t entirely sure what he thought either, as part of him said to himself that he could’ve managed without Trixie…yet another part of him was eternally grateful to be having the magician there to support him nonetheless, leaving him feeling a bit more at ease over what still lay ahead.

He found it odd, really. Less than a week ago, he could barely tolerate Trixie at all. But now he realized he understood her on a level he hadn’t before, and saw that, in some ways, he and she weren’t so far apart. In a way, he could see why Thorax had been so quick to support her. Spike was at least glad he could consider her something akin to a colleague now.

They arrived in Canterlot without event and with startlingly little said between them that whole time. As Luna disembarked from the train, leaving only Spike and Trixie still aboard, all she said was to again apologize deeply for the two of them having to be put through “such horrible circumstances,” to wish them both the best of luck, a hope if not a promise that they could all meet again soon, and to bid a fond farewell for now. To Spike, Luna promised that she intended to take whatever action would be necessary to prevent events such as this from having to be repeated, and Spike found he could take some small comfort in that—he couldn’t doubt for a second that Luna meant it.

But then they were traveling onwards again, leaving Canterlot behind too. As they drew nearer to Vanhoover, evening began to settle upon the land and the sun started to sink into the horizon. Around then was when a unicorn mare entered the passenger car, said a small dinner could be prepared, and asked Trixie and Spike if there was anything in particular they wanted to eat. Upon considering it though, neither of the two remaining passengers could find the want for anything specific, so they agreed to have the mare bring whatever would be routine for the meal. The mare then vanished for a while so to prepare the meals before reappearing again with two trays apiece for them, politely hoofing them over to enjoy. Spike found that the meal was, to his surprise, composed of au gratin potatoes with melted cheese sprinkled atop, a dollop of macaroni and cheese, and a couple of celery sticks as a side dish—the exact same meal Thorax had gotten for Spike when they were fleeing for Vanhoover in the first place. Spike wasn’t sure whether to laugh or cry over this particular coincidence, but his hungry stomach soon had him downing the meal regardless, not stopping until his tray was cleared. Trixie ate similarly, confessing aloud that she hadn’t realized she was so hungry. Spike knew the feeling.

As the evening dragged on and the outside of the train grew darker than the inside, the contrast in lighting allowed Spike to more clearly see his reflection in his window. He spent some long moments studying his sad face before realizing with a jolt that he was returning to Vanhoover and wasn’t wearing everything of his trademark disguise. He immediately went to pull out his false eyeglasses to don, only to remember yet again of the lens that had been cracked in them, making them impractical to wear. With a heavy heart, he held the glasses in his claws, staring at the broken lens, until Trixie noticed.

“Here,” she said, taking the glasses from him with her magic. “I think I can fix that for you.” Tapping the cracked lens to the tip of her horn, she cast a passive spell that quickly made the cracks recede in upon themselves, restoring the lens.

Spike accepted them as Trixie hoofed them back over and placed them upon his snout again, a small restless part of him being quieted at the item being restored to its proper place. “Thanks,” he murmured back. He went back to studying his reflection again, noticing for the first time that the glasses really did make him look like a different dragon at first glance.

Trixie quietly watched him for a long moment. “Why do you keep wearing those when you don’t need to now, anyway?” she asked.

Spike didn’t answer, but only because he found he actually couldn’t—he didn’t actually know why he was still wearing the glasses, or anything of his old Spark disguise. So instead, he asked Trixie a question. “Why are you really coming with me to Vanhoover anyway?”

Trixie averted her gaze, turning sullen again. “I guess I wanted to make sure you actually arrived in Vanhoover safely,” she admitted after a momentary pause.

Spike snorted softly, a little amused. “What, did you think if you didn’t that I was going to throw myself off the train the next time it went over a deep ravine?”

Trixie wasn’t amused at all and remained sullen. “The thought did cross my mind.”

Spike’s amusement quickly evaporated as he saw how serious she was being. With a sigh, he turned away from the window and let himself lean back in his seat, sinking heavily into the cushions. He was quiet for a long moment as he mulled upon how he ought to respond. “You need not worry, Trixie,” he mumbled at last. “I couldn’t do that to myself.” He let himself sink a little further into his seat. “I guess I’m too afraid to even consider it.”

At this though, Trixie grinned a little, looking both relieved and amused. “I guess it’s true what they say then,” she said as she turned her gaze away from him. “Fear really will save your life.”

Spike smiled a little too, but it was short-lived. After thinking about it for a second longer, he decided he needed to ask the question too. “What about you, Trixie?”

Trixie, to her credit, seemed taken aback by the question, but only for a second. She stared down at the floor. “Nah,” she replied. “I don’t see what good it’d do anybody anyway…it’d just make even more ponies sad in the end.” She went quiet for a second. “Besides…I can just picture what Thorax would probably think of it if he were here.”

“He’d be giving us a good telling off for even bringing it up is what he’d be doing,” Spike mumbled, but the thought brought a small grin to his face. Odd how this cheered him like that.

“It’s for the better anyway,” Trixie went on. She averted her gaze as if embarrassed, but she managed to make a small smile too. “I have no desire to lose another friend.”

Spike didn’t respond back to that initially, but it did make him think long and hard over how that was basically the first time Trixie had referred to him as a friend. “Thorax was right,” he abruptly blurted out. He glanced at Trixie, studying her. “There really is more to you that what meets the eye, isn’t there?”

Trixie blinked to herself a few times, looking slightly taken aback. “Did he say that?” she asked softly.

Spike nodded. “He did.”

Trixie hummed to herself, and then it was her turn to lapse into deep thought.

It was well into the night before they started to arrive at Vanhoover. The closer they got, the more Spike was struck by the déjà vu of it all, recalling how similar this all felt to the first time he had arrived in Vanhoover four and a half moons ago, back in the beginning. He found that if he closed his eyes, he could just barely imagine the train car still filled with a smattering of late-night travelers, recall the pit of dread he had held in his stomach at the time, and envision Thorax cat-napping in the seat beside him…so much so that at one point he turned to look beside him and was briefly startled to remember that it was Trixie that was sitting beside him. He decided after that incident that he must be getting pretty tired.

Because their train was approaching Vanhoover from the direction opposite Spike and Thorax had first entered the city all those moons ago, the train pulled into Vanhoover’s southern station instead of the north this time. Regardless, he found that the station appeared almost identical to the north, and starting to get glassy-eyed thanks to the late hour, he almost didn’t realize they had arrived, even though he was staring directly at the station’s sign as the train slowed to a stop. Given the late hour, he fully expected to again be left standing at an empty train station, uncertain on where to go, as he and Trixie collected their things and disembarked. But to his surprise, there was someone already there waiting for them, pacing anxiously back and forth on the platform and whom Spike recognized immediately.

“Fly Leaf!” he declared in surprise.

The pumpkin orange mare, looking much as she always had, turned at his shout immediately. “Spike,” she murmured back and quickly galloped up to him, grabbing him in a hug.

Spike didn’t return it though and numbly just stood there, stunned to see his employerand friend here waiting for him. A horrifying thought soon leapt to the forefront of his attention—did she even know? “Fly…Thorax…Thornton…he…he’s…” he felt his throat close up as he struggled to figure out how to even begin to explain what had happened, his eyes start to tear up at the thought of trying.

But Fly Leaf spared him from that. “Shh,” she gently shushed, “I already know.” She squeezed him tighter as her voice turned deeply sad. “I’m so sorry, Spike.”

Spike still failed to return the embrace, slow to understand. “But…how?” he breathed, trying to blink away the tears that had gathered in his eyes.

“The details were explained to me this morning thanks to the princesses,” Fly explained, but then she waved the matter side and pulled out of the embrace, holding Spike by the shoulders. “But more about that later, let’s see to you first. Have you eaten?”

Spike wiped at his eyes. “A little, on the train.”

“Oh, well, those train meals are never filling enough,” Fly concluded in her usual manner that drew a small smile from Spike. She patted him on the back as she stood. “Let’s get you back home and get something proper in you.” Seeing Trixie standing awkwardly to one side and uncertain how to proceed, Fly motioned her to follow with one hoof. “C’mon, you too.”

Approval given, Trixie quickly hurried forward to join the pair as they walked across the platform and out of the station. She still didn’t speak though until they were about halfway down the first city street. “Trixie Lulamoon,” she finally and sheepishly introduced herself to Fly Leaf, offering a hoof to shake.

Fly warmly accepted it with a quick shake, the most she could do without stopping. “Fly Leaf,” she greeted back. “It’s nice to at last be properly introduced to you, Trixie.”

Trixie blinked blankly a few times at that comment, unsure how to interpret it, but ultimately she chose not to question it or comment further and instead lapsed into silence as she followed Spike and Fly Leaf through the dark streets.

Fly’s shop was a good few blocks away from the train station requiring a lengthy walk to get back to, but it seemed as if the trip was quick and short, for before Spike knew it, they were arriving outside its humble front. Though it was difficult to see all the details this late at night, Spike was still relieved that the shop seemed completely unchanged since he had last seen it, except for one detail—where the window in the shop’s front door should’ve been, a brown tarp had been taped over it.

“What happened here?” Spike asked while Fly unlocked the door to let them in.

“Oh, the window got broken by the city guards,” Fly replied distractedly, barely glancing at it as they entered. Seeing Spike’s face though, she went on. “Don’t worry, I’m being compensated fully for it. It’ll be as good as new as soon as I can arrange for a new pane of glass to be fitted for it.” She turned for the batwing doors leading back into the kitchen. “Now, let me see what I can come up for us to eat…”

Spike let her go, instead ambling idly about the darkened front room of the shop, struck by nostalgia. Like he had felt when boarding the Vergilius again, he felt as if he was returning here for the first time in years, and he couldn’t help but stop and take in the familiar sights again, running his claws caringly over the front desk. Trixie, meanwhile, also moved about taking in the wood paneled interior, but she did so as if she was seeing the inside for the first time. The two said nothing while they did this. In fact, Fly Leaf was heard saying more than either of them, as she could be heard occasionally mumble to herself from within the kitchen, her voice carrying clearly in the stillness within the building.Before long though, Fly Leaf was ushering them back into the kitchen and to sit at the round dining table, having already set it with three portions of salad, a bottle of salad dressing, and a bowl of rolls.

“I’m sorry it’s not anything more elaborate,” Fly apologized as they sat down to eat. “But given how late it is already, I didn’t want to keep you two up and waiting to eat too long.” She forced a sympathizing grin. “I’m sure it’s been a long day for you both.”

“Yeah,” Spike murmured distractedly as he picked up his fork and twirled it hesitantly in his claws. He kept gazing in the direction where Thorax normally would’ve sat at the table, not missing that Fly had left this spot vacant.

Trixie, meanwhile, simply murmured her thanks and scooped up the bottle of dressing in her magic. After squirting enough onto her salad to heavily drench it with ranch dressing, she took a fork and quietly started eating. Spike proceeded to follow suit much more slowly, at first spending some moments just picking at his salad before finally lifting up a bite to eat. After he had done a couple of bites like this, he slowed to a stop mid-chew and looked down at the next mouthful he had scooped up with his fork. He noted the off-white cheese that had been shredded atop of it, recognizing the flavor.

“Thornton Cheese?” he asked Fly Leaf curiously.

Fly looked up from her plate at him briefly, then back down at it again. “Oh, yeah, yeah it is,” she remarked as if she was just realizing this. “I’d…just grabbed it and put it on out of habit.”

“Thornton Cheese?” Trixie asked, not following.

“Thorax made it,” Spike explained softly.

Trixie blinked and looked down at her plate with renewed respect. They resumed eating for a few moments.

“How much of that do we have left, anyway?” Spike asked Fly next.

“The cheese?” Fly asked then rolled her eyes upwards as she thought about it. “A fair bit, actually.” She returned her gaze to Spike knowingly. “We’re going to have to eat it all soon, though, or it’s probably going to spoil.”

“I know,” Spike murmured. He managed a sad half-smile. “Fortunately, it goes well on a whole lot of things, it seems.”

“It’s just…” Fly bit her lip briefly, “…once it’s gone…it’s gone.”

Spike thought about that for a second. “Thornton might have left the recipe for it lying around somewhere,” he reasoned aloud.

Fly shook her head. “I don’t know how to make cheese, Spike.”

Spike poked at his salad idly for a second. “We’ll have to cross that bridge further when we come to it, anyway.”

They resumed eating for a few minutes. Then Fly finally asked the question.

“How are you two handling all of this?” she asked gently.

Spike and Trixie looked up at her, then at each other, unsure how to respond for a moment.

“Probably not well,” Trixie admitted, running her fork around the edge of her half-emptied plate.

“Me neither,” Spike admitted as well with a heavy sigh. He felt the tell-tale sting of tears wanting to form in his eyes, but he forced them back. “I knew I was going to miss him…but I never realized just how much I was actually going to.” He perked up faintly. “But…at least I can take comfort in knowing that I’m not the only one.”

Fly made a weak grin that vanished again as quickly as it had appeared. “I know he meant a lot to the both of you,” she said knowingly.

“More than I think you realize, Fly,” Spike said longingly, and again he stared at the vacant spot at the table Thorax should’ve been filling. He shook his head. “Just when I’d think I’d got a handle on it all…something would pull me back to new lows again…attending his burial was just about—” He suddenly stopped, going wide-eyed in shock as he locked eyes with Fly. “The burial! Oh balani devoveo, Fly, you missed it! I’m…I’m sorry…I didn’t…”

“It’s okay, Spike,” Fly interrupted, gently trying to wave the matter aside.

“No, it’s not, you should’ve been there too,” Spike persisted, upset at this oversight.

“Spike, I’m pretty sure I never could’ve been able to have made it,” Fly pressed. “I only got out of jail this afternoon, after all.”

“She’s right then,” Trixie remarked, turning to Spike. “The burial was over well before noon.”

Spike stared sadly at his plate of salad. “I still feel awful over it.”

“Well…I can pay my respects plenty of other ways too, Spike,” Fly reasoned gently.

A somber silence fell for a moment.

“You were in jail?” Trixie asked Fly suddenly, shifting the topic.

Fly nodded. “I, ah, sort of got in trouble for helping Spike and Thorax escape Vanhoover when Princess Twilight found them.”

“I’m sorry,” Trixie apologized, sympathizing.

Fly grinned a little. “Don’t be. I’d do it again in a heartbeat. Besides, it wasn’t as bad as you’d think. At least they didn’t put me anywhere near maximum security.”

“How’d you find out what happened anyway, Fly?” Spike asked, realizing Fly still hadn’t explained.

“Same way I found out you were coming back to Vanhoover, Spike, and where there waiting for you at the station,” Fly replied. “I got a letter explaining things from the princesses.” She bowed her head a little, reflecting back upon it. “It was actually rather heartfelt…though I wasn’t really thinking about that at the time…obviously.” She shook her head. “Actually, that was where I got the details, but it was from the prison guard that I first found out the basics.” Her gaze turned distant. “They woke me up this morning telling me they had good news and bad news. The good news was that I had been exonerated of all charges and I was to begin preparations to go free immediately…then he gave me the bad news.” She closed her eyes and bowed her head suddenly, but not before the other two caught sight of the glimmer of tears in her eyes. She took a long moment to try and steady herself. “Spike, tell me honestly…did he die peacefully?”

Spike was quiet for a long moment, knowing quite well he couldn’t possibly answer that he had. “He died doing what was right and making a difference by helping others, Fly,” he replied instead, “and you and I both know he wouldn’t have wanted it any other way. I think that’s more important to remember.”

Fly managed a sad grin, but she didn’t seem too comforted. “Yeah.” She took a deep breath and resumed eating her salad for a moment. “He was a good friend, wasn’t he?”

“The absolute best,” Spike replied immediately. He closed his eyes for a moment too. “I don’t know how I’m going to go on without him by my side, Fly…I know I have to now…but I still…don’t know how.” He then glanced in Trixie’s direction. “I can’t imagine how it must be for you, Trixie.”

Trixie averted her gaze, playing with her food again, and didn’t reply.

“How close were you and Thornton anyway, Trixie?” Fly asked the mare.

Trixie was slow to reply. “We were…good friends too, Miss Fly.”

A heavy silence fell upon the group. “Ah,” Fly replied curtly, but she didn’t speak further. Spike fell silent entirely.

The rest of the meal was eaten without speaking after that.

Spike was last to clear his plate, and when he did, he let his fork fall onto his plate with a clatter before slumping back. He quietly debated to himself for a second. “Fly, how are things…upstairs?”

Fly glanced at him knowingly. “I’ve already been up to look,” she replied. “Everything’s pretty much still as you had left it…it seems the guards didn’t really mess around much in there.”

Spike nodded to himself then rose to his feet. “Right then…guess I’ll be heading for bed then.”

Fly rose to her hooves as well to gently stop him. “Are you sure?” she asked. “No one’s making you go back up there, Spike. There’s plenty of other places you could spend the night if needed.”

But Spike shook his head, his mind made up. “I’m going to have to do it sometime, Fly,” he reminded her. “And the more I put it off…the harder it’s only going to get, so…might as well get it over with now…like pulling off a band-aid.”

Fly didn’t seem convinced, but she removed her hoof regardless. “If you’re sure, then,” she relented. “Just…don’t hesitate if you need anything at all…even if it’s just…a shoulder to lean on.”

Spike managed a small grin. “Of course, Fly,” he promised. He then turned and slowly walked out of the kitchen, heading for the stairs.

Fly watched him go, sighed, then turned and saw Trixie had finished eating and motioned for her to follow. “Well then, I guess that just leaves getting you settled in, Trixie. Will you be okay sleeping on a couch, or will you want a full bed?”

“Oh, I don’t want to intrude, Miss Fly,” Trixie started to object.

“You are doing nothing of the sort, Trixie,” Fly persisted. “Besides, I couldn’t possibly turn you away this late at night.”

Trixie hesitated then rose to her hooves to follow the earth pony mare. “In that case…a couch would suffice.”

Fly grinned and again motioned for the unicorn to follow her. “This way, then.” She led Trixie further into the back of the building and into the living room, pulling out a blanket and a pillow Trixie could use to sleep on the couch. “You sure you don’t want the bed?” she asked again as Trixie started to get herself settled in for the night. “I mean, my couch is great, but it’s not that great.”

“Nah, Trixie’s slept on worse before, trust me.” Trixie assured her with a grin. Her expression then softened. “I do want to thank you though…you’re being very accommodating.”

Fly grinned, humbly looking down at the floor. “Any friend of Thorax’s is a friend of mine,” she assured. “Now, if you need anything, I’m just upstairs and down the hall.” She bit her lip, then added, “I think it’d be best that, unless he decides he wants anything, we leave Spike be in his room for now.”

Trixie nodded in agreement, lowering her head onto the pillow that she had been given. “Agreed.”

“Good night, then,” Fly said, and turned to go. “And may we all dream of better times with Thorax tonight.” But as she reached the doorway to the room, she stopped and slowly looked back at the showmare. “Except…Trixie…you loved him, didn’t you?”

Trixie raised her head slightly, staring at Fly, but then sadly let it flop back onto the pillow again, losing the resolve to fight it. “Deeply,” she confessed as her eyes began to glisten with tears.

Fly gazed back at her, sympathizing. “You really should just say so, then,” she advised softly.

She then exited the room, leaving Trixie lost in deep thought.

Spike stood outside the door to the room for a long time. He knew he needed to just open it and go inside, but he kept hesitating. It wasn’t because he was afraid of what he’d see inside—weirdly, he felt quite calm about this, but that was what was bothering him so much. He expected to reach this point feeling like he was about to drown in grief, much like how he had felt at Thorax’s burial that morning. To instead feel so…at peace about this…it felt very disconcerting, to the point that Spike felt like he should be worried. He thought maybe it was just a case that the reality of what he was about to do hadn’t set in yet, but whatever it was, he felt at peace about this…like this was a good thing that he was about to do.

Eventually, realizing this wasn’t going to change, and not wanting to still be standing here whenever Fly Leaf came trotting up here and start to ask questions, Spike forced himself forward and, with one final deep breath, pushed the door open, and getting his first look inside he and Thorax’s room since they had left Vanhoover.

Fly Leaf was right. Everything was still as they had left it.

Spike gently closed the door behind him then started to wander aimlessly about the darkened room, stunned at how little was out of place within it. The papers he had left on the desk, the books still in their places on the bookshelves, the wardrobe door they had left open ajar in their haste to leave—it was almost as if it had been frozen in time…like somepony had snapped a photograph of it, trapping it in this state forever. It was jarring…Spike wasn’t quite sure what to think of it was he ran his claws over the writing desk as he passed it. He then spied the lone acorn sitting beside the record player and picked up in his claws, sadly recalling how Thorax had obtained it in hopes of eventually getting enough to perform his own Dissipatio ceremony.

That had been the same day Twilight had found them in Vanhoover.

Heaving a heavy sigh, Spike returned the acorn reverently to its spot and moved on. After a few more moments of aimless wandering, Spike was surprised to note how the room still seemed cozy and welcoming to him. He had feared that without Thorax, he was only going to focus on the changeling’s absence and feel like it was empty and lonely without him, but yet again, this fear hadn’t become a reality. Not sure what to make of that, Spike eventually wandered over to the wardrobe and set down his backpack down before it…but not before he had pulled Thorax’s midnight blue hoodie out and hung it back up in its proper place inside.

Spike then turned and initially started for his customary sleeping spot on the window seat. But then at the last second he turned and headed for Thorax’s vacant sleeping nest sitting in the corner. Spike stood there staring at the mish-mash collection of clothes before gradually climbing into it himself, letting his body sink into the soft fabrics and sadly stare back across the room with sad eyes.

But only for a moment.

Abruptly, Spike sat back up again, staring as he spied what appeared to be a small white paper stuck between two atlases on the topmost bookcase shelf, hanging annoyingly out over the shelf’s edge. Spike gaped at it, confused. He might have never been one to be nearly as neat and tidy as Twilight is, but many of her habits still had managed to rub off on him. One of which was that anything set on a bookcase absolutely had to be sitting entirely on its shelf—anything sticking out over the edge simply was not allowed. It was actually something of a pet peeve of Spike’s and he couldn’t help but automatically fix anything that jutted out further than it should. Which was why this slip of paper had caught his eye so quickly—just how long had that been there? Surely it hadn’t already been like that before he and Thorax left, had it? Why hadn’t he already fixed it if it was? Had Twilight or the city guards left that there during their search of the room?

Spike trotted over to the bookcase and reached up to pull the rectangular paper off the shelf and down where he could see it. It was then that he realized it was an envelope, and holding it in front of him, saw that all that there was only one thing written upon it: For Spike.

It was written in Thorax’s hoof writing.

Spike involuntarily gasped, feeling a chill run down his spine as he stared at the envelope in his claws. His heart pounding, he took it back to the sleeping nest to sit down before slowly turning it over and slipping his claws gingerly under the flap. The envelope wasn’t sealed, but Spike felt the tell-tale tingle of magic on his scales as he opened it, and strongly suspected that the reaction would’ve been very different had anyone but him tried to open this letter. Pulling out the letter within and setting the envelope aside, Spike then stared at the parchment, folded in threes, left in his claws. It only had writing on one side, and of course it had been folded in such a way that the side with writing was out of immediate view. Despite the dim lighting though, Spike could just make out the faint print of words through the paper and saw that whatever Thorax had written, he had used up most of that side doing so. Spike forced himself to take a deep breath to try and steady himself, trying to calm his racing heart. Then, finally and reverently, he unfolded the letter and peered at the wording written within. It read:

Dear Spike,

If you are reading this, it means that the spell I cast on this message has dropped in order for it to be made visible to you, and if that has happened, for some reason we have become permanently separated from each other’s company. I assume that either means we were caught by the Equestrian government and forced apart as part of the resulting punishment, leading me to choose to end the spell myself however possible, or worse still, I have somehow perished, as the spell, if I never have the chance to send the counterspell that deactivates it, will only continue to operate indefinitely IF the one who cast it still lives.

Whichever it may be, allow me to first offer my greatest condolences for this loss. I can only imagine how devastated you must feel, but as I know I would feel precisely the same as you in such circumstances, I think I have a good idea, and I deeply apologize that it had to come to this. I have no desire to be separated from you Spike for any reason, not after you have done so much and given up so much to stay by my side so loyally, through such trying circumstances. But as I know I cannot make any guarantees against these events unfolding and unsure if we would be given the chance to give proper farewells, I have written this letter in hopes it can still be found by you and hopefully give you at least some closure in such an event.

I hope we were able to have plenty more adventures together since the time I have written this letter, but even if we have not, I want you to know Spike that I have enjoyed every moment of your company, and would not change one second of it…except of course to maybe change things so neither of us had to become outcasts like this in the first place. When I fled my hive, I did so acting alone, and I admit there was a great fear that it would all be for naught, that I was simply condemning myself to a lonely self-banishment and quite likely a short life. Instead, I found you. Or rather, you found me. And that has made all the difference for me.

I had already determined that friendship was a great and wonderful thing by then, but I had no idea just how great and wonderful it actually can be until I met you Spike. And in all this time you have never truly doubted me or questioned me. You accepted me for who I am, changeling and all, and was the first, and thus far the only one, to do so. You were willing to be my friend when absolutely no one else would. I cannot convey just how much that has meant to me. To know that I didn’t have to go through this alone has made all this tribulation we’ve faced bearable, and I can only pray to the acorns and the great Informis Una herself that I have been able to provide the same back to you just as well.

To even think that we might go our separate ways again forever breaks my heart, and I hope we never have to reach that point and that you never have to read this letter. I will miss you greatly Spike, and I hate to have to bid you farewell for any reason. But it was wonderful while it lasted, and even while apart, I will always consider you the greatest of friends I have ever had, and will cherish the sadly brief time we had to associate with each other always. Thank you for that. That said, I know you are a dragon that can hold a grudge, Spike, but I urge you not to in this instance, for my sake. Mourn, of course, for our parting, but do not ever let it stand in the way of you being the good fellow I know you to be, or from ensuring your own continued well-being and happiness. I hope you can find the strength within you to rise up and move on, and continue to be that good friend to others as you have done for me. Live a good, long, happy, and worthwhile life Spike, and may you be completely prosperous in everything you put your mind in doing.

Your dearest friend,

Thorax

Spike stared at the letter for a long, long, moment. Finally, pressing the letter to his chest, he let himself tip over and fall onto his side, numbly flopping onto the sleeping nest. Tears flowed freely from his eyes, but nonetheless, a smile was gracing his lips.

A smile that remained on his face for a long time afterwards until, cherishing this moment of closure he had managed to receive, he drifted off into a peaceful sleep.

A Bold Move

Early the following morning, a very formal and legal-sounding message was delivered to Fly’s shop sent by the representatives of the Equestrian government. It did not go into depth on the details, but it explained that a formal inquiry into what it termed as “the Thorax incident” was being started, in hopes to get to the bottom of what happened, generate a clearer overall picture of the sequence of events from all sides, hopefully determine what parties are to blame, if any, and to make changes as needed in hopes of preventing it from repeating. It was apparently covering even the highest levels of government, meaning that even the princesses would not be exempt from the investigation, and they could not refuse per standing law. They made it clear that they did not want to leave any stones unturned in this.

But the point of the message was the convey to Spike, Fly Leaf, and by association, Trixie, that this was a highly sensitive matter and the government did not want any blame placed on anyone until the investigation was complete and the inquiry was ready to make their final ruling. As such, all participants were being asked to not speak of what transpired with the Equestrian public until the investigation had concluded, nor reveal that the pony known as Thornton was, in fact, a changeling for the same reasons. When Trixie heard of this, she was actually quite irate and initially accused the government of trying to cover up what had happened, something she additionally saw as a fruitless endeavor as word was already starting to circulate through Equestria that a secret changeling takeover of the country had taken place and was recently thwarted—all the public needed now was all of the details. But Spike and Fly Leaf, while not entirely happy about it themselves, at least understood why the request was being made. The matter was quite a mess already; the officials did not need a bias public butting in to further hamper their attempts to get to the bottom of things and, hopefully, make amends. They could also take comfort in the fact that this inquiry was being conducted by the government officials, but none of the country’s royalty, telling them that the matter was being taken seriously and trying to keep undue bias to a minimum.

In the meantime though, Fly Leaf reasoned that so long as she didn’t publically reveal that Thorax and Thornton were one and the same, she could go ahead and make plans to pay respects to their lost friend too. This led her to the idea of holding memorial services for Thornton the pony here in Vanhoover, for themselves and all other ponies in the area that were familiar with him—which Fly was quickly finding there seemed to be a few wanting to know of his end fate, especially as they took notice that Fly did not immediately reopen her shop upon her return to it, which she had done with respect to Thorax’s passing. Spike and Trixie both agreed this was a good idea, and so over the next couple of days Fly went about making the needed preparations for the simple service.

Trixie volunteered to help, and soon both mares had become quite preoccupied with it. Spike also assisted where he was needed, but he entrusted most of the work to the other two and felt hesitant getting too deeply involved. He had just been through a funeral service for Thorax at the changeling hive, something that was very trying for him, and he didn’t feel too eager to put himself through that again, especially after finding Thorax’s farewell letter had helped to comfort him so much. Understanding this, Fly told him he didn’t have to attend the service if he didn’t feel up to it.

“I won’t make you do anything you don’t want to, Spike,” she said, resolute on it. “You’ve been through more than enough as it is, anyway.”

So at first Spike took her up on that and declined to attend. But no sooner had he made this choice did he begin to seesaw on it, suddenly uncertain if he wanted to stick with it. He became especially troubled when he learned both Fly and Trixie planned to speak at the service, and Trixie was surprised to learn Spike wouldn’t be doing the same.

“I mean, I get why you might not want to,” she admitted to Spike while they discussed it. “It’s just…well, you’ve never turned down other opportunities to talk about your time with Thorax…I figured this would only serve as yet another chance.”

“It would,” Spike had admitted back. “But it’d also be a…reminder…of bad things as well as good.”

And the fact of the matter was that Spike was finding himself emotionally exhausted from the whole experience. Reflecting back on Thorax’s death was only putting added stress on him and he knew it’d be healthier for him to push past it and look ahead to, hopefully, better times. He didn’t want to dwell upon the bad times he knew he couldn’t change. But at the same time, his conscience weighed heavy and guilty upon him, and he couldn’t shake the lingering feeling in his gut that he was doing Thorax a disservice in shirking this. It eventually got to the point that Spike had immense trouble sleeping because of this internal debate on up to the night prior to the service, and finally the first thing he did that next morning was tell Fly he had changed his mind—he would attend after all.

“Do you want to speak too?” Fly asked gently after hearing this news. “Or would you rather not still?”

Spike hesitated, still not decided on this. “I…I don’t know, Fly. I don’t know if I’m up for it, but…at the same time…”

“Tell you what then,” Fly said gently, watching with sympathy as the dragon stood there and awkwardly rubbed one arm with his claws. “We’ll leave a chance open for you after me and Trixie speak in case you decide you do, but if you don’t, then we’ll just skip over it and proceed on, okay?”

“…okay,” Spike replied, managing a small grin and thankful for Fly’s thoughtfulness.

And thus, three days after he had returned to Vanhoover, he found himself standing in a small and cozy auditorium at the local community hall, dressed in a clean white shirt, bow tie, and in lieu of his usual sweater vest, his grey overcoat, watching as the attendees for the service filed into the room. At first they were few in number, stepping into the room, intermixing and interacting with others, and finding their seats at a slow trickle, but as the scheduled time for the service to begin neared, the attendees jumped in number until half the room would be filled—more than any of them expected there to be.

Most of those Spike recognized were those he expected to be here, nearly all of whom were regulars at Fly’s shop and whom had worked with Thorax directly on more than one occasion. Among them was the zebra mare (for whom Spike embarrassingly realized he’d never gotten her name) that could always count on Thorax to help her thanks to him being able to speak the same language as her, who came to Spike and Fly Leaf and, in broken Equestrian, expressed great lament for his passing and sympathy for their loss. But there were others who also showed up that they didn’t know as well but whom Thorax apparently did. Monterey Jack, the owner of the cheese shop Thorax frequently visited, made an appearance, as did employees from the game shop both he and Spike often frequented. Ragg and a couple of his fellow gang members even showed up, though Spike barely recognized them at first as they showed up wearing clean formal attire and had neatly groomed their manes, a far cry from the more ragtag look the teens normally bore whenever Spike had seen them.

But then there were others still that neither Spike nor Fly Leaf knew at all but apparently Thorax had met at some point during the four moons he had been in Vanhoover. These ranged from ponies who had only ever been in Fly’s shop once or twice, to owners of various miscellaneous shops Thorax had visited, to even ponies Thorax had simply passed on the street. One was an elderly grandmother of a mare who Thorax had taken the time to help cross the street one day and had been so friendly during that brief encounter that she hadn’t forgotten him. There were also those whom Thorax had met during his training to fly an airship, chiefly various members of staff from the airship yard…including one of the control tower operators that Fly Leaf had knocked out during their escape from Vanhoover (which Fly was rather embarrassed to meet again, but thankfully the pony didn’t seem to hold too much against her over the incident). There were also a couple of ponies who had been in the airship training day camp Thorax had participated in, a Poppy Curls and Dark Flare respectively.

The one Spike remembered meeting the best though, was a gruff looking griffon getting up in years, standing out from all the rest because he attended the services fully dressed in a formal military uniform. “You the dragon roommate of Thornton’s I’ve been hearing about?” he asked, offering a set of talons for Spike to shake.

Spike nodded as he accepted the talons. “Spark, sir,” he introduced himself, having lapsed back into using the cover name due to still needing to keep Thorax’s changeling identity to himself.

“Gervas,” the griffon introduced back, “I was the first that tried to teach your friend how to fly an airship.” His gruff demeanor then faded a little as his eyes saddened. “I was deeply sorry to hear about his passing.”

Spike swallowed to force back his own grieving emotions that Gervas’s lament spurred. “We all were.”

“And it’s a darned shame, too,” Gervas continued with a heavy sigh. He turned his head to look at a commemorative table Fly had set up before a speaking podium. In lieu of a body for a viewing, Fly had instead scrounged up the only photograph she had ever managed to take of Thornton (for obvious reasons, Thorax adamantly avoided having his picture taken), a time when she managed to catch him off-guard for it. Because Thornton’s expression was more of blank surprise than a smile, it was perhaps not the most flattering picture, but nonetheless, Fly Leaf had taken it in to be professionally enlarged and framed, and now had it displayed on the table in the center of a wreath of flowers. Gervas shook his head and let his gaze drop. “That kid was going to go places…I knew it from the moment I met him.”

Spike shuffled uneasily, in full agreement with the griffon, but he was failing to find the right words to express it.

Gervas didn’t seem to mind as he continued. “What’s worse is that I knew he had managed to land himself an airship of his own and had just gotten his piloting license to fly it before this all happened.” He blinked to himself for a moment then turned back to Spike. “If I can ask…what happened to that airship?”

“The Vergilius?” Spike blurted out without thinking then shrugged half-heartedly. “Abroad, at the moment…it’s currently on…loan, as a favor to…” he almost said friends, but then decided that wasn’t the right word to describe Shining Armor and Cadance right now, “…some acquaintances.” He shrugged again. “I…don’t really know what’s going to become of it after this.”

“I suppose he didn’t leave any last requests for things like that then, hmm?”

“No, not really…though I guess he’d probably want it left to me, his closest friend…I don’t know what I’d do with it, though.”

“It’s an airship, Mister Spark…you fly it.” Gervas then placed his talons on Spike’s shoulders. “Look, if you decide you want a shot at it yourself, I’m sure I could probably whip you into shape for it soon enough. I think he’d probably want that of me…and it’s the least I could do.”

Spike looked at him for a moment, slightly taken aback. “I’ll keep that in mind, Mister Gervas,” he said.

“That’s Emeritus Captain Gervas, Mister Spark,” the griffon corrected sharply, but there was a teasing glint in his eye as he said it. It seemed almost out of place with the rest of his gruff attitude, but Spike couldn’t help but grin a little at it. “But please do consider it.”

He then started to walk off, Spike turning to watch him go, before Spike decided to say one more thing. “If it helps any, sir,” he said to the griffon, “I know for a fact that Thornton loved every second of the brief time he got to fly an airship.”

Gervas looked back at him with a small grin. “Good,” he replied.

Meanwhile more attendees continued to file into the room for the services, so much so that Fly Leaf wondered aloud at one point if they were going to need to set out more seating so to fit them all, but at last it started to slow to a stop as the time to begin arrived, just shy of enough to fill every seat already present leaving just a couple of spares empty. Fly, leading the proceedings, then started to call for everyone to find their seats so they could begin. Spike still hadn’t decided if he was actually going to speak or not, but regardless, he moved to join Fly and Trixie at a trio of seats behind the podium while the others settled into theirs as part of the audience.

One particularly nondescript looking stallion nodded his head at Spike as he passed him. “Salue, Spica.”

“Salue,” Spike automatically greeted back, but it wasn’t until well after he had passed the pony that he stopped and twisted around to look back at him, realizing that the greeting was spoken in linguae mutationis.

That was a changeling, Spike thought to himself in surprise. There’s a disguised changeling present here in the audience. His first thought was to wonder how he knew to come. The second was what the intentions of the changeling might be, hoping and figuring that the changeling was a reformed one but knowing he had no real way of confirming that. His third was just how many of them there might be and if this was the only one. Ultimately he decided it didn’t matter—it was just yet another example of how widespread the mark Thorax had left was.

At last they had all settled down and a respectful silence befell the room as Fly Leaf took position at the podium and reverently began the proceedings, greeting and welcoming all in attendance. She acknowledged that there were more present than they had expected but was pleased by this, noting that it only went to show just how liked Thornton had been. She then ran through the planned itinerary for the services for the audience’s reference, then switched gears as she was the first to speak, giving something of a personal eulogy for the lost changeling.

She spent most of it simply reflecting back on the four moons she had known him, starting with the moment he and Spike had first walked into her shop “begging for a job,” as she put it. She was of course careful to refer to him as only the pony and not the changeling as had been requested of her, but she was otherwise quite open about her thoughts and opinions on Thorax, all of them positive. She mentioned familiar events from the helpful and demonstrative of Thorax’s good character, to the more playful ones, such as the time she and Spike managed to get him to conquer his fear of swimming in the ocean, the time Thorax stayed up all night reading Sky Trek, the time Thorax was first introduced to her cherry pie and the humorous aftermath that followed, even on to time Thorax got caught in the rain and stubbornly kept walking in it regardless despite her telling him not to and he became “nearly deathly ill” because of it. Of special focus for Fly Leaf were all the good times she had practicing guizhou fa with him.

Fly maintained a fairly upbeat attitude through all of this, but then she arrived at the parts where she first found out he had passed away and her mood shifted to something much more sullen. “When I was told he was gone…my first reaction was to not believe it,” she admitted sadly. “It just…didn’t seem possible. Someone so good and so pure…how could that just be taken away like that? Why would anyone want it be taken away? But I was assured there could be no mistake by all parties…he was gone. Thornton was gone. The friend and coworker I had come to know so well…was gone. Cut down far before his time, and not without still leaving his mark of course, but at that moment…it seemed grossly insufficient. It just…seemed cruelly unfair. Completely and utterly unfair, and…oh, Thor—”

She cut herself short as Fly suddenly had to squeeze her eyes shut, leaking tears as she desperately worked to stop herself from openly sobbing. The sight sent a chill through Spike—it was the first time he had ever really seen Fly Leaf cry like this. After a respectful moment of silence so to give her the chance to recover, Fly soon continued on with the rest of her speaking without much further event, but Spike was left thinking long and hard about that brief breakdown. He had known for a while that he and Thorax were good friends with Fly, and that they had come to mean a lot to her, most obviously demonstrated when she proved willing to face criminal charges so to help them go free. But now it sank into Spike’s mind just how deep and sincere that care and respect actually went, so much so that it caused Spike to have to fight tears too—not for himself or even for Thorax, but more for poor Fly Leaf, for having to be put through this at all. She deserved far better after giving her all to ensure they had a decent life.

After Fly Leaf finished speaking, Trixie then rose and took the podium so to speak next. Like Fly, Trixie was careful not to reveal Thorax as anything but the pony Thornton, but unlike Fly, who had blurred over the events surrounding Thorax’s death, Trixie touched on it faintly by referring to him as a hero, “who’s actions have undoubtedly helped save many.” Trixie’s comments were otherwise quick and succinct. Oddly, she didn’t talk much about the good times she had with Thorax and didn’t mention once that she and him were romantically involved, though this didn’t surprise Spike considerably much. Instead, Trixie’s approach was to reflect on how Thorax was as an individual.

“He was a thoughtful fellow,” Trixie admittedly softly as she spoke. “There were several times were he’d voice just some passing thought, but it’d give me pause to consider just how profound that thought actually was when you really considered it. He’s given me a lot to think about, envisioned a better world the likes of which…you can’t help but share in his desire for. In some ways, he was almost before his time, and…” here, she had to chuckle sadly, “…the darnedest thing of it all was that I don’t think he ever once realized just how much of a visionary he was. To him, he just spoke an obvious truth, something he thought we all should be thinking already…and in many ways he was right. But where we failed to see it…he didn’t. And I’m eternally grateful that he did. He has helped to make a difference the full scope of which I’m still not sure can be entirely seen yet.” She then turned sad. “I’m just sorry he won’t have the chance to see it come to pass himself.”

Overall, Trixie’s comments were somewhat ambling; it seemed she had gone up to the podium with only a vague idea of what it was she wanted to say, just speaking what seemed right and what came to mind at the moment, but it seemed effective enough. By the time she had finished, she had delivered a rather flattering portrayal of Thorax and his views, all of which Spike felt pleased that it did him such good justice. So much so, it led him to finally make a choice on one last matter he had been putting off until that last second.

“Fly,” he whispered as he leaned over towards the mare while Trixie returned to her seat after finishing, “I want to speak.”

Fly nodded, understanding. “Okay then,” she replied simply, and motioned with one hoof for Spike to go ahead and take the podium next.

Spike took a deep breath so to steady himself. He then rose and ambled slowly up to the podium and quietly gazing out at the audience before him. It was the first time he could really take them all in at once like this, and he couldn’t help but take a second to sadly survey the faces of the many Thorax had in some way left a mark on. But it was then that his eyes unexpectedly fell on a pair of ponies he was not at all expecting to see. Sitting on the very back row, but centered almost perfectly with the podium, were Cadance and Shining Armor. Shocked, Spike wondered when they had arrived, as he had never seen them enter the room—they must have slipped in discreetly to escape notice from not just himself but most everyone else present in the room too. They soon noticed that Spike had spotted them too, but they didn’t seem too bothered by this, and instead waited patiently for him to speak. Shining at one point gently motioned with one hoof for Spike to continue.

But by then, Spike had noticed something else about the crowd, something he was quite certain not even Cadance and Shining had observed, something that Spike wasn’t sure even he’d notice if he didn’t have the means to view the whole audience at once like this. With exception for Cadance and Shining of course, the ponies seated in not quite the back half of the audience all appeared a bit too generic, unremarkable, and similar to one another. It was if each pony had been stamped from the same mold then had only small changes made sparingly and at random to each one, after the fact. If it were two or three, it might just be waved aside as an interesting coincidence, but there were easily well over a dozen here, if not more. Spike recalled the disguised changeling that had passed and greeted him earlier, and how Thorax had always claimed changelings were not always the best at creating original disguises from scratch, before realizing there were more changelings present and hidden in the audience then he first thought.

He wondered briefly why so many of them were here, but then realized why—they were here to show their support, to again show their respect for the lost Thorax, and above all, to no doubt hear what Spike would have to say about his changeling friend. It made Spike’s heart clench then to realize that he had been requested to speak of Thorax only as the pony Thornton, and not as the changeling he actually was, omitting important details that Spike felt wasn’t fair to omit, not when there were changelings who knew better here and probably expecting him to be upfront about all of it.

Spike licked his lips for a moment, hesitant. “Thornton…was a great friend,” he began to speak, fidgeting to himself as he tried to push past his protesting conscience. “The best I’ve ever had…and I’ve had some very good friends over the years.” He gazed out at the waiting and attentive audience and felt his conscience throb unbearably again. He closed his eyes, resolve crumbling. “And because of that, I can no longer hide the truth from you all any longer,” he continued abruptly with a great sigh, choosing then and there to go considerably off-script. “I apologize in advance for any trouble for what I’m about to say might bring for Fly Leaf,” he saw out of the corner of his eye Fly straighten urgently in her seat as he said this, “for those in attendance, for the Equestrian government and the royal family,” he glanced back at Cadance and Shining briefly, noticing the latter ever so slightly shake his head to silently advise him against doing what he surely had realized he was about to do, “as well as the Changeling Kingdom. But the pony you all knew as Thornton…wasn’t a pony at all. He was a changeling…named Thorax.”

Some of the audience, looking confused, started to murmur among themselves at this, but while Spike paused briefly to wonder if anyone was going to rush forward and stop him, no one did. Deciding that this meant he had permission to proceed unhindered, he continued.

“Thorax wasn’t like the other changelings you’ve probably heard of, though,” he went on to explain. “He was so much more than that. He wanted so much more than that. He believed—he knew—that it was possible for changelings and ponies to find peace between them, and after the invasion at Canterlot ended in disaster for his hive…he left—deserted, even—and came to Equestria, seeking to make friends with those of us here.”

Spike lowered his gaze slightly, sadly reflecting back on his memories with the changeling. “But when I met him for the first time, mostly by chance, near the Crystal Empire…he hadn’t yet had much luck. No one had been willing to give him the chance to even say his piece…but I did. And I quickly saw who he really was…a friend. One worth giving my all to defend and support…which I soon had to do, as when I brought him back in hopes we both could sway the others to listen…no one would. They feared him, or rather, they feared the past reputation of his race. So they banished him instead. Unwilling to abandon him like that…I went with…even though it met leaving what life I had at the time behind.” Spike made a sad grin. “But for Thorax…it was worth it…it always was.”

“The road ahead of us was rough and uncertain of course, but it soon brought us here, to Vanhoover, and there, we were able to find jobs and shelter, thanks to Fly Leaf.” Spike turned to glance back at his employer, giving her a thankful grin. “And I thank you deeply for all you have done to give us even that much, Fly,” he said to the pumpkin-orange mare, who’s gaze had turned distant and sad. “Thorax would too, if he could be here.” He turned back to the audience. “For the next four moons then, Thorax and I were here, in Vanhoover. In hiding, yes, but still living ordinary lives…that’s all we ever wanted, after all. We weren’t anyone’s foes and we didn’t cause trouble, nor did we ever have any intention of causing any, at least deliberately. You all know that or you all wouldn’t be here now. You all got to know Thorax as he really was too…he only wore a disguise for his own safety. But it was him. Thornton and Thorax are one and the same, and he was a good friend and ally. And you all believe that too…or you all wouldn’t be here now to mourn his passing.”

He paused to gauge the reactions of his audience, but there was strangely little. Though of course many of them were surprised and troubled by what Spike was saying, they remained quiet and still, enraptured with his words and continuing to listen intently. Spike glanced in the direction of Cadance and Shining, but they appeared the same, and like all the others, they made no attempt or move to try and stop him. It didn’t matter much now—he was far enough into the tale that it was too late to try and stop it now.

So Spike continued on. “Given enough time, Thorax always liked to believe that one day he could stop hiding and live undisguised with the rest of you as he was already doing…but unfortunately he never got that chance.” He sadly surveyed the audience again for a second. “I’m sure you’ve already heard rumors by now that Equestria was nearly seized through a secret changeling takeover of the government, and I can confirm this to be true. What you may not know is that Thorax wasn’t a part of it, but as it was still his hive, he felt responsible, and he went to the hive to try and stop it, taking me and a small number of others with. Obviously, we succeeded…but Thorax was killed in the process.

Spike squeezed his eyes shut, fighting tears as he recalled the moment of horrible realization when his friend had passed. Nonetheless, he forced himself to recall why Thorax had perished. “Thorax is gone now…but in doing so he sacrificed himself for a greater good. He was a hero, saving not just my life but that of many others including the royal family, spared Equestria from being conquered, and most important of all, set an example for his fellow changelings with his death so powerful that it has brought about a complete transformation in them, both physical and spiritual. They are quite literally nothing like the changelings you’ve heard of before, I know, I’ve seen them, I’ve spoken with them. They are good creatures now who do not want to harm anyone. If Thorax were here now…” He stopped, a thought coming to him. He cleared his eyes of any dampness with his claws before regarding the audience again. His gaze again fell upon those he suspected to be changelings but just as quickly pulled it off again, surveying the crowd again. He took a deep breath. “Look, I don’t want to alarm you,” he began, aware of what sort of reaction this revelation might bring, “but you should know there are disguised changelings sitting in the audience right now.”

That got a reaction, and immediately the alarmed audience broke out into murmuring, looking urgently about through the crowd from some sign of these changelings, all torn between whether should be panicking over this. Those that Spike suspected were changelings wisely did not do much to react to this reveal, but mostly likely they did this for their own protection, and if anything, only mirrored the reactions of the other attendees so to blend in.

Spike quickly called for their attention back on him before a frenzy could break out. “I won’t point out who they are or where they are in the audience out of respect for those changelings since they are hiding for a reason,” he firmly announced. “But they’re there, among you right now, demonstrating that you do not need to fear them anymore. If anything, they’re more scared of you than you are of them, because they have gone to such trouble to conceal themselves from you even though they really should have no reason to. They are allies and friends now…and friends don’t go harming those they want to befriend.”

He watched the audience for a second, seeing that all eyes were mostly back on him, but the crowd still looked very uneasy about this bombshell he had dropped on them. He hoped they were listening and wanting to believe him, but clearly their fears couldn’t be wiped away all at once like that. It didn’t help that Spike could sense an unusually heavy atmosphere of fear in the air, a sensation that felt a little too familiar, and Spike suspected the changelings were inadvertently expressing their own fears through the sharing their emotions as the reformed changelings were now prone to doing. This at least reassured Spike that the changelings present were indeed who he thought, but this sharing was probably not helping to soothe his audience, as they could no doubt sense that fear in the air too, even if they didn’t recognize its source. Either way, it seemed both sides weren’t going to be swayed quite so easily, a thought that made Spike’s heart sink, seeing how much work still lay ahead of him.

He remained quiet for a second, eyes growing distant for a moment as he pondered the dilemma. “The reason I’m telling you all of this,” he abruptly continued again, “is because if Thorax were here now, it’s what he would be doing, trying to close that gap between races. “That was always his dream…a dream where this apprehension between ponies and changelings was altogether relevant because they were all friends. There was no need to fear, no need to hide, no need to disguise anything—he dreamed of a day when changelings wouldn’t need to masquerade as something they aren’t because they could coexist with ponies peacefully and as equals…and be accepted for who and what they are. It’s a dream that still seems so far off from reality…” Spike shook his head, ashamed, “…even I struggled to believe in it as much as I should’ve for a time. But it’s still a dream I share in too…and one I very much want to see come to pass one day.”

Slowly, Spike’s expression started to brighten a little, forgetting his audience as he began to think aloud. “The thing is though…Thorax died helping getting the ball rolling for all that. He has laid the foundation for that dream, and here we are standing atop of it. Ever since he passed, I’ve been wondering to myself just how I could go on without him, what it is I need to do now…but I get what it is now. Thorax has gotten things started…he would want me—all of us, really—to take up from where he left off and finish it. So that’s what I’m doing. Right now, ponies and changelings still exist separately and distrusting, but do you need to?” He shook his head longingly at his listening audience. “I wish instead of two groups trying to pretend that the other doesn’t exist, I could see this audience with the changelings present undisguised and revealed themselves openly to everypony present here without fear…because nopony would care if they’re changeling or not…because they trust them…because there would be no need to hide.” Spike sighed. “I hope I can help to further what Thorax started…that I can ever be half the fellow he was…and I hope I won’t be the only one, both here and elsewhere, that might want to do the same.”

He shook his head. “But enough of my ramblings,” he concluded. “The choice ultimately isn’t mine to make after all…it’s yours. I just hope we can all make the one best for all of us in the end.” He heaved another sigh. “For now, what’s important to know is that Thorax was a great friend, one who I will dearly miss and wish he didn’t have to be taken away like this. I feel like there was more for him to do, but…sometimes things don’t go how you want them to. Sometimes the good we want to have in life doesn’t come free…and sometimes this is the price needed to be paid for it…to willfully give it up and turn it over to the next person to follow through on.” He raised his gaze, blinking back tears. “I hate that it had to be Thorax who had to pay it…but at this point, I hope that, someday…whatever good comes from it can show to me that it was needed.” He wiped his eyes quickly then gazed back at the audience, who had become still, watching him intently. A few were wiping tears of their own. He grinned a little at that sight, pleased that the significance of his loss wasn’t lost upon them. He hoped it would help to build on the foundation he now wished to complete. “Anyway…thank you all for your attention.” Then, for good measure and as a salute to the changelings he knew were present too, repeated in their tongue, “Gratias tibi ago.” He surveyed the audience solemnly one last time then turned to step away from the podium.

But then he stopped short of doing so when he noticed someone towards the back had risen to their hooves, looking determined. Puzzled, Spike turned his gaze onto that figure, not understanding why he had risen but could clearly see that there was some sort of reason behind it. He gazed back at Spike, waiting almost expectantly, but Spike didn’t understand what. Starting to realize that something was amiss, ponies in the audience slowly began to turn in their seats, following Spike’s gaze with confused looks of their own. Soon all eyes were on this lone figure, wondering what it was he was doing. Apparently to him, though, it was obvious, as he glanced knowingly at those sitting around him.

Then with a burst of magic, he lowered his disguise and revealed himself as a reformed changeling to all present.

Astounded, the audience all gasped or yelped in shock, babbling anxiously while some braced themselves for some negative reaction from the revealed changeling. But the changeling did nothing. He simply stood there resolutely, if not a bit proudly, while awaiting whatever his fate would be for this choice. Before everyone else had even fully finished reacting to this unexpected event though, another had risen to her hooves and abruptly revealed herself as a changeling too. She was soon followed by another. And another.

Gradually, this led into an ongoing chain reaction as more and more were spurred to follow the example of the first, spreading rapidly across the back rows of the audience while the rest looked on with alarm and confusion, not understanding what was happening. Fly Leaf and Trixie suddenly joined Spike at the podium, urgent looks in their faces as they watched the panic unfold, but they clearly had no more idea of what they should be doing than Spike did. They simply remained rooted where they were, watching intensely.

Soon, one-third of the audience had risen and revealed themselves as changelings, filling the back rows entirely, before it slowed to a stop. By this point the audience was in a near panic, and the noise of scraping chairs and hurried hooves filled the room as they leapt up and quickly moved away from those who had been so unexpectedly revealed. A divide quickly formed between the changelings—who remained where they stood—and the rest of the audience, who huddled in front of the podium, nervous and unsure of what would happen next, tensely awaiting for the next move to be made.

But no such move came. The changelings, appearing oddly unfazed by this event and still just as resolute and determined to see this through as they had while rising up, did nothing. They just stood there, as if waiting. But the others didn’t seem at all eager to make the first move, more leery of the changelings to approach them it seemed, content to just keep themselves apart from them. But as the seconds dragged into minutes and things settled into a stalemate, silence started to befall the room and all went still, waiting to see what would happen next, and who would make the next move.

A couple of minutes passed, during which no one seemed to dare to speak. At last, Cadance and Shining Armor, who had vanished from Spike’s view once all the changelings had risen to their hooves and unintentionally surrounded them, gently pushed their way to the front of the gathering of the changelings and took position standing there. This resulted in a new outbreak of murmuring, from both ponies and changelings alike as they quietly wondered what this meant. Spike soon realized that the two were soundlessly standing in support of the changelings and felt his eyebrows go up in surprise.

“The most surprising of things come from those you least expect,” he murmured quietly to himself while he gazed at the prince and princess.

The example they were setting seemed to be significant too, as the murmuring in the audience did not diminish, and slowly, the pony side started to spread out a little so they were no longer so tightly grouped together in fear. But though there were some nervous movements among them suggesting that there were does that were considering it, no one moved to cross the gap between them and the changelings. Beside Spike, Trixie shifted anxiously, looking like she was considering joining Cadance and Shining Armor in support of the changelings, and he was sure Fly Leaf standing on his other side had to be also considering it. Spike was too, but he was also wondering to himself if perhaps trying to force unity between the ponies and changelings here and now was too much to ask for right now and had begun hurriedly considering ways to peacefully resolve the unplanned stand-off.

But ultimately they never got the chance to do any of these things as finally a pony moved to cross the gap between them and the changelings at last—a young filly. Spike vaguely recognized her as a foal of one of Fly’s regular customers, having seen her be brought into the shop with her mother a couple of times before. She was roughly old enough to be of school-attending age but it would easily be another year or more before she would be reaching the age most foals received their cutie mark. Without fear, she trotted up to the closest changeling standing before her, going unnoticed by most of the crowd until she was already standing right before the changeling in question, who, surprised himself, stooped his head down to gaze at her.

“Hi,” the filly greeted in a calm but friendly manner.

The changeling tilted his head at her then glanced at the other changelings, who were all looking on with baited breath. “Um…hello,” he greeted back timidly.

It was then that the foal’s mother broke free from the crowd and hurried forward to scoop up her wayward offspring. Doing this brought her face to face with the changeling in question, which made her uncomfortable…but even after she had collected her foal, she did not retreat, and instead remained standing there before the changeling as if unsure what to do now. The changeling looked back at her, looking to be thinking the same. The others looked on tensely, fearing something would happen to cause it all to end in the dreaded disaster lingering the back of all of their minds. But when it never did, others started to timidly step forward, proceeding cautiously but proceeding nonetheless. They all stopped well short of getting as close as the mother and her foal, but slowly the divide between the two groups started to blur.

Then Gervas decided he’d had enough of that. “Oh for crying out loud, all of you!” the griffon declared loudly from within the pony side of the group. He pushed aside a couple of the ponies then marched determinedly up to the changelings. “Look, you guys are all allies of Thornton now, right?”

A couple of the changelings, intimidated by Gervas’s blunt and direct approach, glanced at one another. “Uh…yes?” one of them offered somewhat uncertainly. He received a nudge in the barrel from one of his compatriots and started over, speaking a bit more confidently. “I mean, yes…we are.”

“Well then, any friend of Thornton’s is a friend of mine,” Gervas concluded. “And that’s good enough for me.”

He then offered a set of talons to the changelings for a friendly shake. Again, the changelings looked awkwardly among themselves, but then the same changeling who had spoken extended his hoof into the griffon’s talons. With a sudden grin, Gervas took the hoof and gave it a firm shake, clapping the changeling on the side with his other set of talons. And with that, the tension was suddenly broken, and gradually the rest of the ponies started to step forward and, a bit more timidly and hesitant than Gervas, started to greet the changelings in a similar manner.

“Well,” Fly Leaf remarked aloud as she, Spike, and Trixie looked on with awe from the podium. She gave Spike, who was closest to her, a nudge. “Will you look at that, huh?”

Spike didn’t reply. Tears had begun to run from his eyes, but his cheeks also had begun to hurt from how hard he was grinning.

Author's Note

So there was supposed to be more to this chapter, but this is as far as I got writing it this week. Not where I wanted it to end per se, but out of time, unwilling to miss the usual posting window, and seeing the remainder didn't have to be included with this chapter and could stand on its own instead anyway, I've decided to split it into two. The remainder, which will help better explain what happened here in this chapter and why (as well as some aftermath), will be posted next week.

Originally, I had the changelings all rising up and dropping their disguises together as one, but after writing it, I found it made it seem like they had premeditated this action, and as the next chapter will reveal, that isn't meant to be the case, so I edited it so it was more one at a time, giving it a better feel that it was spur of the moment and unplanned.

FYI, unless something doesn't go as planned with the chapters still remaining, as of this chapter, there are only three chapters to go until the end.

Refreshments

Of course, this unexpected event completely disrupted the services, but Fly Leaf, thinking quickly as always, announced that the services were now a wake in Thorax’s honor, and they all adjourned into a nearby dining room where refreshments were already planned to be served. There, everyone, pony and changeling alike, continued to mingle. At first it was done very hesitantly and cautiously, with both sides generally sticking with their respective group. No one was entirely sure still how they should be proceeding. But gradually as they started to warm up to the idea, they began to interact more and more freely and increasingly intermix. It wasn’t long before they had evenly spread out across the room, looking like any other pony gathering, except now there were changelings mixed in as well.

It was such a surprising sight that Fly Leaf, Spike, and Trixie still couldn’t help but stand to one side and stare once they finished ushering everyone into the room. Trixie, in fact, had done nothing but gape in silence ever since the changelings had revealed themselves, looking so stunned that Spike was starting to think her brain had become incapable of doing anything else.

At last, she broke the trend, though far from impressively. “Somebody pinch me,” she muttered aloud.

So Spike quietly reached over and pinched the furry flesh of her foreleg between his claws.

“Ow!” Trixie yelped before holding up her leg to look down at it. She then looked back up at the crowd filling the room before holding the leg out to Spike. “Do it again—Trixie’s still not sure she’s actually awake.” Spike obliged immediately. “Ow!”

While Trixie proceeded to rub at her sore leg, Spike surveyed the mingling changelings and ponies before him and shook his head, understanding Trixie’s disbelief. “If I weren’t seeing this take place with my own two eyes…” he murmured aloud.

“It’s a miracle is what it is,” Fly interjected, moving between them and wrapping a hoof around their shoulders. “Personally, I wouldn’t question it…just cherish it happened at all.”

Spike had to grin a little at that. “Yeah,” he sighed peacefully.

Fly then pulled Trixie aside to assist with bringing all of the refreshments out of the attached kitchen, leaving Spike free to drift aimlessly through the room, taking in this sight more up close. The changelings were, naturally, quite eager about this opportunity to both portray themselves in a better light and work to befriend and get to know the ponies better—of the latter, Spike saw a number of changelings engrossed in discussion over the finer traits of pony society and it made him realize there was plenty the changelings still didn’t know or understand very well about Equestria despite having had such a close association with it for so long. On the other hoof, there was still a timid sense among the ponies as they, much like Spike, worked to grasp that this was actually happening, but Spike saw plenty of them were in deep conversation with a changeling (sometimes more than one) and actively learning more about the changelings too, just like the changelings were learning about them. A spark of intrigue was a common sight in many of their eyes, like they were only just now realizing there was far more to either side than they previously thought…something Spike knew was a distinct possibility. It made Spike wonder if he had ever had a similar spark in his own eyes whenever Thorax conversed over changeling culture, which in turn made him reminisce about bygone times.

“Aw, Thorax,” Spike had to mumble under his breath not for the first time, “I wish you could be a part of this too.”

Of course, those weren’t the only things being discussed. As Spike filed through the group, several were quick to pull him into the conversation, eager to learn more about Spike’s time with Thorax and more details of about the changeling’s life than the brief summary Spike gave at the podium earlier. Though he wasn’t eager to delve too deeply into the story for fear of the emotions it’d only dredge up, Spike initially worked to humor those who asked with a few additional details. At least up until a nearby changeling, trying to be helpful, piped in with a detail Spike had overlooked and made him realize the changelings present were all mostly aware of the full story themselves, so Spike thereafter started to direct those who asked to the changelings, partly in an attempt to promote friendly interaction with them, and partly so to avoid having to get into the nitty-gritty details himself.

Along the way though, he did inquire to a trio of changelings as to what made them all decide to publically reveal themselves like this. He quickly assured that he didn’t have any problems with it, especially since it appeared to be working out for them, but the fact they all chose to do this and all within fairly quick succession of each other left Spike wondering if it had been planned in advance, or at least was an action that was already being heavily considered. To his surprise though, he was assured that wasn’t the case at all.

“The idea of putting ourselves out in the open like that had to have been the furthest thing from our minds at the time,” one of the changelings explained to Spike. “None of us came here with the intention of doing anything…daring or profound. We just came because we wanted to…show support.” The changeling then shrugged. “But I guess it didn’t turn out that way, did it?”

“It’s just…everyling else was standing up to do it,” another changeling added and shrugged too. “There was some part of me that thought we were all mad, exposing ourselves like this. I mean, I hoped we can make friends with the ponies too someday because there are clear benefits to it, but I didn’t think it’d be today. Yet in that moment…it just…just…”

“…felt right,” the third changeling finished simply.

Spike turned this all over in his head. “Miracle indeed,” he mumbled under his breath then studied the three changelings before him. “The idea just came to you all that suddenly and out of the blue?”

“Well, I don’t know about out of the blue,” the first changeling remarked, and with a grin, gave Spike a playful nudge. “What you were saying up there certainly helped. At least it sure was…inspiring.”

“Yeah, but when I said I wanted to see an audience where changelings didn’t have to hide to be in it, I didn’t mean right that second,” Spike retorted back, but then averted his gaze, feeling put on the spot. “At least…I didn’t think I was being…that profound…”

“Sure seemed like it at the time,” the third changeling noted aloud.

Spike had to grin a little at that. “Well…I guess I can’t complain, either way,” he conceded finally and motioned to the three undisguised changelings standing in a crowd with ponies. “I mean…just look at you all. I’m glad that whatever brought this about…it seems to be working.” His grin grew a little. “And yeah…this was something I wanted to see…thank you for making it happen.” He wiped a claw over one eye to hide the tear that was trying to slip down his cheek. “It’s…it’s helped.”

They didn’t just discuss about the events of the day though, as present affairs back at the hive also came up, which Spike was pleased to learn were more or less stabilizing. At the very least, the changelings had fallen into a new routine adequate enough to get them through day-to-day business since the Enlightenment. The rate had slowed considerably, but there were still lingering changelings that were becoming reformed even now. And they had all been managing without a queen directing them on everything, starting to piece together something akin to a replacement form of government…though there was still debate on whether or not any one changeling would be proclaimed their overall leader. Spike also learned that Princess Celestia was still at the hive, assisting with all of this, and was told she was being very helpful. This pleased Spike to hear a little, as it told him that Celestia was still taking all of this seriously and was truly trying to make it up to the hive for what had happened.

He additionally found out why there were so many changelings here in the first place. As there were still as-yet unaccounted for and unreformed changelings out there in the world that weren’t present at the hive at the time of the Enlightenment, there had been changelings sent out to discreetly search for them in hopes of bringing them peacefully back to the hive. It was while one of these operatives was in the area searching that he learned that additional services for Thorax were to be held, and sent word back to the hive. It reached the hive fairly last minute though, so there wasn’t enough time for every changeling to come, which was part of the reason why there actually weren’t more changelings here today—though everyone agreed that this was probably for the better, for a variety of reasons.

Because of how last minute it was for the changelings though, Spike was told, upon asking, that Thorax’s clutchmate Synthorax had remained at the hive. He had wanted to come, but he was too caught up in hive affairs to be able to pull away long enough to visit. Apparently, Synthorax’s eagerness to take up Thorax’s cause and aid the hive had earned him a role as one of a group of changelings serving as a sort of managing council in the hive, helping to fill in for the position of queen until something more permanent could be set up. The other changelings had taken to jokingly referring to this council as their “many-headed queen,” and to its individual members as “councilings,” but all wordplay aside, the changelings seem satisfied enough with the council’s efforts to manage the hive and their efforts to change it for the better (currently, the council’s biggest task was to finish weaning the hive off its supply of captured prey so said prey could be set free as part of their turning over a new leaf).

At any rate, though Synthorax could not be here in person, he had still asked that a message to be passed on to Spike giving his respects, which Spike returned by requesting the same be relayed back to him, as well as remind the changeling that he was free to send Spike a letter at any time.

Spike also met with a number of the ponies in the crowd, but most of their comments were largely the giving of the sympathy for Spike’s loss. Though some, like the changelings, expressed praise for Spike’s words earlier and would often wish him luck in his quest to fulfill those goals. Others simply wished to tell Spike of the mark Thorax had left on themselves too. Ragg was such a pony, who recalled how he nearly had gotten Thorax arrested, yet the two still had come to trust each other surprisingly well afterwards, leaving Ragg thinking of Thorax as a good friend himself and sad to see him gone. Spike also met with Monterey Jack, the cheese shop owner, and the two discussed Thorax’s love of cheese. When Spike mentioned how Thorax had devised his own cheese, Thornton Cheese, Monterey expressed interest in the recipe so to make and distribute the cheese himself at his shop, “as a salute to our friend.” Spike still hadn’t found Thorax’s recipe for the cheese, but certain the changeling had it written down somewhere in Fly’s shop, Spike promised to give a copy to Monterey as soon as he had found it.

By this time, the refreshments had been brought out and set up on one side of the room, and the group started migrating in that direction to see what the spread was like. Spike was especially curious, because while both Fly Leaf and Trixie had spent most of the final day of preparations in Fly’s kitchen cooking all of the food, Spike hadn’t been permitted to see or learn what any of the food was going to be at Fly’s request. She kept saying she wanted to surprise him, so Spike was eager to find out at last just what this apparent surprise was supposed to be. When he arrived, he found the food choices were divided into two groups on a long table with a white tablecloth draped over it—one half for a main course dish, and the other for a dessert dish.

The main dish was several trays worth of funeral potatoes, while the dessert was several homemade cherry pies, all fresh and hot.

Recalling that first dinner they had with her, Spike had to laugh at Fly Leaf’s tongue-in-cheek salute to Thorax, and was further amused to note that apparently Thorax wasn’t the only one who liked Fly’s cherry pie—several of the changelings present seemed to be quite taken with it, and Spike saw there were already some in line for seconds (if not more still). He briefly wondered if he should be concerned about any of the changelings overeating and giving themselves stomachaches like Thorax would’ve, but then saw there probably wasn’t enough pie to go around for that to be too much danger, and anyway, it seemed to be putting the changelings in an even better mood than they were before. So Spike cheerily shrugged his shoulders and let the changelings be. Instead, he helped himself to a heaping serving of the funeral potatoes onto a plate and snagged a slice of pie before it was all gone. While he proceeded to nibble on the food, feeling in good spirits, he started to turn and survey the room again, wondering where to head next.

It was then that he heard someone clear their throat behind him. “Hello, Spike.”

Spike paused for a moment, recognizing the voice. Slowly, he turned around to face Cadance and Shining Armor standing behind him, both looking uncomfortable and sullen—they were perfectly aware of how this might go.

Spike, however, just stood there for a second, chewing on his food as he quietly looked the royal couple up and down. He sighed. “I was starting to wonder if you two were ever going to come and do this.”

Cadance winced and averted her gaze. “We weren’t sure of when the right time to do it might be,” she hastily said, attempting to explain themselves. “I mean…a lot’s happened, and…we’re all hurting from it, so we figured it might be better if we instead backed off and let you be for a bit…after all, we do know what happened between you and Twilight…not to say you weren’t justified, of course, it’s just…well…”

“We’re sorry, Spike,” Shining abruptly interrupted, cutting right to the point in a very serious voice. “Deeply sorry…we…we messed up. Epically. And…we hurt you in the process, and…” Shining raised a hoof to rub the back of his neck, his eyes turning sad. “…we’re sorry. You were right. We weren’t.” He shook his head, looking disappointed in himself. “We should’ve listened to you. But…we were too caught up in our own fears to…to hear what you were trying to say, and…we chased away someone who, by the sounds of it, could’ve been a great ally and a friend.”

“He was,” Spike confirmed with a solemn nod. He gazed at his plate of food for a moment. “If it helps though…he never took it too personally.”

Cadance continued to keep her gaze averted, unable to look Spike in the eye. “I suppose he understood what we were thinking when we…acted as we did,” she reasoned aloud.

“Hay, even I understood what you two were thinking,” Spike admitted, looking up abruptly. “The last changelings you two met replaced one of you and threw you into long-forgotten crystal caves with scant supplies and poor treatment, while the other was tricked, brainwashed, and nearly overfed upon, and then, to top it all off, tried to invade the country’s capital on your wedding day.” He rolled his eyes, sympathizing a little. “After getting put through all of that, I’m not sure if even I could’ve been able to readily trust a changeling like that.” He hung his head, recalling the events that had gone down in the Crystal Empire. “Still…I’m sure my actions to try and force you guys to listen probably didn’t help.”

“I won’t hear any of that, Spike,” Shining interrupted and sighed. “All of that is no excuse. The fact of the matter was that we were the very last ponies to be trying to make any sort of judgment call on the matter. We should’ve, at the very least, simply held you there and turned the matter over to somepony else like Celestia or Luna to judge…but we didn’t.” He sighed, running his hoof through his mane. He was getting himself rather worked up about this. “And then I sent you both out on your own into the frozen wastes like an idiot, expecting nothing to go wrong with that…not only was that stupid tactics for me as a soldier, I was so convinced that Thorax wasn’t acting alone that I thought for sure there was a whole swarm of those changelings out there somewhere in hiding, who’d snag you both up while leading us right to them…or so I was thinking in my head at the time, so we were all thinking. I didn’t even really think about the danger that would put you in as a changeling captive even if that was true, then when we learned instead that it wasn’t, and I had just sent you out into dangerous territory where you could’ve frozen to death…” Shining averted his gaze, eyes squeezed shut. “…that still keeps me up at night to this day.”

A heavy silence fell between them for a moment.

“Spike…as horrible as it sounds, I honestly can’t blame you for hating us right now,” Cadance said, picking up the lengthy apology from her husband. “But…we still wanted you to know…we are extremely sorry for what happened, and…I don’t know if we can ever succeed, but…we do want to try and…right the wrongs we’ve made however we can.” She trailed off, watching Spike and awaiting his reaction. When he didn’t give one right away, she grew antsy. “Please say something, Spike.”

Spike ultimately could only shrug. “You know, I won’t forget your guys’ role in all of this,” he began. “But, you know…right now…I’m finding that I just can’t get all that mad at you two. Not with what happened today and we’re standing right in the middle of.” He motioned to the crowd of intermingling changelings and ponies filling the room and managed a small grin at the sight. “You just can’t take away this good mood I’m in right now.” He glanced over at them. “Would you really want to, anyway?”

Both Cadance and Shining shook their heads, but they didn’t seem reassured at all. “It’s still no excuse,” Shining insisted. “We still wronged you.”

“Yeah, so what do you want me to do about it?” Spike asked helplessly. “Repeat what I initially did with Twilight? Shout at you? Call you names? Throw rocks at you?” He studied them for a moment, watching them as they shifted awkwardly and kept silent. Spike sighed. “You know, I do have my issues with Twilight right now, but still I regret doing all of that to her,” he confessed. “It didn’t help anyone, didn’t help us get any closer to making anything even remotely better, and…it certainly didn’t make me the better dragon for it. No matter how mad I was at the time…I should’ve tried harder to keep it civil around her so we could at least talk it out. So no matter how much you two might think you deserve it…I don’t want to repeat that mistake again. I let myself get into a very dark place back then…and maybe I had good reason…but I sure as hay am not proud of it.”

Another long silence fell between them as they awkwardly stood about, unsure how to continue. Suddenly remembering his plate of food, Spike took a few more bites off of it. “Is this why you both are here, anyway? To apologize?”

“Actually, we came to Vanhoover because we were returning the Vergilius as requested,” Shining explained and jerked his head in the vague direction of the airship field. “We also made arrangements to have it be housed indefinitely in its own hanger at the airfield at no cost to you, kept refueled and ready to takeoff at a moment’s notice if you ever need it.”

“You didn’t need to do that,” Spike assured them.

Shining gave Spike a long look. “Yes we did.”

Cadance cleared her throat uncomfortably. “Anyway, while we were here, we heard word that you were holding services for Thorax…so we thought we’d attend too, both to show support and so we could…talk afterwards.” She turned her gaze at the changelings intermixed with the other attendees. “Admittedly, we weren’t expecting…all of this.”

“Yeah, that was all sort of…unplanned,” Spike admitted with a sheepish cough. “But uh…the changelings had other ideas. I didn’t even know they were going to be here either until we all arrived, and even then I didn’t realize there were so many of them until I was literally up there at the podium, speaking.” He shuffled his feet for a moment. “Sorry if what I said is, ah, going to cause any political troubles by the way,” he added. “I know, because of that inquiry thing going on, we were all supposed to not be discussing what happened with the public like this just yet…”

“Actually…I’m kind of glad you did,” Shining admitted with a heavy sigh. “It…needed to come out. And if those stuffy nobles in charge of the inquiry have any problems with it…frankly, they can just—”

“Shining,” Cadance interrupted in a warning tone.

“—deal with it,” Shining amended at the last second. He shrugged. “At any rate, I’m just more hoping they actually do the job they’re supposed to and not let any of us royals off too easy.”

“You think they might?” Spike asked, who actually hadn’t been getting that impression, but he also wasn’t in any close circles with the political members involved anymore.

“It’s hard to say right now,” Cadance admitted in explanation. “Obviously, they aren’t saying too much to us about where things stand right now…but, yes, there is that fear, at least for Shining and I.” Seeing Spike wasn’t following, she continued. “You see, currently they’re debating whether or not the officials in Canterlot are in the right to be the ones ruling, or if the Crystal Empire has enough autonomy to deserve being the ones to have that final say on our case. As you may recall, the Crystal Empire enjoys notably more self-sufficiency than other city states within Equestria, seeing it used to be completely independent of it back before Sombra.”

“I remember,” Spike assured, but was frowning. “I don’t understand though, why is this an issue?”

“Because the crystal ponies, bless their hearts, aren’t much for holding grudges,” Shining explained. “They’re admittedly more just relieved that this is all over and things can go back, more or less, to normal.” He motioned to Spike with one hoof. “They’ve already gone back to referring to you as Spike the Brave and Glorious, for example.”

“And the crystal ponies traditionally put great faith in their heroes and reigning rulers, almost to a fault,” Cadance added. “It’s…partly how King Sombra was able to maintain power in the first place even as he was demonstrating an increasing downward slide into evil.”

Spike eyebrows went up as he understood. “You’re afraid that, if it’s left up to them, they’ll just sweep the whole matter under the rug.”

“We wouldn’t put it past them to exonerate us if given the chance, just because we’re their rulers,” Shining confirmed with a solemn nod.

“If they do try that though, I fully intend to overrule them and devise some sort of punishment for ourselves if I have to,” Cadance interjected determinedly while taking a more regal stance, outwardly conveying she was a princess and a ruler that had that sort of power. “It would be wrong for them to try and exonerate us of our wrong doing.”

“So just how would you ‘punish’ yourselves, then?” Spike asked with a critical eyebrow raised.

Cadance averted her gaze, getting the sense that Spike was unsure about this. “To be determined,” she simply shirked.

Yet another awkward silence fell between them. Shining coughed.

“Anyway,” the prince continued, “the point is that the ruling that no one should speak of this incident until after the inquiry is just…an attempt to downplay in my opinion…and it very much shouldn’t be. We messed up. Big time. It’s better we just be upfront about it and take the consequences that follow.” He leveled his gaze on Spike as he brought the somewhat ambling discussion back full circle. “And…I’m deeply sorry you had to suffer because of our mistakes, Spike…Thorax too.”

Cadance watched Spike as he averted his gaze sadly. “You must miss him dearly,” she observed.

Spike snorted. “That doesn’t even need mentioning at this point,” he pointed out, but then sighed. “You know, I do wish things could have been different, and that Thorax was alive and well and with us here now…of course I wish that…but…at the same time…I look back on what time I did get to have with him, and…even though it all ended entirely too soon…they’re still the greatest times of my life…ever. And I wouldn’t give that up for the world.” He played with his plate of food for a second. “You know, in a way, a small part of me could almost thank you two.”

Shining’s eyes widened. “Thank us?”

Spike nodded, grinning a little sheepishly, perfectly aware of how that sounded. “You have to realize…it’s because of you two choosing to banish us that gave me that kind of time with Thorax at all. If you hadn’t…well…maybe I wouldn’t have gotten to know him as well as I did…and I can’t even bring myself to think about that.”

Shining and Cadance both exchanged glances at this, looking vaguely touched, but still neither seemed reassured. “As moving as that is, Spike, none of that still makes what happened right,” Shining said pointedly.

“Of course it doesn’t,” Spike agreed softly. “But it does take some of the edge off of it.”

Shining went quiet for a second. “Look, what happened in the Crystal Empire was a grave mistake that never should’ve happened at all,” he pressed, not backing down. “And we were both very foolish to be so quick to not just let it happen, but fully support it too. You aren’t the only one we’ve managed to invoke the ire of in all of this…but you were the one who was right from the beginning to protest us doing it, and in a lot of ways…I have to admire you for being able to see what everyone else couldn’t or wouldn’t at the time.” He shook his head, taking in a deep and envious breath. “And what you said at the podium just now…that was especially impressive, and the results it’s brought about…” he motioned to the crowd around them with a sense of awe.

Spike just shrugged it off dismissively though. “I didn’t do anything too special,” he said. “I just spoke the truth. It was the changelings that ultimately made the deciding action. So all I did was…finish what Thorax had already started, I guess.”

“Yes, but the things it’s bringing about, the very idea of peace between ponies and changelings, I mean…what a bold move to make,” Shining repeated in awe.

“Spike,” Cadance spoke up patiently. “You do understand the magnitude of what it is that you’ve started here today, right?” She motioned to the crowd of intermingling ponies and changelings. “This is just the beginning. You’ve pulled the cork off of something far bigger than all of us and it’s only just starting. I can’t even begin to predict what all might be coming next from this. It may not all be good, either—there could still be pushback from this, those who’ll resist. The fight might be only just beginning…or it might already be over, for all we know. Whatever it is, it’s going to be one hay of a ride.” She looked back at Spike. “Don’t underappreciate your role in all of this. Surely even you have to acknowledge that you have, quite possibly, brought about a massive change for both of our cultures by pushing for such peace, good or bad, and there’s no turning back from that now. Tell me you do realize that, right?”

Spike, again, just shrugged. “I probably don’t,” he admitted patiently. “Like I said…I just spoke my mind.” He gazed at them both knowingly. “But do either of you know any better than I do?” He watched them both for a second, but neither replied. “Besides,” he continued, “even if there are downsides, isn’t what could be obtained from all of this in the end worth the risk?” He straightened to his full height, looking determined. “Either way, I frankly don’t care what happens next…so long as the end goal Thorax wanted is still obtained.” He looked Shining and Cadance over for a second, then, turning his attention back to his plate of food, started to turn to head off. “Thank you for coming to talk with me…I’m glad we’ve finally gotten that out of the way.”

He then walked into the crowd, leaving the two royals with a lot to think about.

The services-turned-wake proceeded on for some time, even well after the refreshments had run out and all there was left to do was continue hanging about and just talk. But talk they all did, and by the time it did draw to a close that late afternoon, both ponies and changelings alike had come to understand each other better. They walked out not just as equals, but several as budding friends.

And that was immediately put to the test when the changelings all decided that, now that they had revealed themselves so publically, they didn’t want to go back into hiding again. So they didn’t—despite the urgings of caution from the more hesitant in the group, the changelings all filed out of the building and back onto the streets of Vanhoover completely and utterly out of disguise, making no attempt to hide that they were changelings in any shape or form. In fact, if anything, they exited looking rather proud of who and what they were, and did so without fear of displaying that.

Of course, this caused an immediate stir as the city of Vanhoover quickly realized there were changelings among them. Crowds started to form, partly to gawk and partly to fret over whether or not this was cause for concern. Traffic in the streets was ground to a halt even by the swarms coming to witness the changelings and ponies that were both jointly filing out into the streets without hesitation. It grew to the point that the police were even called in to ensure the peace was kept, fearing that a stampede or a riot might break out if they didn’t. And there were certainly onlookers who took issue with the blatant display of changelings in the group.

But the changelings weren’t on their own—many of the ponies they had just spent so much time getting to know during the services were quick to come to their defense, back them up, and even stand with them. As ponies and changelings alike filed through the streets while the rest of the city looked on, it started to turn into something of an unplanned march or non-violent demonstration. Some even started to join in towards the end. Spike saw reporters arriving on the scene en masse too, and knew what would be in all of the headlines across the city tomorrow, and that it would only spread across Equestria from there.

But at the moment, he wasn’t too particularly concerned about it. What the changelings did about this he left to their judgment, trusting that they would make the right calls now that they had been reformed and already demonstrated they were so eager to turn over a new leaf. The most he did was agree, along with Fly Leaf, to give a statement explaining the situation to the police chief in charge of keeping the peace. Being surprisingly understanding, the police agreed to ensure the changelings all safely got to wherever they were going, in this case the train station. They later received word that this was indeed done successfully and the changelings all successfully exited the city without incident, never once putting on a disguise. From the mark they left on some of the ponies they got to know before leaving though, Spike suspected some of them would probably be coming back soon, an idea he supported and hoped would continue to go well.

For the moment though, his chief focus was getting back home to Fly’s shop, as it had been a long day of many surprising events and he was ready to bring it to a close. Their progress was hampered somewhat as word got out that he, Fly, and Trixie were the ones who had arranged the event that had drawn so many changelings to the city, compounded by the fact that many of the guests at said services cited Spike as a source of inspiration for the day’s events, so naturally there were many who wanted a word with them, if only to get the whole story. Spike had had enough of the public spotlight though, and shirked the attention. Fly Leaf, seeing this, backed him up and turned away many of the inquirers. Only Trixie let herself get caught up in the spotlight, falling back into her old attention-grabbing persona as she personally gave several statements about the day’s events, but she never once took credit for any of it.

“Trixie was simply a lucky mare in the right place and time to be a part of it,” Spike overheard her humbly tell one pony, a local reporter, as part of her statement.

Delayed though they were by all of this, they eventually succeeded in arriving back at the shop, which Fly Leaf decided to lock up early for the night just to be safe, and the three proceeded to settle in. Trixie and Fly retreated back into the kitchen to clean up from the refreshments, Spike assisting for a while. But as Fly’s kitchen was only so big, all three of them working in there at once started to get a little crowded. After bumping into Trixie for the third time that evening, Spike found there was little more he could do to help, and at Fly’s encouragement, proceeded upstairs to his room with the intent of unwinding a little from the day’s excitement.

He expected to see the usual underwhelming sight of a room that was more devoid of occupants than it should be, but when he opened the door, he was instead surprised to find Discord, dressed in a full and formal black suit and carrying a bouquet of black-colored roses in his arms, standing calmly in the center of the room.

Not at all prepared for this sight, Spike simply stood there and blankly stared at the draconequus while slowly closing the door behind him. Discord unhelpfully just stared back and didn’t speak, lacking his usual energy.

At a loss for words, Spike sought something to say. “I didn’t know there was such a thing as black roses,” he finally noted, nodding his head at bouquet in Discord’s hands.

Discord glanced down at the bouquet briefly. “The florist I got them from artificially colors them on special order,” he explained simply. He released the bouquet, which calmly floated over into Spike’s claws, and sighed as he got to the point. “Fluttershy explained to me what happened.”

Spike, who was examining the roses now that he had them up close, looked up sharply as he realized, perhaps slower than he should’ve, why Discord was here. He was again momentarily at a loss for words. “I…had thought you would’ve known all of that already, well before now,” he remarked slowly, awkwardly.

“If I did, don’t you think I would’ve been by already?” Discord asked rhetorically.

Spike shrugged. “No offense, Discord…but it’s not like you actually knew Thorax, and the last time you and I met, Thorax had no memory of the encounter. I just…didn’t think you would feel the need to make a personal visit.”

“Oh Spike, how little you think of me,” Discord remarked, looking genuinely hurt. “I know you after all…don’t you think I care how his passing might’ve affected you?”

Spike really didn’t, but already seeing that apparently wasn’t the case and knowing it would only offend Discord who was trying to be nice and supportive for a change, he saw no need to admit it. “Then…why didn’t you know sooner?” he asked the draconequus instead, simply being curious. “I mean…didn’t you say you were keeping an eye on the both of us?”

“I was,” Discord admitted, and here he averted his gaze, a little ashamed. “But…after Purple Smart chased you out of Vanhoover and then crossed paths with that dragoness friend of yours, you had someone else safeguarding the both of you now. That along with the realization that others were coming around to your view of things and Sunbutt kicking her protégée off the case in hopes of fixing things, I had figured you two were in good hands or hooves or whatever and weren’t going to need me watching over you anymore, because a resolution felt like it was near.” He sighed heavily. Spike could tell this was weighing heavily on his conscious. “So…I stopped.”

“Just in time for us to get caught up in Chrysalis’s plans for invasion,” Spike deduced, understanding.

Discord nodded his head sadly. “I didn’t even know any of this happened until I met up with Fluttershy earlier today for a little get-together we had already planned on doing,” he confessed. “Until then…I must admit…I had been busy doing absolutely nothing in particular.” Discord pulled such a sad face as he said this that Spike felt his heart go out for the ashamed draconequus.

“No one’s blaming you for what happened, Discord,” he assured him. “You didn’t know. No one can expect you to act on something you didn’t know about.”

“I should’ve though,” Discord stressed, not comforted. “And I quite readily would’ve jumped in and put an end to it all then and there had I known about it, especially knowing that poor Fluttershy was a victim in all of this too.”

“Because you would personally go to the ends of reality itself to protect her from harm,” Spike murmured, remembering Discord’s own words on the matter.

Discord nodded again and folded his arms smugly. “And that would’ve been the end of the matter too, of course. I’d like to see Chryssie try and pull off any sort of invasion on my friends when I’m around to fight back.”

“Except I’m not sure you really would’ve been much more help than the rest of us, Discord,” Spike admitted. “Queen Chrysalis had this throne at the hive that absorbed any and all magic that wasn’t changeling, preventing it from working. No one had access to their magic except Thorax while we were in the hive.”

Discord snorted, not convinced. “I doubt her plaything of a throne would’ve really worked to stop me though. My magic is on a whole other order of magnitude than, well, anything else on this planet.”

Spike wasn’t so certain of that. “It doesn’t matter now, anyway,” he remarked. “The throne’s destroyed and long gone. It’s part of what…” he hesitated, unsure how to say it. His first instinct was the say “saved the day,” but to Spike, it certainly didn’t feel like it considering it didn’t save his friend too. “…ended the matter.”

“Well, Chryssie brought it upon herself, regardless,” Discord hummed to himself, mulling over the matter. “A bit too smug and confident for her own good, her.”

Spike suddenly had a thought. “Do you know where she is?”

“Chrysalis? Unfortunately, no.” Discord sighed. “It was the first thing I tried to do, but unfortunately, wherever the bug queen is laying low at, it’s hidden good and sheltered. I can’t seem to find it. But I wanted to try and do something about all of this, so…” he motioned helplessly to the bouquet Spike held, as if suddenly realizing how pitifully inadequate that seemed, “…I brought flowers.”

Spike regarded the roses for a second. “They’re very nice flowers,” he assured gently.

“Well, I thought so,” Discord conceded, but he didn’t seem reassured. He sighed yet again. “Honestly, I wasn’t sure what to do. I admit, I’m not too experienced with death, y’know…thanks to me being immortal and incapable of dying and all. And other than Celestia and Luna who are obviously pretty immortal too, I’ve never actually associated with anyone long enough to ever be put in this sort of situation before, so…well…I asked the florist I got those flowers from for some advice, but now I’m wondering if it’s not conveying the right message I want to convey…what am I trying to convey? Whatever it is, the language of flowers seems grossly inadequate for it…maybe they haven’t invented the right flowers to convey my thoughts correctly yet…”

Spike understood what the draconequus was trying, but couldn’t quite bring himself to verbally say, though. “I forgive you, Discord,” he assured. “Circumstances just went outside of both of our controls…that’s not your fault any more than it is mine. I can’t possibly blame you for anything, and certainly not for what happened.”

“Oh.” Discord seemed taken aback by this and looked unsure how to proceed. He flustered about for a second trying to get his thoughts back on track. “It’s just I wish I could do more, y’know?” he finally said, looking sullen. “Which…feels weird admittedly, because…I’ve never felt like that before, but…” he shook his head, averting his gaze, “…it’s just there are some things even I can’t do, I fear.”

Spike thought about the action Discord was implying he wanted to do but couldn’t, mulling that non-possibility in his head for a second and pondering on what it might be like if Discord somehow could. “Honestly…even if you could do that…I’m not sure I’d want you to.” He sadly wrapped his arms tighter around the bouquet of roses. “As much as I miss him…I don’t think he’d want that…and in a way, I can see why…it’d cheapen the whole point of it all.”

Discord gazed at him curiously for a long second. “I’m not sure everyone is going to see it that way,” he admitted.

“I know. They don’t have to.” Spike shrugged. “Reality is just like that sometimes, though.”

“Pesky reality…you know, someone should really get around to fixing that someday.”

Spike chuckled a little. “I suppose so.”

A moment of silence fell between the two.

Discord then clapped his mismatched hands together and straightened the black suit he wore. “Well, I guess I’ve said my piece.” He turned to walk off as if he was exiting the room even though there was no exit in the direction he turned. “So, you know, all the customarily silly farewell and closing statements people are fond of saying.” He paused for a moment then turned to glance back at Spike, his gaze suddenly heavy and serious. He motioned a lion’s paw at the little dragon. “Is this what it’s like to lose a good friend forever?”

Spike lowered his gaze sadly. “I guess so,” he admitted before meeting Discord’s eye again. “I hope you don’t have to face that any time soon yourself, Discord.”

Discord gazed at him for a moment. “We’ll have to see.”

He then turned and proceeded walking for one wall of the room, vanishing in a brief flash right as he was about to run into it. Spike remained standing there in the room, clutching the bouquet in his arms tightly as he replayed the discussion over in his head.

Later that evening, Spike gave the roses to Fly Leaf. She put them in a crystal vase, cleared the display in the shop’s front window, and placed the flowers there, along with the picture of Thorax in disguise from the services earlier as well as a placard which simply read: “in loving memory of our friend.”

Author's Note

I know there were some readers expecting Spike to chew out Shining and Cadance more than this, but when it came to doing this scene, it didn't seem like the right approach to it. Not only was Spike going to be in such a good mood from getting the changelings and ponies interacting (meaning Cadance and Shining chose a good time to approach), he had also had time to come to terms a bit more with what had happened and had braced himself accordingly. Plus, from the beginning, Spike has always understood why Cadance and Shining acted as they did--it was always Twilight that he had the greatest issue with. But note he never once said or indicated that he forgave them. He just felt there was no need to be uncivil with them at the moment.

There was also some speculation on how the crystal ponies might have taken Cadance and Shining's actions in all of this negatively, due to how much faith they tend to put in their royalty, which is a valid argument to be sure...but I also thought that, because of that great faith, it wasn't unfathomable the crystal ponies would sooner give them the benefit of a doubt and overlook the mistake...if given the chance. So that's the route I'm taking for this, if only to make them stand out from the rest of Equestria (which will be more mixed). But as stated in the chapter, Cadance and Shining won't let themselves get off easy for this mess, no matter what happens.

As for Discord, I admit that scene was devised more for the readers who were wanting the follow-up on him and not much else, but now that I've written it, I am kind of glad I did it, because A: we see a more timid side of Discord in his fumblings to cope with death, and B: it strikes me that Spike is quite calm throughout that discussion, suggesting that Spike is coming to terms with what happened and is ready, at least now more than ever, to move on.

And the aftermath of the changelings revealing themselves continue, but it's an event-in-progress still. More details on that forthcoming next chapter and probably the final chapter after that...though admittedly...I'll probably have bigger fish to be frying next chapter. :raritywink:

Gratias Tibi Ago

As predicted, the changelings publicly walking about Vanhoover made headline news across the city by the following morning. The news snowballed from there across Equestria, moving like lightning, and the reaction from the public seemed half and half. One side was open to the idea of reformed changelings and the possibility of them becoming allies, while the other was not convinced the changelings had changed at all, either unwilling to see them as allies or believed it didn’t matter—they still needed to be held responsible for their past actions. Left with no immediate majority, it remained unclear which side would ultimately prevail in the country, but neither side seemed very willing to give up their stance on the matter, even with the anti-changeling side on average quickly proving itself to be the more…belligerent in tone. But the exact reactions to the ideological divide depended on the region, as some regions bore more anti-changeling supporters than others.

Vanhoover proved to be one place that was notably more pro-changeling than anti-changeling. Clearly, the visiting changelings, brief as their visit was, had successfully left their mark.

Of course there were still a scant few outliers who were technically on neither side. The fact that the reformed changelings didn’t entirely match the appearance of the old changelings left room for some confusion with those lacking the whole story. This naturally led to a group of conspiracy theorists who claimed the “so-called” changelings who’d appeared in Vanhoover couldn’t actually be real changelings. They thus concluded it was all part of a government sponsored publicity stunt serving to cover-up for a bigger chain of events taking place between Equestria and the Changeling Kingdom…or so a notably obscure tabloid paper Trixie found one day claimed. She bought a copy and brought it back to Fly’s shop just so they could all have a good laugh about the nonsense it spouted on the matter, which they did. It helped that it was clear there weren’t many out there taking the silly theories too seriously.

What was being taking seriously was what the repercussions meant for Equestria and its immediate future, as it was quickly finding itself caught up in the larger political ramifications from the story circulating around and ponies learned something of the tale of Thorax and his end fate. And many seemed to agree that the government, especially the royal family, had mishandled the whole situation quite spectacularly. Soon word reached Vanhoover that protesters—not many yet, but they were there—had started showing up in Canterlot so to complain about what they saw as a lack of response to circumstances they felt needed to change…immediately.

Oddly, Spike found himself feeling a little bad for that. It wasn’t lost on him that this was precisely the very situation officials had wished to put off by keeping the story under wraps until after their investigations had concluded, so he felt responsible for the repercussions now arising. It didn’t help that Spike was often being publically recognized as the initiator of the “changeling movement”—as the media was calling it—due to all sources of the story eventually coming back to him, thanks to his so-called “speech” at Thorax’s memorial service bringing it to public attention. This was aided by one attending changeling with good memory who had been able to relate, almost word for word, Spike’s comments, and copies of it started circulating Equestria immediately afterwards. Thus when asked who got the movement started, the public generally pointed to Spike, though of course not all of them thought that was a bad thing.

Regardless, Spike kept expecting the officials to swoop down to hold him responsible for the political snafu he had landed them in. But it didn’t come. The most Spike got was a sternly-worded form letter reminding him that he had been asked not to publically speak of the matter and expressed disappointment that he hadn’t…but otherwise they left Spike unscathed, free to live his life as before. It was unclear why exactly. He thought it might be because news of the inquiry itself had yet to reach the ears of the public and thus it was able to continue undeterred for now. Or so he had every reason to believe; there was still no word on its progress and if it would be announcing any verdicts soon, if at all. But while the officials were willing to leave Spike and those associated with him alone, it wasn’t quite the same story for the rest of the public.

The day after the eventful services, Fly Leaf received the replacement glass needed to fix her front door, and upon doing so, decided it was time to reopen her shop for business. “It’ll help get back a bit of normality, I think,” she reasoned when announcing this.

So reopen it did, later in the day than normal, and as there had been no announcing in advance that the shop was reopening that day, business was limited to random walk-ins because their more regular customers weren’t yet aware the shop was reopening that day, altogether halving business for that day. But Spike resumed his usual positions working in the shop as before, and Trixie jumped in to help too, learning some of the basic tasks around the shop on the go. And Fly was ultimately glad to have their support too, as despite the lowered number of customers, things still got hectic at points…but it wasn’t because of ponies coming to shop.

They came wanting to meet the ones who’d known Thorax personally and to hear the tale straight from their mouths.

Some even came seeking autographs, from Spike in particular. Spike had no tolerance for that though—any papers that got shoved in his direction he made sure suffered “unfortunate accidents” shortly thereafter, leaving the requester with no autograph to show for it.

In fact, Spike only wanted to do his job in the shop without distraction, not play the part of the celebrity, even if it was well-meaning—many of the ponies were supportive of Spike’s side of the story…or at least what they knew of it. But that was the problem, of course. The general details were public knowledge now, but many of the finer details of what happened still were not, and the eager ponies recognized that the one who most likely could give them up in full was Spike.

Spike didn’t want to be dragged back through the painful memories though, so with strained politeness, he refused anyone who asked for details. They’d then turn to Fly Leaf and Trixie to ask instead, seen as the next best, but Fly Leaf had little more tolerance for it herself, and even Trixie got tired of all of the attention real fast, wearing her thin. At one point, the poor mare, who had otherwise been in fairly good spirits all day, broke down under the strain and had to retreat into the back so to weep and vent some stirred up emotions. After that, Fly Leaf put her hoof down and ruled that service would only be given to ponies actually there to shop. Any pony there for anything else would immediately be turned away. It took a bit of enforcing, and it helped when Spike decided it’d be better if he kept out of sight working in the back, but this did help to stem the flood.

These many excitements all aside though, life gradually started to fall back into a routine for those at Fly Leaf’s Books and Stationery, but it couldn’t quite be called normal, given that Thorax was now absent and it was felt strongly. Spike felt it every time he stepped into his room and saw all of Thorax’s belongings, still where the changeling had last left them as Spike didn’t have the heart to do much of anything with them himself. There was more than he realized anyway, notably offsetting the number of belongings he himself had owned…at least until the boxes of his Ponyville things started arriving at the shop, shipped to him as Twilight had promised.

Thus far Spike hadn’t done much to unpack the boxes now stacked at random around the room. On one end it was mostly because trying to hurt doubly so; it reminded Spike of everything he had lost in all of this, both in his changeling friend and the life he had left behind in Ponyville. But on the other, it also made the dragon realize that he wasn’t sure where to put it all without also going through Thorax’s belongings…which raised the painful question of whether or not Spike really wanted to hold onto them. He didn’t like the idea of parting with the reminders, but at the same time knew very well he wouldn’t actually do anything with most of any of them, which seemed like a waste that weighed even heavier on Spike’s conscience.

He hoped to give himself a bit of wiggle room by telling Trixie she was free to go through Thorax’s belongings and keep anything she wanted, thinking that since she and Thorax held similar likes, surely something would catch her eye. But Trixie paled at the very idea just as much as Spike did and always seemed to find some excuse to turn them down. The one time Spike talked her to come into the room to at least look, she spent most of it realizing and then lamenting over the fact that Thorax never finished getting caught up on his Sky Trek books, coming close but falling quite short. She wouldn’t even take Thorax’s record player, which Spike offered to her so to replace the one she had lost at the changeling hive. Instead, at her own suggestion, she took the record player that was among Spike’s Ponyville belongings which Spike hadn’t even considered offering up to anyone—not out of sentimental value but because he knew the player was considerably older, worn down, and in overall poorer shape. He felt Trixie should have the player of better quality, but Trixie was insistent. So in the end, much of Thorax’s things remained where they were.

Either way, life was still, somehow, trudging on undeterred. And in many ways…that felt satisfactory enough. Fly Leaf was back to running her shop and Spike was back as the dutiful dragon in her employ. Trixie was there to help pick up the slack too, and Fly was soon telling the showmare just how helpful she was being.

“You can totally stay and keep helping too, if you want,” Fly added semi-cryptically, leaving Trixie to then turn to Spike and ask, confused, if Fly had just offered to hire her.

Spike was of the opinion that she was and said as such. But not to his great surprise, the longer Trixie stayed in Vanhoover, the more restless she seemed to become. Though Spike and Fly both welcomed her in the shop, Trixie clearly felt like she was out of place. It just wasn’t the life she knew, or the life she wanted. It wasn’t until the start of the week following that she finally came forward with her choice, but when she made the announcement that morning while they sat at breakfast, it was one they had already seen would be coming.

“I’m…thinking I’m going to start making preparations to go on my way soon,” she said solemnly, half-heartedly stirring the bowl of cereal she had been eating. “At least, long enough to get back my wagon, and then…well…” she trailed off, as if ashamed.

But Fly was immediately supportive. “Go back to the life of a traveling showmare?” she finished as she glanced at Trixie over the top of the newspaper she was reading. “If I’m perfectly honest, Trixie, that just might be where you need to be in the end…someplace familiar and natural for you.”

“It’s just it feels like I’d be…running away,” Trixie admitted.

“You’re not running away,” Spike offered, who had long been pondering similar thoughts about his own course in life. “You’re just moving on, settling back into life. And let’s face it, Trixie…you’re a showmare. It’s what you know best. It’s what you do best.”

Trixie made a sheepish smile. “Trixie is pretty good,” she relented, allowing her showmare persona to surface briefly. It had actually become something of a rare sight ever since Thorax had passed away, so to see it be expressed now seemed like a sign Trixie was indeed recovering.

Changed, perhaps, Spike inwardly reminded himself while mulling upon it, but still recovering…and that’s more important right now.

“I guess the other thing that’s holding me back,” Trixie went on after a momentary pause, “is that, for the first time, going back to the life of a traveling showmare feels…awfully lonely.”

Spike and Fly paused with their respective meals for a second, mulling that confession over. “Well, you have plenty of friends you can count on and socialize with whenever you like still,” Fly reasoned encouragingly, but there was a faint glint of discontent with that. “I admit, though, I don’t have much more I can offer to help than that.”

Trixie shook her head, waving the matter aside with the wave of one hoof. “I’ll manage…I always did in the past. I didn’t even mind it so much before.” She paused, staring distantly into her bowl of cereal. “But then I met Thorax…and I guess…it made me realize just how lonely I actually am.”

Spike poked at his food half-heartedly for a moment, feeling guilty. “I’m sorry you had to loose Thorax like this, Trixie,” he mumbled.

Trixie sighed. “Please stop beating yourself over that, Spike,” she pleaded. “You’ve been getting put through enough as it is, I don’t need you trying to take on the weight of my own problems too. My issues aren’t your fault…they aren’t really anyone’s…it’s just…part of life. And life has its downsides in addition to its upsides.” She bit her lip lightly and nodded her head to herself. “I guess this is just one of them.”

A somber silence fell at the table for a second until Fly Leaf cleared her throat, shifting the flow of the conversation. “You know, you don’t have to go back to the showmare business right away if you don’t want to,” she reminded Trixie. “We’re happy to have you here for however long you want to stay.”

Trixie smiled warmly. “I do appreciate that,” she said. “But…I admit I’ve been feeling…restless…here. It’s not…it’s not…gosh, I don’t know how to say it. I just feel it’s time for me to move on too.” She motioned to Spike. “Besides…my chief goal was to see Spike settled back in…and I think you’re doing that successfully…right?”

Spike thought about it for a second then slowly nodded. “I think so,” he said, with more confidence than he expected, but it was genuine all the same.

Trixie smiled. “Good.” She then turned back to her cereal and went on. “Anyway, now would probably be the best time as any to get back into show business, at least for me. Interest in the works of the Great and Powerful Trixie is high, because of all that’s happened. At first, I thought it wouldn’t be fair of me to use that for my gain like this, but…after giving it some more thought…I think I could make it my little way to…salute those we’ve lost…in the process.” She then shrugged. “Besides…I actually was approached by an agency who wanted to fund a sizeable tour for Trixie…and that doesn’t come by very often for me. It’d…feel like a waste not to take it up.”

“I think Thorax would want you to, anyway,” Spike reasoned, grinning to himself as he could just hear what the changeling would probably have to say about all of this. “He wouldn’t want you to stop your life just for his sake.”

“I just wish he could be here to be a part of it too,” Trixie murmured, but then sighed and lifted her bowl to slurp down the remaining dregs of her cereal. “Anyway…I’m probably not going anywhere just yet…still have some more planning to do. And first I have to get back to my wagon. I left all that in Ponyville…which Starlight’s assured me she’s been keeping an eye on in her letters.”

Spike raised his eyebrows at that, unaware Starlight had been writing letters to Trixie, or to anyone for that matter, but chose not to comment on it. Now that he thought of it, he supposed he shouldn’t be surprised.

“Well, when you do,” Fly said, reaching over with one hoof to pat Trixie’s, “I hope you’ll still swing by and visit us here in Vanhoover as often as you can.”

Trixie grinned. “I’d like that.”

For now though, there was work to still be done, and after breakfast they all went about opening and running Fly’s shop. As had become the accustomed norm, Spike spent most of it in the back, managing the shop’s stock. It was actually getting to be very dreary work as there wasn’t considerably much that needed to be done, but Spike put up with it because it kept him out the prying eyes of the public, still trying to slip into the shop just so to try and talk to him about matters he didn’t want to discuss. It was an off and on frustration for Spike, depending on his mood and how heavily recent events were weighing on his mind. Today, he actually wasn’t in too bad of spirits, but regardless, he wasn’t interested in being chatty about it to anyone other than Fly and Trixie, so hiding in the back with the stock where customers never go it was.

Spike did wish he didn’t have to resort to it for such privacy. In fact, he wished the white shirt and false eyeglasses he still wore daily as a disguise worked to dissuade attention from him…but unfortunately, ponies in Vanhoover had caught on to his true identity despite that. Regardless, even though the disguise was now more pointless than ever, Spike found himself more comfortable wearing it than not—he blamed it on the fact that he had spent so much time wearing it in Vanhoover, and now it had become hardwired into his brain that the two went together, meaning something was wrong if one was missing. In fact, he now gave considerable thought of investing in a new sweater vest so to replace the one he had lost, maybe even obtaining a whole slew of them in different colors, so to shake things up a little.

He was in the middle of considering what colors of sweater vest would look good while cataloging stock when Trixie poked her head into the makeshift stock area. “Spike, there’s somepony up front here to see you,” she informed.

Spike turned and raised a skeptical eyebrow at her. “You mean somepony who actually isn’t here to pry an autograph or some stupid thing like that out of me?”

Trixie frowned. “Just get out here,” she urged before leaving.

Spike groaned to himself, having his ideas about who he’d find up front, but he quickly wrapped up what he had been doing and came out as requested. “All right, so who is it exactly that wants me out here so badly?” he grumbled as he pushed his way through the batwing doors and into the shop’s main room.

He got no immediate response from Fly Leaf and Trixie standing behind the front desk who both turned to look at him almost somberly…as did the fully-armored royal guard that was patiently standing next to the desk.

Spike frowned as his eyes locked on the guard. “Of course,” he muttered.

“Mister Spike,” the pegasus guard greeted gently as Spike approached them. “I—”

“Let me guess!” Spike interrupted. “Somebody in the government finally decided come after me for publicizing the matter of the changelings.”

The guard shook his head. “Actually, I—”

“Well, you can tell them to forget it!” Spike went on, not listening. “If they really wanted to do something about it, they should’ve done it sooner before I had the chance to fall into the role.”

“Mister Spike—”

“I’ve had a good while to think through what happened, and you know what? I can’t regret what I did! The ponies of Equestria deserved to know what happened, and I saw nothing good coming from hiding it.”

“I’m not here because of—”

“And think about what it meant for me, after all! You’re basically asking me to lie or hide what happened, and…and do you know just what I lost through all of this? All things considered, I think I should get some slack—”

“It concerns Princess Twilight!” The guard interrupted urgently, raising his voice so to be heard. Upon this silencing Spike, he then pressed on apologetically. “I’m afraid there’s been an incident, Mister Spike.”

Spike remained quiet, his brain needing a moment to process this. It immediately stirred a massive array of conflicting emotions in his gut, some he didn’t relish having to face again so soon, but of them dread was rapidly becoming the most prominent. “What happened?” he asked.

The guard only shook his head. “I’m afraid I don’t know the details,” he explained, still apologetic. “I was simply asked by Princess Luna to bring you to Canterlot General Hospital as soon as possible.”

Spike’s eyes widened slightly as the dread in his stomach turned from a monsoon to a world-engulfing flood of biblical proportions. He turned his head to glance at Fly and Trixie standing beside him, seeing they had similar expressions on their faces. He opened his mouth to address Fly, but she was already way ahead of him and cut him off before he could even get a syllable out. “Don’t ask, just go,” she said, urgently motioning Spike on for the door with one hoof.

Spike needed no further bidding, and without stopping to do a thing more, he started urgently for the door with the royal guard silently following, both heading right for the chariot parked outside of the shop. In record time, that chariot was soon airborne, traveling as fast as the pegasus guard could pull it. His dedication to the task was impressive, and Spike saw the guard’s white coat was soon covered with the sheen of sweat from the exertion, but the guard never once slowed his pace. Spike silently appreciated how serious he was treating his task.

But along the way, Spike spent most of the breakneck journey drilling the guard for any and all details he could give the dragon. Unfortunately though, the guard hadn’t been exaggerating earlier—he really didn’t know anything. All he could tell Spike was that there had been some sort of incident in Canterlot which had stirred up a small panic and had apparently left Twilight Sparkle in serious enough of a condition that Princess Luna ordered her be moved to the hospital for immediate treatment, receiving the best care and treatment facilities available in the country. He knew not a shred more of information beyond that, and to his credit, he was very apologetic about it because he knew it wasn’t of much help for Spike, worried and uncertain of what he might find when they arrived.

So when they at last did arrive—the guard delivering him right at the hospital before escorting him inside as he had orders from Luna to allow Spike direct and immediate entry without delay—the first thing Spike did upon entering the attached viewing room in which Princesses Celestia, Luna, and Starlight Glimmer already were standing tensely within was to demand details.

“What happened?” he commanded as he burst in through the door and, without slowing or waiting for a response, immediately hurried to the window that looked into Twilight’s room beyond.

“Spike!” Luna declared in surprise as the threesome spun about to look at him. Both she and Celestia moved to stop, or at least slow, Spike’s approach to the window.

But Spike pushed past the hooves barring him and continued for the window. His breath caught as he saw Twilight, unconscious, lying on a bed on the other side, visibly bruised and beaten wherever her body wasn’t covered from sight by a blanket, and hooked up to an intravenous drip and a heart monitor. A nurse and a doctor were in the process of putting the finishing touches on casts placed on her right rear leg and her left wing.

Spike uttered a curse in linguae mutationis. “Look at her,” he breathed, “She looks awful.” He spun on the others in the room and repeated his first demand. “What happened? Is she—?”

“She has severe bruising to the chest and face, cracked ribs, a broken leg, and a broken wing, but altogether nothing life-threatening that has been found,” Luna assured the dragon, putting a hoof on his shoulder. “The doctors initially feared that she could have internal bleeding, but have since been able to rule that out, thank heavens. All in all, she’s a bit beaten, but the doctors strongly believe she is going to pull through okay. For the moment though, we’re waiting for her to regain consciousness to be absolutely certain.”

Some of the dread in Spike’s stomach lifted, his body relaxing slightly under Luna’s hoof, but he still wasn’t satisfied. “But what happened?” he demanded for a third time, twisting his head around to look at the princess of the night, then at Princess Celestia who stood just behind her.

But it was actually Starlight who answered the question. “She was attacked, Spike,” she summarized gravely.

Spike felt his heart clench and spun around to face the unicorn. “By who?”

“Well…we’re not sure exactly who, everything happened so fast during the riot—”

Spike blinked and reflexively pulled back, shocked. “Riot?”

“Perhaps we should explain from the beginning,” Luna suggested to Starlight, calmly intervening.

“Right,” Starlight agreed and backtracked to the beginning. “Okay, well…first, Spike, you need to understand that since we…all got back from the changeling hive, Twilight has been…rather reclusive. She’s spent most of the past…what is now, a week and a half?…locked up in her castle and basically…moping. It’s been real hard to get her interested in doing anything, and she’s not been very sociable with anypony, barely even with me and the other girls.”

“Of course, I can understand Twilight continuing to be in low spirits after what had transpired,” Luna offered, jumping in to add her thoughts. “But I was also hoping she would strive harder to be a bit more…proactive…in the meantime. Eventually, we thought that perhaps it would help if we gave Twilight a task to be a part of. Nothing major, just something positive for her to be doing.”

“And by that time, I had largely finished what work I could do at the changeling hive, helping them get settled and smoothing out some of the rougher bumps in our relations,” Celestia said, now picking up the tale. “I was already planning to head back to Canterlot in hopes of continuing to refine the budding relations between us and sort out arrangements for the transport and return of any captured prey the hive still bore, bringing with me a small party of three changelings as representatives to help, when Luna sent word of this idea to me.”

Spike was surprised to hear these plans though, having heard nothing about any changeling dignitaries coming to visit Equestria in such a capacity. “Meet with the changelings? Here? I hadn’t heard anything about that.”

“With the public being…mixed about the changelings at present, we were avoiding broadcasting it as a precaution,” Celestia explained. “For the safety of the changelings and to avoid making an unnecessary scene with any protesters that might take issue to their presence.” She sighed. “Unfortunately, despite those preparations…”

“We’re getting ahead of ourselves though,” Starlight interrupted and resumed telling the story, facing Spike once more. “The point is that Princess Celestia was bringing a party of changelings to Canterlot for diplomatic work, and we had the thought that maybe Twilight would like to help represent Equestria. You know, to feel included. The princesses here agreed with the idea, so that just left Twilight.”

“Did she turn you down?” Spike asked knowingly.

“At first, yes,” Starlight admitted. “And that was…disappointing, but we all kept gently urging her to participate and eventually she relented, agreeing to be here to greet the visiting changelings, especially when I said I’d be there too.” Starlight grinned a little, but it was melancholy. “As it drew near, she seemed to be looking forward to it. So was I.”

A momentary silence fell and Spike started to sense that it was at this planned meeting that everything went wrong. “That meeting was today, wasn’t it?” he asked aloud. Seeing all three mares avert their gazes sadly, he swallowed, bracing himself. “So what went wrong?”

“Our attempts to keep the arrival of the changeling representatives quiet were for naught,” Luna replied gravely. “Somehow, word of our plans got out. And by dawn this morning, already there were protesters gathering at the castle gates, voicing their thoughts,” Luna growled, clearly frustrated by this development. “It was highly vexing.”

“Who were the protesters?”

“I have the royal guard trying to find out more as we speak, but as near as we have found out, the initial group was from a self-proclaimed anti-changeling faction,” Celestia explained. “Obviously, they were being very vocal about how they did not want any changelings in Equestria, reformed or not.”

“We talked about possibly diverting Celestia and the changelings to a new location in secret, or even postponing the meeting altogether until this affair could be resolved,” Luna said. “But the royal guard, in assessing the protesters, found that their numbers weren’t excessive. It was thought they could be kept at bay so long as there were ample guards escorting and guarding the landing site, which was already planned, protesters or no. Further, Celestia was already on her way when word reached her and she was reluctant to turn back or divert.”

“So you continued with the meeting,” Spike surmised.

“Yes, with the carriage transporting Celestia and the changelings arriving at the usual landing spot just outside the castle,” Luna explained. “Before they arrived, I sent plenty of royal guards out to sufficiently clear the space and to keep the protesters back. They seemed to be succeeding, so when the carriage arrived, myself and an escort of my own ignored the protesters and went to meet Celestia and the three changelings accompanying her, shared a few polite greetings, quickly got them up to speed on the situation, then started for the castle gates, where Twilight Sparkle and Starlight Glimmer had decided to wait for us.”

“So to give the guards two less ponies they had to keep an eye on,” Starlight explained for Spike’s benefit.

They paused for a moment though, just long enough for Spike to put two with two. “You never made it back to the castle, did you?”

Starlight shook her head. “Halfway there, the protesting abruptly took a turn for the worst. The royal guards were able to keep them back for a few minutes while attempting to hurry things along, but then one managed to slip past and went for the closest changeling the group, and…” she trailed off.

So Luna sternly finished it for her. “And then all Tartarus broke loose,” she stated.

“Everypony seemed like they were atop of each other in the fight,” Starlight explained, her gaze turning distant. “Twilight and I raced in to try and help, but…” she shook her head and gazed through at the observation window at Twilight’s beaten form.

“By the time the royal guards had restrained many of the culprits, restored order again, and gotten the riot to at least back off,” Luna continued gravely, “Twilight had been beaten unconscious, two of the changelings injured, one severely like Twilight, and the rest of us scratched and bruised.” Spike had missed it before in his haste, but he noticed now that all three of the mares did indeed bore the signs of having been in a scuffle. Thankfully, their injuries were all more superficial, though this was only a very small comfort to Spike at the moment. “That was when I ordered both Twilight and the changelings be taken here for treatment then sent the guard that brought you here, Spike.” She turned to face him. “I had thought you would want to be here for this…just in case.”

Spike simply nodded in response.

Celestia sighed. “Frankly, I am just considering ourselves lucky that it wasn’t more severe.” She shuddered, looking towards Twilight. “When I saw what had happened…I had feared the worst.”

Spike hesitated for a second. “…so did I,” he admitted, which drew a glance from Starlight but he ignored it.

“But we were able to avoid such a thing for the moment, it seems,” Luna reasoned aloud, trying to be positive. “Twilight is stable, as is everyone else who was injured in the riot. Many of the culprits were captured and arrested, and the royal guards are seeking out others that managed to slip away.”

“Will the meeting with the changelings still continue?” Starlight asked.

Celestia sighed again. “It is too soon to say,” she admitted. “Obviously, conditions are not exactly ideal now. Thankfully, all three of the changeling representatives do not seem to have taken personal issue with what happened, more glad that we all escaped it without more serious injury and, despite it all, still seem eager to continue with our plans when we can, but…the fact they do not seem at all surprised this happened only demonstrates how far from true peace between ponies and the changelings actually is. I do not know what such a meeting can actually accomplish at this point.” She looked at the others gravely. “It was just demonstrated that not all ponies are ready for changelings to be their allies.”

Spike growled at that, turning away from the group to look out the window at Twilight, lying unconscious in her cot in the next room. “They should,” he muttered darkly. He took in Twilight and her injuries for a moment longer, his frown deepening. “I don’t understand though,” he muttered. “How could this have happened? How could have Twilight gotten in such a state? With her magic, she should’ve been able to throw those protesters off her easily, I’ve seen her do it before.” He glanced at Starlight. “You were with her, Starlight, did you see what happened? Did somepony just get in a lucky hit or something?”

Starlight shook her head though. “I lost sight of Twilight the moment we entered the fray,” she admitted unhelpfully and motioned to the two princesses. “We all did, it seemed. We didn’t see exactly what happened to Twilight during the riot…only the aftermath.”

Spike turned frustrated. “Someone must have seen something,” he stressed.

“And someone did,” Celestia said, stepping forward. But rather than explain, she stepped forward and, taking a deep, knowing, breath, placed a hoof on Spike’s shoulder, drawing his gaze to meet hers. “Spike…you need to speak with the changelings about this.”

And thus, moments later, Spike found himself walking alone to visit the nearby and guarded room where the three changeling representatives were getting treated for their own injuries. He found their door guarded as indicated, but quickly noted that only one of the two guards was Equestrian; the other was an undisguised changeling. Spike assumed he was a centurion as he wore the fierce-looking blue armor he knew centurions wore, but as he also bore the colorful body of a reformed changeling under it, Spike found he couldn’t be as intimidated by the guard like he once was—especially since the guard warmly greeted him as he approached, clearly recognizing the dragon.

He stopped to speak with this guard, learning that he was the third changeling in the visiting party, there to serve as a bodyguard for the other two representatives. But the changeling guard wasn’t able to tell Spike much of anything new about what had happened. He recalled Twilight had moved towards him and the other two changelings and thought she was moving to stop one or more of the rioters slipping past the guards. But after that point, the changeling was too busy trying to protect both himself and others to see much of what had happened. He did note, however, that he thought it odd that he couldn’t recall Twilight attempting to use her magic in any noteworthy way in the fight…but he reasoned that he either didn’t see it in all the excitement, or Twilight was struck before she had the chance to—either could be likely. He did say he believed he had heard Twilight cry out at some point in the riot, probably from one of the blows she was dealt, but admitted that this wasn’t terribly helpful.

“Whatever the case, I do wish I could’ve done more to have helped her,” the changeling remarked to Spike.

Spike arched an eyebrow at him in questioning surprise. “Why?” he asked back. “Twilight’s been very…slow to support changelings.”

“That doesn’t mean I shouldn’t still try and give her aid when needed,” the guard answered back. “Politics shouldn’t even factor into such a situation.”

Spike was quiet for a moment after that. “If only it were that simple,” he murmured.

He and the guard exchanged a few more words before Spike asked if he could enter the room to speak with the other two changelings, and of course the changeling guard agreed, even opening the door for Spike. Inside were the other two changelings—both female—as well as one nurse tending to them. Whereas Spike had only noticed light scratches from the riot on the guard changeling outside, both of these two changelings were more notably more roughed up, but of the two, the injuries of one were clearly more serious. She was bedridden, with one wing twisted out of shape to the point it could not close properly, and her pale yellow chitin was severely split open in two places—one considerable gash across her belly where it looked like the chitin had been smashed in (and considering the circumstances, probably had), and another similar, smaller but still severe, gash on her foreleg which Spike thought was likely altogether broken too.

Both of these wounds showed clear signs of having bleed freely, emphasizing their seriousness, but such bleeding had since been staunched. The nurse was presently finishing up tending to the more serious wound on the changeling’s belly, bandaging it with gauze and other dressings as expected. By contrast though, the wound on the changeling’s leg had been treated in a more changeling fashion, with herbs and a generous slathering of changeling gel coating over it. It seemed the nurse had misgivings about this, for she was giving the gel-covered leg a critical look while wrapping up her work.

“You’re not going to let me do anything about that, are you?” she was in the middle of asking the other, slightly older changeling, as Spike entered.

“I do not think it’d be wise for either of us to mess with it for now at least,” the non-bedridden changeling replied while the other, awake and alert, quietly watched. “Better to let the leg have some time to heal now before attempting to adjust it further.”

The nurse groaned, but lacking the will to argue further, she relented. “All right, fine, I’ll just have to trust you know what you’re doing,” she said. She jabbed a hoof at the two changelings. “But if there’s any sign that it’s not helping any, I want you both to let me know straightaway, doctor’s orders, got it?”

“Certainly,” the changeling said with a nod of her head.

“You’d better,” the nurse muttered and turned to leave, only to find Spike standing in the doorway, listening to the argument go on. “Oh, I didn’t know you were there,” she remarked to Spike. “I’m sorry though, given circumstances, no visitors allowed without the explicit approval of one of the princesses…”

“I am quite certain Spike the Dragon has already gotten such permission to be here,” the leading changeling spoke up in Spike’s defense, giving him a comforting grin. “Either way, he is more than welcome to visit. He will not cause us harm.”

The nurse skeptically glanced between the two for a moment. “No offense to either of you, but an anti-changeling riot did just happen, so how can you be so sure?” she asked the changeling.

“Because clearly he never dealt any such harm to the late Thorax,” the changeling replied.

The nurse looked blank for a moment, but then her eyes widened as she put two with two and regarded Spike with new respect. Spike, however, averted his gaze, uncomfortable under the spotlight and further feeling his heart ache at the reminder of Thorax. Luckily, the nurse chose not to press the matter further. “Right,” she said, slipping past Spike and continuing to leave. “I’ll just give you all a moment to yourselves, then.”

She closed the door behind her, leaving Spike alone with the two changelings, both of whom were regarding him with curious looks. The first changeling moved to approach him, giving Spike a chance to see the light green changeling up close. He noticed that she was mostly just scuffed up from the riot, but she also bore one small cut on her forehead that had left a narrow line of dried blood down one side of her face, now covered with a lone band-aid. Spike took more interest in the beetle-shaped pendant she wore about her neck as well as the brown headband around her forehead, realizing she looked naggingly familiar.

“Have we met before?” he asked as he moved to accept the changeling’s hoof for a shake.

“Only in passing during Thorax’s funeral, I’m afraid, and we have not been formally introduced before now,” the changeling explained in her somewhat gravely but friendly voice. “But allow me to correct that.” She dipped her head in a respectful bow. “My name is Crypsis.” She pointed a hoof at the pastel yellow changeling lying on the bed. “My young assistant here is named Neonata.”

“Hello,” Neonata gently greeted Spike with a light nod head of her head, which Spike returned.

“As I’m sure you’ve already been told,” Crypsis continued, “we were coming to visit Equestria, representing the hive’s managing council, in hopes of continuing to repair relations with the ponies when…unfortunate events took place.”

“I’m deeply sorry about that, by the way,” Spike apologized seriously. “That riot should’ve never taken place.”

Crypsis waved the matter aside. “It is all in the past,” she said. “I am more just glad to know that both Neonata and Princess Twilight will recover safely, and the rest of us escaped it relatively unhurt.”

Spike shifted awkwardly. “That’s…sort of why I’m here,” he admitted. “I…wanted to ask you two about what you recall happening during the riot as I’m still fuzzy about what happened exactly, and, well…I’m hoping one or both of you might know something that could fill in those sort of blanks.”

Though she winced briefly from her injuries doing it, Neonata sat up a bit in the cot she was lying in. “What did you want to know, then?”

“Well, basically…” Spike began, looking for a convincing and indirect way to put the focus on Twilight.

His intentions must have shown clearly in the emotions the changelings were no doubt sensing though. “About Princess Twilight, I presume?” Crypsis surmised. “I further assume, then, that you’re wondering why she was the only other one so considerably injured.”

Spike averted his gaze. “Basically, yeah.”

Crypsis nodded, understanding. “When the riot began and protesters started slipping past the guards, Princess Twilight moved to put herself between them and us, the changelings, so to block their path.”

Spike’s gaze remained averted as he let that statement sink in for a split second. “She was trying to shield you three,” he mumbled in not quite a statement or not quite a question.

Crypsis took it to be a question. “Yes,” she confirmed simply. “The last I saw of her until after the riot was a protester barreling into her. Past that point I was distracted by the other protesters and our guard, Protego,” she nodded her head once in the direction of the door where said guard was standing outside, “shouting out and moving to defend ourselves. In the chaos that followed, he and I were quickly separated from Princess Twilight, so I was not able to see what she did after that.”

Spike sighed wearily.

“But Neonata did.”

Spike glanced up sharply and looked over at the younger, more injured changeling lying in the bed. “You did?” he asked, almost blurting it out.

Neonata nodded sheepishly. She went to shift awkwardly, but winced to herself when this perturbed her injuries and stopped herself. “I was always the one closest to her once she moved between us and the protesters,” she explained. Now she was the one averting her gaze, looking uncomfortable.

It wasn’t hard to guess why. Spike swallowed heavily, but found he couldn’t leave the matter alone. “What happened?” he asked softly, approaching the injured changeling until he stood at the foot of her bed. Crypsis moved closer as well to listen.

Neonata sighed. “At first, it was as Counciling Crypsis said,” she began, motioning a forehoof in the direction of the elder changeling. “When the protesters charged right for us changelings, the princess moved to put herself between them and us, blocking their path, and when that didn’t stop them, she remained there, meeting them face on as they started barreling into her. She tried to hold them back physically, and I saw her start to try and light her horn…I suspect she was trying to create a spell to push away the protesters. But one of them struck her horn with her hoof…maybe to prevent her from trying precisely that. She cried out and went down, and by then, the protesters were upon me.” The changeling’s tone turned slightly frightened as she recalled the unfavorable memory. “I tried to fight them off, but they were too numerous and I didn’t have enough strength to fight them off myself, so they were quickly overpowering me, the protesters beating every part of me they could lay hoof on. I tried to escape by flying, but…” she glanced back at her twisted wing, wincing, “…they…stopped me.”

Spike had averted his gaze by this point, not wanting to hear the grisly details of her beating, but Neonata continued on regardless.

“Then Princess Twilight forced her way between them,” the changeling related, causing Spike to feel a chill go down his spine. “Tried to pull them off of me with her hooves…I guess her horn was still stunned and she couldn’t harness her magic. Then when that didn’t work, she bodily put herself over me, shielding me from their blows…she kept shouting that she wouldn’t let them hurt me.” Neonata hung her head at this point while Spike’s gaze restored itself onto her, eyes going wide. “The protesters kept trying to pull her off so to get at me…I am not sure they were thinking about who she was at that point…all of their emotions were just blindingly fearful and angry…but in so doing, they ended up hurting her as she ended up taking many of the blows meant for me. Eventually I think she was knocked unconscious and they succeeded in dragging her off before turning their attention onto me…” Neonata shuddered briefly, but thankfully she didn’t go into further detail about her experience. “I must have gotten knocked out myself shortly thereafter, because the next thing I can really reliably remember was waking up after the riot was broken up and others trying to treat my injuries while moving me here. I saw Princess Twilight and that she was getting similar treatment.” Sheepishly, she ended her tale there.

A moment of silence fell in the room. Spike spent most of it sorting through conflicting thoughts, wringing his claws together as he attempted to come to terms with what he had been told and speak a coherent or well-formed thought.

“Twilight could’ve died,” he eventually muttered aloud softly.

Crypsis placed a hoof on the dragon’s shoulder. “If she hadn’t done what she had, Neonata would be dead,” she gently stated with raw confidence.

Neonata nodded her head in agreement. “It sounds like she protected me from the rioters long enough to hold out for it being broken up,” she said. She bowed her head respectfully. “I owe her my life.”

“You don’t owe her anything,” Spike suddenly snapped, but then turned away, part angry and part surprised at himself. He started to pace about the room aimlessly while the other two changelings watched. He could sense them detecting his emotions so to determine his state of mind, and for the first time, found himself taking issue with it.

Crypsis spoke before he could voice any sort of protest though. “You’re worried about her, aren’t you?” she asked.

Spike blinked, first going blank, then very troubled, before turning somewhere between annoyed and sad. “Why should I care?” he asked aloud finally. “After what she’s done to me, to Thorax…”

“And I can’t answer that, Spike, only you can,” Crypsis interrupted, watching the dragon sadly as he uncomfortably paced, troubled. “But maybe now is the time for you to figure out just where it is you truly stand with Princess Twilight.”

Spike came to stop in the middle of the room, his back turned to the two changelings. “I already know where I stand with Twilight,” he replied without turning.

“Do you?” Neonata asked.

The only response back they got from Spike was an increase of conflict in his emotions.

“She’s a hero, Spike the Dragon,” Neonata stressed gently.

“She’s nothing of the such!” Spike immediately hissed, whirling onto the two changelings with such sudden fury that both pulled back in alarm. It made Spike immediately regret it and his temper vanished, replaced with sorrow as his emotions grew even more tumultuous. He did not take back the statement, though. “Please,” he pleaded, suddenly fighting tears. “She started all of this. You both know it. Don’t try to defend her.”

Crypsis gaze went distant for a second as she considered how to respond before refocusing on the dragon. “She was clearly trying to do better than she had before, Spike,” she murmured gently, “to the point that she was willing to face bodily harm to do it.” She tilted her head at the dragon as he turned away, troubled, again. “I think you know that.”

Spike again chose to make no response, and silence fell in the room for a few minutes.

It was interrupted this time by Starlight Glimmer poking her head inside. “Spike,” she said quickly, “Twilight’s awake.”

Spike immediately about faced for the door. “I need to talk to her,” he said, slipping past Starlight and through the door without bidding the two changelings any sort of farewell.

“Ah, actually,” Starlight interjected, hurrying to keep up with him, “the doctors want to give her another look over now that she’s awake and asked that she still get no visitors, so—”

“Tough!” Spike interrupted with finality.

Starlight seemed taken aback as she followed the dragon marching back for Twilight’s room. “…tough?” she repeated hesitantly.

“I need to talk to her,” Spike simply repeated.

Starlight moved to stop him as they arrived at the door. “Spike, you really shouldn’t—”

But Spike simply brushed her off, barging through the door and into the room undeterred. A doctor was already inside, running through a medical report on a clipboard, and turned to stop Spike as well.

“I’m sorry,” he said urgently as he did this. “But I’m afraid I must insist on no visitors at this time, so I’m going to have to ask you to—”

“I need to talk to her,” Spike repeated for a third time, pushing past the doctor as he headed straight for Twilight, lying on her cot.

Her eyes had been closed at the time, but they opened again as Spike approached, overhearing the commotion. Her eyes the locked onto him, surprised. “Spike,” she croaked weakly, slowly turning her head to keep him in view as he marched up to the side of her bed. “What are you doing here?”

“Why did you do it?” Spike responded by demanding.

Twilight’s brow wrinkled slightly, her mind drugged on painkillers being slow to follow. “Do what?” she asked.

“You know what,” Spike stressed. “So why did you do it? Why did you do what you did in the riot?”

Twilight didn’t reply right away, she simply gazed at him with a distant gaze. “What did you expect me to do?” she asked instead of answering. “It was a riot, Spike…I was working to try and break it up, so that—”

“No,” Spike interrupted, leaning closer to her. “No, no, no, I know what you did, Twilight,” he repeated. He was aware of the doctor hovering nearby, uncertainly listening, as well as Starlight standing in the doorway, stunned, and he could even see Celestia and Luna looking on through the observation window, but caught up in the moment now, he ignored all of them. “You weren’t breaking up the riot…you were protecting the changelings. You put yourself between them and the protestors, you put your life on the line to try and shield them…you bodily put yourself in position to take the blows meant for them, you put them above yourself…you could’ve died doing it…so why did you do it, Twilight?”

Twilight gazed at him sadly. “Why wouldn’t I have done that, Spike?” she asked slowly.

“Because you didn’t before,” he hissed, suddenly furious again. “Where were you when Thorax needed that protection?” His fury immediately melted into sadness. “Where were you when I needed that protection?” He closed his eyes, taking a deep breath to steady himself. “Why did you do it, Twilight? What were you thinking?”

Twilight’s gaze slowly turned determined. “I was making amends for what I did, Spike,” she stated with such seriousness, there was no doubt that what she was saying wasn’t the truth.

Spike gazed back at her just as seriously. “And if things had gone differently?” he demanded, “if you had died in the attempt?”

Twilight already had her response ready. “A life for a life, Spike,” she replied.

A long moment of silence fell. The next person to break it wasn’t Spike, but rather Starlight. “For whose life, Twilight?” she asked.

Twilight’s gaze didn’t leave Spike, nor did his. “You know whose,” she replied.

Spike stood there trembling beside Twilight’s bed, staring her down for a long moment. His face was angry, but his eyes were sad, almost terrified. His breathing was rapid and growing more so by the moment. At last though, as if something was giving away, he snorted and turned for the door, marching his way to exit while Twilight turned her head to watch, her expression still and unwavering. His pace slowed as he reached the door though, before slowing to a stop within it. He stood there for a long moment, all eyes on him. When he at last twisted his head to look back at Twilight again, he was fighting tears.

“Twilight, I’ve already lost Thorax,” he mumbled. “Do you have any idea what it’d do to me if I lost you too?”

Then, without waiting for an answer, or any other sort of response, he walked off, leaving the rest to silently mull upon what had happened.

Twilight requested that she have no more visitors for a while after this meeting, which considering how much it was stressing her, the doctors readily agreed and supported this request. But Spike didn’t have much issue with it—he was in no hurry to visit Twilight again himself.

Nevertheless, he was also in no hurry to leave for Vanhoover again, feeling obligated to hang around in Canterlot in case some new development arose. At the very least he wanted to keep around to make sure the aftermath of the riot continued getting sorted out adequately. As such, Princess Celestia happily made arrangements for him to be given a room in the castle which Spike soon had settled himself into. One of the first things he did after that was write a quick letter to Fly Leaf, updating her and explaining the situation, adding that he may remain in Canterlot for a couple of days.

Fly Leaf’s reply came the following morning, telling him to take as much time as he needed and to not fret about things in Vanhoover, as she assured she would handle things herself. And even if she couldn’t, she added that Trixie had already readily agreed to help fill in for Spike while he was away. The stage performer also sent her regards and well-wishes in addition to Fly Leaf. Somewhat to Spike’s surprise, it seemed both had little to comment on the details of Twilight’s actions in the riot, keeping such remarks to neutral minimums at most. Like Spike, he still got a sense that they hadn’t expected this either, but at the same time acted like little about it needed discussing. The most Fly Leaf commented about it was that it was good Twilight seemed to recognize changelings didn’t need to be her enemies now and wished her a speedy recovery.

And yet Spike had to sit and stare at this comment for several minutes, trying to figure out just how he wanted to feel about it. Ultimately though, he chose to ignore it.

As the days then slowly passed, Spike kept mostly to himself and to his room, leaving only occasionally and often at his own random whim. Usually, it was just to go for a walk, trying to use it to distract himself from what was on his mind. He never strayed from the castle grounds, so he typically was left to his own devices. He’d glance through the headlines of the morning paper when it’d come in to get glimpses of the aftermath of the riot—it seemed most ponies condemned the riot, regardless of their thoughts about changelings, and most of the participants who had been arrested in the riot were facing stern criminal charges for their actions—but otherwise found little need to involve himself much deeper into the affair presently.

At mealtimes, he’d join Celestia and Luna as well as Starlight (who had remained in Canterlot too) to eat in the castle’s private dining room. There the conversations varied on the day and the mood of the participants, but they usually always opened with a status update on the conditions of Twilight and the changeling Neonata, both of whom were continuing to improve and doctors remained optimistic would recover completely. After some remarks of being pleased at this news though, the topic would quickly shift to other things. Spike typically stayed out of the conversation at that point, but perhaps because of that, he’d find himself drawn in regardless due to one of his dinner companions picking a topic directly concerning him. One time Celestia brought up a number of possible reforms she was considering in hopes to prevent what had happened to him and Thorax, Starlight relayed a number of well-wishes from Twilight’s friends in Ponyville at another, and once Luna even tried to talk specifically about Thorax to Spike and seemed keen to do so had Spike not quickly cut her short and politely made it clear this wasn’t a topic he wanted to talk about right now.

One popular topic was the subject of the ongoing talks with the three changeling representatives which ended up proceeding as planned after all. Seeing that since they were going to be around while recovering from the riot, they might as well be productive. So to this end, Celestia was immensely pleased and relieved that, despite her initial fears, good was coming from this. It left her feeling confident again that there was much that could still be accomplished, and that formal relations between changelings and ponies could indeed improve. She was so pleased by this progress that Celestia made it a point to talk about what new things had been discussed every evening.

On Spike’s second night of his visit though, the issue of the ongoing inquiry into the affair of Thorax was brought up, and Celestia reasoned that since it seemed he’d be in town for a few days, Spike might as well meet with the inquiry officials for questioning, admitting that they were going to ask to do so sooner rather than later anyway.

“With that in mind, then, you might as well get it over with now,” Celestia concluded, already seeing that Spike was displeased with this news and looked ready to object. “The sooner you do, the sooner it’s over with and you can get back to your own affairs.”

Spike rolled his eyes and sighed, but conceded, knowing she was probably right. “All right,” he said reluctantly. He shrugged a second later. “At least it’ll be my chance to get all the details straight for a change.”

The others shifted awkwardly at this before Celestia cleared her throat. “Well then,” she remarked aloud, “I’ll be sure to pass word along to the relevant ponies, and I’m sure they’ll be in touch with you to schedule times shortly.”

“Mm,” Spike grunted as he resumed eating.

“How is the inquiry going, anyway?” Starlight asked, taking control of the conversation.

“We do not know,” Luna replied. “As we are all under investigation, the inquiry is keeping us out of their affairs so to keep things as unbiased as they can.”

“Which is precisely what they’re supposed to do,” Starlight added with a sigh of her own. “But I wish they could just get it over with…I think the stress of not knowing was starting to get to Twilight…it’s certainly been getting to me.”

“I am both dreading and looking forward to it myself, but until it does, I have simply been trying to continue with the other affairs we face in the meantime.” Celestia said boldly, looking unafraid. “Nevertheless, whatever the inquiry rules on the matter, I hope it will be for the betterment of Equestria…then, at the very least, it will hopefully prevent anyone from having to be put into these sort of circumstances again.”

“One can hope,” Spike mumbled, who still wasn’t so certain himself.

Luna noticed and gazed at him knowingly. “What more would you want then, Spike?” she asked of the dragon carefully.

Spike gazed across the table vacantly for a moment, his expression unreadable. “I’m not sure what I want,” he admitted. “I’m just not sure it’s enough.”

As it happened, he was called in to testify for the inquiry the next day, and by lunchtime, Spike found himself standing in a sizeable council chamber before seven pony representatives of the inquiry, answering their questions. He had gone into it expecting the questions to be frustrating, impersonal, and worse of all, completely misconstruing why he and Thorax had acted as they did during the four moons they were in hiding. But to his surprise, Spike found most of the questions rather courteous, and rarely dealt in depth with the particulars of what had happened. Instead, they focused more on how Spike had been doing and if he was doing well, presumably looking for indications about his true emotional state even if they never explicitly said so. They were, if anything, very sympathetic.

Spike wanted them to be absolutely clear of his side of the story though, fearing they wouldn’t have the whole picture of what had happened if they lacked it, so even though he hadn’t been asked to do so, the first chance he was given to delve into the matter, he did. The inquiry ponies kindly didn’t interrupt and let him speak, and Spike spent a good while relating the tale in full, fuller than he normally did, covering even more side details like the times he and Thorax spoke about the significance of acorns to changelings and his late friend’s strong beliefs in the matter, even though it wasn’t strictly relevant to the tale. He was surprised at how therapeutic it felt as he concluded. Perhaps because of this, when the ponies decided they had finished speaking with Spike and were thanking him for his time while preparing to leave, Spike chose to ask what rulings they were considering making at this point in time.

Only one of the representatives elected to respond. “That is a detail we really shouldn’t be formally discussing aloud outside of the inquiry team, Mister Spike,” he answered politely.

“I know,” Spike said, but nodded his head pleadingly at him. “Tell me informally, then.”

The representative debated to himself, then motioned for Spike to come a bit closer. “We haven’t settled upon a final ruling as of yet, first of all,” he admitted to the dragon, speaking softly so their voices wouldn’t carry far. “This business with the riot hasn’t helped either, as it’s only polarized the situation further. But if it’s of any comfort, I currently expect the inquiry will favor you and the changelings in this matter.” Letting Spike mull upon that for a second, he packed up his things into a formal-looking saddlebag. “What happened shouldn’t have happened, Mister Spike, that much everyone can agree upon. Now it’s our duty to determine what needs to be done so it doesn’t happen again, and if need be, adequately punish those guilty of bringing it about.”

“Including Twilight?” Spike asked.

“A final judgment for Princess Twilight hasn’t yet been reached,” the representative stated. “But considering her actions in the riot, especially the personal risk it was to her in doing so, will undoubtedly be speaking favorably for her. Still…I expect she will not escape this unpunished. Nor will others throughout the governmental level. Something in how Equestria as a country handles matters such as this is broken because it was, for all intents and purposes, abused unnecessarily, and many were wronged in the process…including yourself and your changeling friend. That cannot be allowed to continue or happen again.” He nodded his head and turned to leave. “That’s all I can tell you at this time.”

Altogether, it gave Spike something to think about, finding himself debating what sort of final rulings the inquiry might make, and if they’d be a ruling he could live with. But otherwise things changed little and Spike kept to the routine he had established during his visit. Most didn’t act like this was a problem, because they made no attempt to stop him or break him out of that routine, or so Spike thought. But he learned that more ponies were actually very worried about him than they let on when, most of the way through that same week, the customary reply to a letter from Fly Leaf proved to not be written by Fly at all…but rather by Trixie.

It turned out that without Spike’s knowing, she and Starlight had continued to be in correspondence via letter since he had arrived in Canterlot, and he had been a strong topic of focus between them. Finally, apparently worried about him and saw a chance to write to him after his latest letter to Fly Leaf, Trixie now wanted to have her piece. She started out writing the letter normally enough, greeting Spike in her typical fashion—“The Great and Powerful Trixie wishes you greetings and salutations!”—talked about how things in Vanhoover and Fly’s shop had been going well, and how Fly sent her regards as well. But then Trixie’s tone abruptly turned more serious, diving into the matter of the riot, Twilight’s role in it, what Starlight had conveyed to her about Spike’s reaction to it, and the greater matters underlying all of it, being so bold as to openly admit that she was “greatly worried” about him and she wasn’t the only one.

“In fact, Starlight had wanted to get in on this and, if not talk to you directly, write her thoughts in a letter too,” Trixie wrote. “But I asked her not to, because you and I both know what this is really about. This is about Thorax. How you miss him dearly. And how you don’t want to let go of him. I can’t blame you for that. In fact, that’s why I asked Starlight to leave this to me, because the truth is I can relate to your loss better than she can. Thorax had been my good friend too. More than that, even. So I understand what you’re going through because I’m going through it too. Which doesn’t make what needs to be said any easier to say, but it needs to be done.

“We both need to let Thorax go. He’s gone, Spike. And as much as we both don’t want to admit it…we can’t have him back. Nor is there any point in continuing to stay angry over what happened. It was wrong, yes, and some will likely face penance for it. But those responsible know that, are fessing up to it, and if the riot in Canterlot proved anything…they want to make up for it. And no matter how or what we feel about them, we need to give them that chance. I’ve already been trying to do so, now it’s your turn to do the same. You can’t stay like this, Spike, or you’re never going to find happiness again, and you need that happiness so very dearly right now, perhaps more than you ever have before. And you know better than anyone that Thorax would want you to. I have complete confidence that if he were here now, he would be very unhappy about your attitude towards everything that has transpired.

“How you do it is your business and I won’t tell you what you need to do. But whatever it is, you need to figure it out and do it and do it soon. And know that doing so doesn’t mean forgetting who Thorax was and what he meant. He will always be remembered, and the time we both had with him will still be no less cherished than it was before. My one wish is just that time could’ve been longer. Whatever the case, Thorax was a fellow of peace. So I can’t help but feel that the best way to commemorate him is to find that peace and embrace it ourselves. Please do what you need to so to do that.”

Trixie’s words left Spike pondering about them for most of that same day. By the end of that day, he wrote back with a simple letter to Fly Leaf, asking her to take an item from his room there in Vanhoover and to mail it to him as soon as she could. It arrived by the end of that week, and that same day, Spike started making preparations to leave Canterlot and head back for Vanhoover, decreeing that he felt he had accomplished what he had needed to there. By that afternoon, the needed arrangements had been made and now he stood on the balcony of his room, overlooking the castle and the city beyond while waiting for his carriage. Held in his claws was the item Fly had sent him, fingering it gently as he geared himself up for this final step he had decided he needed to do before he left.

But before he could finish motivating himself into doing it, he heard a polite knock at the door to his room.

“It’s open,” he called back without turning, having left the door ajar in expectation of leaving soon.

The speaker did not enter, though. “I know,” the reply came back.

Spike recognized the voice immediately. He closed his eyes and sighed before turning to look at Twilight Sparkle standing in the open doorway. She hadn’t recovered completely from her injuries, of course. One wing was still wrapped in a cast, as well as one back leg, leaving her having to rely on a wheelchair cart strapped to her hind legs to get around. But she had clearly improved in health. The bruises had faded away, most of the cuts and scratches had healed, and her eyes reflected her usual healthy and alert mind. At the moment though, she regarded Spike with a hesitant and withdrawn expression.

“May I come in?” she asked politely, wanting explicitly his permission to enter before she even tried…perhaps out of fear of what happened the last time she tried to force a visit upon him not long after Thorax’s passing.

Spike had no intention of repeating that event though, and after only a momentary delay, waved her on in. “Yeah, come on in,” he said softly, before turning to look back over the city. He then waited for her to leisurely wheel herself in and joined him on the balcony before speaking further. “You seem to be recovering. Nice to see you on your hooves again.”

“Yeah,” Twilight replied simply. She looked Spike over briefly out of the corner of her eye. “You, um, seem to be doing all right too.”

Spike shrugged. “I guess so,” he admitted.

“I heard you were leaving for Vanhoover today.”

“Yeah, carriage that’s taking me should be ready to go at any time now.”

Twilight licked her lips hesitantly. “Do you…do you need—?”
“I’m fine, Twilight,” Spike interrupted, already seeing what she was about to ask. “You worry more about yourself right now.”

Twilight averted her gaze for a second. “Easier said than done,” she mumbled to herself before turning to Spike, getting to the point. “I’m worried about you, Spike.”

“Everyone’s worried about me.”

“It’s because of how you seem to be so…lost…just drifting and listless and lacking direction.”

“They’re not wrong.” Spike’s gaze turned distant. “I’ve been putting in a lot of thought about that lately, given…recent events.”

Twilight sighed. “Look, about the riot…”

“It’s nothing, Twilight,” Spike assured, again interrupting. “Really. You just…surprised me, is all.”

Twilight bowed her head slightly. “Spike, I was just trying to help.”

“I know. And I approve. It’s just…” Spike shook his head, claws tightening around the object in his palm. The motion caught Twilight’s attention and her eyes glanced curiously at it for the first time. “…I wasn’t expecting it. I was…I was…”

“You were still expecting me to demonize the changelings…not come defend them like that,” Twilight observed knowingly.

Spike sighed and nodded. “Because I still wanted to demonize you,” he admitted solemnly. “I had become so used to thinking the worst of you that…I never really stopped. I wanted to keep thinking poorly of you out of…I don’t know…spite…revenge…I guess it doesn’t matter why ultimately.” He hung his head, looking ashamed. “The point is that I had given up on you, Twilight, and that you would actually change. And here you are, not just proving me wrong, but showing that, despite everything, you were willing to change…for the better.”

Twilight had started to shake her head adamantly. “No, no, I’m just…it’s just…” she squeezed her eyes shut, suddenly fighting tears. “I’m not trying to redeem myself, Spike. I know what I did was…” her voice caught. “…I can’t repair that. And I know there will always…” now she averted her eyes, avoiding eye contact with Spike. “…be those that will hold that against me. I accept that. But basically…I’m just trying to move on. Accept the loss and…sort of rebuild back up what I lost, from scratch if I must. And to that, I ended up deciding that I can’t expect to do it hiding in my castle, so when the meeting with changeling representatives came along, I thought that would be as good a place as any to start.”

“You didn’t plan on that riot getting in way, though.”

“No one did. It just…sort of happened, and…when I realized what was going on…all I could think about was…not letting what happened to Thorax happen to those changelings. I…wasn’t even thinking about what might happen to me.” Twilight shifted uneasily. “That probably seems weird to hear, considering how I was about changelings…before. But…honestly, that’s the truth. That what was going through my head at the time. And if I didn’t…make it in the process…all I thought on that was…at least I’d be repaying the debt I owe to Thorax. He died saving my life, and a great many others…the least I could do was return that favor.”

Spike had his eyes closed and was tightly squeezing the small object in his claws. “That’s just it though.”

“…Spike?”

“Twilight, when I had heard what had happened…saw you lying on that bed…it chilled me…and I realized that…despite everything…everything you’ve done to me…you still mean something me…something important.” He closed his eyes before continuing on in a choked whisper. “And I’m terrified of losing that.”

Twilight was momentarily at a loss for words at this. Of all the things she was expecting Spike to say, this was perhaps the very last of them, and she wasn’t at all prepared to respond. After a long moment of silently working her jaw up and down, trying to find the words, she spoke somewhat shakily. “If it’s of any consolation…I can safely say the same thing about you.”

Spike grinned a little. “I’m glad to hear that,” he said. He shook his head. “But see, that’s the thing, Twilight…you still haven’t given up. You’re still fighting for a positive resolution, your methods just changed. You’re still searching for a way to…improve…what had gone wrong between us. Whereas there’s me, who just…gave up on ever doing any of that…and I did so a long time ago…about five moons now.”

Twilight moved closer. She started to raise a hoof as if intending to wrap it comfortingly around him, but then stopped herself and withdrew it, as if deciding that this was not allowed anymore. “After everything you’ve been through, Spike…”

“It’s no excuse!” Spike snapped. “I should be working for something better than what I’ve got. I don’t have to concede to defeat, that things just didn’t work out so that was that. I need to be building up what I can off of that instead…like you are.” His temper cooled as he averted his gaze. “That’s why I was so riled up about what you did in the riot, Twilight…you showed you were doing what I wasn’t, and just how much you were willing to sacrifice to do it…”

Twilight looked at him knowingly. “You would’ve done the same thing.”

But Spike continued to evade her gaze, not looking so confident of that. “Twilight, I need you to know…things are still…not good…between us. But if we have any hope of changing that someday, even if we have to castaway whatever remains of the relationship we had before and simply start over from scratch…it’s shouldn’t be just you who’s making the effort. I have to do some of that too. And…I need to do this…or I’m not going ever going to get over this.”

“Spike…”

“Twilight, please…I’ve put a lot of thought into this…how I need to move on after Thorax…”

“Spike, I don’t want your forgiveness because you think you have to give it,” Twilight interjected, suddenly looking deadly serious. “I want it to be because you feel I’ve earned it.”

Spike was quiet for a moment. “That could be a very long time, Twilight.”

Twilight nodded, already knowing that. “I’m willing to wait however long I need to. Even if it never does come. That’s the only way I’m going to get through this.” She raised her hoof again, and this time she did wrap it around Spike. “If nothing else…I’d still like to try and be a friend to you again.”

Spike was quiet for a moment. “You just might yet succeed someday,” he murmured. He looked down at the object he was fiddling with in his claws still. “Thorax himself said it best, after all. The best way to defeat an enemy…is to make them your friend.”

Twilight followed his gaze down at the little object in Spike’s hands. “What is that you’ve got anyway?” Silently, Spike held it up for her to see and she squinted her eyes at it. “An acorn?”

Spike nodded solemnly. “Thorax had found it…right before you found us in Vanhoover.”

Twilight blinked and felt a chill run through her, regarding the little nut in a new light. “Oh,” she murmured.

“I had left it in our room for the past couple of weeks…but a couple days ago I had Fly Leaf mail it to me. There’s something I need to do that I’ve been putting off.” He clutched the acorn tightly in his claws, staring out across the city of Canterlot lying before them. “You remember what I had said about the significance of acorns to changelings, right? The legends they have behind them?”

Twilight nodded, listening reverently. “Largely.”

“Well…they have a practice where they collect up fallen acorns and then go about scattering them again in a ceremony they call Dissipatio. The hope is that the scattered acorns might then sprout and grow new oak trees, if not more.” He regarded the acorn sadly for a moment. “Thorax decided he wanted to try and perform the ceremony himself when he collected this acorn…but he died before he got the chance to. So I think it’s time I did it for him.”

Twilight looked from the acorn to out over the edge of the balcony. “How did you plan to ‘scatter’ it then?” she asked.

Spike shrugged. “I was thinking I was just going to throw it as hard as I could and…hope for the best.”

Twilight gazed out at the cityscape before them, calculating the distances. “I’m not sure it’ll actually go that far like that, Spike,” she pointed out.

“Yeah, especially since you know I don’t have the best of throwing arms,” Spike admitted sheepishly. He looked down at the acorn in his claws. “But it’s the best I’ve got.”

Twilight studied the acorn for a second too. “You know, if you want…I could probably give it a bit of a boost after you throw it using my magic,” she offered softly, motioning to her horn.

Spike glanced up at her, wrapping his claws around the acorn. “I’d appreciate that greatly, Twilight,” he murmured.

They turned to face the balcony edge again. “So how does this ceremony work?” she asked. “Is there something that needs to be said first?”

Spike admittedly didn’t know, and thought to himself that maybe he should’ve consulted with Neonata or Crypsis first before doing this…but saw himself too committed to this to back down now. “I’m not completely sure,” he admitted. “But I think…we just need to keep in mind why we’re doing this.”

Twilight nodded to herself quietly, closing her eyes for a moment, before opening them again, motioning for Spike to continue while readying herself by lighting her horn. Spike gripped the acorn tightly in one hand and wound up to throw it as hard as he could.

“For you, bud,” he murmured aloud.

He then hurled the acorn with all the might he could muster, watching it as it arched high up into the sky. Twilight’s horn then flared with magic, and with a crack of lavender light, the nut suddenly shot further through the air and was quickly out of sight, seemingly vanishing into the horizon. The two stared out in the direction it had gone.

“Gratias tibi ago, Thorax,” Spike murmured in the changeling tongue.

Twilight watched him quietly. “You know, he’s not really dead…so long as we remember him.”

This made Spike grin. “Then he’s going to live a very, very, long time indeed.” His grin grew even bigger as a single tear ran down the cheek. “So much the better.”

Twilight watched him sadly. “I truly am sorry this all happened, Spike,” she murmured.

“I know you are,” Spike said. “I’m sorry too. None of us asked for this…nor did we deserve it.” His grin didn’t waver. “But there’s still so much to be learned from this experience. About friendship…our friends, new and old…judgment…forgiveness…how bearing a grudge is no way to live…that there is always a way out of a bad situation and that it’s worthwhile to try…that one can never know if things can actually change unless they actually try to do it…that anyone can change…and will change, if allowed the chance…and that even one person with all the odds stacked against them…can still make a massive difference.” He heaved a heavy sigh. “I’ll miss him, Twilight, and I’ll cherish those four moons I had with him by my side as my best friend forever…but that time’s come to an end, as all things inevitably do…now it’s time for all of us to move on, and continue to change, grow, and learn.”

Twilight kicked a hoof at the tile floor of the balcony for a moment. “You know…there are a lot ponies out there that really could stand to hear all that right about now,” she murmured.

“I know,” Spike murmured back. He was quiet for a second. “I have some ideas about that.”

He didn’t elaborate further, so this naturally drew a curious look from Twilight, silently wondering just what it was that he might have in mind.

But before she could decide to verbally ask him about it, there was another knock at the open door to Spike’s room, and they turned to see a castle servant was standing in the doorway. She bowed her head politely for interrupting, but otherwise got right to the point. “Mister Spike,” she said in a formal voice, “your carriage is ready and waiting to depart now.”

“Okay, thank you,” Spike replied back. “I’ll be down in just a second.”

The servant nodded and, her task complete, left again, leaving Spike and Twilight to sheepishly regard each other, knowing what this meant.

“So,” Twilight began with a sigh, “I suppose this is goodbye again.”

“Yeah,” Spike said as he checked to make sure he had everything (not that he had brought much with him in the first place) and gave Twilight a small, somewhat forced, but friendly grin. “But maybe it doesn’t have to be a forever one.”

He turned to go, Twilight wheeling herself in her wheelchair cart around so to watch him as he walked for the door, mind pondering. “Where do we stand now, Spike?” she asked suddenly.

Spike stopped in the door for a moment before looking back her. “Back at the beginning, Twilight,” he said. “Let’s resolve to do it better this time through, how about?”

Then with that final thought spoken, he turned and left the room, leaving Twilight standing behind on the balcony, pondering on the whole conversation and what it might mean for the future…

Author's Note

So. After much delay...

Let's just say it's been a hectic couple of months for me lately and it was hard to find time to write and leave it at that.

It didn't help that this chapter really didn't want to come together, though. Originally, I had conceived the chapter as taking place about a month (one moon) after the last, with the scene with Spike "scattering" the acorn taking place with Trixie while sitting on the roof of Fly's shop, with Twilight not featuring in the chapter scarcely at all. But after gauging reader input about how to best wrap up the story, I realized I needed to give Spike and Twilight one last major scene to talk things through, and the acorn scene seemed like the best way to do it.

That just left finding a good chain of events to get them to do it, because remember...they weren't on the best of terms, and were more inclined to keep their distance from each other.

My first idea on how to set this up was inspired by talk among you readers about how Twilight might have initially reacted when Chrysalis's changelings came to kidnap her and my thoughts on that, and involved a rouge, unreformed changeling, coming to Twilight with intent of attacking her. Twilight, however, does nothing to lift a hoof to defend or even shield herself, and simply lets the changeling beat her until Starlight, finding out what was happening, intervened. But as I was writing this, I quickly found there were a number of problems with it.

First of all, this event obviously wouldn't help improve public perception of the changelings, feeling more like it'd set things back than progress them, which not only wasn't the direction I wanted to go, I hadn't really left myself the space in what's left of the story to really address it adequately anyway. This further made the attacking changeling feel irrelevant altogether, who's role was clearly only as a means to an end. I might as well have killed her off, because she already was feeling like a nameless redshirt at this point.

Above all though, I didn't like the defeatist attitude it put Twilight in. A couple of chapters back, Spike had praised Twilight for, despite everything, still hoping for some sort of positive resolution to their situation where he had long given up on such a thing, finding that hope oddly inspiring in light of Thorax's passing. Here though, it felt like I was robbing Twilight of that hope too, and now I had two characters who had effectively given up...and I wanted something a bit more upbeat to direct them towards instead.

Hence the final iteration here, where Twilight is instead attacked by anti-changeling protesters while trying to protect changelings, making Spike realize that he could've lost Twilight in that riot, and that unexpectedly chills him a lot more than he was prepared for, leaving him ready to speak one-on-one with Twilight again.

Writing Spike for this chapter was hard, though, because I was conflicted between either writing him as bitter and negative towards Twilight still, or having him starting to come around and thinking more positively of her than that. Ultimately, I decided to use my own indecisiveness to make Spike just as conflicted--he doesn't quite know where he stands on all of this anymore, leaving him at a critical turning point.

Next chapter will be the final one. It is mostly written already, so there's a good chance it'll be ready to post next Friday. But I also want to do an additional special something-something to go with it that might take additional time, so...we'll see. :raritywink:

Grief is the Price We Pay

Twilight Sparkle eventually made a full recovery from her injuries brought upon her by the riot, as did Neonata, save for a faint hairline scar over the injury to her belly. Neonata thought it likely even that scar would be mostly gone after the next time she molted though. Twilight knew this, because as she and the changeling became more mobile, they both had started to converse lightly and in passing with each other. While she willingly chatted with the changeling when needed, Twilight was admittedly uncertain of what to say to her, so usually Neonata—who was the one who always started the conversation—did most of the talking which suited the changeling assistant just fine.

But Neonata did feel especially obligated to do this after all, considering Twilight’s role in the riot. “I feel like I owe it to you,” she would often remark.

“You don’t owe me anything,” Twilight would usually and kindly reply back.

Neonata would usually insist that she did back in response and Twilight wouldn’t dispute it so to be polite. However, one day she made a comment that opened the way to something deeper. “After what you did to try and protect especially me, I feel I at least should try to be friendly with you, princess,” Neonata assured.

Twilight only snorted lightly at this. “I would think that, after what I’ve done these past few moons, no changeling would ever want to be my friend,” she blurted out.

Neonata tilted her yellow head at her. “It wasn’t so long ago that we changelings had thought the same thing of ourselves,” she observed with sudden wisdom. She motioned to herself. “Look at us now.”

Twilight couldn’t come up with a response to that.

But talking of the riot was awkward for them both, so friendly chatting over their steps to recovery instead was more typically the popular topic of choice between them, hence Twilight’s knowledge on the subject. No matter the subject though, Twilight found the young changeling a nice and kind spirit who was endearing and ultimately good company to have around. It made her wonder if the late Thorax was in any way similar. If so, it was easy to see how Spike grew to be so attached to him.

Regardless, by the time they had adequately healed, Neonata seemed to be in good spirits. But it was hard for the changelings not to be—their negotiations with Princess Celestia and the rest of Equestria had gone well enough that it was agreed to pursue a light political alliance between them. Even better, the final arrangements were made for the changeling hive to return any and all captive ponies formerly serving as prey. These ponies all arrived just a matter of days later and, after a thorough check over by doctors, were able to reenter Equestrian society without problem. Most remembered very little of the whole experience and few suffered any lasting negative effects. Those who did were typically long-term captives, of which there were thankfully extremely few of and even the worst cases were still expected to physically recover with time. It was also agreed that, since the changelings were turning over captured ponies, the ponies would also turn over any captured changelings back to the hive—unless it was agreed between both the hive and Equestria that said changeling had violated the laws of the land critically and in such a way that neither party could ignore it. Fortunately, it was found there weren’t actually any changelings in their custody at this time.

In exchange for the return of the captured ponies from the changelings though, Equestria would also provide materials for them to find new ways to produce food sources, because transformed or not, they still largely fed on emotion. Luckily, the hive gave plenty of reassurances that now the changelings were sharing their food rather than trying to horde it all to themselves, emotive food sources found in the area of the hive should be adequate. Still, they wished for a few tools to try and harmlessly experiment with newer and friendlier ways of harvesting emotion so to expand that supply further still as needed…especially since it was expected the hive’s numbers would soon start growing, perhaps exponentially, following the Enlightenment. So as long as this did not involve capturing and stealing that emotion from any intelligent races as before or could be used as a weapon against them, Equestria agreed to this trade.

The changelings further wished to do something to promote more vegetation growth around the hive, especially now that the magic of Chrysalis’s throne was no longer present to interfere, so it was agreed to provide a shipment of agricultural tools as well. There was also considerable debate over whether or not Equestria would help provide the changeling hive aid should they ever come to danger, but ultimately this matter didn’t go through. There remained too much opposition among the ponies over the idea to be able to reach a workable resolution, and regardless, the changelings had to apologetically decline the offer—they had already agreed for Dragon Lord Ember and the other dragons to provide such protection…on the grounds that the hive refused any similar offers from Equestria. Knowing how relations with the dragons were presently, it wasn’t hard to guess why.

All in all, the negotiations went well, and despite the riot having initially soured the visit, all three changelings were able to return to their hive a few weeks later in good health, in good spirits, and with good news to share with the hive. But that same news, when Celestia publically announced the outcomes of these negotiations afterwards, received more mixed attention from the ponies. Even though the riot was by now well-known and publically frowned upon by most, as well as several ponies being, as was the Equestrian tradition, willing to trust Celestia and the other three princesses readily backing it, the fact remained that there was still a decent number of ponies that did not see the changelings in a good light. The majority of ponies seemed very neutral to the idea of changeling allies on a whole only until faced with the idea of personally encountering one, in which the reaction was typically poor.

It was the angry and hateful reactions that were more worrying though. Thankfully, with news of the riot at least serving to help turn some of the undecided away from such stances, this anti-changeling sentiment remained a minority among the ponies. But perhaps because of that, such ponies were among the more combative on the matter. In the weeks following Celestia’s announcement of the negotiations, several protests were staged across the country, some of which turned violent like the riot that heralded it all. There was one event which reached Twilight’s ears of a paranoia-fueled riot attacking an innocent pony the assaulters had somehow become convinced was a disguised changeling.

Of course, such actions were not tolerated. All of the city governments in Equestria chose to default to the judgment of the princesses on this matter, and while they tried to respect a pony’s right for free speech, officials all cracked down on anything that was deemed as a potential threat to the safety of anyone, pony or changeling. Celestia meanwhile chose to remain aloof in the matter by adopting a pacifist approach, trying to work out the problem peacefully, but Luna chose a more hardline approach, personally pursuing to criminally charge any anti-changeling pony that was responsible for causing such troubles.

She received criticism for this stance of course, but Luna remained unswayed. “It is my fear that if we do not put our hooves down on this troublesome anti-changeling sentiment,” she said so to explain her actions, “it will only grow into a bigger problem even more deeply rooted into our nation’s culture. And then it will only fester and spread from there.”

It was because of this stance that Luna was able to see the imprisonment of many of the rioters that had attacked Twilight, Neonata, and the others, as well as the capture of several more participants in said riot. Unfortunately, sometimes it seemed to only spur the anti-changeling ponies on. Some saw it as attacks on them and their want to “make a safer Equestria” by ensuring no changeling ever had the chance to threaten it. In the end, these detractors were kept in line. Nonetheless, even though she was being urged by the changeling hive to open up Equestria to any and all changelings wishing to visit, Celestia declined out of fear for the safety of any changeling caught by an anti-changeling supporter.

The changelings, at the very least, were very understanding of this situation. “They have to keep in mind that though they have now reformed, they have committed many past transgressions against Equestria as a race before,” Celestia explained their views on the matter to Twilight once. “They have a bad reputation that they must now find a way to shake and replace with a better one, much like you and I are trying to do with Spike.”

It was actually Spike that Twilight was more worried about anyway, as she was left very uncertain by their parting words when he left Canterlot. This was clear even to her friends waiting for her when she finally returned home, accompanied with Starlight. Being the good friends they were, they all quickly assured that, no matter what, things would work out with or without Spike. But as the days turned to weeks since Spike’s departure, Twilight became less and less sure of that, especially when she learned that she had absolutely no further contact with Spike…but her friends had. Trixie, who went back to traveling not long after Spike returned to Vanhoover, apparently had shared mailing info for Spike to Starlight with his permission, and he and Starlight were sporadically writing each other letters since. It soon snowballed from there to Twilight’s other friends too, and it wasn’t long before Twilight would hear of all sorts of things about Spike and how he was doing from them.

Twilight herself, however, never saw a word from Spike.

“You should stop waiting for him to write you first and just write to him instead,” Starlight kept suggesting to Twilight.

“And say what?” Twilight would always ask back in reply. “It’s not that I don’t want to, Starlight, it’s just there’s nothing left for me to say to him that I haven’t said before, and until either of us can push past that barrier, we’re stuck like this.”

And remaining convinced of this, Twilight settled with hearing what was going on in Spike’s life second-hoof through her friends. Fortunately, the news was still good—the young dragon seemed to be doing better and kept busy working for Fly Leaf. Trixie, the next time she passed through Ponyville (and announced that, “in light of recent events,” she intended to do so with even more frequency than she had in the past so to visit more with Starlight), spoke of the bookshop owner with immense praise, assuring all that Spike was in good care with her and it was hard not to believe her.

Rainbow Dash remained unsatisfied though, so next time the Wonderbolts toured up north, she went well out of her way to swing past Vanhoover and pay Spike a surprise visit. She returned to Ponyville afterwards happily reporting that Spike had welcomed her in and both he and Fly Leaf had been very friendly. Rainbow also noted that Vanhoover, for no doubt a variety of reasons, had ended up being one city in Equestria in which the lingering anti-changeling sentiment was “nearly nonexistent,” something Rainbow felt was very important for Spike right now.

“I don’t know how he’d be able to stand it if he had ended up somewhere where it was more common, not after Thorax,” she had reasoned. To Twilight, she added, “I think he really does just need some space…some time to himself…hopefully he’ll figure out what’s stopping him from interacting with us more soon.”

Yet as the weeks started to turn into moons, the situation did not notably change, but Twilight didn’t need to be told why. Despite the mending both of them had already done, she had still shattered Spike’s trust in her, and that simply wasn’t quickly corrected. Worst still was the growing realization that it wasn’t just Spike’s trust that she had damaged—Rainbow Dash remained supportive of Twilight as always but Twilight also knew deep down that, even though she saw it was working out for him, Rainbow hadn’t forgiven her for letting Spike choose to stay in Vanhoover. Additionally, Applejack had suddenly become quicker to question Twilight’s intentions and actions, hesitant to take Twilight up at her word in fear of missing a greater problem like what had happened with Thorax. It seemed she could no longer trust Twilight to be honest at face value. Rarity, on the other hoof, acted ambivalent of the whole matter, but even she tended to be distant when around Twilight…to the fashionista’s credit, she was trying hard not to be in an attempt to be a good friend, but it was still clear that Rarity’s faith in Twilight had been shaken too.

Thankfully, this didn’t seem to be a problem with Pinkie Pie. But then she was also Pinkie Pie—it was rare to see her ever hold a grudge for longer than a few minutes, and when she did, she usually had a good reason. And the fact of the matter was that she just didn’t have such a reason for Twilight.

“What good would it do, anyway?” Pinkie cheerily asked when Twilight brought up the subject, before promptly giving her a cupcake just because she looked like she needed something to cheer her up a little.

Fluttershy also seemed to be on fairly good terms with Twilight, having thought out the past few moons long and hard. “When you get right down to it, Twilight,” she said once while having invited Twilight to talk over a soothing cup of tea, “it wasn’t really your fault Thorax died. I didn’t get to know him as well as Spike or even Starlight, but…I get the distinct impression he would’ve still stood up and tried to oppose Chrysalis even if we had accepted him for what he was in the beginning, and if he was going to do that…then he was always going to be in danger of coming to serious harm in the process. He knew that, and he accepted that. Even if things at the Crystal Empire had gone differently…it may have made no difference. Thorax still could’ve died in the end.”

Twilight sighed, supping from her tea cup. “I know,” she admitted. “It’s just…there are others…like Spike…who don’t see it that way.”

And there were. Like Vanhoover, Ponyville had been blessed with a relatively low number of anti-changeling ponies, but for Twilight, this was a double-edged sword because it also meant a lot of ponies saw Twilight, the instigator of the whole mess, as the one being anti-changeling and many weren’t afraid to say so. Twilight at least took comfort in the fact that these ponies typically kept civil about it. It probably helped that they all knew Twilight better than most. But that didn’t mean they thought she had been right to act as she had, nor that their criticisms still didn’t sting.

And they were right anyway, Twilight knew she had acted completely wrong with Thorax and regretted it deeply…though her deepest regret these days was that she hadn’t ever permitted herself the chance to get to know Thorax in any real capacity. The more she heard about him, the more she saw that he was genuinely a good fellow. He could’ve been a friend. Regardless, Twilight had still meant what she had told Spike in Canterlot; she wanted to rebuild not drown in regret and knew that was the best thing she could do at this point.

And she did it mostly by throwing her support into the changeling cause where she could. She assisted the other princesses with building better relations with the reformed changelings. Spoke in support of the changelings or building better unity with them publicly when given the chance. Discouraged any anti-changeling sentiment where she could if possible. Ultimately it was all little things, but it was her hope that all of these little deeds would add up with time. At the very least, she hoped it put her in a better light and demonstrated that she, too, was learning from her mistakes.

She also wanted to acknowledge who the real heroes were, and in the weeks following the riot she quietly worked with Celestia to try and make the needed arrangements to make it happen. There was some red tape to cut through first before she succeeded, but succeeded she finally did, and as autumn finally settled upon Ponyville, Twilight Sparkle publicly held at her castle an award ceremony for those who assisted in bringing about the changeling Enlightenment—Starlight Glimmer, Trixie Lulamoon, Dragon Lord Ember, Spike the Dragon, and, posthumously, Thorax, for whom a moment of silence was also held. All of them were to be awarded the Equestrian Pink Hearts of Courage, a prestigious award to give…however only some of them were actually there to receive it. Twilight dearly wanted to give the awards to all of them in person if she could, but unfortunately circumstances would not permit all of them to be there, only serving as a reminder of the troubles that had come with this victory they were celebrating.

Thorax obviously couldn’t accept the award, so his younger brother Synthorax was present to accept it in his place, assuring the award would be put on display in Thorax’s memory at the hive.

Ember, while purportedly flattered to receive the award, refused to be present to accept it herself in her continued grudge against Twilight and company, so she sent a particularly non-talkative and unimportant dragon aide to accept the award for her, who then promptly left again almost immediately afterwards.

And Spike simply never showed up.

It wasn’t immediately clear why—he had been sent an invitation to come and Twilight had confirmed he had gotten it…he simply didn’t show. It was assumed that something had delayed him and the ceremony continued on fine without him, but Twilight couldn’t help but note his absence nonetheless. After the ceremony and seeing that Twilight wanted him to have it, Trixie volunteered to take the case containing Spike’s award and go deliver it to him in Vanhoover on her behalf. A few days later though, she returned and apologetically had to give the award back to Twilight—Spike had refused to accept it.

“He never explicitly said why,” Trixie attempted to explain, “but I got the distinct impression that he didn’t think he deserved it.”

“Are you kidding me?” Twilight couldn’t help but gape back. “He’s probably more deserving of that award than anyone!”

“I know that,” Trixie said. “But look at it from his perspective. Everything he did was to try and keep Thorax safe…and he died anyway. Now he’s clearly learning to cope with that fact, but…” she frowned sadly, “…he still thinks he failed at that goal.”

Twilight sighed and accepted back the award. “Well, thank you for trying, Trixie,” she mumbled, disappointed. “…did he at least appreciate the gesture?”

Trixie hesitated. “…Maybe? I did tell him about how the award ceremony had gone, and how there had been an award given to Thorax too, but…he seemed oddly indifferent about it.” She shrugged. “I suppose giving a Thorax an award now might seem a bit…after the fact…” Trixie restored her gaze onto Twilight. “He did ask why you weren’t the one giving him the award instead.”

Twilight swallowed. “What did you tell him?”

“The truth. You were under the impression that he didn’t want to see you, so Trixie volunteered to do it instead.”

“…and what did he say to that?”

Trixie shrugged unhelpfully. “He didn’t. After a long moment of silence, he ended up changing the subject.”

So ultimately all this told Twilight was that, despite the appearance of warming up to her again that Spike had given before, it was mere pittance in comparison to how distant they remained still, and how much she had lost that key figure in her life. Spike arguably wasn’t the only one though. After weeks of off and on prodding from Starlight on whether or not Twilight would continue tutoring her in friendship and Twilight putting off committing to it, Twilight instead decided to announce at the award ceremony that Starlight had more than demonstrated how much she had learned of the power of friendship with her actions at the changeling hive, to the point that Twilight declared Starlight had been a better friend than her by doing so, and thusly concluded she had nothing more to teach Starlight, announcing her graduation from such studies. This meant that Starlight had no obligations staying there in Ponyville and would be free to go her own path, wherever that might take her.

Instead, Starlight chose to stay, as if nothing had changed. “I think you still need me here,” was her only justification. And Twilight certainly couldn’t complain. But nonetheless, things still had changed—now that they were no longer teacher and pupil, their dynamic had shifted. Not necessarily to their detriment, or so Twilight wanted to believe, but they no longer interacted the same, and it still only made her all the more self-conscious of everything that had changed in her life, both good and bad. She wasn’t certain about how she wanted to feel about it.

She was eventually distracted from all of that though when the inquiry at last publicly announced their final ruling, not long following the award ceremony. The inquiry staff, in giving what had happened these past several moons great considerable thought, review, and investigation, decreed that what had happened was “the result of a great many factors, not all of which involved Equestria directly,” citing Queen Chrysalis’s plans for invasion underlying these events as a major example.

Thus, they decided not to pursue any criminal charges against anyone, save of course Chrysalis on the charge of the murder of Thorax, but doing so was virtually old news by that point—Equestria, the Dragon Lands, the Changeling Kingdom, and even a couple other close allies to all three, already had bounties out for the deposed changeling queen seeking her arrest on that and similar charges for well over a moon. Despite all of these parties searching for her though, there remained no trace of Chrysalis and her present whereabouts, nor what she might be planning. But several were starting to hope that it would stay that way—no one seemed too eager to cross paths with her again in any capacity.

Despite that choice to not press charges though, the inquiry still agreed that “key moments of these events were driven by mistaken perceptions, inherent racism, and poor choices by noteworthy participants, and while these perceptions were somewhat understandable given the political and culture climates at the time, they were still in error.” The banishment of Thorax was cited as the most critical, and it was the inquiry’s collected opinion that Equestria must take every step to avoid such a mistake from repeating itself, going so far as to say that “we all should’ve known better to pursue such a banishment on such unfounded reasoning.” As such, they praised those who had stood against this error anyway, most notably Spike for choosing to stand by Thorax so loyally, even when it meant following the changeling into banishment.

To achieve the goal of correcting this wrong though, the inquiry ruled that a series of “corrective actions” would be taken, effective immediately. They first of all ruled that such banishments would no longer be a ruling the princesses of Equestria could make on their own, and instead must be made by a court of law before a “fairly chosen and unbiased” jury. The hope was that this would help combat the sort of biases that had gotten Thorax unfairly banished, giving the convicted a fair chance to defend his or her self and proving their innocence to a court willing to hear it. It also ruled that no one could be banished purely for being a member of a non-ally race, deeming this as “blatant racism” and ultimately unjust.

In a similar vein of thought and to directly address the racism issue, the inquiry pushed for the establishment of a government-built ambassadorial-type role to serve as liaisons between Equestria and any representative of any non-citizen race existing in and out of Equestria, to help build “fairer relations” between such races and to serve as mediators involving members of non-citizen races facing any criminal charges, like Thorax had faced, helping ensure they are charged fairly. To this end and at Twilight’s suggestion in a moment of inspiration, the princesses developed an office of “friendship ambassadors” whose chief goal, as the name suggested, was to promote friendship and good relations between all, established several posts to represent several of Equestria’s current allies, and began seeking appropriate representatives to fill them.

The inquiry also ruled that no princess could henceforth individually pursue to press criminal charges on any such subject on their own without the knowledge or support of all of the other princesses, nor access to Equestria’s many resources, including all divisions of the royal and city guards (Vanhoover officials apparently had taken great issue with Twilight commandeering their city guard), without the explicit approval of the Equestrian government, and proposed the creation of a new department to suit this need. Celestia made immediate plans to bring such a measure before the nobles at next soonest opportunity. In the meantime, the inquiry also decreed that any pony, princess or otherwise, caught disobeying this ruling would be found acting in contempt and could face criminal charges for it…but decreed that for the matter of Thorax, “any pony that could be argued guilty of such deeds” would be left with a stern warning only on this occasion. Mercifully, the inquiry did not list exact names.

This did not mean the inquiry didn’t enact any punishments for what happened, though. Of particular focus was the authority the Crystal Empire and its officials bore on Equestria, which meant better defining just what the Crystal Empire was in relation to the rest of Equestria. Up to now, officially, the Crystal Empire existed as a separate political entity to Equestria, operating independent of it, and was at best merely an ally of Equestria. But since the empire’s return, it had behaved as if it was a part of Equestria, thanks to its rulers being recognized Equestrian citizens, and acting as another member city-state, often informally enjoying various luxuries as such, banishing Thorax from all of Equestria being the most recent example.

The inquiry chose not to rule whether the Crystal Empire had acted illegally per se in that banishment on the grounds that Twilight, agreed to be a princess with authority over all of Equestria at that time, had agreed to the banishment too. But it did agree that, alone, the Crystal Empire lacked authority to solely speak on Equestria’s behalf. It was thus ruled it could not be allowed to do this, limiting its powers to only its lands, and as an added precaution stripped Princess Cadance and Prince Shining Armor of any powers to rule outside of those stipulations, at least not without the support of all of the other princesses backing it. It also advised the Crystal Empire to further assess their relations with the rest of Equestria so to clearly define its political powers, but left such matters to the Crystal Empire to determine and not the rest of Equestria for much the same reasons.

In regards to Celestia and Luna, the inquiry went easier on them, deciding that a large part of their actions were more due to them being given misinformation than any real wrongdoing on their part. But having learned of both Celestia and Luna secretly devising their own plans to address the matter of Thorax and Spike, independent of each other and without the knowledge or advisement of either the other princesses or the relevant departments of the government, which the inquiry saw ultimately “only helped to aggravate matters,” it was ruled that such practices would not be permitted to continue. Either all of the other princesses or the needed government departments needed to be made fully aware of it henceforth before any action is taken. And as punishment, both Celestia and Luna were put under personal investigation to ensure there were no other “secret actions” they had been undergoing without the knowledge of others (it was later found that they were not) and were denied free access to the royal coffers except for a very small set allowance for the next year. Neither Celestia nor Luna protested this ruling, and if anything, thought it was too “easy-going.”

Twilight herself, however, was another story. The inquiry decided that while initial blame for what had happened fell on more than just her, her actions afterwards in trying to pursue Thorax and Spike—which Twilight decided the inquiry was right when they referred to it as a “vendetta”—were deemed “inexcusable,” and was an “inappropriate use of her powers as a princess,” and this could not be ignored. Because of her actions in the riot to protect the visiting changelings at cost to herself convinced them that she recognized her error and wanted to change her ways, and because they knew better than to mess with things such as Twilight’s element of harmony and her connection with the Cutie Map due to the complex magic involved, they opted to side with Celestia and deny Twilight’s request to resign from her position as princess of friendship. They additionally reasoned that they felt Equestria still needed such a princess, especially after recent events, and it was felt that Twilight could still be capable of fulfilling that role. Regardless of her actions as of late, there was still no denying that Twilight was the leading expert on the subject.

But the inquiry did redefine her powers and roles as a princess. They stripped her of largely all of her non-friendship related political powers and any others that they deemed Twilight wouldn’t still need to carry out her duties as solely the princess of friendship. This left Twilight, politically speaking, as the weakest of the four princesses in Equestria, having little meaningful say in the greater political arena in even just Ponyville, let alone Equestria. They also banned Twilight from henceforth serving in any formal diplomatic capacity in relation to the changelings for a yet-to-be-defined period of time, on the grounds that they felt this was a duty “best left to more capable ponies.”

And even that was not deemed enough, as the most key part of their punishment was to temporarily suspend Twilight of all normal princess duties anyway, barring any emergencies, until such time that an appointed observer (or group of observers) deemed that she had earned the right to have them back and those duties were reappointed. Exactly who would fulfill that role was initially debatable—Twilight had heard an unverified rumor that Spike had been approached to serve in this role but had turned it down, recommending instead someone “unrelated” to the whole event—but eventually a small group of official-looking ponies were assigned for this position. Twilight typically had very little contact with them by design after they were selected, but met with them for a review of where she stood on things every moon following. She was quick to learn that these ponies took their job very seriously…but at the same time didn’t want to be the meanies. They were very positive towards Twilight, and always expressed the belief that Twilight would be able to redeem herself in time.

But as the moons continued to roll past though and fall transitioned into winter, it was clear that it would be some time until she reached that point. While she had her rough days where the weight of all of this became too heavy and felt like more than she could handle, Twilight was in no hurry. Indeed, she felt the punishment was more than fitting and, like the other princesses, made no complaints about it. It would reach its end whenever it did. In the meantime, she voluntarily stepped aside and let other ponies handle Equestria’s affairs for a while, and though there were still times she wished she could at least put in her two bits, she wished her peers the best of luck.

Things then seemed to cool down at last as winter settled upon Equestria. Though still present, the anti-changeling sentiment started winding down to more background noise than a forefront problem. Relations both in and out of Equestria seemed to stabilize, and a few even felt like they might be mending. Throughout this period of time, Celestia and Luna were working at appointing the new friendship ambassadors and selecting who would serve which positions as requested of the inquiry. For the ambassador for the changelings, they had very much wanted to get Spike to for the role, which made sense considering he had been friendly to the changelings before anyone else, so much so many changelings often referred to him as the “first friend” of the changelings. In fact, the changelings loved the idea and were rooting for it to happen too. But despite coaxing from many parties, Spike, while flattered, continually turned down the position. Celestia remarked once that he felt he “didn’t feel ready for it” just yet, and ultimately, not wanting to pressure him, she conceded to his wishes.

Instead, Starlight was eventually approached to fill in this role. She was understandably surprised by this, having not thought she was being considered for any of these ambassadorial positions. So she nearly turned it down for the same reasons Spike did.

But Twilight intervened. “You’re ready, Starlight,” she assured. “What you did in facing Chrysalis alone proved that, but everything else you’ve done before and after that has only further affirmed it.”

Starlight seemed taken aback by this praise. “You really mean that?”

Twilight only nodded, feeling pride for her former pupil that felt good after so many moons of feeling depressed. “Every word.”

Even with that vote of confidence though, Starlight still hemmed and hawed over accepting. But ultimately, after plenty of other ponies started to support her doing this too, she did. This required her leaving first for Canterlot so to undergo some training that had been set up for the position, and then to the Changeling Kingdom so to help oversee a small embassy that the changelings were assembling there at the hive, so Starlight would have someplace to stay in the future whenever she was needed there. She took to the position like a duck to water, promised to come visit all of her friends as often as she could and expected to frequently once the initial setting up of her position was over, but for now she was kept fairly busy with this new assignment.

And ultimately Spike did end up accepting a position as a friendship ambassador for the dragons, but this time more because even he recognized circumstances necessitated it. Despite everything that had happened, Dragon Lord Ember was still interested in pursuing peace between the dragons and the ponies. Unfortunately, she also still bore a grudge against Equestria and refused to work directly with any ponies. But she would with Spike, a fellow dragon, and so he became required to fill in the role, if only so to give Ember someone she trusted to send messages to which he would then relay on to the relevant ponies. According to a letter Rarity had received from him, he remarked that his role in it was far from glamorous nor especially demanding like Starlight’s, explaining that his role in all of it was basically just as a “glorified messenger and someone to help defuse Ember’s temper should anything set it off.” Regardless, he filled in the role nicely and seemed content to do so for however long he was needed.

Eventually Hearth’s Warming started to draw near as winter pressed on. But because Starlight was still away carrying out her new friendship ambassador duties and there was rarely anypony else there these days, Twilight found herself facing an empty castle for the holidays, a prospect that seemed a little too depressing. So when her parents invited her to join them spending the holidays with Cadance and Shining Armor in the Crystal Empire, Twilight didn’t hesitate to accept. Being with family for the holidays felt like just what she needed to boost her sagging morale, and she thought the rest of her family needed it too after suffering through the drama they had all been put through lately.

Yet she found herself wishing she had stayed at her castle after all when, upon returning from her week-long trip, she learned that Spike had paid a surprise visit to Ponyville on Hearth’s Warming Day, visiting with all of Twilight’s friends during his one-day stay.

He had brought no presents though, for which he had to apologize. “Things came up last minute,” Twilight was told he had explained. “So my planned presents are going to have to be delayed, but hopefully I can be getting them to you all here soon.” Nonetheless, he participated in several Hearth’s Warming Day events ponies were throwing and was said to have had a grand time.

Twilight was assured that he had been completely unaware she was out of town for the holidays, lamented that he had missed her as he had hoped to see her too, and was sorry that he couldn’t stay to catch her (apparently, Fly Leaf needed him back in Vanhoover by the day after so to work in the shop). Despite herself though, Twilight still couldn’t help but wonder if it was all a bit too convenient to be a mere coincidence. But whatever had happened, she resigned to the fact that she and Spike had still missed their chance to cross paths, so she accepted it and chose to keep moving on. To her, it seemed like the best course of action to take.

And now winter was about to draw to a close. Winter Wrap Up was coming up soon, and ponies had begun preparing for the shift in seasons. Until then, Twilight kept to herself in her castle, but by now had grown accustomed to it. Being relieved of her princess duties as she had been at least had the upside of granting her lots of free time that she hadn’t had in years. At first, she hadn’t been sure what to do with it all, but after Hearth’s Warming, she began discovering ways to make use of it. She had even taken up something of a pet project—reflecting back on her past, more successful, moments in life, she found herself heartened with her successes in tutoring Starlight and had begun toying with ideas that might, one day, pan out into something larger that would allow her to do it again with someone else…maybe even a whole group.

But most of all, she started to get caught up on her studies and reading, and in many ways she felt like she had fallen back in time to the good old days before she became a princess and was instead just a unicorn pony librarian, trying to find her way in the world with the support of her friends. She decided that this wasn’t necessarily a bad place to be, for it made her feel more like a normal pony again, and as such, felt she could bear the weight of her own flaws and past mistakes a bit better. She still deeply regretted them and wished they had never happened of course…but for now she was finding she could accept that they had happened, right or wrong, and in so doing, clear her mind towards moving past them better.

On a particularly uneventful late winter day though, she found herself reflecting back on what had happened a bit more than usual, and realized it had been a good while since she had heard any news from Spike. This was rapidly becoming something of the new norm for her, and today the significance of that struck her just how much she had adapted to Spike, one time her constant companion, no longer really being a part of her life. She had mixed feelings about that, and thinking about it made her long for his company again…but at the same time she knew precisely why she couldn’t anymore.

And that’s okay, she thought to herself that morning while helping to herself to a lonely breakfast. He has his own life now, one that doesn’t need me to be in it anymore. And after everything that happened…maybe that’s for the better. He was going to grow up and go out on his own eventually anyway…maybe it might as well be now, just so long as he’s safe and ultimately satisfied with where he is.

Nevertheless, this thought left her sitting there and silently pondering the significance of it for quite a while, during which her forgotten bowl of cereal turned soggy.

Starlight Glimmer, by this time, had finished her immediate duties as friendship ambassador and had returned to Ponyville, but today she was still out of the castle so to meet with Trixie and assist with a few tweaks that the stage performer wanted to make in her show. Twilight’s other friends were likewise preoccupied with other projects today as well—Rainbow Dash was away training with the Wonderbolts, Rarity was in Canterlot tending to a small emergency at her boutique there, Pinkie Pie was swamped with a baking order at Sugarcube Corner, Applejack was busy prepping for the upcoming Winter Wrap Up, and Fluttershy had a sick cat she was helping tend to. This meant Twilight had the castle to herself and no other obligations to worry herself with.

Thus expecting no interruptions, Twilight decided to make it a personal day , and after breakfast retreated upstairs to her study. Pulling out her copy of The Interactions of Magic in Pony Relations that she had been gradually reading through the past couple of days and settled down into her favorite reading chair, letting the hours pass by as she let herself be submerged in the intriguing text of her book. She had only been at it for maybe an hour and a half though when she unexpectedly felt a magical tingle run down the base of her spine before halting near her hips.

Then her cutie mark started to pulsate and glow.

Twilight stared down at it for a very, very, long moment in utter silence. She dared not speak, almost convinced that she was imagining this…especially since it had been several moons since her cutie mark had done this. Not since before Thorax was banished. She didn’t think it would do so again anytime soon, either—she suspected the map had been punishing her for her actions too.

But her cutie mark continued to pulsate and glow no matter how long she stared at it, and soon Twilight started to realize with no small amount of shock that this was indeed for real. Gingerly setting aside her book on a nearby side table, she rose and, while still occasionally glancing back at her cutie mark in case it abruptly stopped this behavior, she hesitantly stepped out of her study and through the corridors of her castle, heading for the throne room. She paused beside the open doorway for a long moment, uncertain still about actually entering. But seeing that she wouldn’t get answers until she did, she pushed ahead and turned into the room itself.

The crystalline map set in the center of the room was indeed active when she entered, displaying the usual magical, three-dimensional, projection of Equestria upon it, and circling over it was an image of Twilight’s cutie mark, thus settling any of Twilight’s doubts. To her shock, she had indeed been called on a friendship mission. It seemed, however, that she was the only one who had been called, and as she drew closer to the map, she was further surprised to see that it wasn’t calling her to go anywhere, as her cutie mark was circling over Ponyville—specifically, her own castle. This only baffled Twilight further as she puzzled over the map. Just who was the map expecting her to help? There was no one else here at the castle except herself…wasn’t there?

As if answering that mental question, Twilight’s gaze was drawn back to the throne room’s open doors when she heard the sound of someone politely knocking on the castle’s front door echo through. Twilight remained rooted where she was, glancing between the map and the direction of the knock for a couple of moments, attempting to process just what was happening here, when the knock coming a second time spurred her legs into motion, moving her in the direction of the castle foyer. There, she paused on the foyer staircase, staring at the closed castle doors, wondering who or what might be on the other side when she heard the knock politely come for a third time. Clearly, whoever it was, they weren’t in too much of a hurry for someone to answer.

Realizing this meant that whoever was knocking might not decide to stay and wait for much longer unless someone answered the door soon urged Twilight forward again, and she hurried across the foyer to the door. Putting one hoof on the latch, she paused to take a deep and calming breath before opening it, bracing herself for whomever she was going to meet on the other side.

The whomever proved to be the usual mail pony, a white and grey earth stallion who had been delivering Twilight’s packages to her for years now, even before she had become a princess. He politely tipped his blue hat at her when she opened the door. “Morning princess,” he greeted politely and hefted up a rectangular package in one hoof, “Got your package here for you.”

Twilight just stared at the package though, further perplexed. “I wasn’t expecting to receive any packages,” she mumbled aloud, brow furrowing.

“Really?” The mail pony turned the package back around so to read the label attached to its top. “It’s addressed to you…looks like it was sent from your favorite book publisher too, so it’s really no less surprising than a lot of the other packages I’ve delivered to you in the past.” He proffered the package to her yet again.

Twilight timidly picked it up with her magic and studied the address label herself, confirming everything the mail pony said. Still, she frowned, finding the package’s arrival odd. She knew she hadn’t requested anything shipped to her at all in recent weeks…but maybe she had preordered something sometime back and was simply forgetting about it now? “Well,” she began slowly, “I guess I’ll find out what it’s about shortly, won’t I?”

“Guess so,” the mail pony responded with a grin before holding out a clipboard and pencil. “Sign here, please.”

Twilight signed for the package then, after bidding the stallion a quick farewell, she retreated back into her castle. She stopped to study the package for a few moments longer, only to reaffirm everything she already knew about it. A routine package addressed to her, sent from her preferred book publisher that she typically ordered books from. Gently shaking the package to feel what was inside, as well as its dimensions, suggested that it did likely contain a book. She found absolutely no other reason to be suspicious of it at all and a voice in her head told her she was being very paranoid and silly about this.

And yet, as her thoughts went back to the map and how it had seemed to call her to a friendship mission here at the castle just moments before…

Twilight took the package and started back upstairs, first stopping back at the throne room so to glance at the map again. She saw it was still active, and still had her cutie mark circling over the same location, calling her attention to here at the castle. She assumed there was something here that it expected her to do…and this package and whatever was in it seemed to be her only clue as to what that might be. She took the package back up to her study then, setting it down on the side table next to her reading chair, and proceeded to open it.

Inside, placed neatly atop a bed of packing peanuts, was a red-bound, hardcover book of noteworthy size, positioned so it’s cover faced downwards and out of view. Sitting atop of it was a slip of paper. Twilight initially thought it might be an order receipt, but after picking it up to read, instead found it was the common form letter this publisher usually sent out with their books, thanking the buyer for their purchase, and listing a few comments about what critics who had pre-read the book before its publication had thought of it. Curious, Twilight took the time to read through some of these comments, noting that many of the comments were quite praiseworthy of the book.

Then Twilight realized that some of the events briefly mentioned in these comments were entirely too familiar. Eyes going wide, Twilight immediately turned her attention to the book and hefted it out of its box to look at its cover for the first time. Printed in bold, gold-foil, seriffed lettering at the center was its title:

GRIEF IS THE PRICE WE PAY

A True Story

Written by Spike the Dragon

Twilight stared at the cover for a long moment, scarcely daring to believe the author it credited was indeed the same dragon she knew. But quickly flipping to the back of the book where the “about the author” information was printed only confirmed it: at the top of the book’s rear-most page was a clear picture of the Spike she had always known, leaving absolutely no room for doubt. It showed Spike rather calmly seated beside a window and gazing thoughtfully out it—it seemed like an eerily surreal but grown-up picture of the young dragon, as Twilight had always known Spike to be someone who always liked to ham it up when having his picture taken. But there was none of that here.

Written below the picture was a brief paragraph:

“For most of the past two seasons, Equestria has been gripped in wonderment as the thought impossible took place, and ponies were suddenly finding themselves allying with changelings—creatures once thought to be vile enemies, now wishing to be our friends. Details of how this could have happened and why have been kept basic and rather vague to the public and many have thirsted to know the full story, especially about the changeling named Thorax who helped make it happen. Now, at long last, that story becomes clear in this autobiographical book written by Spike the Dragon, telling how he first met Thorax and how he lived—and died—bringing about such a dramatic change in his race, paving the way for ponies everywhere to change how they view changelings. Though this is his first published work, it is his hope that this book can “set the story straight” for all and bring closure to the matter at last.

Spike the Dragon lives in Vanhoover, Equestria.”

Twilight read through the paragraph slowly, comprehension that Spike, her Spike, had successfully written and published a book, and without her knowing no less, slowly sinking in. But then she noticed there was something like a bookmark sticking out from within the pages, and curious, she flipped to the front of the book where it was located. She found it was an old and worn all-season train pass issued in Spike’s name, and realized with a start it was the exact train pass she herself had found in Spike and Thorax’s room when searching for them in Vanhoover. It was still scribbled over in the margins with strange, circular symbols with regular notches taken out of them. Twilight didn’t recognize these symbols the first time she saw this pass, but now knew them to be characters from the changeling language and realized they had quite likely been written by Thorax himself. Twilight was stunned Spike had been willing to give up this memento for this very reason.

But then she turned her attention to the page it had been bookmarking and saw it was the book’s dedicatory page. It read:

-To Thorax,

My dearest friend, gone before his time, and whom I dearly miss.

and to Twilight,

For never giving up on me, even when I had given up on her.

Then, scribbled in pen into the blank space sitting directly under that was:

Twilight breathed in sharply and squeezing her suddenly misty eyes shut, she pressed the open book to her chest for a long moment. She remained like that for a good while, trying to recompose herself while at the same time her mind spun, trying to process just what Spike was trying to tell her, and, most importantly, if she was actually interpreting it right.

In the end, she decided there was only one way she could be certain.

Putting The Interactions of Magic in Pony Relations back on its shelf, Twilight instead settled back into her reading chair with Spike’s book, flipping to the front and beginning to read. She read for hours, almost into the night, and through it all, her emotions were heavily tried…but she did not stop reading until she had finished, having read the book from cover to cover.

It was only then that the map decided that she had finished her friendship mission.

Author's Note

It's funny how iconic those acorns ended up being in this story. They initially just started out as a fun little bit of world-building, but ultimately became symbolic for something greater. :twilightsmile:

Apologies for the pic being obviously split and posted in two bits, but when I made the pic, I neglected to keep in mind FimFiction's max image limit (600 x 600), and thus had to retroactively scale down and split apart the pic in order to get it to appear without the site shrinking it into a thumbnail and ruining the effect (plus it made it hard to read the quote). And even then, we still lost a small sliver along the very bottom, but thankfully nothing important. Nevertheless, you can see the full pic here:

Thorax's Acorn
No text version

The featured quote, in case it interests anyone, stems from a brief statement Queen Elizabeth II gave not long following the events of September 11th, and was where I got the inspiration for the title for this fic. You can read the full statement if interested here:

Link

As for the other pic, I nearly didn't do that one, but I ended up having just enough time to whip it together. I would've done one for the described book cover too, but for that I didn't have sufficient time.

Just what does Spike mean by "thank you"? That's actually open for interpretation. :raritywink:

I realize a lot of the first part of this chapter is a bit of an info dump, but it was needed to tie up loose ends, and I tried to keep it interesting where I could. Had I done the previous chapter as originally planned, some of this would've been put there instead of here, but when those plans changed, that content had to go here.

A reader recently suggested I offer some sort of reference guide for translations of everything Thorax says in his native changeling language, and I got to thinking that now the story's concluded, I could whip together a blog post like that if there's enough interest. Thing is, some lines I could translate were actually secret clues, which I'd probably prefer to translate in a separate post covering said secrets, leaving only more mundane phrases to translate in such a reference guide, so you guys tell me--think it'd really be worth doing?

At last...it took a year longer than I originally planned, but I finally got this puppy wrapped up. :rainbowlaugh: Stay tuned though, I will probably be posting details about what I plan for the future in a blog post in a couple more days. :twilightsmile:

EDIT: Now that you've finished reading the story, you can now go read this blog post revealing some of the secrets I hid in the story! :pinkiehappy: Link

Also, you can read this blog post for details on some key deleted material that didn't make it into "Grief" as well! Link

And one last blog post discussing "Grief's" future: Link

And here's a fic covering one of Spike and Thorax's "lost" adventures: Link.

Colder

It felt colder in the cave.

Of course, Spike already knew it would be cold in the icy cavern, having set foot into it plenty of times before just that same day. To try and offset that now, he and Thorax had pieced together a small fire that they had positioned themselves around, each sitting on the side opposite from the other. Spike had lit it with his firebreath while Thorax had cast a spell with his changeling magic that would keep the fire going without consuming all of its fuel for, hopefully, up to triple the normal time. It resulted in a curious magical fire consisting of flames that were both the emerald green of the little dragon’s firebreath as well as the cyan blue of Thorax’s magical aura, casting a wide array of colored light into the darkening cavern of ice. More importantly, it also generated a small bubble of heat that warmed their small corner of the spacious hollow, taking the edge off the chill.

Despite all of that, it still felt much colder in the cavern than before to Spike. But he suspected it was because of more than just the physical temperature of the cave.

Thorax had been quiet for a long time, his solid blue eyes filled with fruitless mental activity as he attempted to process something appropriate to say. “I’m sorry,” he finally spoke softly.

“It’s not your fault,” Spike mumbled, arms wrapped around his legs as he stared into the colored flames of their modest fire.

“Yes it is,” Thorax insisted. “If it hadn’t been for me…if I hadn’t tried…asked you to…” he trailed off, his thought getting choked off and he averted his gaze.

“It’s not your fault,” Spike repeated again. “It was my choice to make. Not yours.”

They were silent for a long time again.

“You really didn’t have to do that, you know,” Thorax stated after a moment.

Spike didn’t reply as he continued to stare into the flames. He wanted to say that he absolutely did have to do what he had done, to reassure the changeling that it was the right thing to have done, regardless of the consequences. But at the moment, present circumstances made it hard for him to be able to get the words out…at least while still having them be meaningful.

“You going to be alright?” Thorax asked next after another lengthy pause.

Spike shrugged. “I’m still working that out myself.”

“Had it even occurred to you this could happen? When you decided that while they were arguing about what to do, you’d…well…”

“Truthfully? No. No, it really didn’t.”

Thorax rubbed one of his hole-riddled hooves against his foreleg sheepishly. “I guess you’re entitled to feel pretty miserable at the moment.”

Spike finally looked up at the changeling. “Actually, you know what?” he said. “I’m really feeling just mad at the moment. Mad at the fact that they…they just…” he trailed off, feeling the roiling pit of emotions he had been trying to keep contained nearly boil over. He took a deep calming breath and shook his head. “If anyone should be sorry Thorax, it should really be me.”

His eyes glazed over as he reflected on the memory of the past afternoon, at the many glares of shock, anger, betrayal…the echoing chill of Shining Armor’s firm and final order…the look of utter dismay on Twilight’s face…but even she had sided with the others over him. That what was probably what stung the most. Why couldn’t she at least have understood? She always had in the past.

Spike squeezed his eyes shut as he felt the slurry of emotions begin to bubble up against his will again, hot tears starting to seep into his eyes. He pulled himself even tighter into a ball. “I really thought I could make them see.”

Thorax was quiet for a long moment and didn’t immediately reply. But then he got up and slowly walked over to Spike’s side of the fire and dropped down onto his belly beside him. “If it helps any…I really thought you were going to convince them too.”

Spike nodded to himself for a moment, trying to maintain his crumbling bravado for a little while longer, but it finally caved in. Tears streaming from his eyes, Spike ended up leaning against the firm carapace of the changeling’s shoulder and wept into it. Thorax tensed when Spike did this; as a changeling he really wasn’t used to this. But like the new friend he was, Thorax didn’t protest and let Spike be. The little dragon appreciated it. He decided in the end he was going to have to get the emotions out eventually anyway, so he let the tears flow for a few moments.

“At least I believe you’re a friend,” Spike managed to mumble out as he got through the worst of his tears.

Thorax snorted. “A lot of good it did you too,” he muttered. “If I had known what was going to happen because of it…I would’ve just left you alone way back when we first crossed paths.”

They were quiet again for a long moment, staring into the flames of their fire.

“Where are you going to go now?” Thorax then asked.

“Where can I go?” Spike asked. “I’ve effectively been banished. Banished from the Crystal Empire. From Ponyville. From all of Equestria. On charges of aiding and abetting the enemy of all things.” He sniffled. “Just because I had the novel idea to befriend a changeling.” He grabbed a small rock sitting next to him and hurled it angrily into the nearby chasm that divided the cavern almost neatly in half, listening to it bounce off the sides of the seemingly bottomless pit a couple of times as it fell. “Guess that says a lot about the true nature of ponies in Equestria, as much as I hate to admit it.”

Thorax averted his gaze for a moment, afraid to agree with the rightly temperamental dragon on the matter just yet. “They were all you had, weren’t they? Your pony friends?”

Spike let his head fall on Thorax’s shoulder again. It wasn’t the softest of surfaces, but at least it was warm. He then nodded his head. “And they’ve turned their backs on me, I suppose.”

Thorax was again quiet for a long moment, but he nonetheless looked sad for his dragon friend and his unfortunate predicament.

“So where are you going to go?” Spike asked the changeling finally.

Thorax sighed. “Nowhere, I guess,” he said. “I don’t really have anywhere else to go either. Can’t stay here, and I can’t go back to the hive…so I guess I’m just an outcast with nowhere to stay.”

Spike thought for a moment. “Guess we’ll just have to be outcasts together then,” he deduced.

Despite everything, Thorax managed a small, but sad, grin. “Guess so.”

As night fell outside the cave, the two continued sit and stare into the flames of their small fire, huddle together to try and keep each other warm, and ponder what fate would hurtle them at next.

Author's Note

So this idea naturally came about after "The Times They Are A Changeling" aired, and I noticed that some fans struggled to appreciate the magnitude and seriousness of Spike choosing to side with and support Thorax, still seen as a potential enemy, like he did at the time. While it's true that, given Equestria's general trusting and friendly persona, Spike was probably never in any real danger of repercussions by doing that, I couldn't help but raise the question to others of what would've happened to Spike if for some reason the ponies hadn't listened to him or trusted him, and saw him as siding with an enemy instead? Thus the crux of this story, which takes that thought to the logical extreme, and explores what could've followed as a result.

~~So to insure an easier workload for myself, chapters will likely stay around 2,000-ish words, and~~ because I had held off on beginning to post this until after the season 6 finale (because I had rightly predicted the subject of Thorax and the changelings was going to come up again then), I've also managed to produce a small buffer of completed chapters. Until that buffer is exhausted (which I hope to delay as long as I can as I continue to write new chapters), I'm aiming to post new chapters about twice a week, probably Mondays and Fridays unless something comes up.

If things seem vague about what happened initially, know this was done deliberately. The story is less about what happened to Spike and Thorax to get them here and more about what will happen to them afterwards, but never fear; more details about what happened will gradually come to light as the story progresses.

Minor edits made to chapter as of 11/24/2016

ANOTHER EDIT: Since I've been asked in the comments twice now, there will be no shipping or romance between Spike and Thorax. They will remain as only good friends on through to the end.

That We Don't Have

It had reached late morning by the time Thorax returned from his scouting trip. Until then, Spike had spent it largely uneventfully sitting on the warehouse floor with the rest of their scant gear, writing down a list of things they should try and obtain in order of priority on the back of the piece of wood Thorax had been doing risk assessment on. He was not disturbed the whole time, and found that, now that it was overall better lit with sunlight, the warehouse was a rather peaceful place to be. Especially once you got used to the smell, which Spike realized he had at some point, but couldn’t help but wonder if the smell might have rubbed off on either him or Thorax. To play it safe, he was sure to add “get baths” to the list as he figured the two of them were going to need one soon.

When Thorax returned, still disguised, he did so carrying a small neckerchief of cloth in his magic, full of small berries. “Here,” he said, handing them over to Spike. “Ientaculum.”

Accepting the berries, Spike gave him a puzzled look. “Beg pardon?”

“It means ‘breakfast,’” Thorax explained as he dropped his disguise, reverting to his normal changeling form. “Since you showed interest, I thought I’d try teaching you a bit of linguae mutationis—the language of the changelings.”

“Oh,” Spike said. “…how do you say ‘thank you’ then?”

Thorax grinned. “Gratias tibi ago.”

Spike frowned as he worked to repeat the unfamiliar phrase. “Gr—gratias tibi ago, then.” He regarded the berries again. “Where did you get these, anyway?” he asked, picking up one of the small berries between his claws and holding it up to the light.

“There’s a big bush growing nearby that’s covered with them,” Thorax explained as he wandered over to where he had left his cloak when he woke up. “Not entirely sure what kind they are, but I can at least tell you they’re safe enough to eat. As its growing wild in an empty lot nearby, I figured nopony would mind if we helped ourselves.”

Spike popped the berry into his mouth and bit into the chewy berry. He pulled a face at the taste of the juice that subsequently burst into his mouth. “Kinda bitter,” he noted aloud.

“Sorry,” Thorax apologized as he gathered up the cloak. “But I figured it was better than nothing, and you need to keep fed just as much as I do.” He noticed that Spike opted not to eat more of them however and instead stuffed the cloth and berries into the saddlebags lying next to him. Thorax gave the dragon a look that said he didn’t approve of that, but he chose not to make a verbal comment. “So, you got a list of things we want to get put together?” Spike handed over his list to Thorax, who looked it over. “Hmm,” he said aloud and began to read it aloud. “Food—non-perishable, water, blankets, backpack for you to help carry things in, a flashlight…” he trailed off as he nodded in approval. “This is actually a pretty reasonable list.”

“The question I’m worried about is how much of it we’ll be able to get,” Spike said aloud.

Thorax had the same concern. “I found Vanhoover’s marketplace has all of these things we could get, even a discount shop that stocks everything half-price. But the problem is that in order to get these things from these shops…”

“…we’ll need money that we don’t have,” Spike summarized, nodding his head with a sigh.

“Assuming that’s the route we choose to go, of course,” Thorax reasoned vaguely.

Spike caught what he was suggesting though and winced. “I’d rather not have to resort to stealing anything,” he stated.

Fortunately, Thorax was of a similar mind. “Agreed. Not only would we risk getting caught, it’d leave a trail that anypony pursuing us could follow.”

“Not to mention that it’d get us into more trouble than we’re already in,” Spike added. “And frankly…becoming an outcast was bad enough.” He sighed, massaging his forehead with his claws. “Could we at least get food we could travel with?”

“I did search,” Thorax said. “But the only place I could find where we could get reliable food without having to use money to get it is this place where they were giving it out to ponies off the street…someplace called a ‘soup kitchen?’…”

“I know what you’re talking about,” Spike said. “And good to know we have that as an option, but unfortunately, everything they serve there isn’t going to be non-perishable.”

“Actually, I could work around that, as I could create a small cocoon we could keep it in that’ll keep it fresh…though it’d have to be kept in a bath of suspensive fluids to do so,” Thorax explained. But before Spike could object with any misgivings to that idea (and he had many), the changeling went on. “No, the problem is that I noticed when they permitted ponies inside they also worked to collect information to identify them in the populace records…something about wanting to use it to help the ponies turn their lives around from what I heard?…anyway, if we were to get in, we would need to provide something similar, and considering that we’re technically banished, that would only get us caught.”

Spike nodded in agreement. “I don’t think a soup kitchen is going to let us take a couple days’ worth of food off them anyway,” he said. He sighed once more. “But doesn’t leave us with many options, does it?”

“It would appear the only way out is to find some way to obtain some money,” Thorax deduced logically.

Spike nodded. “We’re going to have to get jobs.”

“Jobs?”

“Probably nothing complex…just something part-time and out of the way long enough to get us enough bits to move on to our next destination.” Spike looked at the changeling. “By any chance, did you see any places that are advertising that they’re hiring?”

Thorax shrugged. “I wasn’t looking,” he admitted. “I did not know I needed to.” He tilted his head at Spike. “You can do that in Equestria though? If you want a job, you can just go and ask for any one you like?”

Spike grinned, amused. “It’s not quite that simple, but it’s something like that. Do changelings not do that?”

“Not really…it was more the queen determined what she deemed we were best or most useful at and then assigned us to do that job until such time we either could no longer do it, or she told us to do another job. She does all of the job assigning herself, not the individual changelings.”

“Well in Equestria, finding a job is up to the pony, or this case dragon and changeling, to go and find themselves on their own time, by advertising to the pony looking to hire that they have skills needed to the job in hopes the employer agrees and hires them over another. It’s called job hunting.”

Thorax considered all of this for a moment. “Then I guess we’re going job hunting,” he concluded simply.

Books and Stationery

When the two potential new employees she knew as the glasses-wearing dragon Spark and grey-with-cyan-mane unicorn stallion Thornton came knocking and Fly Leaf unlocked and opened the front door for the disguised dragon and changeling, she was pleasantly surprised by the sight of them. Though both were looking fairly optimistic about their opportunity to work at the store and still hopeful to be employed to keep working after today, both clearly arrived feeling nervous, worrying about what might happen should something go wrong, and both were slightly out of breath. Fly Leaf realized they had been worried that they would arrive late, and had probably pushed themselves to hurry as they traveled through the still-quiet streets of Vanhoover towards the not-yet-open-for-the-day shop, which heartened her; it meant they were taking this opportunity seriously.

Nonetheless, she put on a friendly grin and went to put their concerns at ease. “Thornton, Spark!” she greeted. “You’re both early! I wasn’t expecting you two for another half hour.”

Thornton blinked in surprise himself and pointed one of his grey, disguised hooves at Spark. “Really? He kept telling me we were going to be late.”

Spark, however, just shrugged it off, adjusting the collar of his sweater vest before politely removing the fedora he wore from his head. “Better early than late,” he pointed out then glanced hopefully at Fly Leaf, the thought suddenly coming to him that she might have an objection. “Right?”

Fly Leaf, though, was perfectly okay with it. “Oh, but of course!” she said, opening the door further to permit the two to enter. “C’mon in. I’ll give you two the run through of what I’ll need you to do today.”

She started by getting Thornton set up at the cash register, helping the unicorn pony get familiarized with the device while also reviewing that he actually knew how to properly handle the money as claimed the previous day. He did indeed know how to do it just fine. To him it was just simple math. It was the daunting register with its many unfamiliar buttons that was a bit more of a mystery to him. Nonetheless, with some explaining on how it worked, Fly Leaf was able to get him up to speed enough that, as the time to open up drew close and asking if he felt ready, Thornton timidly voiced some confidence that he could manage. However, he still looked nervous about it when Fly Leaf left him alone at the front desk to unlock the store’s front door, opening for business.

That done, and reminding Thornton to just shout if he needed help, Fly Leaf then turned her attention to Spark, instructing the dragon on how to help customers, showing him the basics of where to find what items in the store, and explaining how it all needed to be kept organized. Spark dutifully listened and obeyed, and when she set him to work rearranging some stationery items on one of the shelves in the front of the store, he went right at it. Satisfied for the moment that the two prospective employees were in position, Fly Leaf then turned her attention back to a box of stock whose contents she had been setting out for sale when the two had arrived.

Business was initially slow, with the first hour after the shop formally opened passing by with only one customer visiting; a regular here for a routine purchase of some more stationery paper and already knew where to find it in the shop. But after that, the number of customers gradually increased and the store grew busier and busier as the morning drew on. As noon neared, it wasn’t uncommon to see as many as four to six customers in the store at a time, and at one point reach as high as ten, a lot for the small and humble store. Spark and Thornton pressed through it all though, continuing to do as asked. Completing reorganizing the stationery items as asked, Spark was then set to work keeping the store tidy as business picked up while also successfully assisting and directing customers searching for specific items. Meanwhile, though he was initially very nervous about having to operate the cash register and having to face customers one on one, after he had helped one or two, Thornton warmed up to it quite quickly, and seemed to find he enjoyed the job a great deal.

A little past noon, Fly Leaf granted the pair a brief lunch break which they took together in back. After the break they went right back to work like they hadn’t stopped. Because Fly Leaf had taken over work at the cash register while they were on break, the two were put to work maintaining the shelves and helping customers, Spark assisting Thornton as the dragon was already fairly versed on the requirements. It was while doing this that the shop saw its peak number of fifteen customers in the store at once, making the store feel its most crowded. But Spark and Thornton pressed on through without problem, both clearly anxious to prove themselves capable to Fly Leaf by the end of their shift.

What neither of them knew however was that by this point in time, they had already well exceeded the shift Fly Leaf had planned to work them for. She had originally intended to have them work the morning shift until lunch then decide whether to hire them or not and, whichever it was, let them off for the day after that. But neither of the two prospective employees seemed to be watching the time or anxious to leave, and seemed perfectly willing to keep working however long as needed or expected of them. So Fly discreetly let them, making a mental note to pay them accordingly no matter what she decided to do with them in the end.

Besides, she was increasingly impressed with their excellent work, and it was relieving for her to have added help around the shop again. After her last assistant had quit, running the store on her own had become something of a chore. But now she could reliably split the workload with not just one, but two assistants (something she had always wanted but had given up hope of obtaining as there wasn’t enough interest in the Vanhoover workforce for her to have much hope of finding more than one assistant at a time), both she quickly found she could trust with the tasks without fear of problems arising. They were capable. They were willing. They were helpful.

She had been discreetly watching the two friends work throughout the day, and was honestly impressed at their capability. She had been worried initially about Thornton when getting him set up at the cash register, as while he quickly proved he could do the math required, he really didn’t seem to understand how the register itself worked. Yet after some momentary tentativeness for the first two or so customers, Thornton warmed up to it quite quickly and only had to call Fly over to assist twice, both times for things beyond his control; once when the drawer on the register became unexpectedly stuck, and a second time when neither he nor the customer he was assisting could find a price tag on an item. Likewise, Spark carried out his tasks reliably and willingly, performed precisely as Fly needed him to with little deviation, and was wonderfully helpful around customers, with one going as far to tell Fly how impressed she had been with Spark’s assistance.

But it was the peculiar things about the pair that stood out the most to her. As the afternoon wore on and business for the day gradually winding down again and having let Thornton back onto the cash register so to go set up Spark with some basic bookkeeping tasks, Fly noticed that Thornton seemed to have a strange ability to know how to specifically treat and react to every customer that approached him, almost as if he somehow knew in advance the customer’s attitude beforehand. After discreetly watching him work from afar for most of the day, she was at a loss as to how he did it. She thought for certain it would break down the moment Thornton had to face off with inevitable upset customer, but even when finally confronted with such a customer halfway through the day, Thornton still seemed to know precisely how to react and what to say to keep the customer satiated enough to avoid conflict. It was almost uncanny.

Spark also had abilities that surprised her, the little dragon being startlingly fluent in organizational systems, seemingly mastering Fly’s within the first hour. He had it down so well that he was able to find items within the shop without Fly’s assistance, even when he couldn’t have previously known where to find it. At one point he had even kindly suggested an improvement to Fly’s system that she had never considered before, yet seemed almost genius in retrospect. And when she eventually had him try his claws at some bookkeeping like they had discussed yesterday, she found Spark knew what he was doing there as well, much more than he had conveyed to her yesterday. All he needed was a calculator (he claimed he was poor at mental math) and could go at it without needing further instruction. Fly swore it was because he had worked in some sort of shop like this before, and wondered why he hadn’t just said so. But whenever she asked, he again claimed that he’d gleaned what he knew from his “volunteer work at a local library.” Not quite explaining it for Fly though, she asked what library enabled someone as young as him the chance to make use of all these skills, but the most Spark would say was it was some little country town library that was sadly no longer standing. He wouldn’t give a name for either the library or the town and when asked, always found a way to change the subject instead.

She also noticed that Spark seemed to have impeccable eyes for observing…despite wearing glasses. Fly at first shrugged it off as the dragon having only slightly poor eyesight, with vision still good enough that he could manage without eyewear if required…but the more she noticed him observe little things from far across the room, the more stretched that belief became. She also noticed that Thornton, inexplicably, seemed very hesitant to use his unicorn magic in public, preferring to rely on it only when he thought no one was watching. As an earth pony, Fly knew little about magic, but seeing that Thornton seemed capable, she was at a loss as to why he looked worried he’d be caught for some reason every time he used it, even if to just briefly levitate an item to one side. In short, there were things about the pair that didn’t quite add up still, and while she had hunches why, nothing could quite explain their curious quirks.

She had to concede that the quirks had their upsides though, especially towards the end of the day when she saw a specific customer enter the shop and approach Thornton at the front desk. A regular for the shop’s supply of scrapbooking materials on the second floor, Fly knew the zebra customer who was friendly enough, but unlike her husband and young son, she did not know the Equestrian language well and would habitually slip into her native Zebra language when faced with terms she didn’t know the Equestrian equivalent of. Though she was always a patient and apologetic customer, it was constantly a chore for Fly to try and work with her to determine just what it was the zebra needed because of this language barrier. Suspecting Thornton would face the same problem, she kept to one side to watch and see how he handled it.

It began routinely enough, with Thornton greeting the customer like he had done all day. The zebra returned the greeting then rather clumsily attempted to explain what she was here for in a blend of clipped Equestrian and Zebra. Thornton at first seemed unsure up until the zebra mare apologetically repeated the Zebra name of whatever it was she was looking for, unable to explain it better. It was then that Thornton perked up, and to Fly’s absolute surprise, gave a response back in full and perfect Zebra. Delightfully surprised at the fact he could speak her language, the zebra immediately switched to full Zebra herself, and within moments Thornton had assisted her successfully and was ringing up her total while Fly stood in stunned shock.

When Spark passed by her, she stopped him. “Thornton speaks Zebra?” she repeated incredulously.

Spark glanced in Thornton’s direction. “Oh yeah,” he responded calmly. “He’s multilingual. I’d almost forgotten about that.”

“Why hadn’t either of you mentioned it before, then?” she asked.

Spark shrugged. “I guess we didn’t think you’d care. Most of the other employers we tried didn’t seem interested in it.” And having nothing further to say on the subject, he trotted off.

Fly shook her head, bemused as she looked back at Thornton, giving his farewells to the zebra now. “Curiouser and curiouser…” she murmured to herself.

The two diligently kept working until finally the day started to reach its end. Though closing time was still about an hour off for the shop, Fly Leaf saw that the store was empty for the moment and it wasn’t likely a new one would be entering right away, so she decided to take the moment to address the final matter of the evening, calling Spark and Thornton over towards the back of the front room to talk.

“So…” she began, the pumpkin orange earth pony leaning against a set of shelves as she watched the two. Both were trying to keep themselves calm and neutral-faced, but she could tell both were hopefully awaiting her final verdict on whether they would be employed or not. “Now that you’ve experienced a day’s work…what do you think?”

“I thoroughly enjoyed it,” Thornton declared immediately. “Honestly, I don’t know why you haven’t had more ponies applying for the job. I think it’s an absolute joy, helping these customers.”

Spark, meanwhile, could only chuckle at his friend’s enthusiasm. “You would have the more unique viewpoint on the matter,” he responded to the unicorn before facing Fly Leaf. “But I gotta admit,” he went on to state more conservatively, “I’m pretty satisfied with the day’s work myself. It’s nothing glamorous I suppose, but I knew that going in, and I’m perfectly okay with that. I’d be happy enough to keep doing the work…if you’ll let us.”

“Well, I will admit that you two surprised me here and there,” Fly admitted. “You're both more skilled than you gave yourselves credit for.” She grinned. “Lucky for me then that I’ll keeping you both around, huh?”

Both immediately brightened at this. “You mean we’re hired?” Spark repeated eagerly.

“Hired, and welcome to stay that way for as long as you want,” Fly responded. She gave them both a wink and she started for the batwing doors leading into the back. “After all, I think the thing I noticed most about you two is that you’re both excellent workers…and why would I ever want to turn away something like that?”

Author's Note

Presenting the first chapter that is NOT in the point of view of Spike or Thorax. Amusingly though, that wasn't originally the plan. I started writing the chapter from Spike and Thorax's point of view as usual, but then realized I wanted to have Fly to convey things she observed about them to herself, and so halfway through the chapter switched to her point of view. But I found the transition jarring, and since Fly only knows the two as Spark and Thornton when I had been referring to them by their given names in the first half of the chapter, I worried it was only going to end up confusing readers, so I decided it made more sense to put the whole chapter in Fly's point of view.

I bring it up because this will likely be a very rare instance; I fully expect most if not all of the rest of the story to largely remain told from Spike or Thorax's point of view (to those that have been asking for chapters on the Mane 6 and related characters so to get their stance on things, know that this won't prevent that; it will happen in due time :raritywink:).

Hive Mind

With the bowtie back in his possession, Spike promptly put it on and at the end of his lunchbreak, returned to work with his more usual enthusiasm. Thorax did likewise, feeling pleased he was able to help. Nonetheless, the nature of how they had located and recovered the bowtie left the two reflecting and trying to sort out the experience, Spike especially as he had no previous experience in the mental link Thorax had used. It had left something of an awkward rift between the two, feeling uncomfortable every time the two went to speak to each other, to the point that the usually two open-going and approachable friends were being oddly quiet to and around each other, unknowing what, if anything, they should say to address the lingering awkwardness between them the link, brief as it was, had created. It seemed to only get more pronounced as time went by, especially as Spike let his mind wander on the affair more and began to realize implications he hadn’t thought of before that left him more…uncertain. But unsure he wanted to let himself face such implications directly, he kept silent, further increasing the desire to avoid speaking directly to Thorax.

Naturally by the end of the workday, Fly Leaf had noticed it for long enough to feel obligated to bring it up. “You two have been oddly quiet today,” she noted aloud as they worked to close the shop for the evening.

Spike and Thorax exchanged glances. “Just…have had a bit to think about, I suppose,” Spike reasoned aloud, but didn’t elaborate.

Fly raised an eyebrow as she studied the pair, but instead changed the subject. “I noticed you found your bowtie, Spark,” she said with a nod.

Spike’s claws went to the garment and fingered it briefly. “Yes,” he said. “Thora—I mean—bleh,” he pulled a face as he momentarily stumbled over his words then started again. “Thornton helped me find it.”

“That was nice of him.”

Spike glanced in the direction of the disguised changeling and smiled slightly. “Yes it was.” Thorax returned the smile.

“So where was it?” Fly asked as she moved to adjust a shop display.

“Remember when you asked me to fetch you a bottle of glitter glue from in back? I had been in the middle of taking it off and accidentally left in the box.”

“Ah, you see? I told you it’d turn up again, safe and unharmed.” Fly gave the two a wink and walked off. “All is well that ends well, right?”

“Yeah,” Thorax agreed but with a warble of uncertainty and again he and Spike exchanged glances, aware that the matter wasn’t settled just yet, neither of them just were quite prepared to address it.

That changed the moment the both of them returned to their room before dinner. “Thorax, we need to talk about what happened,” Spike blurted out the second he closed the door behind them.

Thorax sighed, nodding as he let his disguise drop. “I figured you’d have questions,” he said, locking his solid blue eyes on his friend. “A mental link invariably always does bring such things up, making one wonder about their existence and relations with others, especially those they link with. I had many of my own the first time I underwent a mental link, to demonstrate to my superiors that I could do so if needed.”

“And see, that’s what gets me!” Spike said, thrusting his claws at the changeling. “You talk about it like it’s so deeply ingrained into your life and culture as a changeling…but you never even hinted you had anything even coming close to that kind of ability to me or anyone since I met you even once until now!”

“And that bothers you.”

“Only because it feels like you’ve been keeping secrets from me, Thorax.” There was a tone of regret in Spike’s confession. “And now I’m left wondering why, and…I don’t like some of the possibilities I’m coming up with.”

Thorax slowly trotted up to the dragon and put an assuring hoof on his shoulder. “Like what?” he asked seriously. “Tell me.”

Spike fidgeted uncomfortably, not wanting to think about his doubts in what he still felt was his only remaining friend and ally since following the changeling into banishment. “Back in the Crystal Empire,” he began slowly, “when I was trying to convince the others you could be trusted…a popular theory the others had to explain, in their heads at least, why I was siding with you was that you had done some sort of mind manipulation trick on me. I had argued against that, of course, on the assumption that you had no ability to even try such a thing. But now I find you actually can, and now…I’m…” he trailed off, hanging his head in shame for even having had considered the idea about Thorax.

But Thorax saw what he was getting at. “…that you’re wondering if they might have actually been right after all,” he said solemnly. When Spike nodded, Thorax sighed and took on a faraway look. It seemed he had already considered this topic might come up. “Spike, you know that I would do absolutely nothing to hurt you at any time, right?”

“…I do,” Spike said, again nodding. He gazed up slightly at Thorax. “You wouldn’t have done everything you have since we were banished if you didn’t. It’s just…” again he averted his gaze in shame. “…I can’t help but wonder now if the reason I trusted you so much when we first met was because…you had done something to sort of…give it a nudge.”

Thorax actually smiled at this. “I’m flattered you think so highly of me, Spike.”

“No, no,” Spike objected, shaking his head in immediate disagreement, thinking his friend misunderstood. “It’s horrible that I’m thinking this! I don’t like the idea that our friendship might not be genuine for any reason, or that I might have cause to distrust you! Not after everything we’ve been through!”

“And yet, instead of assuming the absolute worst, you instead resorted to the solution that presents me as acting positively, that I used this ability not to cause you harm, but instead used it to promote and encourage a positive friendship between us,” Thorax argued back with a knowing grin. He tapped Spike on the nose with one hoof. “That right there gives you your answer. If our friendship was really as false as all of that, you wouldn’t be so quick to not just assume that, but defend it too.” He turned serious again. “The mind isn’t a simple thing to fool, Spike. It’s easy for it to doubt even the reality of its own existence. If it has reason to doubt a lie for any reason, it will do so. It takes someone of great skill and determination to be able to pass a lie off to someone like that on such a deep level as one’s mental scape for as long as this…skill I utterly lack, and such skills are not even commonly taught among changelings. Our mental abilities are not powerful enough to do it anyway. Most would resort to more effective magical spells to do the work for them rather than do it through a mental link, spells I have no knowledge of then or now, and I have made no attempt to, nor have any interest in, learning them in the future. Further, to do what you’re describing would necessitate a direct mental link between you and me, which would have required the same sort of physical contact we did for the link this afternoon…and if we had done that, you would remember doing it.”

“Suppose you had removed that memory?”

“I know of no way to do that, nor do I know any changeling who does. Memories are more engrained into one’s mental scape than you think.” He looked the dragon straight in the eye. “At any rate Spike, I swear to you, on the name of the all-knowing acorns and the great Informis Una herself, that you were right to believe I have done no mind manipulation of any sort to you, never had the ability to do so, and that your choice to befriend me was entirely your own and the only influence I had in that, if anything, was to urge and advise you to not to for your own safety.” Thorax smirked. “Advice which, I might add, you were quick to ignore.”

Spike couldn’t help but return the smirk as Thorax’s words soothed his fears and restored his trust in him entirely. “It was the right thing to do, Thorax. You needed a friend.”

“And I’m glad to have one as good as you, Spike,” Thorax said as he pulled the dragon in for a friendly hug.

“But then I still don’t understand,” Spike continued, turning puzzled. “If it wasn’t for all of that, then why haven’t you mentioned your mental abilities before now?”

Thorax sighed, but this time it was a weary exhale. “That’s an entirely different tale,” he admitted. “But basically, our mental abilities are something of a closely guarded secret among changelings, because those mental abilities have previously proven to be a great weakness in the right circumstances.”

Spike’s brow furrowed slightly with concern and nudged a little closer, starting to catch on to where this was all going. “What happened?”

“Well…many generations ago,” Thorax began to explain, “changelings used their telepathic abilities more freely, to the point that we were all…melded…together in a perpetual network of minds at all times. Every thought any changeling had was shared with all the others and enacted upon however seen fit through the rule of the agreeing majority.”

“Wait, wait, Twilight was talking to me about something like this once,” Spike remarked, thinking back. “Immediately after your hive attempted to invade Canterlot, she and a number other brainy ponies got together to assess what happened during the invasion and to devise a number of ways to better defend Equestria in case the changelings attempted to invade like that again. One of the things they discussed was how they noticed during the invasion that changelings could…I don’t know…react and move as one group at a moment’s notice without much of any verbal communication between each other. To explain it, Twilight had this theory that maybe you guys all operated on a sort of hive mind…much like what you’re describing to me now.”

Thorax chuckled. “Well, she’s not entirely wrong,” he admitted. “Changelings do have that capability and as I said, had done so in the ancient past…but not anymore, and certainly not during the Canterlot invasion. We were just…well-coordinated enough to move around like that without need of a, as you put it, hive mind, I suppose.”

“But why? What caused changelings to stop forming a hive mind?”

“Because it proved to be too abusive to our way of life in the end. With our minds all linked together like that, we were perfectly united and one…but it robbed us of our individuality, our ability to think uniquely and independently, instead keeping us restricted to the habits and traditions of old because the majority rule dictated it, subjugating us to its whims, right or wrong. Any thoughts breaking away from the majority within the hive mind were quickly suppressed, on the grounds of it being a danger to changeling kind, but in reality it hindered our ability to continue to develop as a society, disallowing our ability to grow, adapt and evolve. The only reason changelings aren’t already at least as advanced as the ponies of Equestria is because the confines of the hive mind didn’t permit it. Any gifted minds that could’ve dared think of something outside the norm never had the chance to express themselves. Indeed, changelings got to the point that they were heavily reliant on the hive mind, to the point that a changeling was nearly helpless if ever cut from it, unable to act or choose for themselves because they didn’t know how.” Thorax frowned at the thought. “We were, in a way, too addicted to the hive mind to see beyond its confines and narrow-minded way of doing things.”

Spike winced, seeing Thorax’s point. “So how did the changelings break free from it?”

Here, Thorax grinned. “The last hive mind collapsed thanks to a select few changelings who had managed to be severed from the hive mind for one reason or another and, dreaming of a better changeling society, started something of an underground resistance that eventually resulted in that hive mind’s collapse. Since then, changelings everywhere realized the hive mind’s great limitations, and the modern way of changeling life we’re more familiar with now arose from it, originally as several separate hives, then altogether as one great hive when Queen Chrysalis’s great-grandmother drew them all under her sole leadership. No changeling has ever wanted to go back to the hive mind since the last one collapsed, and it is strictly illegal for the rare few that do to even try to recreate it. Under Queen Chrysalis’s reign, such an act is punishable by death even.”

Spike’s eyebrows went up. “Even Queen Chrysalis is against a hive mind?” he declared in surprise.

Thorax nodded. “The impact of it all left quite a mark on our race, to the point that we are all taught now to use our mental abilities with far more conservation,” he said. His grin turned wistful. “But the collapse of that final hive mind is actually one of my favorite tales from our history. At the time, the hive mind was so engrained into our way of life that it seemed hard to think it could ever be removed. But a few who dared to see beyond it managed to pull it off, and helped pave the way for a better life.” He glanced back at Spike. “It’s sort of like what I hope to do in seeking to befriend ponies. Resume what those revolutionaries of old had started, and continue to try and help point changelings everywhere to a better life.”

Spike shared Thorax’s grin. “It’s an admirable goal to have, Thorax,” he agreed. He gazed out at their room for a moment, reflecting back on the tale he had been told. “Still,” he remarked. “I get why changelings would avoid your telepathy abilities, but it’s sort of a pity it all had to end that way. Hive mind or not, it’d be a waste to not use them for at least something.”

“And we do for a few select things still,” Thorax assured. “Like I said, we have healers that use telepathy to help changelings with mental problems, usually with a good rate of success. I’ve also heard it be used among the hive’s legionaries that defend the hive to quickly convey a thought or idea that can’t be as quickly shared by word of mouth. Other changelings I’ve heard have used their telepathy for simply sharing personal memories with each other.”

“Kinda like what we did this afternoon.”

“And that was a very special circumstance, just to help out a friend,” Thorax reminded cheerfully. “Know that it’s something I wouldn’t have done for just anybody.”

Spike fingered the bowtie still about his neck. “Then…why do it at all?” he asked. “I mean…it is just a bowtie. If worse came to worse and I never found it again…it wouldn’t really be the end of the world.”

“Because the bowtie is more than just a bowtie to you, Spike,” Thorax explained. “It’s a reminder of something you hold very special to you. And to have lost that would have forever left a sad mark on you…” he lowered his gaze slightly, but kept smiling. “…and I didn’t like seeing you upset like that.”

Spike grinned. “You’re a good friend, Thorax,” he said, patting the changeling on the back. “I’m glad that out of all the creatures of Equestria I could’ve been stuck spending banishment with…it was you. You are what makes it all a bit more…bearable.”

Thorax’s grin grew, taking on a hint of pride. “Glad to be of service, Spike.”

Any further conversation was cut off when they heard Fly Leaf call them down for dinner, causing the two to turn and look in the direction of the shout. Pulling away from Spike, Thorax then rose and with a flash of cyan, restored his disguise as Thornton. “Well,” he said. “We’ll have to talk about this more later.” He headed for the door, Spike moving to follow him. “I imagine you’re hungry by now anyway, Spike.”

“What makes you so sure of that?” Spike asked teasingly. “Sensed my hunger among my other emotions?”

Thorax took it in stride. “No, I could just hear your tummy rumbling.”

Laughing, the two headed on downstairs side by side for dinner, the apprehension of before gone again.

Author's Note

Fanon has long and often portrayed changelings as operating on and/or ruled by a hive mind, and over the years I've seen fans do some pretty neat things with that idea. But canon is increasingly pushing further and further away from the hive mind mentality idea, suggesting nothing of the such exists in canon, and I've always had some misgivings about the idea of my own, some of which I bring up here in the chapter. Above all...I was interested in trying to pick a more original route, something I hadn't seen others do at least nearly as often.

So I went with the best of both worlds approach. :twilightsmile:

As a reminder, the next chapter after this will address a few final loose ends this incident has brought up, so we're not done with the subject just yet still.

Much to Talk About

Thorax stopped feeding not long after Spike left, but he continued to shift and stir in his sleep afterwards, enough that Fluttershy thought he might wake soon. She both hoped and dreaded that he would.

The fact of the matter was that Fluttershy was left feeling very torn about where she stood on the matter of Spike and Thorax. It was true she had enough benefit of a doubt and trust to come here in the first place, but that didn’t mean she still didn’t believe everything Twilight and the others had told her about the matter could be true either. In fact, she very much thought she would come and find things that would prove Twilight correct, and that poor Spike was being manipulated by the changeling she now knew was named Thorax. She only came at all because she trusted Spike’s letter claiming he was ill, and not only did she mean what she had said to Spike about the goodness in her refusing to turn a blind eye to an ill creature, changeling or not…but she also saw Spike’s letter proved he was at least still capable of thinking for himself, and thought that, maybe, with the changeling ill, that would give her a chance to try and sway Spike to come back to Ponyville at the same time, hopefully bringing a peaceful resolution to everything.

She wasn’t expecting what she actually found, though. Neither Spike or Thorax were living the dreary sort of life she expected, and found the life they seemed to be living to be surprisingly decent all things considered…it was the sort of life she thought even she could be satisfied with. And Spike’s version of the story was a far cry from the tale of deception Twilight and Starlight had painted upon their return from the Crystal Empire, one that did indeed make Spike and Thorax seem like the victims. Furthermore, it was clear Spike believed every word he said to be true, and the longer they talked, the harder it was for Fluttershy to find reasons to doubt they weren’t the actual facts either. She had spent the entirety of their meeting quietly watching Spike for any signs that what he was saying might not be genuine, or that any malicious intent to deceive him or force him to act contrary to his desires existed…and was finding none. Of course, she was no expert at this sort of thing, and she was consciously aware of that—to the point that she wondered more than once if she was perhaps in over her head—but all she was finding in Spike was a very sad and troubled little dragon, who was just very…disappointed…in the ponies he saw as having betrayed his trust.

The only real unusual detail she saw about Spike’s behavior in fact was just how shockingly bitter he had become about it all…but even Fluttershy knew that could be justified, given the circumstances he had been put in. Otherwise he was still the dragon she had always known, and the fact he spoke and interacted with her with such familiarity felt so genuine…it was hard to believe Spike wasn’t being truthful. She knew that, logically, she probably shouldn’t rely on face-value impressions like that so much, not when Spike may have been fed disinformation himself…and Fluttershy knew Twilight well too, knowing that she wouldn’t lie about something like this if she didn’t think it was absolutely true…and she had been right about things like this in the past. After all, she had been right at Cadance and Shining Armor’s wedding right before the changelings attempted to invade Canterlot…a day that still occasionally gave Fluttershy nightmares and had no wish to relive.

But even Thorax, sick though he was, didn’t even seem to match Fluttershy’s expectations of the changeling. Spike’s portrayal of his morals and state of character made him seem actually very much not too unlike herself, one who wanted to help everyone and just wished things could be good and peaceful, without conflict. And even while he lay there so very ill, he did so in such a peaceful manner that it seemed hard for Fluttershy to envision him as the cruel attackers she had previously seen changelings as. And the fact that he was so very ill…so weak and helpless…Fluttershy couldn’t help but take pity on him. Surely not even a foe as bad as what Twilight claimed him to be deserved this…and that was what was perhaps most telling of all about all of this…the fact that when she first spoke with Spike about Thorax’s ailments, he had replied with such fear, such concern for him…it was hard to see how anyone could care so much for another if they weren’t actually trusted friends.

It was actually making Fluttershy wonder more and more if Spike really was the one who was being truthful, and it was herself who had been misled.

…but how could she ever be sure? If what Twilight and the others had claimed was true, then all of this could still be suspect, that even Spike could be spouting lies without even knowing it, that it was all just a ruse. It left her feeling very torn and conflicted…she didn’t know who was right, and which side she should be on. She felt like she was caught in an unending game of monkey in the middle…and she had always hated that game so.

So, torn as she was, Fluttershy simply sat and awaited further developments. After waiting for about ten minutes and seeing that Spike wasn’t going to be coming right back, she decided she might as well use the opportunity to privately use the attached restroom the humble little room bore. In so doing, she noticed a big green lump of…something…still resting in the bottom of the bathtub, and stopped to stare at it warily for a long moment. She wasn’t sure what it was, but the green color reminded her very much of the cocoons she had seen the changelings use during the invasion at Canterlot and she assumed Thorax was somehow responsible, and her lack of knowing of what it was supposed to be allowed her mind to fear increasingly worse explanations.

It was little things like that that bothered her most in all of this; the little things that didn’t quite add up. This blob for instance; why was it here in the bathtub, and what was its purpose? Did Spike know about it? Then there was how Spike had spoken about his and Thorax’s sneaking out of the Crystal Empire in such a cold and calculating way…it seemed almost militaristic, not like Spike to say. There was also the fact that Spike had become so bitterly against Twilight when mere moons ago he had thought the world of her. Had all of this really changed his views of her that much? Or was something encouraging Spike’s bitter attitude towards ponies like Twilight, and if so, was it deliberate? How did Spike’s employer, the apparently unknowing Fly Leaf, fit into all of this? Had she perhaps played a role in all of this, and Spike was just hiding it?

Or was Fluttershy just jumping to conclusions that weren’t there?

Still too conflicted, Fluttershy decided to leave the matter alone for now and after washing her hooves stepped back out into the main room. Upon glancing at Thorax and seeing he was stirring but still appeared to be asleep, she proceeded to wander about the room, taking in the details. She stopped at the desk near the door and gingerly sorted through some of the papers that rested upon it, trying not to disturb things too much. She was somewhat surprised to note that the papers appeared to be notes to a variety of story ideas Spike seemed to have been working on. It heartened her to see that the dragon still seemed to be making good use of his free time, despite everything.

Meanwhile however, while Fluttershy was across the room, Thorax was gradually waking up again for the first time in what felt like days to him. He still felt awful all over; his joints ached and his chest and throat hurt from his lingering congestion and continued coughing, felt a cruddy sick feeling deep in the pit of his belly, and his forehead throbbed faintly when he moved it too much. His peeling chitin also mildly itched. Nonetheless, he still felt refreshed and marginally better than when he last recalled being awake, and dimly considered that good in the back of his head. Gradually, he started to groggily open his eyes a little and peer around at his surroundings, still blurry and unfocused, but slowly resolving back into clarity. His gaze fell upon Fluttershy, and faintly stared at her for a long moment uncomprehendingly.

Before he suddenly realized this pegasus mare was neither Spike nor Fly Leaf, and with a gasp, he bolted upright in alarm.

Startled, Fluttershy spun around to face Thorax, but no sooner than Thorax had sat up did both forehooves fly to his head to clutch painfully, throbbing from the sudden movement. “…ooowwwww,” he groaned pitifully.

“Oh my!” Fluttershy declared, quickly running to Thorax’s aide, carefully lowering him back down onto his sleeping nest. “Take it easy now…you were in such an awful state just a few hours ago that you really shouldn’t tax yourself.”

Thorax frowned at the unfamiliar voice, but he took comfort in the fact that she seemed to be here to help, so he allowed himself to be laid back down. “Who are you?” he croaked weakly.

“I’m Fluttershy,” the mare responded as she filled a glass with water and held it up. “Would you like some water? Drinking fluids should help your body to continue to clear this up.”

“Sure,” Thorax responded, and allowed her to place the glass to his lips so to drink. Meanwhile, he regarded the name she gave in his tired mind, and far later than he should’ve, realized the significance of the name. “What…what are you doing here?”

“Spike asked me to come help you get better,” Fluttershy explained gently as she took the glass away and started to root through a pair of saddlebags on the floor Thorax assumed were hers. “He’s been, uh, explaining things to me.”

Thorax’s eyebrows went up at this, the most he could do to convey surprise in his current state. He coughed before replying. “I must have been in quite a state for him to decide to do that,” he said, his voice sounding grumbly due to his illness.

“You were,” was all Fluttershy said on the matter. She pulled out a medicine bottle and consulted the instructions printed on it before withdrawing a pill. “Here, take this—it’ll help with that headache.”

Thorax forgot he was still rubbing at his head during all of this, but he started to push the pill away. “I shouldn’t,” he said. “…don’t know if it’ll react well with my biology…”

“It won’t,” Fluttershy assured, pressing the pill up towards Thorax’s mouth. “We’ve already made sure of that. In fact, I already gave you one of those pills earlier this afternoon…it’s probably just worn off by now.”

“…oh.” Thorax relented then, popping the pill into his mouth. Fluttershy reached for the glass of water again so Thorax could take a sip, but the changeling had already swallowed the pill dry. The changeling then proceeded to consider the fact Fluttershy was here, and began to wonder what else had happened while he was out. “Anything else I should know about?” he asked. His face must have turned worried because Fluttershy’s face began to mirror it. “Have Spike and I been found by…?”

“No, no,” Fluttershy quickly soothed. “The, uh, only one who knows about this besides you and Spike is, uh, just me.”

She turned back to her saddlebags for a moment while Thorax watched for a moment. “Thank you,” he stated simply.

Fluttershy made a small grin but avoided eye contact. “You’re…um…welcome.”

Thorax laid back for a few moments, thinking. “What day is it?” he asked upon realizing he was no longer certain.

“Monday,” Fluttershy replied as she finished with the saddlebags and returned her attention back to Thorax.

Thorax blinked. “Really?” He flipped through his foggy memories real quick. Last he could clearly recall it was still Friday or Saturday. He couldn’t remember which precisely, but neither of them was Monday, that he did know. “I must have been really out of it.”

“…you were very ill.”

Thorax looked back at her. “How has Spike handled that?” he asked, worried.

Fluttershy didn’t seem certain how to respond at first, surprised that the changeling’s first concern was Spike over himself. “Well…” she began hesitantly. “…I’m here now. So…”

Thorax nodded seriously, catching on to what she was implying. “That bad,” he concluded. He squinted his eyes for a moment while he massaged the flaking chitin on his forehead. “…am I going to be okay?”

Fluttershy brighten a little at this. “I think so,” she assured. “But um…it’d help if I knew a bit more just what illness you, uh, have precisely.”

Thorax glanced at her skeptically. “…didn’t Spike tell you when he asked you here?” he asked.

“…it wasn’t in his letter, no,” Fluttershy admitted. She shrugged. “I had assumed he didn’t know exactly either.”

Thorax, however, had figured out the answer. “He probably didn’t know how to spell it without using changeling characters,” he realized. He turned back to Fluttershy. “I’m no healer myself…but given all the symptoms I recall having and by the sounds of just how bad I got, it’s most likely mutatum aegritudo.”

Fluttershy’s brow furrowed at the unfamiliar words. “Mu…what?”

“A sort of changeling flu,” Thorax said. “It’s known to infect and attack all the major traits of a changeling’s body, and can be pretty serious. I’ve only caught it once before myself when I was back in the hive…and in that instance I could count on our healers to take care of me by placing me in a healing cocoon and giving me treatments through that.” He nodded his head in the direction of the bathroom. “I tried to make one for myself here, but uh…my condition grew too severe before I could finish…so Spike and I sort of had to do without.”

That explains the big green blob in the bathtub, Fluttershy thought to herself. “This illness…” she began to ask, more concerned about it especially given how serious Thorax was making it sound. “…is it contagious?” Spike had indicated in his letter that it wasn’t, but Fluttershy wanted to be absolutely certain.

But Thorax shook his head. “Only to changelings,” he replied. He grinned. “So seeing you’re not a changeling, you’re in no danger.”

Fluttershy hesitated, for some reason not liking he was so confident of that even though she knew he was right about her not being a changeling, feeling like she wasn’t in control when she should be. “Oh I don’t know,” she said, uncharacteristically deciding to casually challenge that confidence. “…how do you know that I’m…uh…not a changeling?”

Thorax chuckled briefly before it devolved into a ragged cough for a second. He sniffed his stuffy nose before replying. “My nose may be stuffed up and hindering my sense of smell a bit, but I still would be able to tell if you were.” He titled his head knowingly at her. “Besides…any self-respecting changeling wouldn’t voluntarily get so close to another changeling potentially ill with mutatum aegritudo without at least some protection.”

Fluttershy examined herself and saw she bore no such protection, and only was now belatedly thinking, far too late to do anything about it, that it might have been smart for her to do so anyway as a precaution. “…oh…fair point,” she conceded. She then had another thought and grew puzzled again. “If this is a changeling disease though…then how did you catch it way out here in Equestria, where there are no other changelings?”

“That you know of,” Thorax pointed out. He paused to cough again, giving Fluttershy a chance to allow a shudder of fear ripple through her, seeing he had a point. Thorax didn’t seem to notice and continued. “I don’t know, really. But it can be airborne…maybe it just managed to blow itself on over to me from whatever other poor changeling who last had it.”

“Maybe,” Fluttershy said, who knew enough about microbiology to know this was slim but plausible. She quickly had a more likely theory though. “Or maybe ponies aren’t affected by the disease…but they can still carry it, passing it on unknowingly to others.” She motioned to Thorax. “In this case, to yourself.”

Thorax eyebrows went up again. “Good to know Spike recruited the help of a pony that knows what she’s doing,” he observed with a pleased grin.

Fluttershy blushed. “Oh, well…” she said humbly. “…I’m no expert, I just happen to have picked up a bit of medicine from helping all my animal friends…”

“Ah yes, that’s right…you’re the element of harmony that had the thing for animals.” When Fluttershy showed surprise at his knowing of this, Thorax shrugged. “Sorry, it was part of the intelligence that was shared with all changelings in the hive back before…well…”

“…the invasion at Canterlot?” Fluttershy finished.

Thorax sighed, nodding. He then yawned and blinked his eyes sleepily, what little energy he had for conversation quickly ebbing. “I’m exhausted,” he noted with a hint of frustration.

“Your body’s still fighting the illness,” Fluttershy explained. “You should take it easy for a few days until you’ve recovered fully.”

Thorax shrugged then and started to settle back down, indeed looking too tired to stay awake much longer. “Whatever needs to be done, I suppose.”

Fluttershy fidgeted for a second. “But, uh,” she began to interject quickly. “…if I could ask you to just stay awake for a…teensy bit longer…there’s, um…a few things that I’d…that I’d like to…talk about.” She grinned falsely, hoping she had successfully made that all sound innocent and not intimidating like she feared.

Apparently not, because Thorax raised an eyebrow and gave her a knowing look despite continuing to blink sleepily. “Good, because I have a few things I want to talk to you about too,” he stated seriously. He then turned himself so he could face her while still lying down and quite bluntly asked the question not even Spike had asked save indirectly. “Now that you know where we are…are you going to sell us out?”

Fluttershy bit her lip, feeling put on the spot. “…I, uh, haven’t quite, um, decided yet,” she reluctantly admitted.

Thorax’s expression turned more serious. “Then we have much to talk about indeed.” He stopped to clear his throat briefly before continuing. Fluttershy was expecting him to go right into his own needs and how he, being a changeling, did not wish to be discovered and why, but he again surprised her. “Spike wouldn’t have gone to such great risk to plead for your help if he didn’t think you could also keep it secret. And after everything he’s already been through…he doesn’t need that trust shattered here too.”

Fluttershy blinked, again impressed the changeling was putting Spike’s needs over himself. “You…you don’t understand though,” Fluttershy attempted to explain. “From my point of view…”

“I understand what your point of view is perfectly,” Thorax interrupted, choosing not to beat about. “No doubt everything you’ve been told about us on up to now would suggest you should have no reason to trust me.” He tilted his head knowingly at her. “But if you really have doubts about our sincerity…then why did you even come?”

Fluttershy awkwardly rubbed her leg with one hoof, avoiding eye contact. She didn’t feel as much control of this conversation at all like she had hoped. “…because you were ill…gravely so,” she explained simply. She shrugged. “I…I couldn’t ignore that and not try and help, danger or not.”

Thorax made a small smile in approval though. “That is more than I could’ve expected from some of your peers,” he said, deliberately not stating directly who, but they both knew who he was referring to. “You mentioned Spike was explaining things…I assume he’s already filled you in on our side of the tale.”

Fluttershy nodded. “That’s…what has left me so undecided.”

Again, Thorax approved of this and nodded his head. “Good, you aren’t just flat-out dismissing it because it’s not the truth you want to hear.” His grin grew and he started to relax some, letting his tired eyes droop. “You seem to be a good pony, Fluttershy. I do hope you will make the decision you feel is right then, and not the one you are told is right.”

That only made Fluttershy feel even more conflicted though, because she wasn’t yet sure what her heart felt was right. “It’s not that simple, though,” she began to object.

“Isn’t it?” Thorax challenged gently, letting his eyes close as sleep began to creep up on him again. It seemed clear he wasn’t likely to stay awake for much longer.

So Fluttershy quickly just blurted it out before she missed her chance. “There’s something you need to know,” she said urgently. “Something you and Spike wouldn’t already know about…about all of this.”

Thorax didn’t respond immediately, momentarily leading Fluttershy to think she had missed her chance, but then Thorax let out a long and weary sigh and opened one pupiless eye to peer at the yellow pegasus. “What is it that Princess Twilight Sparkle has told you that is leaving you uncertain, then?” he asked with stunning perceptiveness.

It momentarily left Fluttershy flabbergasted and she struggled to regather her thoughts to speak briefly. “Ah, well…um…Twilight…ah…Twilight has this…theory, you see…um, it’s about how changelings operate with, uh, what she called a hive mind, and, uh…”

“Spike told me she had theorized this before already,” Thorax interjected, letting his open eye close again.

“No, no,” Fluttershy interjected back quickly. “He doesn’t know about this…he couldn’t. Twilight made it clear she didn’t want either of you to even suspect this.”

This got Thorax’s attention, and even though it was clear he didn’t want to, Thorax opened both of his sleepy eyes to study her once more. “What is so important about this that she’s keeping it secret?” he pressed, concerned.

Fluttershy bit her lip, knowing Twilight would not approve any of what she wanted to say. “…I really shouldn’t tell you this. If Twilight’s right…”

“If it involves a hive mind, then she’s not, because there’s no such thing presently in existence,” Thorax assured, and then motioned for her to continue. He clearly expected she was going to tell him anyway.

He was right. “Twilight’s been…well…assuming that the minds of all changelings are…interconnected,” Fluttershy began to explain. “She calls it a hive mind. She says this would allow all changelings to be able to communicate and carry out intricate plans as a united group, even when apart, and to consult and receive instruction from others at will despite distance while also keeping it entirely secret and private. She’s…assumed you are part of that hive mind…”

“I’m not.”

“…and that you’ve somehow linked Spike into that hive mind too.”

For the first time, Thorax looked stunned and just stared at Fluttershy in shock. “What?” he breathed, looking more hurt by the implication than anything.

Fluttershy simply nodded. “That’s how she thinks you’ve gotten Spike to…well…to side with you so completely. You’ve brought him into the influence of that link so other changelings are able to be either misleading his mind directly, or are directly controlling Spike’s actions through it…” she hid her face behind her mane in shame, Thorax’s increasingly growing shock bothering her. “…like a puppet.”

Thorax was momentarily at a loss for words. Clearly, this possibility had never occurred to him before now, and to Fluttershy, that was perhaps more telling than she cared to admit, fearing the implications. It bothered her greatly. Why would he react this way if it was true? “Twilight, Shining Armor, and Princess Cadance all privately agreed after Spike started supporting you that they would keep this secret to themselves and make sure neither you nor Spike knew of their fears,” she continued. “No pony beyond them knew about it. Not even Starlight Glimmer knew about it until Twilight explained it to us—on the grounds that we were to keep it completely secret—once they returned to Ponyville. From what I was told later, they feared that if you or Spike found out, then assuming you two really were connected to this…hive mind…then potentially all the other changelings, if not Queen Chrysalis herself, could know about it, and…react accordingly.”

“And rob them of the advantage,” Thorax concluded, and let his head flop back into his nest with a tired sigh, closing his eyes wearily. “But she’s wrong—there is no hive mind for either of us to be linked to.” He opened his eyes to glance at Fluttershy. “And assuming there was…do you think me or any other changeling would have allowed Spike to choose to bring you here and risk everything?”

Fluttershy frowned, seeing his point. “I suppose not…not without some ulterior motive at least…which I haven’t seen any sign of yet, but…”

“And you never will,” Thorax added, starting to relax again but it was clear this revelation troubled him. “That supposed “ulterior motive” is no more real than that hive mind.”

“Nonetheless, Twilight, Shining, and Cadance didn’t want to take the risk assuming it didn’t exist, for fear of the danger it presented if it did exist.”

“They searched both me and Spike for any mental connections or mind manipulation of any sort and found nothing though…shouldn’t that disprove it? Why keep assuming that it exists?”

Fluttershy shuffled her hooves sheepishly. “Twilight believes you could have some way to keep it especially hidden and undetectable,” she explained, and shrugged. “I don’t know much about the science or magic behind it, but…doesn’t it make some sense? If such a thing existed, I’m sure the changelings wouldn’t want any outsiders to be able to freely tinker with it. Surely it’s not so unreasonable to assume you would want to keep it so hidden?”

“Except it doesn’t exist,” Thorax said softly but with emphasis, letting his eyes droop closed yet again. “And if that was really what they were thinking, then why did they respond with banishment?”

“I, uh, think the idea was that if enough distance was put between you and Spike, it’d either break the link, or at least weaken it enough that that it could then be forced to break…” Fluttershy lowered her head. “I admit that it sounds like a longshot though, um, and obviously since Spike followed you into banishment anyway…”

“And that’s the other thing—why let Spike go with me if they thought keeping us apart would somehow help?”

“I, uh, think that’s why Twilight has been so adamant on getting him back,” Fluttershy explained. “I mean, uh, they had other fears besides this hive mind that made them turn to banishment of course…basically Shining and Cadance thought the changelings intended to use Spike as…well…some sort of pawn in a greater scheme, and feared that, when he decided to follow you into banishment too…he was already too far gone, and it would be safer to let him go with you than keep him there where he could possibly cause trouble…at least until they came up with a better plan. I think there was also the secret hope that Spike wouldn’t…commit…and just give up and come back on his own…” Fluttershy fiddled with her hooves some more. “But Twilight didn’t agree with Shining and Cadance, and so…Thorax, she just wants Spike back, desperately, and…and I feel so bad for her about it, because I can tell, this is tearing her apart…but…look…all I really want…is to find some way to settle this so…so everyone can be happy, but…I…I…”

“You still aren’t sure if I can be trusted,” Thorax summarized softly. He was quiet for a moment. Again, Fluttershy thought he had drifted off again, but finally after some thought, he spoke again. “The problem we all face is that we have conflicting details, and no surefire means to prove them as genuine…except by word of mouth…and you have no way of knowing for certain if anything I say is truth or lie.”

Fluttershy frowned, but nodded again. “…yes.” She tilted her head at the changeling. “I guess you do understand where I stand better than I thought.”

“A quirk of being a changeling,” Thorax explained simply. “One has to be able to understand how one thinks in order to be truly disguised as them. Not perfectly of course, just enough to be…convincing.” He shook his head lightly. “But you aren’t interested in that. Spike wasn’t able to convince you fully and you still have fears that Twilight could be right, so you’re hoping that I can settle that.”

“Yes,” Fluttershy said, yet again nodding. “Um…can you?”

Thorax sighed and went silent again for a long moment. He was sounding increasingly tired and Fluttershy felt slightly bad she was preventing him from getting the sleep he needed to battle his illness, but she patiently waited for his response. “I will be honest with you Fluttershy even though this is not what you’ll want to hear, because I feel if I am to hope of ever convincing any one that I am being truthful, I should hold nothing back, good or bad,” he began. He sighed once more, and his body seemed to relax even more, ready for sleep. Yet he still remained awake enough to finish. “If Twilight Sparkle and the others truly believe there is a hive mind falsifying both my and Spike’s actions, then I know of no way I could convince you of my truthfulness. Everything I say or do could be seen as suspect unless you can be completely certain said hive mind has no influence in the matter. And as there is no hive mind…I don’t know if I can do that…much less how.” He coughed briefly. “Worse still, is the fact that you need to know that while there is no hive mind…changelings do have the means to make one.”

Fluttershy inhaled sharply at this without meaning to, and stared warily at the weary changeling before her in a new light. He was right. That wasn’t what she wanted to hear.

Thorax pressed on regardless, despite fully knowing he was only fueling her fears. “The reason we don’t use a hive mind,” he continued, “is because we learned a long time ago through experience that such a thing doesn’t help us, it only holds us back, robs us of our freedoms.” He chuckled humorlessly again. “We knew that through a hive mind, there would always be someone else who was manipulating us, forcing us to do things we may not want to…much like what Twilight fears has happened to Spike. If I can convince you of anything Fluttershy…it’s that changelings know that fear very well. We wouldn’t wish it upon ourselves, and I’d like to think most of us wouldn’t want to wish it on others either. I certainly don’t at least. It is something I cannot see even changelings resorting to. But the important thing is this…we may have the means to do it…but I swear to you…we are not doing it now. Spike’s actions and thoughts are his own. I have no wish to do any harm, and have done none to him. My actions are also entirely my own. My hive probably knows even less about where I am right now than Equestria does, and would probably do nothing to aid me if they did, as everything I have done to get here would be seen as a betrayal to them. I fear they would sooner punish me than help me. Above all, Equestria does not need to fear me. I seek no harm to it or its populace…I just wish to be a part of it if I could.” He smiled sadly, wearily. “You don’t know just how good you have it here in Equestria, Fluttershy.”

Fluttershy needed a moment to process all of this. On one side she felt moved by Thorax’s words, but at the same time, it had done little to quell that lingering spark of doubt in her mind, that spark she could not bring herself to ignore just yet still. “Does Spike know about all of this?” she asked softly.

“Absolutely,” Thorax said gently, dozing and so close to sleep he probably would not be able to stay awake for much longer. “You can ask him yourself.”

Fluttershy resolved to do so next chance she could. “But…how do I know any of this is true, and not just…a story to convince me?”

Thorax did not respond right away. “I suppose you don’t,” he admitted.

The next thing to be heard from him after that was a small snore as he finally slipped back to sleep. Fluttershy let him, and instead sat and mulled over what she had been told.

Author's Note

This chapter, and the next chapter following it, were originally planned to be one and the same...but while writing still yet-to-come chapters further ahead still, I found one chapter that I had planned just wasn't working out like I hoped and opted to cut it from the story entirely. To fill the resulting gap in my buffer of completed chapters, I decided to split this chapter into two...and in retrospect, I think it's for the better. The next chapter quickly transitions into other subjects I think stands on it's own as a separate chapter anyway, but more on that on Friday.

While we're on the subject, if any of you are curious about this deleted chapter I allude to, I unfortunately can't talk about it without potentially spoiling events happening in the intervening chapters between now and where it was planned to fall into the story...but maybe I'll talk about it more after we're further into the story.

Great and Powerful

Vanhoover had one large and central city park that was the best known, but it wasn’t the only park within the city’s boundaries. Scattered throughout it were a series of other, smaller, parks, all fitting different focuses or needs for that area of the city. One of these was in the suburbs of town, slightly smaller than half the size of a standard city block, enclosed by a decorative brick wall with an impressive iron-cast gate serving as the park’s major entrance and exit. Half of the park housed a small community garden as well as a humble playground for foals, but the other half was filled with an outdoor amphitheater, featuring a half-circle of stonework elevated stadium-style seats positioned before a simple stage currently set up with red velvet curtains hiding the backstage from view. It was here that Trixie was set to have her show.

As it was already nearly eight and the show about to start soon, most of the ponies who had come to see it had already found their seats, leaving Thorax as one of the stragglers to arrive at the impromptu ticket stand set up at the amphitheater’s entrance. The ticket-taker didn’t ask questions and simply needed to see Thorax’s ticket to permit him entrance. While he was there and seeing there were a few latecomers that had come but had arrived too late to get a ticket for the sold-out show, Thorax explained that there was a second ticket for a friend who was not coming and offered the vacant seat be given to someone else. Unfortunately, as Thorax didn’t have the second ticket with him (he hadn’t seen a need to bring it at the time), the ticket-taker couldn’t just give up the seat on word of mouth alone. But he did agree to keep this offer in mind in case circumstances changed.

Thorax then went to find his seat. He was expecting it to be some random seat towards the middle or back of the seating in the amphitheater, but was instead surprised to find his seat in the very front row, right towards the middle of the seating and directly before the stage. Clearly Trixie wanted him to have the best view of the show she could offer. But he soon saw there was yet another reason behind it after the “Great and Powerful Trixie” was dramatically introduced via sound system, the mare herself—now dressed in an impressive pointed hat and cape colored in violet and decorated with silver stars and moons—appearing before them in a flash of light and smoke. One of the first things Trixie did after her entrance, allowing the cheery applause from her audience to continue, was to scan the front row, stopping when she spotted Thorax’s disguised form among the seated and could be seen grinning faintly to herself. Even from here, Thorax could sense her gratitude that he was there, realizing that Trixie had fully hoped he would be there. It made him all the more glad that he had chosen to come then, fearing the consequences that may have followed if he hadn’t and Trixie noticed his absence.

The show progressed smoothly from there. Thorax couldn’t help but notice that Trixie carried herself in a very different manner on stage, acting more smug and proud—in line with the description of her that Spike had given to him. And unlike their encounter at the store earlier, she referred to herself in the third person continuously. Being a changeling though, Thorax could see what others could not; that this behavior was part of Trixie’s act. She was basically hamming it up for her audience and it seemed that, save Thorax, they were all none the wiser.

The show was otherwise quite impressive too, indeed showing “spectacular feats” as promised, though all largely of the illusionary sort. As versed as he was in illusionary magic, Thorax was usually able to identify what spell it was and how it was used, eliminating some of the mystery, but that didn’t make it any less intriguing for him to watch. Even when the illusion was plain, it was hard not to get caught up in the energy of both Trixie’s presentation and the crowd’s sense of awe. And it was still highly impressive to see it done, especially for Thorax where such illusions for amusement were a new idea for him.

It wasn’t just the show that intrigued Thorax though, but also the emotions of the audience and not for the reasons one would think (he had actually been plenty sated with emotions prior to arriving). All of Trixie’s tricks were deceptions and thus, technically, lies. She would claim to be doing one thing, but in reality be doing another, only creating the illusion of the claimed spell being performed. But that was the point of the show, and Thorax sensed through their emotions that all of the other ponies in the audience had gone into the show knowing this. Though they didn’t know how Trixie had performed the acts as easily as Thorax could (and Thorax knew he had an unfair advantage), they were okay with that, and indeed, had come so to envision for a moment the tricks actually were real and let their imaginations wow them.

It was a new concept for Thorax to consider, the idea of knowing the illusion existed, defeating the logical need for it, yet wanting to see it done anyway regardless. This contrasted with his past perceptions of illusions and their nature. To changelings, illusions were tools, a means to an end and a way of life—indeed their survival depended upon them. They were to fool the enemy or prey into thinking you were truly not what you were and use that against them. Failure to do so meant that the illusion was useless; there was no point using it for someone that wasn’t deceived. For example, Thorax uncomfortably accepted that he was living an illusion posing as Thornton. The moment Thornton was ever realized to be the illusion he was though, “Thornton” would cease to be useful to Thorax, and there was no point in maintaining the illusion. It was for this same reason that Thorax had ceased using the “Crystal Hoof” disguise.

However, here at Trixie’s show, it didn’t matter if the illusions were believed or not, the audience instead expected to be deceived for their own amusement. It clashed with what Thorax had been raised with, but he ultimately saw it a good thing. It proved that illusions didn’t have to harm, but they could also amuse, entertain, and bring joy, if not several more positive things. If anything, it made Thorax more resolute in the belief that his race could be and do far more with themselves and their skills than they currently did. They hadn’t realized the full potential of what they could do, and Thorax realized during the show that even he had only scratched the surface of that potential himself. If only his race were willing to consider and enact upon it…and Equestria more willing to support them in the effort. Regardless, it just showed that Trixie’s performance, innocent as it was, gave Thorax more than simple entertainment.

Thus despite spending most of the show puzzling out how Trixie had really done it for every act and being able to pick out Trixie’s trickeries most of the time, Thorax enjoyed himself immensely and was doubly glad he had chosen to come. And even he was still occasionally stumped by Trixie’s acts, as some didn’t even use actual magic but rather made use of tricks of light or cleverly disguised and placed props. At one point, Trixie was able to make a rabbit disappear from a small shoebox and seemingly reappear in a simple top hat sitting across the stage. Thorax didn’t know how she did it though other than, despite acting like she had, she used no actual formed spell that Thorax could detect. He assumed Trixie could’ve used some sort of disguised spell to make it seem like this was the case, but Trixie’s presentation of the spell on stage didn’t suggest this. She wasn’t trying to hide that she was using magic; she was actively promoting it, defeating the point of such an action. So Thorax was at a loss as to how to explain it.

But of course the show eventually had to end. When it did, Thorax was stomping his hooves in approval just as enthusiastically and hard as the rest of the ponies in attendance. As far as he was concerned, Trixie had earned it. And after bidding the audience a warm thank you for their attendance as well as a good night, Trixie melodramatically left the stage much the same way she had first appeared; in a burst of smoke and light. The show was considered over thereafter and ponies began to file out gradually. Because of the ticket stand set up at the entrance bottlenecking the way slightly, this departure took longer than normal, so Thorax lingered in his seat for a bit, reflecting back on the show. One part of him was actually a bit disappointed for Spike’s sake that he had missed it. It had been quite a performance, and he loathed the idea that he had to go and see it both without Spike and without Spike’s approval like this. But at the same time, he was also glad he had done so; he still (albeit inexplicably) felt this was where he needed to be.

He did question whether or not it was fortunate of him to linger at his seat for as long as he did though, because as the crowds thinned to smatterings of lingerers, chatting while the rest stood in a shrinking line to slip out of the amphitheater, and Thorax was just about to rise and depart himself, he spied azure hooves stepping towards him from the direction of the stage.

“So,” Trixie remarked with a smirk, still wearing her cape and hat, “what did Thornton the Jar Catcher think of Trixie’s show?”

Thorax glanced up at the mare, rising to his hooves. He had not expected Trixie coming to speak with him like this and briefly considered how he should reply. Or if he should reply at all, Spike’s words of warning echoing back in his mind. There was an inherent danger here. Thorax was convinced Trixie didn’t suspect Thorax of anything and was not actively looking for any sign to the contrary, but that didn’t mean prolonged interaction with her wouldn’t give her the chance to do so. Further, he had been able to justify coming here in the first place completely on the grounds that he assumed (apparently falsely) there would be no chance for this interaction before or after the show. Yet at the same time…Thorax had enjoyed the show greatly, and he did want to convey at least that much to the mare…he reasoned a little socializing with the magician wouldn’t hurt.

So eventually, he smiled teasingly. “It certainly employed a great deal of the third person tense,” he remarked, nodding his head in Trixie’s direction.

Trixie made a brief frown, not following, but then she snorted a quick chuckle. “Oh, that…that’s something of a bad habit of Trixie’s—I mean, of mine,” she admitted. She shrugged. “It does make for a good stage persona when used right though.”

“Oh, I’m not questioning that,” Thorax agreed. “It fits the sort of character you were portraying on stage.”

Trixie raised a self-confident eyebrow at him. “And how do you know this “character” that was on stage isn’t also the real Trixie all the rest of the time too?”

Thorax’s smile didn’t waver. “Because that wasn’t the persona you had when we met at the store. There was still pride of course…but it wasn’t crippling. Far from it, in fact, Miss Trixie.”

Trixie gazed at him for a moment, her other eyebrow rising to join the other one as she regarded him, enthralled by this suggestion. “Is that so?” she conceded. “Well regardless, a fair warning for you; I fully acknowledge I still have at least a little ego running amok in me I haven’t bothered to tether.” She leaned closer. “Don’t tell anyone…but it has acquainted me with the taste of my own hooves on occasion.”

Thorax just chuckled, catching onto what she was implying.

Trixie then changed the subject. “But enough about Trixie; what did you think of the show?”

“I liked it, I really did,” Thorax assured, leaving his seat and approaching Trixie so to close the gap between them slightly. “I especially enjoyed the quality of your illusionary magic.”

“Well, of course,” Trixie said smugly, putting one hoof to her front. “One shouldn’t expect anything less around the Great and Powerful Trixie!” She regarded Thorax hopefully again. “And what of that roommate you said you wanted to bring?” She glanced at the vacant seat that had been beside Thorax before he stood up. It never was filled. “Did he already leave?”

Thorax winced, debating again how he should reply as he knew he could only safely say so much on this matter. “He…actually didn’t come.”

“Oh.” Though she tried to hide it, Trixie still sounded disappointed. “Can I ask why?”

Thorax continued to fidget awkwardly, knowing there was no good way to explain this, secrets to keep or no. “Well…see…it wasn’t that he wasn’t interested in the show per se, he just…uh…”

Fortunately, Trixie spared him having to explain. “…this is a case of my past reputation preceding me again, isn’t it?” she asked, turning mildly disappointed and dejected.

With a sorry sigh, Thorax nodded. “I’m sorry, Miss Trixie.”

“Bah,” Trixie snorted, averting her gaze as she put on a forced but indifferent attitude. “I should’ve expected all of that to haunt Trixie still. But either way, at least you came. And it was his loss, not mine, missing out on witnessing the greatness that is Trixie!”

Thorax noticed she had lapsed back into referring herself in the third person to flaunt her ego like she had done while on stage, but while he took note of it, he chose not to comment on it for now. “It was his loss, Miss Trixie,” Thorax agreed gently.

Trixie’s grin returned slightly. “You can ditch the ‘Miss Trixie’ junk by the way,” Trixie continued in a mildly teasing tone. “Just Trixie will suffice. Or if you prefer, you can call me the ‘Great and Powerful Trixie’ like many of my fans favor.”

Thorax levelly considered the presented options for a moment. “The latter’s a bit of a mouthful…so just Trixie it is, then,” he concluded.

This drew a laugh from Trixie. “Yeah, all right, I suppose I set myself up for that,” she mumbled in good-humor. She glanced around Thorax at the thinning crowd then let the smug attitude fade again in favor of a more genuine hopeful expression. “So you really did enjoy the show?”

“Every bit of it,” Thorax assured. He tapped his chin with one hoof, debating. “Although…I do have to admit that the act with the tomato was a bit too obvious and not very intriguing in execution.” Trixie frowned at this, so Thorax sheepishly shrugged. “I’m sorry, you asked for my opinion…I thought that included constructive criticisms.” Feeling this didn’t really help, he added, “I just bring it up so to be helpful, if that…you know…helps.”

Trixie’s grin returned slightly. “It does, actually…though it would help more if you could at least give me a suggestion on how to make it better.”

“Unfortunately I haven’t been able to come up with one for that particular act, but I could give you suggestions for some of your other acts. For instance, how about the one with the mirrors?”

“Which one? The one with the laser beams or the one with the smoke?”

“The one with the laser beams. Now, for the record, it’s already pretty good as is. The illusion is simplistic, yet your presentation of it really makes it intriguing, almost gripping. But I have to ask—why use the filmei spell in it? I mean, it works obviously, but…”

“Aw, you figured out my spell structure for it that easily?” Trixie was feigning disappointment, but in reality seemed more amused by Thorax’s observations. Thorax suspected the fact he could pick out the details of such illusions with such ease was still impressive to her, or at least wasn’t something that happened to her often. Whatever the case, Trixie continued with an explanation for the act’s construction. “Obviously, the spell’s there so to urge amazement from the audience while performing it, ensuring their eyes are on the focal point and not wandering elsewhere on the stage where the illusion could be ruined.”

“Right, right, obviously you’re using the spell as a sort of emulsifier, helping to amplify the intended effect and in turn the desired reaction from the audience,” Thorax reasoned. “It’s just the filmei spell strikes me like it’d use a lot of unnecessary power for the given intent…isn’t it exhausting using it to maintain the overarching thaumic mesh of the trick for that long?”

“Well…”

“Why not use the slaunan spell instead? You’d have to rework the spell structuring a little, sure, but it’d use a lot less power while still achieving much the same effect, and then you can afford to refine it further to your tastes, making the illusion that much more convincing.”

“The slaunan spell?” Trixie blinked blankly to herself for a few moments, her egotism withdrawing as her mind considered this. Her emotions suddenly faded at the same time and Thorax realized he had caught her by surprise with this suggestion, having never considered it before. Eventually though her emotions resurfaced, with stunned shock becoming the lead. “My gosh,” she declared finally, one hoof slapping her forehead. “That. Is. Brilliant. Seriously, why didn’t I ever think of that? It seems so obvious, using slaunan instead of filmei!” She started to pat herself down urgently. “I need to write that down before I forget.” She found a quill hidden in a pocket in her cape, but she couldn’t find anything to write on and anxiously looked around for something to use.

Wanting to help, Thorax stuck his hooves in his jacket pockets, looking for something inside Trixie could use. He found an old receipt from a past purchase and handed it over to her. “Here, you can use this,” he offered.

“Thank you!” Trixie said, flipping the receipt over and then hurrying over to the edge of the stage to use as a flat surface to write on. She proceeded to jot down the details of what Thorax suggested. “This will make that whole act a bit less of a headache to perform.” She glanced over at the disguised changeling with a smirk. “Since you seem to be the one with all the good ideas, I don’t suppose you have any other good suggestions like that to make? I may be accomplished at this already…but I’m always looking for ways to improve my shows.”

Thorax grinned. “Well, since you asked…”

They then spent the next several minutes reviewing Trixie’s show act by act, assessing how each trick or spell was used and employed, with Thorax providing suggestions on how Trixie could potentially improve upon the illusions they all respectively created either helping to refine the act, make the performance more efficient for Trixie to enact, or on occasion suggest the use of an all-new illusion to replace the original with the thought it might make for a better show overall. Trixie was soon bouncing back ideas of her own, using Thorax as a sounding board, and Thorax was struck by her unconventional creativity and ambition. This clearly was her element.

They proceeded to do so while the remaining ponies still in the amphitheater vacated the area. Soon they were almost the only ponies left, but for the moment neither thought much of it. Thorax was just eager to help what he truly thought to be an inventive and entertaining performance. Nonetheless, the thought that perhaps he should excuse himself from Trixie’s company and return to the shop pressed in the back of his mind. He kept putting off acting upon it though, always finding some excuse to put off doing it for “just a few more moments.” He was enjoying this conversation about illusions with Trixie. He was forced to admit it that the last time he had the chance to have a conversation this in-depth about the matter was back when he was still at the hive, in the presence of other changelings debating stealth tactics, and he was in no hurry to end it, fully aware that he might not have the chance for it again anytime soon.

Trixie, meanwhile, alternated between being impressed and surprised at Thorax’s continued suggestions. She was stunned by how after only one viewing of her show, he had managed to precisely determine how a large number of her acts worked and wasn’t far off on a number more, yet this all didn’t cheapen the performance for him in the slightest like Trixie would’ve expected. Instead, he seemed more eager to simply assist Trixie in refining the show over all, making what he thought to be an already great show even better, and really seemed to share the same understanding in art of illusions as she did. It was a rare thing for Trixie to find another pony sharing such an interest…but it did leave her with a pressing question.

“Seriously, why aren’t you in the illusionist field too?” she asked finally as they reached the end of the assessment, Trixie having nearly filled the back of the receipt entirely with notes. “You seem to understand how this all works as well as I do, if not better! You’d excel at this.”

“Oh, I don’t know about that,” Thorax said meekly. “I told you before, I’m no magician. I just happen to have a passing interest in illusions.”

Trixie snorted, skeptical of this as she finished her last note and turned to face him. “Hardly! If this is what you call a passing interest in illusions, then Princess Celestia moves the sun only by accident.” She gave Thorax something of a bewildered grin. “Don’t go selling yourself short, mister. You truly do have quite a talent for this, that much is plain…how did you get to be so…well-versed in illusion magic anyway?”

“Oh…well…uh…” Thorax averted his gaze, knowing the only truthful answer he could give to that would reveal that he was a changeling and he couldn’t do that. “…ah…I don’t know…just picked it up from here and there, I guess…you know, as you do while going about your day…so uh…”

Trixie’s brow furrowed in this, not quite believing that could be the case, but it was still answer enough for her. “Just what do you do for a living anyway, Thornton?” she asked instead, curious as she realized this hadn’t come up before.

Thorax, eager for anything that would lead them away from how and why he was so versed in illusion magic, jumped at the chance. “I work in a book and stationery shop here in town.”

Trixie seemed surprised by that. “Really?” she said as she put away her quill, leaving the slip of paper she had been taking notes on out. “That’s all?”

Thorax, not really understanding why that was surprising, could only shrug. “It was the first job that came along.”

“I’m just surprised, because given all this,” Trixie hefted up the slip of paper in her magic, “it just seems like an…unusual job choice given your apparent skills. I mean Trixie’s not trying to judge you or anything like that…it’s just not what I was…expecting, I guess?”

“It really wasn’t what I was expecting to end up doing either, but that’s neither here nor there. The important thing is that I’m okay doing it anyway. I mean, it’s better than places I could be at instead.” The hive came to mind as an example, and indeed, Thorax would take running Fly’s shop solo during rush hour on the busiest day of the year than another day working amongst the continually-ridiculing members of the hive.

“True, but still, I’m not kidding, you’re almost freakishly knowledgeable about illusion magic, and I can’t see any reason why you wouldn’t be anything less than brilliant at casting it too.” She tilted her head at him for a second, still puzzled by this apparent conundrum, but then shook her head, clearing the thought. “I guess what I’m trying to say is that it’s just…stunning at how accurately you’ve been able to figure out the inner workings of my whole show…”

“Does that bother you?” Thorax asked with concern, worried if maybe he had crossed a line he shouldn’t have.

“Well…for you, not really, because you’re the first to not only do so to this extreme, but also the first to not be…bothered by it. You know how my every act actually works, yet you still seemed to have enjoyed watching it like you’ve never ever seen it all be done before.”

Technically, Thorax really hadn’t, but he didn’t say so. “Like I explained before,” he said instead. “I don’t really see a lot of these illusions used for casual purposes such as this. So to see you do so actually does strike me as very…creative.”

“Aw,” Trixie said with an amused grin.

Thorax blushed, but pressed on. “Besides, I don’t have all of your acts figured out. There was that one with the shoebox, the top hat, and the rabbit. I’m still not sure how you pulled that one off, beyond that you didn’t appear to use any actual magic. How did you do that one?”

“Well now, I can’t go telling you all of my secrets,” Trixie declared immediately upon hearing this, making it clear she wouldn’t elaborate. She then giggled and studied the slip of paper she had used for notetaking. “I’m kind of glad you came tonight though…your insight is going to be really helpful in making Trixie’s show even greater and more powerful.” She regarded her notes for a moment with a grin then abruptly remembered she had borrowed the paper from Thorax. “I’m okay keeping this paper, right? You aren’t going to need it back for anything, are you?”

“Nah,” Thorax said, waving one hoof. “It’s just an old receipt from a book I bought weeks ago, I think.”

Trixie flipped the receipt over to read the original text so to see. “A Sky Trek book,” she noted aloud, reading the only purchase listed on the slip. She then regarded Thorax with a raised eyebrow. “You read Sky Trek?”

Thorax blinked. “Yes. Do you?”

Trixie grinned. “Do I read Sky Trek, he asks,” she repeated aloud, amused by the suggestion. “Actually…” she stopped to glance around the amphitheater real quick. Thorax did likewise, noting that they had been here long enough that all of the other attendees for the show had long left. All who remained were a couple stage hoofs wandering through the seats doing some light cleaning. Otherwise they were basically alone now, which seemed to satisfy Trixie. “…if I can borrow you for just a minute or two longer and you’re willing to keep a secret…I can show you real quick.”

Thorax blinked. “Show me?” he repeated, not sure if he understood, but whatever it was, Trixie seemed secretly thrilled by whatever it was.

Trixie chuckled. “No, no, nothing to be alarmed about. You’ll see,” she promised, and motioned for him to follow her, beginning to walk around the edge of the stage. “C’mon, it’ll only take a second.”

Thorax still wasn’t sure he understood Trixie’s intentions, and unfortunately her emotions, other than bearing concealed excitement, weren’t much more enlightening. Fleetingly he wondered if it was a good idea to go off basically alone into some private corner of the amphitheater with this mare even briefly…or with any pony for that matter considering his secrets. But he still felt certain that whatever it was, Trixie meant him no harm by it. Regardless, Thorax quickly looked his disguise over to make sure it was still operating strongly (it was, and there was no reason to think it wouldn’t be, but Thorax suddenly felt self-conscious about it) before timidly following Trixie, hoping he wouldn’t regret this.

She led him around the stage and then back behind it to where a wagon stood parked and waiting, completely out of sight from where the audience could’ve seen it during the show. Thorax admittedly wasn’t sure what he had been expecting, but the wagon seemed friendly enough in appearance. Painted predominately a purple color with pale yellow trim, the wagon was additionally detailed with star and moon patterns similar to the patterns on Trixie’s cape and hat. Additionally, the window shutters and a spot just underneath the peak of the wagon’s curved roof featured replicas of Trixie’s cutie mark, so it was clear the wagon belonged to the stage magician. The wagon’s backend was already pointed in their direction as they approached, so Trixie walked right on up the steps and through the door that served as the wagon’s only entrance and exit.

“C’mon inside for a second,” Trixie said, inviting the disguised changeling to follow her as she cheerily did this. “Do excuse the mess, but nopony ever said brilliance was always tidy!”

But Thorax hesitated outside the wagon for a second, not really sure if it’d be proper to step inside despite being invited. Spike’s words of warning came echoing back in his mind, and this time he felt a bit more inclined to follow them if only for the precaution. Yet, as Thorax continued to sense Trixie’s emotions, which continued to be nothing but warm, friendly, and excited about something, it was hard to see how she could mean any ill-intent. Further, there really wasn’t much evidence for it given Trixie’s behavior up to now. His hesitation did feel a bit more like it was bordering more on paranoia than on an actual cause for concern.

Still…there was a changeling saying which states, loosely translated, that it was better to be paranoid and flee the possibility of danger, than to be heedless and end up harmed needlessly.

Eventually, when Thorax still hadn’t entered as invited and remained lingering uncertain outside a couple feet from the wagon after a few moments, Trixie noticed and reappeared in the doorway. She smirked at him. “You going to stay out there all night, or what?” she teased. “I’m not going to bite or anything.”

Thorax gazed at her innocently. “I am just not sure if it’d be…appropriate…for me to enter like this,” he explained.

“Appropriate?” Trixie remarked, tilting her head at him in puzzlement. Realization then seemed to strike and she giggled. “Oh, I get what you mean. I suppose, out of context, it would come across like that, wouldn’t it? I hadn’t even stopped to think of that, so good thing one of us was.” She rolled her eyes upwards trying to puzzle out a solution while Thorax debated to himself if she actually was thinking of the same thing as he. “Unfortunately, it’s not really something I can just bring out here to show you…well, unless…just a moment.” She retreated into the wagon to work with something out of Thorax’s angle of view. “I do appreciate your modesty at any rate!” she called back as she did this. She laughed. “Though the last stallion I invited into my wagon sure didn’t ask questions and just jumped at the chance, and I didn’t even like him! I just needed to talk pricing about the produce he was selling and it was easier to hear him in the wagon than in that noisy marketplace we were at! Boy, did he ever think it was for something different, though!”

Thorax blushed as he realized finally what she thought his hesitation was about. “That’s not actually why I…”

“Here we go!” Trixie suddenly declared, opening something within her wagon. “Now so we’re clear,” she urged as she did this, “most ponies don’t know anything about this and I’d like to keep it that way, so I don’t want you breathing so much as a word about this to anyone else, okay?”

Thorax nodded, but was still confused. “I don’t understand though, what’s in there that has anything to do with what we we’ve been talking about?” he asked.

“Oh nothing much,” Trixie said brazenly as she stepped back out of the wagon and approached Thorax once more, something held aloft in her magic. “Just things like this.”

She floated the object over for Thorax to see, the disguised changeling taking it into his hooves to hold. He immediately saw it was a Sky Trek book, the first in the series. Not quite a first edition, but still an early enough of a copy that it was printed with the original cover art that Thorax was so found of. He ran a hoof over the cover, worn on the edges but still in fair condition, and glanced back up at Trixie, wondering if she was implying what he thought.

She was. “The rest are inside,” she stated simply with a smug grin, jabbing a hoof back at the wagon, before turning and trotting inside once more.

This time Thorax finally relented in following, his curiosity perked, and cautiously trotted up the wagon’s step to peek in through the open door. Inside he found small but cozy living quarters, realizing the wagon served as Trixie’s mobile home of sorts. At the other end of the wagon from where he stood was a single bed, the covers currently unmade from its last use. A window hung over it and another shelf filled with knick-knacks was above that positioned near the roof. To his right was a small kitchenette and wood stove, another window hanging over it while nestled between two cabinets, and also bore a sink and a magic-powered mini-fridge. Next to the kitchenette and right beside Thorax was what at first appeared to be a closet with the door ajar, but then he spied a tin washtub and a bottle of shampoo just inside of it and realized it also doubled as a bathing area when on the move.

To his left was another window identical to the one on the right under which sat a small table and seating for two. A half-eaten plate of peanut butter crackers sat atop of it, leading Thorax to recall Trixie previously mentioning she tended to snack prior to a show. Beside this small table and right next to where Thorax stood was a small writing desk, with shelves mounted to the wall adjacent to the wagon’s entrance, but with a locked cabinet also hung directly over the writing desk itself. It was this cabinet that Trixie was at now, having already undone the lock with her magic and holding the cabinet open for Thorax to see inside.

“This answer your question on whether or not I read Sky Trek?” the magician asked with a smirk.

Thorax peered inside the cabinet for a second, his eyebrows going up. “Well, clearly the answer is yes,” he remarked aloud without thinking. The interior of the cabinet was broken up into a series of shelves. Part of the lowest shelf contained manila folders with paperwork in them next to a little safe just barely small enough to be crammed onto its shelf. The rest of the cabinet space however was filled to the brim with many Sky Trek books, and after a quick glance through the many titles, Thorax realized Trixie possessed most of the series from start to the most recent entry. Thorax couldn’t help but whistle at the sight, impressed. “That’s…quite the collection you have.”

“Yeeeeah, I’m something of a long-time closet fan of the series,” Trixie admitted sheepishly. “I…try not to broadcast it too loudly to other ponies though.” She then narrowed her eyes seriously at Thorax. “Which, again, means most ponies don’t know this about Trixie. Do NOT tell anypony about it.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Thorax replied with a grin. He put one hoof on one title, frowning at the scuffing on the binding. “I assume you get some of these pre-owned though? They seem a little beaten.”

“Actually, they regrettably got a bit banged up after my last wagon was…crushed,” Trixie explained vaguely. She was frowning. “I’m still a bit miffed about that, but I guess I should feel lucky they survived that incident intact at all.”

Thorax moved his hoof to rub respectively at the spines of the early entries in the series, pleased to see that the first entry in the series wasn’t the only one Trixie had that bore the rarer original cover art. “I’m just jealous you have all of these…I’m only just beginning to personally collect the books myself.”

Trixie grinned. “I just thought I’d show them to you, since you’re a fellow Sky Trek fan and all and could relate.” she mumbled aloud, suddenly timid.

Thorax chuckled a little. “Actually, on that you’ve got me beat still,” he admitted. “I mean I love the books to death too, but I’m still reading through the series for the first time myself. At the moment, I’m only as far as…” he gazed at the titles in Trixie’s cabinet then tapped his hoof on the spine of the book in question. “…here.”

Trixie raised her eyebrows approvingly. “Still most of the way into the series though,” she noted with a nod. “And the series has gotten so big now obviously it’d take any reader some time to get through them all.” She glanced at Thorax. “When did you start reading the series, then?”

Thorax had to stop to think about it for a second. “About…one and half to two moons, I think?”

Trixie’s amusement suddenly vanished, and she regarded Thorax for a long moment in silence, staring at him with wide, doubting, eyes. “You seriously haven’t read that much of the series in only two moons,” she said.

Thorax reviewed the time that had passed since he was first introduced to the series and now. “…yes I have,” he persisted, not seeing the issue. His assessment of the time was accurate.

Trixie continued to gape at him, her eyes beginning to narrow in confusion. It was actually a bit of a comical expression, but Thorax somehow thought it might be a bad time to say as such. “That’s impossible,” she persisted. “It’d take me over a year to read that far into the series myself!”

Thorax shrugged. “But that’s really how far I am,” he pressed.

Trixie eyed him suspiciously, wondering if he was pulling her leg. “Babel,” she suddenly stated brusquely.

Thorax blinked, not understanding. “…I’m sorry?”

“Babel,” Trixie repeated. “That was the name of an entry in the series. What was the plot summary of Babel?”

Thorax frowned, not sure he understood still, but after only a brief pause, confidently answered. “That was the one where everybody aboard the sky station were slowly getting infected by a virus that made them babble incoherently. As I recall, they eventually figure out that it was artificially made by an old resistance group from before the station came into Equestria’s possession, and have to work to get an antidote from a member of that group before the infection spreads too far.”

Trixie nodded to herself for a moment, approving of Thorax’s summary, but still didn’t seem entirely convinced. “Now The Drumhead.”

Thorax rolled his eyes upward as he recalled that particular entry in the series. “Uh, that’s the one where they caught that griffon spy aboard the airship and they brought the investigator lady aboard for a hearing, but it eventually becomes something of a witch hunt when she starts searching for a greater conspiracy that didn’t exist,” he related then tilted his head at Trixie. “Why are you asking?”

“I’m checking to confirm you’ve really read as far into the series as you claim in such a short space of time,” Trixie explained. She frowned, her expression a mixture between confusion and impressment. “So far it seems you have, but…” she trailed off.

“Oh, okay,” Thorax stated simply, understanding her intentions now. He then grinned. “By Any Other Name.”

Trixie blinked. “…what?”

Thorax kept grinning. “It’s your turn now. By Any Other Name.”

Trixie looked at him blankly for a second. Then she started to grin herself. “Well, let’s see…that’s the one where they find the scouts, or travelers, or whatever…actually, conquerors really…from the really far off land that then use their powers to force control of the airship and then enhance it for the long journey back to their empire so to report what they found or something like that.” Trixie waved her hoof about aimlessly. “…I remember it had them transforming members of the crew into these dodecahedron things…?”

Thorax nodded in approval. “Close enough.” Still grinning, he motioned for Trixie to proceed.

Trixie’s grin grew. “Okay then. The Time Trap.”

“Ooh…uh, that was the one where they get caught in this magic pocket dimension containing an airship graveyard with an enemy griffon airship, and they are forced to work together to escape again before they are trapped there forever. It was one of the more so-so entries in the series, if I’m honest…but anyway. Uh…Explorers.”

“Hmm…isn’t that the one where they built the old-style sail-powered air yacht to prove ancient explorers had successfully done the same thing millennia back?” When Thorax nodded, Trixie grinned, and considered her next move. “All right then…The Best of Both Worlds.”

Thorax snorted. “Oh c’mon, that’s an easy one.”

Trixie’s grin turned into a smug smirk. “Oh really? All right then, instead do…uh, Time’s Arrow.”

Thorax had to think about it for only a moment. “That was the one where most of the crew semi-accidentally goes back in time so to stop a plot by time-travelling beings to feed off the life energies of ponies of the era.”

Trixie laughed, growing further impressed. “All right, I’m convinced, you really have read that far into the series, and might actually be better versed in it than I am.” She then kept grinning but tilted her head at him, confused. “But…all that reading in just two moons? Who do you think you are, Twilight Sparkle?”

Thorax blinked, caught by surprise by the use of the familiar name. “The princess of friendship?” he asked, then, to dissuade any connections between him and the princess he knew was still searching for him, added, “I wouldn’t know, I’ve never met her.”

Trixie snorted, proceeding to close the cabinet containing her book collection. “Trust me, you aren’t missing much,” she said in a mildly heated tone.

She fell silent as she locked up the cabinet again, but Thorax sensed irritation in her emotions towards Equestria’s youngest princess. From what Thorax had been told about Trixie’s past by Spike, Thorax wasn’t entirely surprised by this, but the emotion was stronger than he anticipated and wondered for a moment if the whole matter bothered Trixie more than she had let on previously. He felt obligated to say something about it, but knew that it was a subject he should keep himself distanced from due to being in hiding, and his mind urged him to leave it alone.

Despite this inward reprimanding, Thorax still found himself all-but blurting out: “You sound like you don’t hold her in high regard.”

Trixie snorted again as she turned to face Thorax. For the first time, her prideful bravado was truly gone, replaced with a more sullen and sour expression. “I don’t,” she admitted. “Sure, she’s done great things for ponies I could only ever hope to achieve myself…even I can’t deny that. But it’s…it’s a bit of a long story.”

Thorax’s mind continued to urge him not to do it, but his mouth couldn’t seem to hear. “I’m willing to listen…if you want.”

Trixie was quiet for a moment, gaze turning distant. She wandered aimlessly towards the door of the wagon, but stopped before actually stepping into its threshold. “I don’t know how much that roommate of yours told you about me,” she began finally, “But Twilight Sparkle and I go back a few years…and not in the good way.” She snorted again, turning her gaze upwards to the ceiling. “Honestly, it’s all my fault. I hate admitting it, but I was…not nice, when we first met…” She glanced back at Thorax and the disguised changeling was surprised to see regret on her face. “Remember how we talked about whether or not the personality I show on-stage is the same personality I show everywhere else in life?” When Thorax nodded, Trixie sighed. “Well, the truth is…not so long ago there really was no difference between the me performing on stage, and the me living life the rest of the time.” She frowned, disappointed in herself. “And the reason I challenged your comments about it being a mere stage persona is because I know that ego of mine is still too big for its own good even now. Don’t tell me you haven’t figured that out by now.”

Thorax hesitated. “I did notice…” he finally admitted, drawing Trixie’s gaze once more. He avoided eye contact with a bit of shame himself, knowing this was uncomfortable for the mare. “I avoided mentioning it though, because…” he again hesitated, unsure how to phrase it appropriately. “…it’s not as bad as you’re making it out to be Trixie, it really isn’t. Not now, at least. I’ve encountered worse by far than you, trust me.” His mind went to Queen Chrysalis and decided he indeed preferred Trixie over his former queen any day, no competition. Trixie was at least friendly, and Thorax could tell she was trying to keep the ego from running out of control, and that was the very important difference.

Trixie, however, rolled her eyes. “It doesn’t mean I’m okay with it,” she mumbled, clearly not thinking the same. She shook her head. “Look, my point is that…that ego’s gotten me in trouble a few times. Even hurt a few ponies. In a way, if it wasn’t for Twilight Sparkle and her gaggle of friends finally putting me in my place, I probably never would’ve realized what I was doing, and…” she trailed off.

Thorax sympathized, but at the same time, he realized a dilemma. “I don’t understand then,” he said. “If Princess Twilight assisted in helping you with all of that, helping you improve, then why…?”

“…why am I regarding her as an awful pony?” Trixie finished. “Two reasons. One is that she’s just so self-righteous about it. But it’s the other reason that’s more galling. She says she’s forgiven me for what I did before…but I can tell…she hasn’t really. She still thinks I’m…I’m just a troublemaker who’s always going to cause problems for her or others, and thinks I’m better off avoided.” She stepped closer to Thorax, getting caught up in her tale the longer she talked, to Thorax’s growing surprise. This was a side of Trixie even he hadn’t suspected existed. “And I know, because Twilight has a student named Starlight Glimmer that I befriended recently. Wonderful mare, Starlight, and we just click as friends. We get each other. But the moment Twilight Sparkle found out about it, she immediately tried to urge us to stay apart, that there were better ponies for Starlight to befriend than me. She seemed convinced that all I was going to do was lead Starlight down a path of trouble, and she wasn’t having that!”

Thorax remembered the version of this tale that Spike had related, but it was quite different to hear Trixie tell it. It didn’t help that it was in that moment that Thorax started to realize this was starting to sound all too like things that had led to him and Spike becoming outcasts…and realized he could relate a bit more than he cared to admit right now. As such, he chose to not interrupt Trixie and let her continue, deciding to just keeping listening.

Trixie did continue. “It didn’t help that, bothered by it, I foolishly tried to do something to get back at Twilight for it, and nearly drove Starlight away as a friend doing it…” she shook her head, dejected. “Fortunately, it still worked out…but…whenever I come and visit Starlight now, Twilight stays out of it for Starlight’s sake, but I can tell she still doesn’t like having me around. She’s just…just…” Trixie fumed for a moment, getting herself all worked up into a temper, but then caught herself and forced herself to calm down again, turning herself away again in shame.

Thorax felt sympathy for her, regretting pressing the subject but now for entirely different reasons because it was clearly a sore subject for Trixie. “I’m sorry, I touched a nerve, didn’t I?” he apologized, feeling guilty.

“Oh, no, no, no, it’s not your fault, you’ve done nothing wrong,” Trixie mumbled, waving her hoof in Thorax’s direction. “I’m just…bitter about it…and I don’t like it, because it’s led me to do stupid things in the past. It’s that darn bruised ego of mine. I mean, I get it, I was the one who messed up before…but I’m trying to change that now, to…to be better than I was before. It’s already hard enough doing so that I don’t need her…lack of support dragging me down, making me wonder if it’s all going to be in vain.” She shook her head. “I guess what it comes down to is that she says she’s the princess of friendship,” Trixie continued. “But honestly…she’s still not that great at it, or I’d think she’d be quicker to show a bit more faith in my attempts to change.” Her gaze turned distant again, and she sighed, letting some of her anger slip away and Thorax felt her emotions cool. “I guess I shouldn’t be too hard on her though, I understand she’s got her own problems right now.”

“…how do you mean?”

She glanced back at Thorax. “You liked the show you saw tonight, but it could’ve been even better if I had Starlight helping me with some additional backstage magic. And she wanted to…but right now Twilight’s got her too busy helping look for her lost dragon assistant.” Thorax felt a flare of alarm at this subject coming up, but before he could react, Trixie went on. “Apparently, from what Starlight’s told me in her letters, this changeling managed to sweet talk the dragon into following him to who knows where, and of course that’s troubling, though…the way Starlight tells it, it sounds like Twilight thinks it’s the start of this grand invasion plan and is about ready to go on a complete rampage just to find this changeling, whatever its plans were, so to stop it…it does make one wonder just who it is you really need to watch out for.” She snorted. “All I can say is that changeling better hope Twilight Sparkle never finds it, or it’s going to be in a real heap of trouble.”

Thorax was quiet for a long moment, unsure how to respond, or if it would even be wise for him to say anything at all. What he finally said though was perhaps the stupidest option. “I’m glad I’m not that changeling, then.”

Trixie, however, chuckled, the sour mood in the wagon suddenly broken. “Me too,” she said, but then sighed, leaning on the counter of the kitchenette, gazing out the window that hung above it.

Thorax eventually found his gaze following Trixie’s and peering out the window. They weren’t really looking at anything outside; it just seemed to be the thing to do while lost in thought like this, weighing the hefty implications in their minds in a long moment of silence.

Trixie then abruptly changed the subject. “You want a soda?” she asked suddenly, glancing at Thorax.

Thorax looked at her for a moment, considering. “I could go for a soda.”

Trixie turned for the mini-fridge and opened it. “Any particular flavor? I’ve got orange, grape, cherry…”

Thorax perked up at the mention of a cherry flavor. “Cherry sounds good.”

“Cherry it is,” Trixie said, withdrawing a cherry soda and levitating it over to Thorax. She then pulled out an orange soda for herself.

She then went to the door of the wagon and sat down on the step outside, peering out at the night skyline of Vanhoover, opening the bottle to drink from it. Thorax joined her, sitting down to her left. Both inwardly mulled upon things while quietly drinking their sodas. Thorax had never had a cherry-flavored soda before now, but he quite liked the flavor, and made a note of it for future reference. Changelings may rely on a diet of emotions for nourishment, but they also still needed to drink liquids to keep hydrated just like a pony would. In the hive, Thorax had usually only partaken of water, and he knew that would always be enough in a pinch…but it was still nice to partake of a drink that had a bit more flavor than water.

He was still fairly new to the idea of sodas, actually. He had other flavors of soda a couple of times before now since meeting Spike, but unfortunately it was not a regular drink for him. Ever conscious of their funds, Spike generally didn’t like the idea of spending their funds on something as trivial as soda, and treated it as something to get only on special occasions as an infrequent treat. Fly Leaf, on the other hoof, didn’t hate soda per se, but they weren’t usually her first choice of beverage and so she typically wasn’t going around obtaining a supply of the drink herself. It was too bad though; Thorax not only liked the wide array of flavors sodas apparently came in, but he found the fizziness of the carbonated drinks felt fun going down.

Unfortunately, he was soon reminded that this meant one needed to be careful drinking such bubbly drinks when, after having downed a few hearty chugs of his soda, he felt something boiling back up his throat and, against his will, abruptly let out a loud burp. Turning red, he slapped both hooves over his mouth in embarrassment while Trixie turned her head to look at him in surprise. After a beat, he dared to dart his eyes in Trixie’s direction and noticed she was smirking.

“Aw, that was nothing,” she said smugly, raising her drink to her lips with her magic. “Let me show you the great and powerful way to do it.” She then drank deeply from her orange soda for a long moment, draining almost half of the remaining contents in one go. She then went quiet for a moment, eyes closed, before her cheeks abruptly puffed out and let out a monstrous blech out into the night. Thorax swore he heard it faintly echo. “Ha!” she crowed afterwards, not the least bit ashamed. “That’s how you do it!”

Thorax couldn’t stop himself at that point and broke out laughing. Trixie immediately joined in, both enjoying the mirth of the moment. “That was definitely great and powerful all right,” Thorax managed to get out between chuckles, wiping faint tears of laughter from his eyes.

“You can thank my younger cousin for my epic burping skills,” Trixie explained, giggling herself. “When we were still foals, he was always challenging me to burping contests during visits…forcing me to up my game eventually.”

Thorax chuckled some more. “He sounds like fun.”

“Actually, he’s an absolute brat of a pony, but you can’t help but love him anyway.” Trixie went quiet for a moment, smiling still as she gazed out into the night, but then she sighed and the smile faded. She turned to look at Thorax again. “Look, I’m sorry about unloading on you like that earlier…”

“Nah,” Thorax said, waving the matter aside. “It sounded like you needed to get it off your chest, and I was happy to listen.”

Trixie’s smile returned again slightly. “You are a good listener,” she agreed, drinking again from her soda.

“It’s really not that hard to do, honestly.”

“You’d think more ponies would do it then.”

“Mm.” Thorax was silent for a moment, gazing into his bottle as he swirled the soda inside with his magic. Before it had even registered what it was he was saying, the words were out of his mouth. “I actually think we have more in common than you realize anyway, Trixie.”

Trixie glanced at him in surprise. “Really?” she asked, sounding incredulous, but Thorax also sensed she was intrigued to hear that. “How so?”

So despite knowing he was risking revealing more about himself than he should, he pressed on. “I’m not actually native to Vanhoover,” he admitted gently, letting his gaze turn unfocused. “I’m a long way from home, really. But…there was no place for me there anymore. You see…” he hesitated, unsure how to explain it in terms Trixie would understand while also not revealing his true nature and origins. “…my…family and I…we don’t see eye to eye. I…I had different ideas about where to go in life than they did, and they…they just wouldn’t agree. Eventually…it got to the point that I just had to…leave, ultimately finding myself here.”

Trixie was quiet for a moment. “I’m sorry Thornton,” she said finally, placing a hoof on his shoulder in sympathy.

Thorax forced a smile, but it was a very weak attempt. “Sometimes I think about going back home,” he continued. “Try again to prove to them the things I’ve learned and discovered are worthwhile…try and make them see that we all could be living better lives than what they’ve permitted themselves…if we would only just try.” He shook his head. “But…I’m not sure they’ll listen. Ever. And they think less of me for trying. Think I won’t ever amount to anything.” He took a deep breath and looked at the mare beside him. “So that sense of being unfairly judged you were talking about Trixie…I get that. I really do.” He turned away, shaking his head. “Sweet acorns, do I ever get it,” he mumbled.

Trixie was quiet for long moment. “Well, at least we both have friends, and that helps,” she offered, trying to be positive. “I mean, I have Starlight, and you have your roommate friend.”

Thorax grinned a little. “Yeah, I suppose I do.”

Trixie then frowned. “…though I suppose that roommate of yours could think better of Trixie.”

Thorax’s grin faded a little. He looked away. “I’m sorry he hasn’t judged you fairly either, Trixie,” he murmured. He paused, turning thoughtful. “I should talk to him about that. Out of everyone in this world…he should know better.”

Trixie shifted awkwardly. “In his defense, he probably just doesn’t know the whole story,” she pointed out. “Only heard what other ponies have said about me…never met the mare herself.” Her ego returning slightly, she put a hoof to her chest. “And that’s a darn shame, because Trixie’s always a sight to behold.”

Thorax’s grin returned. He knew that wasn’t actually the case, but he decided it would be better to let Trixie believe otherwise for now. “It was kinda amusing to see his reaction when I told him I had met you,” he admitted. He turned to Trixie. “Remember that poster you gave me with the tickets?”

“Yeah?”

“Probably shouldn’t have shown him it while he was drinking orange juice, because that was what got all over it in the ensuing spit take.”

Trixie laughed. “Aw darn, and I thought those posters captured Trixie’s likeness so well!” she said jokingly then shrugged. “At least he still let you to come to my show.”

“Actually no, he very much recommended that I not go,” Thorax admitted. “Told me your whole story as he knew it to try and convince me.” He gave her an encouraging grin. “And I’d like to point out that despite all of that…I still chose to come anyway.”

“And I, for one, am glad you did.” Trixie grinned softly. “But you know, you really didn’t…have to come, not if it was going to cause contention for you like that,” she relented with some hesitation. “Just because I gave you free tickets…”

Thorax shook his head. “That didn’t seem fair to you,” he explained. “Besides…as much as I don’t want to admit it, just between you and me…I have to respectfully disagree with him on this. Even a stage magician can change.”

For a moment Trixie let her façade fade and a gentler and heartened grin appeared on her face, encouraged by Thorax’s word of support. But as quickly as it had materialized, the grin morphed into a sly smirk. “…does he even know you’re here?”

Thorax allowed himself to share in Trixie’s smirk. “He hasn’t a clue.”

Trixie blinked, impressed, while her smirk strengthened. “So you’re saying you snuck out on Trixie’s behalf, then?”

Thorax fidgeted a little guiltily at this. “…only a little,” he said, trying to downplay it and the thought that it might come back to haunt him was suddenly hard to shake. He then chuckled knowingly. “But if I hadn’t come…then I would’ve been the one missing out.”

“Yes, yes you would have,” Trixie agreed with a smug grin.

They both laughed. Thorax turned his gaze back out at the city skyline, again feeling pleased he had chosen to come. Not only had he enjoyed the show, but he was finding Trixie to be something of a kindred spirit. At the very least, she was fun to talk to. It was just them talking, drinking soda, and enjoying the view of Vanhoover bathed in the glow of moonlight—

Thorax suddenly locked eyes with the moon hanging in the sky and realized just how long they had been here doing this. Cocking an ear, he heard no other activity in the amphitheater and realized suddenly that they were quite possibly the last ones here, with everyone else having long gone. “Oh wow, it’s getting late,” he said, quickly downing the last of his cherry soda and standing, stepping off the wagon’s steps and back onto the grassy lawn that ran behind the stage. “I’d better be getting back before someone notices I’m gone.”

“Ah yes, and seeing that you snuck out…” Trixie summarized with a knowing nod. She finished off her soda too before latching the wagon door shut behind her and joining Thorax. “Tell you what, I’ll walk with you…protect you from the dangers of the Vanhoover streets at night.”

Thorax raised an eyebrow at her. “But I’m the one who’s the regular resident to Vanhoover,” he pointed out. “I know this town better than you would, and I know how to safely navigate it. Besides…the streets of Vanhoover aren’t especially dangerous at night.”

“You can’t be too safe in major metropolises like this, where you never know what might be lurking around the next corner,” Trixie declared in a melodramatic tone.

“In that case, I feel obligated to point out that afterwards you’d have to walk back to your wagon here, heading through the same streets, entirely on your own and without a guide who knows the streets like me.”

“You just said the streets aren’t known to be especially dangerous at night. Besides, the Great and Powerful Trixie with her mighty magical talent is more than capable of looking after herself.”

Thorax grinned smugly. “Oh, so you’re saying you’re an expert in defensive magic as well as illusionary magic,” he stated semi-sarcastically on the matter, calling her out.

Trixie gave him withering grin, tilting his head at him, knowing full well what he was doing. “Are you saying you don’t want Trixie’s company after all?”

Thorax thought about it for a moment. Logically, he figured he probably shouldn’t let her come. But he also figured that if Trixie was really going to create a problem for him at this point, it would’ve happened by now. Besides…the streets would be a bit lonely. “Well, c’mon then,” he said finally, motioning for her to follow as he turned to leave.

“Knew you’d see it my way,” Trixie responded with a smug grin, trotting beside him. She gave him a wink. “Smart choice.”

“Well, just so you know, if we do encounter any muggers or anything of the such, I plan to stand aside and let you handle it entirely on your own after pushing so hard for it,” Thorax teasingly replied.

“I wouldn’t expect anything less.”

“Mm-hmm.”

Author's Note

This was such a hard chapter to write...I kept debating on just how far I did or did not want to take it, among other things. Trixie was especially hard to pinpoint, as I still wanted to hit on those famous character traits she's so renowned for in the show, but also present her as having a deeper, somewhat more fragile side of her, and that she's not entirely proud of what she's been in the past...while all still coming across as approachable, relatable, and above all likeable to Thorax. It took a few tries to find the desired balance...hopefully I've hit close enough to the mark, but at this point I'm really just glad to have the chapter posted and over with. :rainbowlaugh:

I had also debated for a long time whether or not I could justify Trixie being a fan, of any degree, of Sky Trek, wondering if that was really in line with her character...eventually I covered for it by establishing her as more of a closet fan and that she doesn't broadcast that she's a fan too loudly to other ponies. I had debated at one point instead using Doctor Hooves instead, as that for some reason seemed more readily swallowable as it's a radio show...but this then led to various logistics about how Trixie, a traveling pony, would be able to take the time to listen to such a thing regularly, and instead decided to just stick with Sky Trek.

Besides...I liked their little game of naming the title of an entry and then having the other accurately summarize it's plot from memory too much to part with. :pinkiehappy:

Speaking of, all of the supposed Sky Trek entries named are in reality titles of real Star Trek episodes, and the given summaries are accurate to the episode...just tweaked for the universe accordingly, of course.

Probably the part I enjoyed the most was exploring the inside of Trixie's wagon, discovering as I was writing this that we hadn't been shown an inside view of the wagon in the show before, leaving me free to devise my own interior to my heart's content. :ajsmug: After doing some research, I ending up loosely modeling the interior off the designs of some of the real life towable "huts" this company builds, as the exterior of their designs are very similar to Trixie's wagon, so I figured their interiors would be a match too.

Curious as to what the reader reaction will be to this chapter, especially after the reactions on the last chapter...

White Flag

They traveled through the night and by dawn were arriving back in Equestria again, the air yacht accompanied by Ember’s two dragon escorts. As they did so, Spike spent most of his time on the Vergilius’s radio, listening to any and all radio chatter he could pick up, trying to gauge what the situation was in Equestria and most especially how it might affect them. As far as he could determine though, everything was still the same as before. There were standing orders for their detention if found, wanted for questioning, but otherwise life seemed to be proceeding normally within Equestria. He told Thorax all of this.

“To me, it seems like nothing’s amiss at all,” he told the changeling that had spent most of the night stubbornly flying the airship himself even though both Ember and Spike offered to take over for him. “At least…no more than it had been when we had left.”

This didn’t reassure Thorax at all though, who regarded Equestria in a new, and worried, light. “I hope that’s really all it is,” he admitted back to Spike. “But where there are changelings potentially involved…no news may not actually be good news…and I’m not going to be able to rest easy until I’m sure that’s not the case.”

Spike, who still thought this was all a bad idea and that they were better off staying in the Dragon Realms, simply put his claws in the air and let Thorax be without further comment.

Whenever Thorax wasn’t at the helm piloting the airship, which had been rare, he was below deck, tending to Julius and the cocoon he was still in. He revealed that the cocoon needed to be magically recharged on a daily basis so long as Julius was within it, or the nutrient bath surrounding the changeling would go stale and lead to Julius awakening prematurely. As even Thorax agreed he was likely still very much a threat to them, no one was eager for that just yet, but Thorax was more concerned about the fact that Julius’s burns would not have had enough time to heal should this happen. The fact that this changeling had been injured because of him seemed to have affected Thorax deeply, and it wasn’t lost on him that the cocoon was quite possibly the only thing keeping the other changeling alive. Though Julius had survived through the night, it was still unclear on whether or not the cocoon was really going to be enough to keep it that way.

The fact this bothered Thorax so much intrigued Ember. “Why is his health so important to you, Thorax?” she asked once while watching the changeling fret over the cocoon. “You yourself said the two of you are enemies.”

Thorax’s gaze went distant for a second as he thought about how to reply. “When I left the hive, Dragon Lord Ember, it was for the intent of bringing about good for everyone, my hive especially,” he began slowly, purposefully. “And yet everything that has followed has only seemed to bring about harm of some sort to others, with Julius being the latest and most critical to date. Not only is that deeply unsatisfactory for me, now a fellow changeling’s life has been put into the balance because of me…so if he dies…that’s on me.” He heaved a great sigh, trying to draw strength. “And I’ll never forgive myself if that happens, enemies or not.” He gazed forlornly at Julius hanging suspended within the cocoon. “May you be the very last to come to harm in this matter, Julius.”

Conflicted and yet moved by Thorax’s explanation, Ember chose not to comment further, and instead left Thorax in peace.

As they still didn’t know just what was going on exactly, Spike asked at one point if Thorax couldn’t just make a mental link with Julius and get the answers that way. But Thorax pointed out that he could only form such a link via touch, and he couldn’t do that very well when Julius was sealed inside a cocoon. Besides, he pointed out that Julius’s condition was such that it made it unwise to do so; injured and barely conscious as he was, his mind would be an “untidy mess” that would be very hard to sort out, and with no guarantees that anything Thorax found in Julius’s mental scape was actually accurate or just subconscious illusions, and he wasn’t practiced enough to be confident in figuring out which would be which. Therefore, he reasoned, their best hope for answers was to find Starlight and Trixie as Julius himself had reasoned, and so they pressed on with this goal in mind.

By mid-morning, they had arrived in the area near the Horseshoe Bay as Julius had indicated they should go. As the bay was a major spot for seafaring trade, this brought them very close to a heavily populated area of Equestria, making Spike especially uneasy, fearing they would be sighted and identified by somepony, and then they’d be quickly caught. Regardless of this though, Thorax plowed the airship straight into this area, believing their reasons for being here outweighed that risk. And once they had arrived, Ember sent out Obsidian and Garnet out in search for the two mares they were told should be nearby, intending to join them herself if neither of her two escorts found anything within the hour. It never came to that though, as only thirty minutes into the search, Obsidian was coming back to the Vergilius with news of a pertinent find.

“Report!” Ember barked loudly as she strolled directly up to the dragon hovering next to the airship while Spike and Thorax lingered at the other side of the deck to watch and listen.

“We caught the fresh scent of no more than two ponies having been in the area within the past hour down in the valley, dragon lord,” Obsidian reported, getting right to the point. “The scent strongly indicated that they were unicorn mares, roughly about the age you told us to search for.”

Spike’s eyebrows went up, impressed by all of this. “You got all that from just their scent?” he asked, incredulous.

Ember shot Spike a teasing grin. “Somebody needs to teach you how to use that dragon snout of yours so you won’t be so surprised by things like this,” she quipped then turned back to Obsidian. “Where are they now?”

“That’s just it, dragon lord, we don’t know. The scent trail starts suddenly, goes on for a few feet, then simply stops again, and we have not sighted any actual ponies anywhere in the area. It’s as if they suddenly appeared and then just as quickly disappeared again. Garnet’s gone to search for any more signs while I came to report in to you, milord.”

“Go join him, and scan the whole valley, Obsidian,” Ember ordered immediately. “Even any pony settlements you find if you must, though you are not to start any conflicts with them if you have to do that. Report back to me when you find something or have finished the search.”

“On it!” the dragon replied, saluted once more then swooped off, heading back down towards the land the air yacht was flying over to carry out the orders.

Ember then turned to Spike and Thorax. “Well?” she prompted, looking for their input. “Any ideas on how to explain the trail of two ponies appearing and disappearing like that?”

“It sounds like teleportation to me,” Spike reasoned.

“Agreed,” Thorax replied, but glanced at Spike, puzzled. “But why would anypony be randomly teleporting around way out—?”

He was cut short when there was a suddenly flash of turquoise light at the forward part of the deck, and the three turned in time to see two ponies finish teleporting aboard the air yacht. Both were equipped for traveling as they also carried saddlebags, but wore nothing else save for the fact one of them wore a familiar pointed hat. Ember only recognized one of the mares and tensed immediately upon sight. Spike and Thorax however both saw straightaway that they knew these two ponies very well.

That didn’t change the fact that they were still surprised to instantly recognize them as Starlight Glimmer and Trixie.

“Starlight?” Spike exclaimed in surprise, locking eyes with the pale heliotrope-colored unicorn. She was sweaty and looked exhausted, like she had just ran a mile run, but she was bravely pushing her exhaustion to one side, leaving herself ready to react if needed. Regardless, she was panting, trying to catch her breath, and wore an urgent expression that didn’t look like it’d bode well.

“Trixie?” Thorax likewise exclaimed, also surprised to see the stagemare so suddenly as she untangled herself from Starlight, clearly Starlight’s passenger in the teleport. She was missing her cape, likely so to accommodate the saddlebags she carried, but she still had her trademark hat adorning her head. She looked alarmed and afraid and was rapidly taking in her new surroundings with noted fear. Worried what her reaction would be upon seeing him in his natural form, Thorax threw up his Thornton disguise for the first time since leaving Vanhoover and additionally moved to stand behind Ember, where he wouldn’t be easily noticed.

“YOU!” Ember roared, vaulting herself towards the pair, with her focus especially on Starlight. She immediately pointed her staff at them, clearly with the intent to strike at them with it if they gave her any reason to. “Confirm your identities, NOW!”

Though they both instinctively backed up a pace and Trixie yelped and threw herself down flat onto the deck of the airship, wrapping her hooves over her eyes in fear, Starlight immediately turned to focus her attention on Ember, perceiving her as the biggest threat, and threw up a protective bubble-shaped shield around herself and Trixie with her magic. “You first,” Starlight replied back cautiously. “Prove to us you are who you appear to be.”

Spike snorted at this, and was about to make some kind of snide comment, but Ember clamped his mouth shut with one hand, making it clear that she would handle the talking. “Just so you are aware…we were attacked by a changeling just yesterday.”

“Join the club,” Starlight replied back, though she did wince slightly to herself at this news. “In fact, we’ve got you beat—we just barely managed to escape capture from a whole bunch of them.”

Ember moved her staff defensively before her, taking a step back from the two mares as her distrust remained unwavering. “So how can we tell if they really did or didn’t and you’re not both changeling spies?” she challenged.

“Seriously no offense, but I could ask you the same thing,” Starlight pointed out with a slightly apologetic expression. “Look, I don’t know how much you three already do or do not know, but believe me, the situation is such that you could easily not be as you appear, and I can’t take the risk without some precautions first,” She nodded her head at Thorax. “And don’t think I didn’t see you putting on a changeling disguise just now. So I’m sorry for having to say this…but there are enemy shape-shifting changelings to take into consideration. I promise though, once you’ve confirmed you are all really you, we’ll explain, but not before.”

“I want some proof you two are who you say too first, though,” Ember stressed, “for the exact same reasons. How can we tell you are real?”

Thorax heaved a sigh and stepped out from behind Ember. “I can tell,” he stated firmly and started to approach the shield encompassing the two mares. “I’ll be able to detect if they’re changelings or not. But…I’d need you to lower the shield for me to do so.”

Starlight shook her head. “Sorry, but I can’t just do that without knowing first I wouldn’t be putting ourselves in danger of attack,” she said with regret.

All eyes looked around at each other for a tense moment.

Finally, Spike folded his arms grumpily. “So, are we just going to stand around and stare each other to death, or what?”

Ember stared at Starlight for a long moment, but finally she nodded, lowering her staff and planting its end on the deck beside her. “Fine,” she stated in a very no-nonsense tone that made it clear she would not tolerate any trouble. “You want proof that I am who I say? Where shall I begin? Oh, I know, how about where your princess of friendship tried to start a war with me?”

Starlight rolled her eyes, annoyed by the jibe. “Not to say I’m defending Twilight’s actions that day, but I should point out that you were the one who threatened to declare war.”

“Yeah, and she didn’t back down from that threat in the slightest either,” Ember growled, on a roll now that she had been given a means to vent her feelings on this. “And she totally started it, refusing to listen to anything I told her about just how utterly wrong she was getting things, that ignorant and racist bi—”

“Okay, okay I get it!” Starlight interrupted quickly while Spike shot Ember a look of surprise, not missing what the dragoness had been about to utter.

“I’m not finished!” Ember pressed on, not wanting to stop now that she had started. “Because I want to make it abundantly clear that your princess had only one goal in mind during that whole meeting, and that was to ignore everything I told her that Thorax and Spike could be trusted and she was the one who was driving them away, continue to claim that they couldn’t ever be trusted for stupid reasons, and continue to insist that she personally catch them so to do who knew what with them, or there would be consequences!”

“I know!” Starlight exclaimed, butting in. She leveled her gaze on the dragoness. “I was there, I heard everything.” She sighed then nodded her head. “…which tells me you are quite likely the real Ember, so thank you.” She turned her gaze to Thorax and Spike. “So it’s really more you two I need confirmation on your identities at this point…and I know how it looks, but it’s really important. So please…just…tell me something I know only the two of you would know.”

Spike’s scowl he had been giving the two mares during all of this narrowed further still, clearly not happy with Starlight’s apparent doubting. So it was perhaps to no surprise that his choice of method to prove his identity was unflattering for Starlight. “Remember when I was dusting in the castle and found that box under your bed, Starlight?” he asked flatly.

Starlight immediately blushed, which didn’t escape Trixie’s notice, finally peeking one eye out from under one of the hooves she had been keeping over her face for most of this and spoke for the first time since arriving. “What box?” she asked her friend from where she lay on the deck still curled in a protective ball, suddenly curious.

“Never mind the box,” Starlight said, clearly embarrassed, but she was also convinced. “But…only the Spike I know would know about it, so…” she turned her gaze to Thorax. “…that just leaves you.”

Thorax heaved a deep sigh at this. “I don’t see why would I be anyone else other than me at this point, you see that, right?” he asked Starlight.

Starlight gave him an apologetic look. “I know, but…just humor me and my paranoia please. It’s been a really rough past couple of days.”

Thorax frowned, considering his options. Unfortunately, they were few because of his very limited contact with Starlight Glimmer up to now. It was then that Trixie, who he had failed to notice had shifted her gaze onto him after asking Starlight about the box and was now watching him closely, spoke up. “Thornton…” she began slowly, “…is it true?”

Thorax turned his gaze sadly at her, and then down at his presently disguised hooves, understanding precisely what she was asking. He sighed again and silently nodded. He then reluctantly allowed his disguise to collapse, revealing his natural changeling form, seeing no good in keeping up the charade now. He had to squeeze his eyes shut in shame when he heard Trixie inhale sharply at the sight and was unable to bring himself to look at her.

Starlight, fortunately, saved him from having to when she abruptly noticed something in surprise. “Your wings,” she declared, “they’ve changed!”

Thorax blinked open his eyes, looking at her in puzzlement, then back at his wings, not sure what she meant. “What do you mean, they’ve changed?” he asked.

“I mean, your wings are…different from when I last saw you,” Starlight clarified, nodding her head at Thorax’s gossamer wings.

Thorax glanced back at her, then back at his wings in mild surprise. “Really?” he asked, having never noticed any sort of changes with his wings recently. “How so?”

“Actually…now that she mentions it,” Spike began, taking a few steps up to the changeling, his eyes narrowed as he studied the wings as if seeing them in a sudden new light, “your wings do seem to have become more…sparklier lately than I recall them being when we first met…”

Thorax squinted his eyes at his wings. “…I guess?” he admitted, not really seeing it. “But…when did that happen?”

“I dunno,” Spike admitted, rubbing his chin. “I didn’t really think much of it until literally just now, but now that I am, I think they’ve been like this for a little bit now…”

“They were already like that when I found you two,” Ember offered, turning to look too. “So if they really weren’t always like that before, it must have happened sometime prior to that.”

“It must have been some gradual process if it’s escaped my notice like this though…” Thorax mumbled to himself.

“You see why I might have my doubts, though?” Starlight pressed urgently. “So please, tell me something I know only you would know, and quickly…we may not have much time.”

Thorax glanced in surprise at her implication that time was short. It got his mind wondering for an explanation, with several undesirable possibilities already jumping to the forefront. As asked though, he focused on answering Starlight’s request. “Well…” he finally concluded with reluctance, finding only one option, “…you were there to hear Prince Shining Armor’s words when he banished us. He said—” he transformed himself, taking Shining Armor’s form as he started to repeat in the stallion’s booming voice, “—By the authority of the princess and prince, current rulers of the Crystal Empire and representatives of the royal government of Equestria, and the support of the Princess of Friendship, on charges of conspiracy, impersonation—”

“All right, all right, I believe you!” Starlight interjected, cutting the uncomfortable reminder short. She breathed a sigh of relief. “You all are who you claim.” She glanced at Spike and grinned sadly. “It’s good to see you again, by the way.”

“It’s not mutual, trust me,” Spike grumbled, and nodded his head at the two mares that were still enclosed in their shield. “Still waiting for you to prove you are who you say you are, by the way.”

“Right,” Starlight agreed, and lowered her protective shield finally as a show of trust. Trixie quickly started to wrap her hooves over her face again in fear, but Starlight grabbed her and hauled her upright. She nodded her head at Thorax. “Do whatever you need to.”

Thorax nodded his head, and with a hesitant sigh, stepped closer to them. He drew very close to the two mares, to the discomfort of both, and started to sniff them over, almost like a dog searching for a scent…and in a way he was, as he was searching for the same unique pheromone identifying changelings that had allowed him to realize Julius was a changeling before he dropped his disguise. He already strongly suspected that they were not changelings, though. He had gotten absolutely no whiff of the changeling scent the whole time the two had been here, but nonetheless, he thoroughly checked them both out, carefully sniffing each of them in turn as it was still possible to try and mask the scent of changeling if desired. Though this made them uncomfortable which he easily sensed in their emotions, both mares obediently stood there and allowed him to proceed without protest. No doubt they understood it was important that this be done.

After sniffing Starlight over for a moment first and confident she was truly as fully pony as she appeared, Thorax then turned his attention to Trixie and started to sniff her over for a moment too, her scent filling his nose as he sought the telltale indicator of a changeling. Though Trixie involuntarily flinched as he did this, she otherwise did not resist. Soon perfectly confident that Trixie was also a real pony (to his silent relief), Thorax raised his gaze in time to meet Trixie’s, their eyes locking for a brief moment. Thorax tensed as it sank in this was undoubtedly the Trixie he knew, and he was awfully close to her undisguised and revealed as a changeling for the first time, the first time Trixie was seeing him out of disguise. Trixie seemed to be thinking something similar, her eyes gazing at Thorax with a wild mix of confusing feelings that not even Thorax could quite sort out.

It was then that Trixie impulsively spoke, using the moment to spontaneously, perhaps without thinking, blurt out, “I understand why you wanted to see a changeling crewmember in Sky Trek now, Thornton.”

Thorax gazed at her for a long moment, the comment only further reassuring that Trixie was indeed genuine, as he knew only Trixie would know of that private conversation. It also reminded him that he no doubt seemed like a totally different being undisguised like this, so much so Thorax debated restoring his Thornton disguise yet again, if just purely for Trixie’s comfort. But he didn’t, ignoring the telltale ache in his chest at doing so, partly because he was surprised to notice she was managing to mostly keep her composure on the matter anyway, perhaps given their past history. He hoped that was why, at least. It probably helped that Trixie had known to expect it at any rate, hopefully because of receiving and reading the confession Thorax had sent her prior to fleeing Vanhoover and not any potentially bias explanation she had gotten from somepony else.

But Thorax was still struck by how…collected Trixie seemed about it. He had fully expected Trixie to be terrified of him now, if not hate him, but he only sensed a moderate sense of wariness towards him and not nearly enough to be in any way crippling. Instead, he sensed from Trixie more a state of confusion towards him, a sense that she didn’t know how she ought to be reacting around him now. He could relate.

He also remembered almost belatedly that Trixie had a fear of flying in airships and that she was no doubt uncomfortable being unexpectedly aboard the Vergilius like this, realizing Trixie was making a few personal sacrifices of her own being here. He debated inwardly for a brief second on giving the pony some sort of response to her comment or these things he had noted about her, perhaps as some sort of reassurance to her, but sensing it was neither the time nor place for it, he bit back the urge and turned to face Spike and Ember instead, trotting back to his original position. “They’re clean,” he simply remarked aloud.

Ember, to everyone’s surprise, let out her breath in a relieved whoosh. “Good,” she remarked. “We’ve got enough trouble as it is.” She then blinked and jabbed a claw at the deckhouse. “By the way, that changeling I mentioned attacked us yesterday? You ought to know…he’s still onboard, he’s just downstairs and in a cocoon.”

Starlight and Trixie’s eyes widened at this, and they both stared at Ember, awaiting an explanation.

Ember sheepishly shrugged. “He’s unconscious, of course,” she assured, then winced. “I…uh…breathed a fireball on him, and that kind of put him out of commission.”

Trixie’s gaze only turned more incredulous. “How is he even still alive?” she asked.

“I wasn’t about to let him die,” Thorax determinedly interjected here with a small scowl.

Starlight and Trixie turned their surprise to the changeling now. “You let him live?” Starlight asked, confused, “Even though he attacked you?”

“Of course,” Thorax responded immediately, making it clear that he didn’t think this was even up for debate.

Starlight regarded him for a long moment as if impressed by this show of character from Thorax, but then shook her head and got back on subject. “So this changeling…I take it you haven’t learned much from him.”

“Very little,” Ember confirmed with a solemn nod. “Just a rough idea of where two find you two.”

“So that’s why you guys are here and not in the Dragon Lands like we were expecting,” Trixie mumbled to herself.

“But never mind that,” Spike suddenly interjected, sounding angry. He pointed a claw at Starlight. “First, I want to know if this is all some kind of trap.”

“It’s no trap, Spike,” Starlight assured patiently. “Thorax just confirmed we aren’t changelings—”

“I’m not talking about the changelings,” Spike interrupted darkly. “I’m talking about your mentor, Starlight.”

Starlight winced a little at Spike’s tone, catching on. “Now’s not really the time for this, Spike…”

“It’s never the time, isn’t it?” Spike again interrupted, his frown deepening, and continued with his questioning. “Has Twilight sent you? What’s her scheme this time?”

Starlight and Trixie exchanged wary looks. “I’m afraid Twilight has had nothing to do with this, Spike,” Starlight commented slowly and with clear distress.

“Then what’s this about, Starlight?” Spike demanded, not backing down.

But Starlight and Trixie exchanged worried glances, not helping with the sense that something somewhere had gone terribly wrong without their knowing. “Thorax,” Starlight began, solemnly turning her attention to the changeling again. “Before you left your hive, were you aware of any plans for the changelings to try and invade Equestria again?”

Thorax felt a chill run through him, realization that his fears were about to be proven true striking him sudden and hard. “What have they done?” he asked tonelessly, full of worry as he put two with two.

“Please answer the question, Thorax, were you aware of any—?”

“No, now what have they done?”

Starlight sighed and lowered her gaze, clearly reluctant to deliver her bad news. So Trixie spoke up instead. “The changelings are back,” she stated gravely, the seriousness of this announcement settling heavy and rapidly on the group. Thorax, having already reached this same conclusion, closed his eyes and lowered his head in dismay. “They’re trying to invade Equestria again.”

“Only this time they’re doing it with more stealth,” Starlight explained, picking up the tale as the others listened in alarm. “They’ve plotted to replace the royal family with changelings so to collect the love meant for the princesses for themselves instead, seizing control of the country without anypony else realizing it in the process. Trixie and I were lucky to even find out about it, or even scarier, avoid getting replaced ourselves.”

“And just how exactly did you find out about that?” Spike asked firmly, in a tone that made it clear declining to explain wasn’t an option. His resentment for the two ponies was palatable, and Thorax, being the most aware of it, started to believe it had far more to do with than a fear they might be changeling spies.

Fortunately, Starlight had every intention of explaining. She took a deep breath before launching into the tale. “Basically what happened was this; after Ember’s spat with Twilight and she had left again, things turned around. We were starting to see that this mess has been handled badly by us and it was time to change tactics. Princess Celestia made it clear she wanted to try and seek peace…and as her way wasn’t doing that, Twilight was basically finding herself forced out of the search for you two on the grounds that everypony was starting to fear she was letting herself get too deeply involved in the matter.”

Thorax’s eyes widened and he couldn’t help but take a hopeful step towards Starlight. “Are you saying you are willing to hear us out now…and maybe take us at our word for a change?”

Starlight nodded slowly. “In fact, Princess Celestia was getting very stressed about it because she’s been trying to get in contact with you three so to try and start working something out, but was finding Spike’s firebreath blocked as a means of communication and didn’t know how else to reach you or find you.”

Thorax suddenly swatted Spike on the shoulder with one hoof, bordering on being overjoyed. “I told you!” he said, almost excited.

Spike swatted him back, only turning grumpier. “And I told you that I’m not convinced,” he pressed and threw his claws out at the two mares. “Otherwise, why are these two here and not Celestia herself, or better yet, Twilight?”

“And why didn’t Celestia just send some message directly to the Dragon Realms?” Ember inquired, her tone more curious.

“I’m getting to that,” Starlight stressed, and continued with her explanation. She nodded her head at Ember. “First, Celestia did send a message, or at least a messenger, in the direction of the Dragon Lands. I know that much because she told us. But I never heard anything more on the matter after that, so either word never reached there, or the changelings intercepted it.”

Thorax then had a scary thought. “Or the messenger she sent was always a changeling in disguise, using it as cover so to find us.”

Ember looked at Thorax in surprise. “Then he wasn’t lying!” she declared, motioning with one hand in the general direction Julius was. “He really did have a message from Celestia when that changeling came and attacked us.”

Trixie paled at the thought. “Then that just means this invasion goes deeper than we thought,” she murmured darkly. She glanced at Starlight. “I mean…doesn’t that imply Celestia might’ve already been…?”

“Whatever the case,” Starlight interjected, resuming the tale on the belief that it was more important the others got full context first. “Basically, that’s where we were at, but now that Princess Celestia had taken over the search and we were no longer directly involved, Twilight was…not taking it the greatest. With the help of Twilight’s friends, we were all trying to help reassure her that things would work out and why when I unexpectedly received an invitation from my old village, inviting me to an annual Sunset Festival they held, the first they’ve held since I left.”

“Oh, wonderful timing,” Spike grumbled sarcastically, rolling his eyes. “Out partying while we’re out here running for our lives because of all of you…”

Starlight narrowed her eyes slightly at him for this, but she bravely ignored the jibe. “Despite things being as they were, Twilight insisted that I go, saying it was a chance to further my friendship studies, and it would be a chance to show friendly support in my village and what they were doing. Plus, the argument was that current affairs didn’t mean our lives should be on hold. We all knew that, by that point, it could be some time before any new headway was made anyway. We had been asked to get back into our normal lives as much as possible after Twilight had been forced out of the search, and urged to each participate in any social events that might come up, thinking it would be of benefit to each of us individually…and this seemed to apply to that. The rest all urged me to go too, even Princess Luna, especially after I confessed that I felt…” Starlight hesitated. “…worried about going back to my village, considering my past there. Everyone seemed to think it’d be good for me in the long run, at least. And as it was the first time Twilight had acknowledged all of this aloud, the first time she really acted like her old self with her urging me to go…I thought it was a sign she was finally coming around…so I couldn’t really turn her down. So with the other girls promising to keep an eye on Twilight and that they would have the matters there under control while I was gone, that’s what I did.”

“And Trixie came with,” Trixie added, almost as if it was an afterthought and just to ensure she was still included in the conversation.

“And just how does Trixie fit into this?” Ember inquired, giving the showmare a quizzical look.

“Because Trixie…” Trixie’s eyes locked onto Thorax again. Thorax, who was beginning to understand perfectly why she was there, averted eye contact again in shame, and again moved to hide himself from the mare’s view by ducking behind the bigger Ember. Ember, noticing, gave him a puzzled look while Spike, not so puzzled, gave Thorax a look that was just short of disapproval. “…Trixie had some personal things she needed to discuss with Starlight anyway…and happened to be arriving at Ponyville to do so at the same time.”

“Trixie also came with me at my request because I was nervous about the whole deal,” Starlight added as she glanced at Trixie who nervously glanced back. “So we departed for my village right as this past weekend began. The celebration goes on for the rest of this whole week, but we ended up not staying for long…because of personal reasons.”

“She basically had a panic attack,” Trixie explained, earning herself a glare from Starlight, keeping the showmare from elaborating further.

“Anyway, we returned to Ponyville earlier than planned,” Starlight continued. “That was when we started to notice something was amiss, but it wasn’t until this past Monday night that I got urgent confirmation and warning from Princess Luna via the dreamscape, and even she was only just barely able to do so; the changelings are back and are carrying out their plans even now as we speak.”

“We were lucky to escape Ponyville at all after we found out,” Trixie added gravely.

A heavy silence hung on the main deck for a moment as everyone let this grave news sink in.

Spike, however, was only growing increasingly annoyed. “So why have you come here to us?” he asked. “Why not turn to Twilight and have her sort this out, seeing that she’s got such a grudge against changelings and everything…”

“But it’s already too late for that, Spike!” Starlight declared, her voice grim. “They already have Twilight, they have her friends, they have Princesses Celestia and Luna, and we have every reason to believe they already have Princess Cadance and her family too.”

“Then they aren’t trying to invade,” Ember summarized, her eyes widening in alarm as the implications sank in, “they have already invaded, leaving Equestria all-but soundly in changeling control.”

Starlight nodded her head. “Basically, yes,” she said sadly. “We didn’t know who else to turn to…”

“…except to someone who’d have insider knowledge about the hive and its plans,” Thorax concluded, seeing where this was going. “Like me.”

Starlight again nodded. “We didn’t really know where to find you,” she explained, “but we could make an educated guess, and when the changelings showed up, we knew we needed your help. And I figured you two would be wherever Ember was.” She paused to take a breath before continuing. “So, to reach you quickly, Trixie and I grabbed the bare minimum we would need to travel,” she motioned to their respective saddlebags, “and traveled here by me teleporting the pair of us to the maximum distance I could in one go again and again in rapid succession in the direction of dragon territory, until we saw your airship coming our way and found you all here now.” She heaved an exhausted sigh, wiping at her brow, clearly still drained from the effort. “It just about wore my magic out entirely doing it, but…we don’t have much time. Every second we take gives the changelings more time to further their plans.”

“Especially seeing that the other changelings might be onto us,” Trixie added seriously. “They nearly caught us snooping around, trying to confirm things, before we left and they’re certainly going to notice we’ve gone missing soon, if they haven’t already.” She winced, turning her thoughts inward. “Oh, I hope they don’t decide to ransack my wagon for clues…I wish I didn’t have to leave it parked in Ponyville…”

“So wait, you’re saying you could’ve led them straight to us?” Spike accused.

“It’s very possible,” Starlight admitted cautiously, but she knew better than to deny it. “I tried to cover up our trail as much as I could on the way here, but…I have no way of knowing if it’ll be enough.”

“It’s not,” Thorax admitted gravely. “The changelings have to know, and they have to be discreetly following you somehow.” He glanced at Spike and Ember. “How else would have Julius known where they were?”

Ember looked gravely at Thorax. “To what end, then?” she asked urgently.

“It’s hard to know for sure,” Thorax admitted, reviewing in his head hive procedure for situations such as this. “Julius suggested they were planning some sort of action eventually, but that might have only been if they were continuing to head in our direction…that might be why Julius was ordered to find us in the first place…the changelings were trying to beat Starlight and Trixie here.” He shrugged helplessly though. “It won’t matter now, though. If they find any sign that we’ve all already met up with each other…they’re probably going to take immediate action to stop it, make sure we can’t cause trouble. And worse, if they really have replaced the royal family, then they feasibly could just have the Equestria citizenry mount a search for us and not raise a hoof themselves, with no pony ever being the wiser, just so long as we don’t do anything they perceive will ruin their plans too soon.”

“And I’m sure they could be anywhere at this point too, replacing any pony they want,” Starlight added. “Anyone could be an enemy changeling. I barely know who I can trust now, so I hope you understand now why I insisted you all prove your identities. For all I knew, changelings had already found and replaced all of you.”

“No, I get it,” Ember stated, seeing the tactical logic behind Starlight’s actions. “I can’t say I blame you…if I was in your place, I’d probably do the same thing.”

“Right,” Starlight agreed. “So with that all in mind, whatever was happening between all of us before the changelings arrived, I want to make it absolutely clear that we’re setting all that aside right now. We have to. Things have changed that are far bigger than us and you at the moment. In fact, to prove it…” She elbowed Trixie quickly.

“Oh right, I almost forgot,” Trixie muttered, and used one hoof to pull out and wave a stick with a white handkerchief tied to one end, resulting in a makeshift white flag of ceasefire. “Truce! Truce! We come in peace!” Getting puzzled looks for her exclamations, she sheepishly grinned and shrugged. “That’s…uh…what I was planning to say when we first came aboard, but uh…things didn’t go like I expected them to, so…”

“The point, though,” Starlight continued, “is that we’re here and you’re all up to speed now…that just leaves stopping the changelings and rescuing the royal family somehow. Obviously Trixie and I can’t do it on our own, so I ask you…Ember, Spike, Thorax…will you please help us? You could all very well be our only hopes at this point.”

Thorax and Ember exchanged glances briefly, both already looking to be in agreement that they would. But Spike had continued to glower at Starlight and Trixie and now his glare was turning darker still. “The hay I will,” he mumbled coldly.

Thorax turned to look at him. “Spike, they have no one else to turn to,” he pointed out.

“And whose fault is THAT?” Spike suddenly snapped. “Certainly not mine! But ohhhh, who would listen to little old me, huh? Certainly not them, or maybe they wouldn’t be in this mess now!”

“Spike, the changelings have Twilight,” Starlight began, trying to placate the little dragon.

“Yeah, and sounds to me like she got what was coming to her!” Spike declared loudly.

“Certainly you aren’t going to let the changelings get away with this,” Ember pressed firmly.

“Why not? Twilight can stay there and ROT for all I care!” Spike shouted, his fury rising. “She had her chance to sort things out, but she refused, and now I say she’s getting adequately punished for it!”

“But…Equestria…” Trixie started to object, turning dismayed. “What about all the other ponies who are now in danger…?”

Spike snorted. “Equestria has done nothing but CHASE ME ALL ACROSS THE LAND!” he roared as four moons worth of fury on the matter finally bubbled over. “I don’t owe Equestria ANYTHING! Not after what you’ve done to me and Thorax!” He jabbed a claw at Starlight and Trixie. “Yet after everything you’ve all put me through these past four MOONS to say NOTHING of this past WEEK, you have the gall to just come here and demand I help you like NOTHING HAPPENED? THE HAY I WILL!”

“Spike, be logical!” Ember suddenly snapped, advancing angrily on the younger dragon. “This is bigger than your grievances now! Equestria is the most politically powerful country known, and it’s falling into enemy control! Think for a second about what the changelings could do with that kind of power at their disposal!”

“She’s right!” Thorax agreed urgently. “Queen Chrysalis isn’t going to stop with Equestria after this. She’s going to use this victory as the grounds to spread her control even further. Everyone is at risk of getting conquered by the changelings now, and they stand a much stronger chance of succeeding! With Equestria under the queen’s control, she can use both Equestria’s armies in addition to her own, a combined military force unparalleled to everything else standing. The dragons, the griffons…” He put a hoof on Spike’s shoulder. “Everyone else is only going to fall to her rule unless we do something to stop it!”

Spike threw Thorax’s hoof off his shoulder. “I’m not doing it, Thorax!” he snapped, his fury fully unbound now. “As far as I am concerned, Equestria is just getting what it deserves now.” He pointed a claw at all of them, backing into the air yacht’s deckhouse behind him. “Whatever it is the rest of you are going to do, you can count me out of it!”

Then with a final huff, he spun around and stomped into the navigation room in the back of the deckhouse, slamming shut behind him the hatch dividing it from the rest. The others stared after him, gaping after the little dragon…except Thorax. His eyes were narrowed into a disapproving scowl of his own as he glared at the closed hatch. He remained like that for a tense moment while the others watched him, wondering what he was going to do. Then the changeling started forward, marching determinedly for the shut door himself.

“Thorax…” Ember began to object.

“You two stay with Dragon Lord Ember and talk amongst yourselves,” Thorax said, looking back at the group to point a hoof at Starlight and Trixie. “I’ll be right back.”

Then, throwing the hatch open again, Thorax slipped through it into the deckhouse’s back room, slamming it shut behind him as well. The girls left behind stared after him for another long moment before, realizing that Thorax was going to awhile, starting to awkwardly glance at each other, unsure what to do.

“So…” Trixie finally remarked, trying to make conversation, “Dragon Lord Ember, huh?” She tilted her head at the dragoness. “…Shouldn’t it be Dragon Lady, though?”

The glance of displeasure and the raised, disapproving, eyebrow Ember gave Trixie in response made it clear what her unspoken answer to that was.

Author's Note

Originally, the story wasn't going to feature the plot element with Julius at all, nor did Spike, Thorax, and Ember go to the Dragon Realms, instead choosing to hang in a secluded location in Equestria in hopes of a new development in their favor, which meant that they had no forewarning of Starlight and Trixie's impending arrival until they literally appeared on their deck like this. This, naturally, resulted in the chapter bearing a slightly different tone from this. The order of events was also slightly different.

But I like this version better because it helped to generate more suspense and tension that the original was a little lacking in, as well as giving me a chance to better express how Spike is not happy to see these two, and a way to better to explore the awkwardness that now exists between Thorax and Trixie (which will be touched on in more depth later, but bigger fish to fry for the moment). It overall just feels like it flows better.

Though it amuses me that the titular "white flag" of the chapter ended up moving from near the start of the chapter where it originally was to almost at the end of the chapter. :rainbowlaugh:

It was also originally going to be revealed that Starlight and Trixie found them because, as she was leaving Twilight's castle, Starlight had discreetly placed a tracking spell on Ember, but as the plot line of the story shifted, this no longer made sense to do, as it started to imply that Starlight had this way of finding them that she was keeping to herself when she was perfectly aware others were trying to find them in hopes of sorting this mess out. So it got dropped. And a pity too...I loved what I had written for Ember's reaction to this news. :twilightsmile:

Anyway, still working on those revisions...regrettably, it's going far slower than I hoped, but I suppose that's what I get for choosing to make them so last-minute. But because of this, I'm just going to say the story's now officially on a once-a-week posting schedule (every Friday) from here on, until I say otherwise. I still hope this won't be permanent or last much longer, but the world wasn't built on hopes alone, you know. Again, I thank you for your patience. Fortunately, though the change in the schedule was a little jarring at first, it seems everybody's adjusted decently enough. :twilightsmile:

Before We Begin

They quickly found that the music the record player they left playing was even louder than they thought and was echoing very deep into the hive itself, enough that the negative affects the hard rock music had on the changelings was apparent even well outside of the chamber the record player was in. They were witness to this first hoof after having only gone a short distance from the chamber and almost stumbled upon a changeling sitting no less than five feet away from them around the corner of an intersecting tunnel, the sight of him alarming the group for a brief second. But this changeling not only had his back turned to them, but his head was also bobbing and weaving around unsteadily almost like he was intoxicated, negatively affected by the hard rock music that could still be heard fairly well from here. He was so busy trying to steady himself and shake off these effects unsuccessfully that the quintet of intruders were able to slip right past him without him noticing them at all.

“I am so glad you had brought that record of yours with you, Spike,” Trixie remarked not long after they did this. “Who knew hard rock would prove so useful this deep in the changeling hive?”

But it was for precisely this same reason that Thorax refused to remove the earmuffs he still wore for much of their trek towards the throne room, knowing that doing so would only affect him just as much as the changelings around him, and it wouldn’t stop until he was far enough away from it that the music couldn’t be heard clearly enough to have that effect. This caused some occasional frustration with the rest of the group because it meant Thorax had a harder time hearing them when they tried to talk to him, but regardless, they managed. Soon they realized they had bigger concerns to worry about, because it wasn’t too long before they noticed that activity within the hive had been gradually going up, and now catching sight of other changelings wandering about the corridors was finally becoming a bit more frequent. Thorax explained this was for multiple reasons; it was getting close to the next mealtime and changelings were starting to stir so to prep for that, they were drawing closer to the queen’s sanctum which was always a greater focal point of changeling activity regardless of the time of day, and of course the fact that word of their sighting and the record player they had left playing was starting to get around and no doubt raising the alarm within the hive.

Fortunately, despite the blow to it that had forced them to resort to the record player in the first place, their luck still seemed to be holding for the most part, as whenever they did catch sight of another changeling, it was usually from far enough away that it was relatively simple to avoid them, preserving their cover for a few minutes longer. But it was starting to get to be anyone’s guess on how much longer it would last.

“We’re really starting to push our luck here,” Spike mumbled aloud as they slipped past a pair of guard changelings checking in with each other in a nearby intersection they were slinking past. “We nearly got caught once already, I can’t help but think we’re going to get caught again soon at this rate.”

“I did like our chances better before the hive went on alert like this,” Ember agreed, walking behind him and serving as a sort of rear guard for their group. She listened to the echoing sounds of the hard rock music that could faintly still be heard. “Maybe leaving that record player playing wasn’t such a good idea…it only seems to have alerted the rest of the hive that someone’s here who shouldn’t be.”

“It doesn’t really matter at this point,” Thorax pointed out, who was finally but cautiously removing the earmuffs from his head, wincing slightly at the faint sound of the music that could still be heard, but not suffering enough negative effects that it would hinder his ability to press on. “The moment that patrol came looking for us was the real moment the hive started raising the alarm. No, Starlight was right to leave the record player behind to serve as a distraction. It’ll buy us time to get the rest of the way to the queen’s sanctuary, especially now that we’re finally back on the right track for it.” Indeed, Thorax was pleased to note that the layout in these portions of the hive were fairly the same as he always remembered them and thus much easier for him to navigate.

They pressed on, eventually arriving at the base of a towering spire with a spiral staircase looping repeatedly around it as it traveled upwards. Arriving here both excited and worried Thorax, who revealed it was the “final stretch” leading to their destination, the top of the stairs exiting right at the entrance of the queen’s sanctum. Eager to keep moving, they cautiously started climbing up the many steps, still on the lookout for trouble. Changelings of all sorts could be seen moving about within the room, usually by air, but were typically still seen from afar and thus far they hadn’t noticed the intruders within the room. Regardless, none of them were eager to stick around long enough to find out if they ever would, and Thorax knew they needed to hurry as the number of changelings moving about the hive was only going to keep increasing.

At last, they arrived at the top of the stairs, but had to stop from stepping up onto the expansive landing it ended at, instead keeping ducked down and peering over the top step at the sight awaiting them. Some distance ahead at the other end of the not-quite level landing was a massive pair of iridescent swinging doors—the first they had seen within the hive—that appeared as if they were giant wing-cases for a beetle. They happened to arrive in time for the doors to be swung open so to permit entry of a duo of changelings flying into the tunnels beyond. Once they were through, the doors were permitted to swing closed again. Stationed before the two doors in two distinct rows were about six changeling guards, alert and on the lookout for trouble and all wearing armor for protection, including a uniquely shaped helmet with shaped mandibles protruding out from either side of their heads. The group made sure to keep ducked low so to not be seen by them.

Spike glanced around the room unhappily. “I don’t see any easy way around those guards,” he noted aloud. “How are we going to slip past them?”

“I don’t think we can,” Thorax admitted nervously. He had been getting increasingly more and more on edge the closer to the throne room they got and now it seemed to have reached a new peak. “It doesn’t help that the number of guards has of course been increased because of the alerted status the hive’s on at the moment.” He shook his head. “Oh, I don’t like this one bit.”

“There must be some way to get past them without causing more trouble for ourselves,” Starlight murmured thoughtfully, surveying the situation.

Ember gripped her scepter, gauging the changeling guards. “Well, at least there’s only six of them this time,” she noted. “Betcha if I could catch them by surprise, I could take out most of them long enough to get us past.”

But Thorax immediately shook his head. “You wouldn’t stand a chance, Dragon Lord Ember,” he assured her confidently and pointed a holed hoof at the guards. “Those aren’t just any guards, they’re members of the queen’s private army of centurions, who are trained to be fierce warriors and are more skilled in combat than any other class of changeling in the hive.”

“The best of the best, huh?” Trixie surmised.

“Of the best,” Thorax added for extra emphasis. “They are absolutely nothing to take lightly.”

“So now what?” Spike asked.

Starlight gazed at the doors they needed to get through, shaking her head. “We need to get in there somehow, so there must be a way to do it.”

“Starlight, even if I wanted to, there’s no way past those guards,” Thorax assured her. “We’ll be noticed for sure, and I can guarantee you, they won’t go easy on us.”

Starlight nodded to herself, thinking. “We need another distraction, then.”

Trixie sighed, peering into her saddlebags. “Too bad I’m all out of smoke bombs now,” she muttered to herself in regret. “Maybe I shouldn’t have used all of them back in that one chamber…”

Spike was searching his mind for the most distracting thing he could think of, but was either drawing a blank or knew it would involve things they didn’t actually have with them. He let out a frustrated growl under his breath. “We’re so close…all we gotta do is get those guards looking the wrong way for just a minute, tops.”

“It can’t be a distraction that’s too obvious it’s a distraction once they come up to it though,” Thorax added. “That’ll only clue the centurions in that something’s up and will go investigate next.”

“I know a good distraction that’ll keep them busy,” Ember promised, still weighing up the six guards. “A fight, which I’m more than willing to give, and I think my odds are better than you think, Thorax.”

“I absolutely disagree,” Thorax responded immediately, leveling a disapproving glare at the dragoness.

“Do you really think you could take all six of them?” Trixie asked, deciding they might as well hear Ember out.

Ember shrugged. “Take them on, yes,” she replied. “Actually win the fight, though? From the sound of it, it’ll be close, I admit.” She looked around at the others. “But I’m not hearing any other suggestions from all of you.”

Starlight studied the sanctum’s doors again for a second. “Thorax, is there perhaps any other way in there?” she asked.

“Well, I suppose there is a back door entrance for the queen’s use in emergencies,” Thorax admitted. “But for that very reason, it’ll probably be stationed with the same number of guards too, so to ensure the way is still clear and safe for the queen if she ever has to use it.”

“There must be some way in that isn’t going to be so heavily guarded,” Starlight noted, frustrated. “And I’m not willing to use anyone as bait to buy the rest of us time to get in just yet. We all got here safely as a group thus far, I want to at least try to continue that.”

Spike regarded the entrance to the sanctum for a moment, mulling about how sealed off from the rest of the hive it seemed to be. “Thorax, how do they get fresh air in there?”

Thorax looked at him blankly. “Huh?”

“Fresh air,” Spike repeated. “I mean, this whole place is enclosed as if it’s underground, so the air needs some way to ventilate, wouldn’t it? So how do they get fresh air in there?”

Thorax thought about it. “There are ventilation shafts running throughout the rest of the hive, so there’d have to be some for the queen’s sanctum too…” he shook his head, “…but with the hive being on alert like it is, it wouldn’t surprise me if there are guards stationed there too, and anyway, the tunnels are very narrow—just big enough for a changeling to squeeze through for maintenance purposes. The rest of us might be able to fit through it, but Dragon Lord Ember, being the biggest, certainly wouldn’t.”

Ember snorted, smoke puffing from her nostrils faintly. “Well, since I wouldn’t be able to join the rest of you anyway, I might as well buy you all a distraction in hopes it’ll lure whatever guards that shaft away long enough for you all to slip inside,” she reasoned adamantly. “If I do overpower all the guards, then I can meet up with all of you on the other side of those doors.” She pointed a claw at the beetle-like doors.

“And if you get captured?” Starlight challenged.

“Then add me to the list of rescuees to snag before you all leave,” Ember concluded dismissively. She glanced at Thorax. “You said we’re all of more use to the hive alive and not dead, right?”

“Right, as prey,” Thorax reminded.

Ember snorted again. “It’s not like I’ll even be awake to notice,” she pointed out. “And who cares, anyway? It’s not like we all have to reach the throne room, just so long as someone reaches the room that can actually do something about it. Besides, we’re running out time. Do you all hear that?”

The group listened for a second. Other than the distant flutter of changeling wings, their surroundings were fairly quiet.

“I don’t hear anything,” Trixie noted finally.

“Exactly,” Ember concluded, looking at the group determinedly. “Someone’s stopped the record player.”

The others blinked and looked at one another as they realized they could no longer hear the sound of Spike’s hard rock music echoing throughout the hive.

Spike winced. “There’s no way it could’ve reached the end of that record just yet,” he said gravely.

“But how did they even get at it?” Starlight asked. “Get too close and no changeling could keep themselves level, we all saw that for ourselves.”

“Maybe they didn’t need to,” Thorax reasoned. “Changelings do have magic, so I suppose if one was able to line up a clean enough of a shot, someone could’ve just sniped it from afar.”

“Darn, I liked that record player,” Trixie grumbled.

“And I liked that record,” Spike agreed, inwardly mourning for the likely loss of his favorite record. “But how they did it doesn’t matter, because it still means they don’t have that to distract them now.”

“Yeah, and now they know we’re not there, patrols are probably going to be sweeping the hive, trying to find us,” Thorax concluded, rubbing his hooves together nervously.

Starlight shook her head. “Still, there’s got to be a better way,” she persisted. “We just need a chance to think of it!”

“Too late,” Spike suddenly interrupted, who had turned to peer over the edge of the top steps they hid behind.

The others turned to look and saw that while they had all been distracted discussing the matter, Ember had already taken it upon herself to act and was racing towards the six guards. With a small final hop, she dropped down directly in front of them with a thud that immediately drew the attention of all six.

“Before we begin,” Ember remarked coyly as she twirled her scepter, taking a defensive stance, “would anyone like to leave?”

The six guards responded by all hissing loudly and throwing themselves at the dragoness to attack. Ember merely bellowed back and leapt towards them, meeting them halfway. In the next second, she had vanished into the mass of changelings as the fight began. Shocked at the suddenness of it all, the others could only look on for second.

“Horseapples!” Starlight cursed but seeing the choice had been made for her, she urgently turned to Thorax. “Thorax, you had better get us to one those ventilation shafts, quick.”

Thorax let out a throaty groan as he glanced warily back at the fight between Ember and the changelings taking place before them, but he too saw no alternatives now and begrudgingly led the way from the fight to one side of the entrance. He admittedly didn’t actually know where the entrance to such a shaft might be, but he did still know to look for, and was quickly able to locate such an alcove. Better still, they arrived just in time for the alcove’s one guard to be lured away from it by the commotion of the fight taking place nearby. Thorax quickly led all of them into the alcove and caused the shaft’s hidden opening to expand into existence. Making sure they weren’t observed, they all then filed into the dim, narrow, and drafty shaft. It went up a couple of feet before leveling out, presumably to head out over individual rooms within the sanctum, or so was their hope.

Spike, being the smallest, had no problem slipping into it, and though the tips of Thorax’s wings constantly brushed against the roof of the shaft, knocking loose a thin layer of dust that had accumulated within the shaft, he fit inside without problem too. For Starlight and Trixie though, the shaft was a bit narrow for them to comfortably move inside it, but they were still able to slip inside too. Trixie at one point got stuck, but was able to quickly pop herself free before causing too much of a panic. They traveled through the shaft just far enough to reach the closest room inside of the sanctum, an empty meeting room of sorts, and then all clambered out of the shaft again. They quickly hurried out of the room and to the main tunnel that the sanctum’s main entrance they had bypassed opened into, the whole affair only taking ten minutes at most.

They were disheartened to see that Ember was not already inside the doors, waiting for them. Wordlessly, they all settled down out of sight around a nearby corner and waited for her to show. But as the minutes ticked by, she still didn’t appear, and it started to become hard to not assume the worst.

“We can’t keep waiting,” Thorax finally concluded, turning to look back at the others. “Between seeing her and the incident with the record player, the hive’s going to be crawling with changelings searching for us soon.”

“But we need her still, don’t we?” Spike asked urgently. “We need her firebreath to try and destroy the throne.”

“We still have your firebreath though, Spike,” Starlight reminded.

“Mine isn’t nearly as strong as hers and you know it,” Spike reminded grumpily.

“But as much as I don’t want to admit it, Thorax is probably right,” Trixie interjected. “Ember’s probably already been captured, so—”

“Hello? Fellow rescuers?”

The group stopped talking at the sound of Ember’s voice and cautiously peered around the corner at the entrance doors in time to see Ember’s lithe body slip through. She seemed unhurt, but she was missing her scepter, and the optimistic look on her face as she looked around for them seemed oddly out of place. The others glanced at one another briefly, all biting their lips, but seeing no immediate reason not to, they slowly stepped out from behind the corner and into Ember’s line of view.”

“There you all are!” Ember noted with a smug grin, moving to join them. “I was starting to wonder if something happened to you.”

“You managed to beat the guards?” Trixie asked, surprised at this.

“Of course, you really thought I wouldn’t?” Ember replied. “I mean, it was close, but I did it!”

“Then we shouldn’t stay,” Starlight pointed out, watching Thorax as he sniffed the air. He was frowning, but he didn’t yet voice any objections. “We still have a throne to find.”

“Oh!” Ember declared, brightening. “That reminds me! As I was fighting those guards, I heard one of them say they know where it is and how to get to it!”

The others blinked, taken aback by how convenient that was, and exchanged glances.

“Eaisht lesh dagh cleaysh…” Spike chose to prompt to Ember, trailing off to let her reply with the other half of the code phrase.

But Ember just looked at them blankly. “You shouldn’t slur your words, it makes it hard to understand you,” she told Spike, but then moved to slip past them and on deeper into the sanctum. “Now, follow me!”

The others reluctantly followed, but at enough of a distance to quietly whisper amongst themselves without too much risk of being overheard. “You all know that’s not Ember, right?” Starlight asked the others.

“Obviously,” Trixie whispered back, like it didn’t even need saying at this point.

Thorax’s ears were folded back as he quickly nodded in agreement. “At this point, I don’t even need to get a good whiff of her scent to tell you that too,” he added.

“Yeah, and she’s coming across as a bit too chipper to really be Ember,” Spike grumbled as he glared at the changeling posing as the dragoness, cheerily motioning them closer as they arrived at a fork in the passage.

“This way!” The false Ember urged, waving them to keep following as she headed down the tunnel to the left. “We’re almost there!”

The others, however, didn’t move. “I know this trick,” Thorax said nervously, knowing how dangerous the game they were playing was as he looked at the others. “If she says to go left, we should definitely go right instead. She’s leading us to a swarm waiting to attack us.”

“Fine then, let’s go right and get on with this,” Spike concluded grumpily, motioning to the tunnel to their right.

“We can’t just not follow her, though,” Starlight pointed out. “There’s no way those changelings are going to just let us go right when they clearly don’t want us to.”

Trixie groaned, but then took in a deep breath. “All right,” she said, stepping forward. “I’ll work to keep her distracted, the rest of you just get ready to run into the other tunnel.”

“Wait, what?” Thorax declared in alarm, twisting around to look at Trixie.

“Trixie, no!” Starlight objected and immediately moved to block Trixie’s path. “You can’t! We’ve already lost Ember, I don’t want to add you to the list too!”

“It’ll be okay, Starlight, it’s like Thorax told Ember, they’ll keep me alive, I’m more useful that way, and besides, I’ve been in a cocoon once before, I know what I’m getting myself into.”

“You do not,” Thorax interjected, moving to join the argument, Spike following. “Last time, no one was harvesting your emotions off of you. That won’t be the case this time, and regardless, I don’t—”

“We don’t have time to argue this!” Trixie interrupted as she glanced back at the tunnel the false Ember had gone down. No doubt the disguised changeling would notice they had stopped following and would be doubling back soon. “Someone needs to keep those changelings off your tails long enough to give you a fighting chance to get the rest of the way to the throne room, and we’re too close to mess it up now! I can do this! Please let me!” She focused her attention on Starlight. “Starlight, trust your best friend. Besides,” she gave the unicorn a nudge with one hoof, “you think you don’t, but you’ve got this. Your quick thinking helped get us this far, so with Thorax and Spike’s help, you just might still pull this off and then all this won’t matter. You trust yourself and do what you need to pull this off. Promise me?”

Starlight looked at Trixie for a long moment then pulled the mare into a quick, one-hoofed hug. “I promise, Trixie. I promise.”

“And don’t be afraid to take charge if you have to,” Trixie added as she pulled away from her best friend, “because you’re still good at it. Really good.” She turned to Spike. “Spike, the bitter and moody rebel attitude really isn’t working for you, so when this is all over, let’s throw that out, turn you back into the cheery guy I first met you as, and get you back where you belong, okay?”

Spike smirked a little, but it was bittersweet. “Deal,” he said, “so long as we can work on toning down that pesky ego of yours.”

“A fair enough trade,” Trixie agreed with a nod.

“You guys coming?” the false Ember called from within the left tunnel behind them, starting to walk back to where they were.

“Just hold up a second, Ember! Uh, Spike stubbed his toe, but we’ll catch up in just a moment!” Trixie called back so to stall. She then turned to the final one in the group. “Thorax…”

“Trixie, don’t do this,” Thorax urged anxiously, trying to talk the showmare out of it. “You don’t have to. No one has to.”

“Someone has to, and you know it,” Trixie argued back, stepping closer to the changeling while Starlight and Spike stepped to one side and looked on. “Without Ember to count on for these things, we’re short on options anyway. Besides, you don’t really need me for this, you never did. I’ve just been a liability from the start what with my rampant emotions and all. The only worthwhile thing I contributed during this whole thing was a record player because I was too stupid to think my saddlebags might actually be easier to carry if I didn’t have that in there weighing it down when we were back at the air yacht.”

“I don’t want you giving yourself up for me, though!” Thorax persisted. “Enough have already done that for my sake these past several moons, and I want to be able to return the favor for a change. Look, I’ll go instead, I’ll keep whoever is posing as Ember there and…”

“You will not, because you are of no use to them and you know they won’t be so afraid to hurt you,” Trixie said, cutting him short. “But they will with me! Forget what I need, Thorax. I’m expendable, not the important one here. Starlight’s brains, Spike’s firebreath, and your knowledge of the hive, that’s what you need.”

“But you’re still important to me, Trixie,” Thorax persisted with feeling, so much so there was no mistaking he meant it. “Look, there must be another way, we can—”

“Oh, just shut up already, you silly bug,” Trixie interrupted then acting impulsively, kissed the changeling full on the lips.

Starlight and Spike blinked in surprise at this sudden action, and shocked as he was, Thorax didn’t really make much effort to kiss back, but he certainly didn’t resist either, leaving Trixie free to take control of the kiss. She took full advantage of this, losing herself for a moment in the undoubtedly not conservative kiss…but then she started to become self-aware of the pointed fangs she was dodging in the process, and slowly noticed that Thorax’s tongue was way longer than she thought it was. Realizing what she was doing, Trixie pulled back and looked sheepishly at Thorax for a second.

Thorax, dazed, blankly stared back at her. “Huu,” he squeaked, apparently having been rendered unable to speak in his shock.

“Um, yeah,” she said, forcing a timid grin before patting the changeling on the shoulder. “Good luck, Mister Jar Catcher.” She then turned and started off for the tunnel to left before anyone could say anything else, muttering to herself. “Sweet Celestia, I just kissed a changeling…”

Starlight and Spike watched Trixie walk off for a second then looked back at the shellshocked Thorax, standing there with wide eyes and his mouth still slightly ajar. “Thorax,” Spike said slowly, “you okay?”

“Huu,” Thorax only squeaked again, clearly still processing what had just happened.

“Hey Ember!” Trixie was heard calling from just within the left tunnel, cutting off any further chance for discussion on the matter. She strolled up to the false Ember who had just strolled back into view looking for them while Trixie reached into one of her saddlebags, pulling something out. “You want to see the new trick I’ve been working on?”

“Um, sure, I guess?” the false Ember replied hesitantly.

“Great!” Trixie said as she took one of the false Ember’s claws with her hoof and covered both with a piece of cloth, waving her other hoof mysteriously over it. “Because you’ll love this! I call it…” she whipped the cloth away to show she had tied her hoof to the false Ember’s wrist with a series of trick scarves tied together, “…the Changeling Catcher!” As the false Ember then turned furious, realizing what had happened, Trixie quickly spun around to see the others were still standing just outside the tunnel’s entrance. “RUN!”

Spike and Starlight immediately went into action, pushing Thorax forward and towards the right tunnel, precisely as the changeling snapped out of his momentary daze and realized in a panic what was happening. “No, wait, Trixie!” he shouted after the mare despite the other two getting him moving forward in the needed direction, taking him further away. “Trixie!”

Trixie’s attention was brought back on the false Ember however when the changeling abruptly dropped its disguise, and with its hoof still tied to Trixie’s by the trick scarves, gave Trixie a hiss and took to the air, flying over Trixie’s head and trying to race after the other three as they vanished into the tunnel on the right. Trixie, in a panic, turned around with him only to see the trick scarves, being trick scarves, unraveling to their full length, which was naturally several feet longer than they initially appeared to be. Trixie quickly wrapped her end of the scarves around her hoof and gave them a yank backwards, jolting the changeling tied to the other end to a suddenly halt right as it reached the tunnel opening. It let out a chitter of annoyance and tugged back, but Trixie kept pulling back with all her might, keeping him in place as much as she could…

…until she heard a series of hissing and chattering coming from very close above her. She looked up in horror to see the dark ceiling of the tunnel was alight with the blue eyes of dozens of changelings all peering down at her angrily, having her surrounded.

Trixie gulped, wincing. “Ta-da?” she squeaked, right before the changelings all swarmed her.

Meanwhile, Thorax and Starlight galloped on through the tunnels, heading deeper into the sanctum as fast as they could, Spike having been moved onto Thorax’s back when he couldn’t quite keep up with the urgent pace of the other two. As they ran, they could distinctly hear the buzz of changeling wings as several pursuers raced through the corridors behind them, trying to find and catch up with them.

“They’re coming after us…” Spike remarked with ominous concern. “And we’re not going to stop them so easily this time, either!”

“Thorax, which of these tunnels will take us to the throne room?” Starlight asked as they passed several of these tunnels.

“At this point, it doesn’t matter!” Thorax answered, who was visibly unsettled by Trixie’s sacrifice. “Any of these tunnels will eventually connect up with the throne room!”

Starlight bit her lip for a second, considering that the swarms of changelings pursuing them no doubt greatly outnumbered them and how they’d stand a better chance if they could break up those numbers a bit. “Split up!” she finally commanded, pointing Spike and Thorax for adjacent tunnel entrances, then before either of the two could object added, “First one to the throne room, distract whoever is in there so whichever of us arrives next can have the chance to try and do something about the throne!”

She then veered into a tunnel to the left, vanishing from sight. Thorax and Spike watched her go, then Spike, obeying Starlight, leapt off Thorax’s back and raced into a tunnel to the right. This leaving Thorax on his own, he randomly chose a tunnel to duck into ahead of him. Moments later, the pursuing swarm passed through and split up themselves as groups of them veered into tunnels in search of their targets.

Author's Note

I wish the changeling hive had elevators so I could've had Ember do her little reference properly... :rainbowlaugh:

Next chapter: things start to go down. :raritywink:

Also, for stylistic reasons and so to not interrupt the emotional flow, unless I have an emergency announcement I need to make, there will be no author's notes for the next couple chapters.

A Fool

Starlight Glimmer was the first to arrive in the throne room.

It was a room that held an aura demanding respect, which was how Starlight felt certain it was the throne room even before she had fully arrived at the room’s main entrance. That entrance was curiously unguarded, but it was also a wide and towering opening nearly three stories tall at its highest, decorated with the changeling equivalent of columns, so it wasn’t like it was easy to sneak unseen through it. Regardless, Starlight proceeded cautiously as she slowed to a walk when entering through this entrance, quickly seeing that the room beyond was even taller than its entryway, so much so Starlight couldn’t quite see all of the room at once from within that entrance.

In comparison to most other rooms she had seen in the hive, it was actually a fairly impressive sight, almost cathedral like and spacious, with a surprisingly level floor, making it clear that the changelings had put extra effort into the quality of the room so to be fit for their queen, no doubt. Nonetheless, the room still bore the same sort of traits seen everywhere else in the hive, with the walls being riddled with the hole-like entrances to intersecting tunnels at random. However, none of them were appearing or disappearing on their own like before and were instead constant.

The room also seemed conspicuously empty of any occupants except for Starlight herself as she didn’t immediately see anyone else within the room. This didn’t relieve her in the slightest and instead only made her all the more concerned, suspecting something was up while continuing to proceed cautiously, ever alert as she waited in dread for the other horseshoe to fall. Yet that didn’t stop her from getting a flare of excitement as her eyes locked onto the obvious centerpiece of the room, a jagged outcropping of black, almost obsidian-like stone, twisted and filled with plenty of holes, but was still quite clearly throne-shaped. An eerie beam of greenish light even fell directly upon it as if trying to point Starlight directly to it. Almost relieved to see it, Starlight started to step towards it, passing into the center of the room as she did so.

She stopped when she felt a glob of something wet and sticky plop onto her head. Wiping it off with her hoof, she saw it was the familiar green changeling gel, and feeling her stomach sink, she warily gazed upwards to see what it was hanging above her that she had completely missed on her way in.

The cluster of cocoons was arranged almost as if it was some bizarre, twisted, chandelier, and precisely as Thorax predicted, contained the very ponies she and the others had come to rescue: Twilight and her five friends, Princesses Celestia and Luna, Princess Cadance and her family, even Ember and Trixie hung upside down and unconscious in newly added cocoons of their own. The sight was dizzying and only served to fray Starlight’s already very strained nerves even further at the horrifying sight. But that was all nothing in comparison to the cackling laugh that echoed out shortly thereafter, chilling Starlight to her core as she realized who as making it.

“And after all that, it’s just one little pony who enters, all by herself,” the voice taunted before cackling again.

Starlight looked up at the cocoons hanging above her again in time to see Celestia and Luna’s cocoons be pushed aside enough for Queen Chrysalis to skitter in through the gap, twisting her body in entirely unnatural ways as she did so, before staring down at Starlight, frozen to the spot she stood, and grinned maliciously at the mare.

“Oh, how will I ever prevent this oh-so daring rescue?” the queen of the changelings taunted sarcastically.

Then the previously quiet and empty room exploded into activity as swarms of changelings that had been previously hiding out of Starlight’s view burst out of nearly every opening leading into the throne room. They were upon her before she could even think to do anything to fight back. Getting tackled from behind, one group of changelings pinned her to the floor, roughly keeping her still, while several more repeatedly spat gel at her forehooves, adhering them to the floor. They continued treating her roughly, to the point Starlight started to become terrified they planned to torture her with the abuse, but then Chrysalis shouted out a single word in the changeling language and the changelings all obediently stopped and backed off, forming a circle along the outer edge of the room.

Picking herself up quickly, Starlight saw the gel covering her forelegs up to her knees and desperately tried to pull herself free of it. Though the gel stretched and twisted with her pulling, it did not release its hold on her and kept her stuck to that spot. She couldn’t move.

Taking amusement in watching Starlight’s futile attempts to escape, Chrysalis chuckled again. “Well, well, well,” she began as she fluttered down to the floor, moving to stand directly before the caught mare. Starlight couldn’t help but cower a little before the slender and intimidating changeling queen, the first time she had ever seen her in person, let alone this close. “The princess of friendship’s sole pupil…went to all that trouble to escape my drones in Ponyville, only to turn around and waltz right into the lion’s den, as it were!” Chrysalis cackled again, tossing her head back in the process and making her long blue mane swing about her neck. “You know, you could’ve spared yourself all that trouble and just played along! Even if you hadn’t been out of town at the time I began my new plans to conquer, I honestly didn’t think you were worth the trouble of replacing with one of my drones.”

Starlight shot a glare at the queen as she renewed her attempts to try and free her hooves from the gel, again to little avail. “I hope I certainly have proven just how much of a lapse in judgment that was by now,” she quipped back darkly.

“You’ve definitely have proven yourself a mildly annoying pain in the rump, if that’s what you’re trying to get at,” Chrysalis growled, suddenly no longer amused. “But credit where credit’s due…you and your little squad have gotten far further than I would’ve expected on your own like this. You’ve navigated this hive startlingly well for a bunch of prey that has neither knowledge of the hive nor a guide to direct them.” She leaned closer to Starlight, close enough that Starlight could smell her surprisingly sweet breath. “Just how have you done that?”

Starlight locked eyes with the queen. “How do you think?” she challenged defiantly.

Chrysalis snorted, turning and starting to walk away. “Clearly, you’ve managed to pry information about where to go out of Julius somehow…I should’ve known that little grub would crack under the pressure.”

Starlight, however, looked up at her in surprise for a split second before remembering to quickly suppress her emotions or the changelings would sense them and be clued in to her thoughts. Why has she assumed we pried the information out of Julius when we have Thorax readily giving it up? she thought to herself.

Chrysalis noted Starlight’s surprise anyway, but she completely misinterpreted it, grinning again as she looked back at the caught mare. “Oh, don’t be so surprised,” she responded. “It wasn’t really that hard to guess that one or more of you somehow escaped from the cocoons Julius put you in on that airship he’d seized and you managed to overpower him without our finding out.” She turned and stepped back towards Starlight. “But just because Julius was shoddy with his work, made those cocoons incorrectly, and allowed even just one of you to wake up doesn’t mean you were guaranteed success at trying to thwart my plans. You really should’ve just used the chance to get as far from here as you could.”

Starlight didn’t respond though, in the middle of desperately trying to force herself calm and not react to Chrysalis’s words while she meanwhile realized in startlement what had happened. She hasn’t realized yet that we only fooled them into thinking Julius had caught us! This thought was quickly followed up by another. She hasn’t realized yet that Thorax is here too, still alive!

“Just what did you hope to accomplish by all of this, anyway?” Chrysalis continued, tilting her head at Starlight as the mare resumed trying to free her hooves from the gel they were caught in. “Surely you knew I’m not about to let any of you succeed in any way.”

“Like I’ll tell you,” Starlight replied, keeping up her defiant attitude as she sought to play along and buy time, in hopes it’ll give Thorax and Spike a chance to do something to carry out their plans while Chrysalis and these other changelings watching were distracted with her.

“Well, it doesn’t matter anyway,” Chrysalis concluded dismissively, straightening. “Once the scouts I sent out to find that airship of yours and figure out what happened to Julius report back in, I’ll have my answers then.”

Uh-oh, Starlight thought to herself, wondering if this meant their planned escape route had already been cut off and the Vergilius captured, but again, she worked to keep that thought to herself. “Look, it doesn’t have to be this way!” Starlight interjected, changing the subject and turning pleading. “There must be a way we can find peace between us where we can all be happy!”

“Now you’re just talking nonsense,” Chrysalis concluded, turning away as if the conversation bored her now. “We still need to feed somehow.”

“But changelings don’t have to steal love to survive!” Starlight bellowed after the queen as she started to walk off and the other changelings encircling her took a step closer, no doubt waiting for their queen to give the order to deal with her. “I’ve seen it for myself! Thorax—”

“Don’t you dare mention that traitor’s name here, in my hive!” Chrysalis snapped suddenly, whirling back upon Starlight angrily. “He had his chance to share in our victory, and he threw it away to pursue your pony lies like the idiot he is! So as far as I am concerned, he is unworthy of even being associated with it!” Chrysalis’s eyes narrowed dangerously. “Besides, don’t go changing the subject just yet, young Starlight Glimmer…we still have unfinished business to discuss. I have you and two of your friends captured, but there’s still one left to add to my collection.” Using her magic, she wrenched Starlight’s head upwards, forcing the mare to look her in the eye. “Where’s the little dragon whelp?”

Starlight merely glared defiantly back at Chrysalis and didn’t respond in any way.

“Fine, have it your way,” Chrysalis conceded with bored sigh, releasing Starlight from her magic and turning to an armored centurion changeling that happened to be hovering beside his queen. “Search the room,” she ordered. “If she’s here, then he’s absolutely going to be somewhere nearby.”

“Yes, your highness,” the centurion replied, dipping his head once respectfully, before turning off to begin his search, heading towards the throne.

But as he turned off, he made eye contact with Starlight for a second. Starlight caught his gaze, staring back for a second not understanding, before she suddenly did. As he walked off, Starlight turned her attention back onto Chrysalis. “So now what?” she asked curtly, working to keep Chrysalis and the other changelings’ attention on her while the centurion worked. “I suppose you’re going to monologue about your whole evil plan now, aren’t you?”

While Chrysalis and Starlight annoyed each other with their ridiculing banter, the centurion proceeded to scan the edges of the room, exiting the encirclement of the other changelings as his path took him around and behind the currently vacant throne. The moment he was securely behind it and out of the line of sight of the others, he broke the pattern and darted to a small gap in the back of the throne’s base, poking his head into it. Inside, Spike had wiggled himself into the gap so he could work without being immediately seen by anyone else in the room, blowing a jet of flame at the dark stone making up the rest of the throne hanging over him, brow narrowed in a combination of frustration and concentration.

“Spike!” the changeling called to him in a harsh whisper, then when this caused Spike to gasp in surprise, he hurriedly added almost as an afterthought, “Eaisht lesh dagh cleaysh!”

Spike stared at him wide-eyed for a split second then groaned quietly in relief. “Eisht jean briwnys,” he finished, shaking his head, exasperated. “Darn it, Thorax, you nearly gave me a heart attack! And at least take that stupid helmet off, it’s giving me the willies!”

“I can’t, it’s part of the disguise,” the disguised Thorax replied apologetically before getting right to the point. “How’s it going?”

“Frustratingly slow, this stuff’s way denser than it looks,” Spike admitted, glaring up at the stone of the throne he laid under, in which he had only made a very small hairline crack thus far, scarcely an inch long. “I’ve tried breathing fire on it, clawing it, even biting it! None of it seems to have made much of a difference.”

“It might be all the magic it’s absorbed over the years, giving it added strength,” Thorax reasoned, noting that despite the infinitely small size of the crack, he could still sense a spark of magic leaking out of it, and through it could feel the years of stolen magic trapped inside, under pressure and trying to get out again, the stress trying to force the unyielding crack bigger. It gave him renewed confidence that their plan could very much still work, but only if Spike could get enough time to critically damage the throne enough for that pent-up pressure to do the rest. “Keep at it,” he urged his dragon friend. “Starlight and I will keep trying to distract the others.”

Leaving the dragon to resume breathing fire on the throne then, Thorax withdrew his head and resumed posing like the centurion he was disguised as, making like he was continuing his search but hadn’t yet found anything to report.

Meanwhile, Starlight and Chrysalis were still arguing. “You won’t get away with this, you know,” the unicorn mare pointed out.

“I already have!” Chrysalis retorted brightly, and waved a hoof at the cocoons of captured prey hanging above them, Starlight’s gaze moving up to look at them once more. “I already have all of them, and now there’s no one else who’s going to be coming to save you that I won’t soon have captured too. Your little squad was it, and now there’s just you and the dragon, Spike.” Chrysalis shook her head teasingly. “However did you talk him into helping you, anyway? I’ve heard he’s had a very rough past few moons that has really soured his views on Equestria.”

“And how would you know anything about that?” Starlight challenged.

“The hive has eyes everywhere,” Chrysalis assured. “And what they witness, they pass on to me. I know more than you clearly give me credit for.”

“Still not enough,” Starlight mumbled under her breath smugly.

“Whatever the case,” Chrysalis pressed on, grabbing Starlight’s head with her magic so to force her to look her in the eye again, “The loyalty to Equestria you both have demonstrated is rather touching, but clearly it’s proven useless against my hive, has it not?”

Starlight merely glared back defiantly and again didn’t respond.

“I have completed my search, your highness,” the centurion reported as he dutifully returned beside Chrysalis. “But I regret I have found no sign of the missing intruder.”

“Oh, he’s here, I can feel it,” Chrysalis vowed, turning around and scanning her throne room eagerly for her prey. “Come out, come out, wherever you are, young Spike!” she called tauntingly. “You can run, but you can’t hide forever!”

“What makes you think he can even hear you?” Starlight demanded from behind the queen.

“He’s still within earshot, I can promise you that,” Chrysalis vowed as she continued scanning the throne room for any sign of Spike. “Everything he has come here to obtain is in this room…why would he be anywhere else?” She pivoted in place a couple of times looking for any sign of the missing dragon. “Come now, Spike, this is getting you nowhere! I promise you that we don’t want to have to hurt you…after all, you’re far more useful to us alive and healthy, and we like it when we can keep you feeling happy too.” This, of course, did nothing to lure Spike out of hiding and as a result Chrysalis started to get impatient. “Don’t think I won’t be willing to harm the others because of that though, Spike!” she warned darkly. “If you don’t reveal yourself soon, I just might have to take out my anger out on them instead, and I don’t think you want that!”

Apparently, neither did the other changelings, because even though the threat wasn’t directed at them, Starlight couldn’t help but notice they all took a cautious step back from their queen, clearly afraid of her anger, except for the one centurion who remained standing nearby Chrysalis and Starlight. “Clearly, Spike just might be more hidden than you’re giving him credit for, Chrysalis,” Starlight pointed out obtusely.

Chrysalis turned back to face her, lighting her twisted and jagged horn suddenly. “You know, you just might have a point there, Starlight Glimmer,” she admitted as she began to circle around behind the trapped mare. Starlight tried to twist around to keep the changeling queen in view, but her forehooves being still adhered to the floor made it difficult. “Sometimes things really can hide right under one’s eyes, if you don’t take the time to look closely enough at the details…like how there’s always telltale signs that a changeling is hiding in disguise. Isn’t that right…” Chrysalis then abruptly fired a spell from her horn, the sickly green energy shooting right over Starlight to strike the centurion that had been standing nearby, forcing the startled changeling to drop his disguise as such, “…Thorax?”

Surprised by this reveal but recovering quickly, the other changelings hissed loudly in anger at the changeling they saw as a traitor while Thorax, in a panic, sought an escape route, and turned to run. He didn’t even manage to make it a full step before other changelings were pouncing on him, hiding him from view in the resulting dogpile, before the attacking changelings backed away again, revealing they had adhered Thorax’s forehooves to the floor with gel like they had with Starlight’s, trapping him. Struggling fruitlessly against the sticky gel, Thorax looked at Starlight in dismay, a look Starlight could only return, unsure what they could do now.

“Oh, Thorax, Thorax, Thorax,” Chrysalis meanwhile was muttering while shaking her head, walking around from out behind Starlight and past the mare’s other side as she approached the caught changeling. “Clearly not as dead as I had been told…how unfortunate for you.” She narrowed her eyes as she lowered her head to stare Thorax down, Thorax bravely meeting her gaze and staring back. “You’re a fool to have left the hive and you’re even more of a fool to return, you know.”

“I couldn’t stand by and let you get away with this, your highness,” Thorax growled back, spitting out the honorific with unanticipated distaste.

This earned him a backhanded slap from Chrysalis for his insolence. “Thorax!” Starlight cried out in alarm. She glared at Chrysalis angrily. “Leave him alone!”

Chrysalis whirled onto her, hoof raised and causing Starlight to flinch. “Shall I strike you, then?” she asked, but then seeming to regain control of her temper, she lowered her hoof again. “I’m just surprised. I didn’t think all that time you’ve spent hanging around ponies would have given you such a spine, Thorax.” She glared critically at her wayward subject. “Whatever happened to the whimpering and fearful nymph I knew so well?”

“I learned better,” Thorax replied, rubbing his sore cheek against his shoulder since his forehooves being gelled to the floor prevented him raising one to tend it. He was speaking compulsively now, not having planned any of this, but he didn’t want to stop now that he had started. “I think you’ll find I’ve learned a lot living among the ponies, your highness, and I know I’ve done far better among them than you ever expected.” He leveled his gaze with his queen seriously. “Because I know now…I had always wondered why you had allowed me to run away from the hive in the first place and never tried to stop me sooner, but now I know…the only reason you let me go was because you thought I wouldn’t survive out there on my own, didn’t you?” He straightened himself proudly before her. “Well, here I am still, your highness. Not only did I survive for all this time, I have prospered. Even despite everything else, I have lived a better life than any changeling under your rule ever has, or ever will.”

“And it doesn’t have to be that way!” Starlight interjected, taking the chance to butt in. She looked around at the other changelings, who were all attentively listening but still didn’t seem swayed. “Every changeling here can live that same sort of life as Thorax has! You don’t have to live like this, no one does!”

“Spare me your lies!” Chrysalis snapped, circling the two captured intruders to her hive. “You aren’t telling the whole story and you both know it! I know all about what happened in the Crystal Empire, I know how Equestria responded to the chance to befriend a changeling, as you’d put it!” She shot a glare at Thorax. “You know, you aren’t wrong, when you first left the hive, I abandoned all thought of you. If you didn’t want to be part of your hive, then I decided there was no need to try and shield you from the dangers lying outside of it.”

“Shield me?” Thorax repeated, irate. “You didn’t even—”

“Hush!” Chrysalis shouted, interrupting him, before continuing more quietly. “Your queen is talking. But yes, I thought you really wouldn’t survive on your own out there, and if you were dead, then that would eliminate any danger you wandering around in Equestria might pose to your hive. So imagine my surprise when I get word that you had turned up in the Crystal Empire, seeking to make peace with the ponies only to get chased out and demonized by them, banished. So I followed what played out after that with interest through Equestria’s, namely Twilight Sparkle’s,” she nodded her head at the princess in question sealed in her cocoon above them, “attempts to find you after word got out that you had made off her dragon. You had made yourself a potential threat to my plans, after all.” She grinned wickedly at this. “But I was more than content to let Twilight Sparkle do all the dirty work for me, and if she had ever succeeded and caught you, I was more than prepared to jump in and ensure the job was finished properly.”

Thorax swallowed softly at the implied threat to his life, but nonetheless spoke his reply confidently. “So when that didn’t happen and it became time to carry out your plans, that was when you sent Julius to find me, so to…speed things along,” he deduced.

“And clearly he failed, more spectacularly than I had ever thought,” Chrysalis added, stopping her circling to give Thorax an annoyed glare. “Do tell me, is he even still alive?”

“Of course he is,” Thorax promised firmly, though he chose not to reveal how severely injured he had gotten in the process. “Unlike you, your highness, I don’t leave my fellow changelings for dead.”

Chrysalis shook her head at him and resumed pacing, tutting to herself. “You really are a fool,” she muttered.

“What he is, is a more benevolent changeling than you,” Starlight corrected firmly.

“No, what he is, is a more than adequate distraction for all of Equestria,” Chrysalis corrected as she stopped circling again so to stand beside Thorax. She smirked cruelly at him. “The ponies were so focused on finding you that they didn’t have any time left to look out for me.” She motioned Thorax’s gaze up at the captured ponies hanging above them. “And I’d say that worked out wonderfully, don’t you?”

Realizing she had used him to her advantage, Thorax only hissed angrily at her. Chrysalis chuckled in amusement but otherwise ignored it.

“As for you and your little pack of friends here and now,” she continued instead, resuming her circling, “I’m not surprised Thorax made the effort to come back here to resist my plans, but I am surprised you came here with so many supporters in tow. I did expect Spike at least, but certainly not all these others, nor for all of you to have gotten this far through the hive, although,” here she grinned a wicked grin, “despite all of that, I still have you all right where I want you, so despite your embarrassing little rescue attempt, everything has gone as I planned!”

“What is this plan, anyway?” Starlight demanded, trying to keep Chrysalis talking and distracted, hoping Spike, wherever he was, would be able to make headway on at least damaging the throne soon. “You still haven’t said! Why would you do all of this?”

“To feed, of course!” Chrysalis replied, facing her and moving to approach her. “By replacing all of the most beloved figures in Equestria, my drones will be able to store all the love meant for them and bring it back to me, and then everyone in here, in Equestria, and beyond, will do as I command, and my subjects and I will have love to feed upon for generations!” She laughed manically at this.

“This isn’t about love,” Thorax challenged defiantly, cutting Chrysalis’s laughter short, to her fury. “This is about power…and how you want all of it. For yourself.”

“And is there something wrong with your queen having power, Thorax?” Chrysalis asked dangerously, advancing on the changeling now.

Thorax didn’t cower as she approached and instead kept his gaze resolute. “What about us drones?” he asked. “Your subjects? Because after how callously you’ve treated me, I know you won’t trouble yourself much with our needs. I’ve survived for so long outside the hive because I found friends to support me and take me in, but had it been up left to you, you would’ve just abandoned me, or any troublesome changeling, at your first chance to die.” He stared determinedly up at Chrysalis, now standing before him, as she glared back down at him. “Is that right, or even the smart thing to do, your highness? Because I think it’s time for the changeling hive to live up to its reputation, and change.”

Chrysalis glowered at Thorax for a long moment, her face scrunching up into a look of fury. But before she could say or do anything, the noise of a solitary crack suddenly rang out from the direction of the throne. It wasn’t that especially loud, almost a mere pop, but in that moment of silence in the room, it had sounded like the crack of thunder and everyone’s heads immediately turned to look in its direction.

Chrysalis straightened and moved to face the throne, looking at it suspiciously. “Search the throne and the area around it,” she commanded her changelings, and those of guard status flew forward to examine the magical structure in depth. As they did so, Thorax and Starlight warily exchanged looks, worried for Spike that, last they both knew, was hiding there at the throne.

But quickly the changelings returned having found no sign of Spike. “We found no one, your highness,” the centurion leading the group reported in, indicating that Spike had managed to move to some other hiding spot. “But we did find signs of attempts to damage the throne, and found that a large crack has formed on a secluded spot in the base due to recent heat stress.”

Chrysalis shot a look back at Starlight and Thorax. “So that’s it,” she muttered, “Very clever. Clearly Thorax has revealed to you the secret of my throne, and we can’t have that.” She shot Thorax a nasty look. “What other secrets have you told them?” Thorax defiantly didn’t reply though, so she shook her head. “I’ll deal with you in a moment then,” she promised and turned her attention back on the matter at hoof, raising her voice. “I highly recommend that you reveal yourself, Spike!” she called to wherever Spike was hiding now. “There’s no point in delaying this any longer, the game is already over! You’re only making this more difficult for yourself and your allies!” Her eyes narrowed dangerously when she got no response. “Do not test me, dragon! I have two of your allies right here, at my disposal that I can, and will, do whatever I wish with if you do not reveal yourself soon!” When there was still no sign of Spike or any attempt from him to reveal himself, she lit her horn and bodily grabbed Starlight with her magic, pulling the unicorn free from the gel holding her in place then whipping the mare before her, aiming the point of her jagged horn at Starlight’s throat. “This is your last chance! Reveal yourself now, or the harm I bestow upon them will be on you, and you’re Equestrian enough that I don’t think you’re willing to let such harm befall your friends, now are you?”

Starlight stared in terror at the tip of Chrysalis’s horn pointing so dangerously at her. Unlike a unicorn’s horn, which rounded off with a nice, blunt, and mostly harmless tip, the changeling queen’s horn came to a very sharp point, more than sharp enough to cut, slice, and stab. And Starlight was fully aware that this was precisely what Chrysalis intended to use it for, unable to not fear the potentially fatal harm it would do to her. Nonetheless, Starlight pushed all this down and gave Chrysalis a confident grin. “He doesn’t care about me, Chrysalis,” she told the changeling queen with defiant assurance. “I’m one of the ponies who helped make him an outcast.”

Chrysalis nodded her head, as if considering this. “That is true,” she conceded, but she nonetheless jabbed her horn closer, forcing Starlight to tilt her head up so to try and keep herself away from its sharp point. She smirked at Starlight. “But I think you still underestimate just how much he does care.” She raised her voice yet again. “I do hope you’re watching, dear Spike!” she called out in a falsely sweet voice. She then turned her gaze back onto Starlight and gave her a malicious grin. “Because I am about to show you why friendship is your greatest weakness.”

Then, abruptly releasing Starlight, allowing the unicorn to fall to the floor completely unscathed, she whipped around and, using the jagged tip of her horn, stabbed the surprised Thorax in the chest.

Twilight's Lament

When Starlight found Trixie, she found the mare sitting at an opening some stories up in the changeling hive, overlooking land outside and out at the evening sunset that was beginning to wrap up now. She was notably quiet and distant from even just a glance, but Starlight heaved a sigh of relief in finding her nonetheless.

“There you are,” she remarked to her showmare friend as she trotted up to Trixie. “I leave your side for half a minute so to get directions from a passing changeling, and the next thing I know, you’d wandered off. I’ve been looking for you everywhere, Trixie, and frankly…I was starting to get worried.” Trixie made no response or any sort of reaction to indicate that she had even heard and Starlight gazed at her in mild concern as she took a seat beside her. She licked her lips uncomfortably. “How are you holding up?” she asked next in a soft voice.

Trixie still didn’t reply verbally, but she did slowly turn her head to face Starlight, revealing that while she was dry-eyed at the moment, the azure mare’s eyes were streaked, red, and puffy, making it clear that Trixie had been weeping without restraint earlier.

Starlight couldn’t help but wince in sympathy a bit. “That bad, huh?” she noted.

Trixie merely turned her head back ahead of her, gazing back out at the horizon outside.

Starlight fidgeted to herself for a second, wishing she had something uplifting to tell her grieving friend. “Well, on the upside…at least you’ve finally stopped crying,” she observed positively then immediately winced to herself as she realized how insensitive that sounded out loud.

Trixie didn’t seem to notice. “Only because I’ve run out of tears to physically shed,” she responded morosely. “That doesn’t mean the grief within has lessened in any way.”

Starlight let her gaze fall for a moment, sighing. “I’m sorry, Trixie,” she said. “I wish I could do more to help you get through this.”

“You’ve done plenty already, Starlight,” Trixie assured but keeping her gaze forward on the horizon. “That’s better than you give yourself credit for. Besides…” Trixie managed a very small grin, “…I still can’t say no to the support of a friend right now.”

Starlight grinned a little herself, but both of their grins were short-lived. She followed Trixie’s gaze for a minute, looking on at the sunset ending on the horizon. The sun had already vanished from view and now the evening sky was slowly transitioning from a deep orange to a light royal purple as night took its place. “Pretty sunset,” she impulsively noted aloud.

“Yes,” Trixie agreed. “Given what happened today, in a way…it almost seems fitting.”

The two friends sat quietly for a moment. Starlight then sighed again.

“I still say this is my fault,” she lamented, hanging her head in shame. “If I had just stood up to Chrysalis more, refused to let her have control of the situation, or at least just kept my stupid mouth shut and let her do whatever it was she was going to do to me and not Thorax…”

“Then you’d be the one who died, and I don’t want that any more than I do this, Starlight,” Trixie objected immediately.

“Maybe,” Starlight conceded. Her own gaze turned distant. “But maybe then Thorax would still be alive.”

“I don’t want any of my friends dying, Starlight,” Trixie said. “And had it been you instead…” she shook her head and her face wrinkled with sadness. “…I don’t even want to think about it, Starlight. Please don’t talk about it.”

Another long moment of silence fell between them as they watched the night continue to settle upon the land outside.

“Why come here, anyway?” Starlight asked finally.

Trixie just shrugged. “I just…needed a moment alone…away from everything else. This was the first place I found that worked.”

Starlight nodded to herself for a moment. “You know, when you wandered off without telling anyone like that,” she began, turning to look at the sullen pony beside her, “I was afraid you had gone off to go do something…well…”

“…stupid?” Trixie finished. She closed her eyes slowly. “Dare I ask what?”

Starlight shrugged feebly. “Any number of things came to my mind while I was searching for you, none of them good.” She hesitated, fearing she might put ideas in Trixie’s head if she continued, but she did anyway. “One big one that kept coming to my mind…was that you might have gone off searching for Chrysalis on your own…for, you know…revenge.”

“I have half a mind to,” Trixie admitted without any hesitation.

It only alarmed Starlight though. “You wouldn’t stand a chance against her even if you did manage to find her, Trixie,” she stated seriously.

“I know,” Trixie agreed, again without hesitation. “It’s the one reason why I haven’t already gone and done it.” She paused then added sadly, “It’s not like it’d make a difference anyway though. He’d still be…gone.”

Starlight shuffled to herself awkwardly, wishing she could do more to comfort her friend. “I’m sorry, Trixie,” she repeated again.

“Oh, stop saying that,” Trixie suddenly snapped, turning to look at her. “All the apologies in the world still won’t change the fact that he died and that utterly devastates me.” She squeezed her eyes shut and shook her head, getting emotional. “Oh Starlight, why did it have to be him? Why did he have to die? He didn’t deserve it at all…he should be here, with us, savoring what we accomplished today!” She threw her hoof back towards the interior of the hive, helpless. “I mean, I can’t help but feel bad over it, because those changelings in there should be celebrating a great victory tonight, and here we all are moping over the death of the changeling who made it happen, souring that whole experience. And yet…I’m right there moping with them.”

“You have good reason to, Trixie,” Starlight commented. “I know what Thorax was to you.”

Trixie snorted as she returned her hoof to her side, stomping it on the resinous ground under her in the process, frustrated. “Why did it have to be like this, though?”

Starlight stared at the ground, kicking one hoof back and forth as she sought something comforting to respond with. She failed. “I wish I knew, Trixie,” she replied. “I truly do.”

Another moment of silence fell as they watched the last of the sunset’s orange fade away and the first stars twinkled into view outside.

“How’s Spike doing?” Trixie asked suddenly.

“I don’t know,” Starlight admitted. “I haven’t seen him since we stopped and paid our respects. But I imagine no better than you are right now, and probably still with Thorax, listening to all the others pay their respects.” She paused for a moment then looked over at Trixie. “I heard just before I found you that they were wrapping up with all of that, so I imagine that’s going to leave Spike…free. I was thinking it’d be a good time to go check up on him.” She tilted her head at her friend, speaking gently. “You want to come with?”

Trixie didn’t respond right away, but finally she shrugged. “Yeah,” she said simply, rising to her hooves. “I need something to do anyway.”

Starlight forced a grin and gave her friend a pat on the back as they both turned and headed back down the tunnel they were in, heading deeper into the hive. They were just arriving at the first tunnel that intersected theirs, and Starlight was beginning to wonder if she could even find her way back to where Spike was in this maze, when Fluttershy suddenly rounded the corner and trotted up to them.

“Oh, Starlight, Trixie,” she said as she approached the two mares, motioning urgently for the two to wait a moment. “Have either of you seen Princess Celestia recently, or might know where she’s at presently? We’ve been trying to find her.”

“I’d thought she already went back to Canterlot,” Trixie remarked, limply shrugging. “So I didn’t think she was even still here.”

“And I haven’t seen her since we all left the throne room—or what’s left of it—earlier,” Starlight added, not able to help any more than Trixie could. Seeing Fluttershy’s concern though and feeling her stomach drop, she pressed on. “Why? What do you need her for, Fluttershy?”

Fluttershy bit her lip and timidly ran one hoof over the floor in hesitation, the concern clear on her face. “Maybe it’s just better if you both saw for yourselves,” she explained, and turned to head back the way she came, motioning for the other two to follow her.

She led them deeper into the hive, through the weave of many tunnels and rooms the structure was composed of. Starlight and Trixie had no idea where they were being led, but Fluttershy seemed reasonably certain, so they kept close to her. They passed various changelings along the way, the reformed creatures looking like they were wandering about their hive and feeling restless as they attempted to sort through both the day’s events and the transformation so many of them had undergone. Every one of them that they passed, Fluttershy would stop and ask if they knew where Princess Celestia was. But none of them had any clear ideas except for a few generic locations in the hive that, unfortunately, Fluttershy had already checked. Despite several of them asking, as well as Starlight asking again herself, Fluttershy didn’t elaborate on the reasons why.

Eventually they arrived in a long corridor with doorways regularly placed up along both sides, each one opening into a small chamber. Starlight noticed while stealing a glance into one of them that they appeared to be simple and spartan sleeping chambers. None of them seemed to be occupied at the moment though, except for one somewhat randomly towards in the middle of the corridor, which as Fluttershy sullenly led the way, Rainbow Dash, Rarity, and Applejack could be seen all standing directly outside its entrance. As they approached, all three of the mares turned to look at them with similarly depressed expressions as Fluttershy.

Fluttershy’s eyes roved over them as they entered speaking range. “Um, I assume none of you girls found Princess Celestia either, then?” she asked softly but notably dejected in tone.

The other three shook their heads. “She’s still gotta be in this place somewhere,” Rainbow Dash said. “I kept getting changelings that said they saw her in passing at some point, it’s just none of them could direct me to where she is now.”

“All we know is that she’s still in the hive somewhere,” Applejack summed up. “Pinkie hasn’t come back yet though…maybe she’ll have better luck than us.”

“But…why do you all need to find Princess Celestia?” Trixie asked with clear confusion as they joined the others outside the chamber’s entrance.

Starlight, however, had already noticed who of the group was still unaccounted for, and with a sudden sinking feeling she knew who was going to be inside this particular chamber. With dread, she looked the group over, seeing the emotions in their eyes that only confirmed her fears, then turned to step into the chamber entrance and look inside. A whole number of utterly horrifying things popped into her mind, afraid to immediately find the absolute worse for Twilight Sparkle within, so she was actually somewhat surprised and relieved to see that her worst fears of what Twilight might have done in her grief appeared unfounded. Instead, she observed Twilight simply and calmly seated in one corner of the chamber, her back turned to the entrance so that her face was entirely out of view.

Starlight gazed in at her mentor for a moment though, still uneasily feeling that something was wrong. She glanced at the others, who were all silently watching, then back at Twilight within the room. “Twilight?” she called softly. She waited for a response, but upon getting none, she took a step past the chamber’s threshold.

Without turning, almost as if she could sense her supposed seclusion about to be disturbed, Twilight immediately spoke. “Please do not enter, Starlight,” she said in an eerily emotionless voice.

It made Starlight pause for a long moment, unsure how to proceed. Finally, she chose to withdraw her hoof, staying outside the chamber as requested. “How long has she been like this?” she asked the others, turning back to them.

They all exchanged troubled looks. “Since she tried to speak with Spike,” Rarity answered softly but with clear reluctance.

Starlight closed her eyes and averted her gaze, dismayed by that news. Trixie, meanwhile, glanced between the other girls and Twilight inside the chamber, clearly imagining how that conversation must have gone. “It went that badly, huh?” she concluded aloud, her tone gloomy.

“I spoke with changelings who said they could hear the shouting as far as dozens of rooms away, Trixie,” Rainbow answered critically. “Even further if you count the fact they can do that sense-your-feelings thing.” She glanced in at Twilight herself. “But from what we’ve heard…it was at least over quickly.”

Starlight snorted. “That’s not very comforting if it still left her in this state,” she noted aloud. “Haven’t any of you tried to comfort her?”

“We all wanna, sugarcube, but she won’t let us enter the room either,” Applejack reported gravely. “She’s determined ta keep herself isolated like this, the poor girl.”

“Hay, I even tried flying in there at top speed, to get to her before she could do anything,” Rainbow explained. She sighed herself. “But she just teleports me back out of the room every single time before I can even lay a hoof on her, and all without even turning around!”

“Though, we’re hoping that since they’re so close, Princess Celestia might have better luck once we find her,” Fluttershy continued. “I mean…if Celestia asked to come in…Twilight wouldn’t dare oppose her…would she?”

Trixie was watching Twilight through the doorway and noting how oddly still she was being. “I don’t know,” she said to the others with grave skepticism. “With how much grieving she’s clearly trying to do in there, I don’t know if even that’s going to make much difference.”

“Oh, don’t be such a party pooper,” Pinkie Pie declared as she suddenly rounded the corner and trotted up to the group, Princess Celestia trailing behind her. Unlike the others, Pinkie still seemed to be a little optimistic. “Besides, look who I found!”

“Princess Celestia,” Starlight greeted, giving the princess a respectful nod of her head, the others following her example.

“Hello Starlight Glimmer, everyone,” Celestia replied back in her usual polite manner, returning the nod to the group, but it seemed half-hearted. “How are you all holding up, in light of…recent events?”

Starlight gazed at the face of the princess and saw not even Celestia was in the best of spirits. “By the looks of it, not much better than you, Princess,” she noted then, thinking about it, quickly added, “no offense.”

“Absolutely none taken,” Celestia assured her quickly as she turned to gaze through the chamber doorway at Twilight but without moving closer than she already was. “Given the circumstances, I think we’re all excused to not be in the best of spirits right now.”

“If I may ask, princess, where were you?” Rainbow asked while they allowed Celestia the chance to survey the situation. “We’ve been looking for you everywhere.”

“As I always seem to be, in a meeting,” Celestia replied as she studied Twilight within the room, but for the moment did nothing to enter. “A few changeling representatives and I were discussing what the future will be bringing for all parties involved in today’s events when Pinkie Pie found me.”

“They were talking about what the changelings were going to do without a clear leader,” Pinkie offered matter-of-factly for the reference of the others.

“Right,” Trixie remarked aloud suddenly, as if she hadn’t thought of this before now. Given the day’s events, it was quite likely she hadn’t. “I suppose they are a bit lacking there right now, aren’t they?”

“We will work something out,” Celestia promised, but then nodded her head towards Twilight. “I trust she has been in here doing little else since, yes?”

“Other than keep us out, yeah, or at least so far as we know,” Applejack confirmed. “Ah take it Pinkie Pie filled ya in already?”

“Yes, and decided this was far more pressing,” Celestia explained, approaching the door so to address the pony within but stopping just shy of crossing through it. “Twilight? May I come in?”

They waited with baited breath for a reply from Twilight. She was in no hurry to respond, but eventually she did. “I’d rather you didn’t, princess,” she said softly, again without turning to face them.

The others exchanged worried glances at this, but Celestia resolutely stood at the door for just a second longer before entering anyway. Twilight, thankfully, made no protest or took any action to stop her. Nonetheless, Celestia stopped and seated herself a respectable distance from the grieving alicorn, still giving her some space.

“Speak your mind, Twilight,” she urged softly.

Twilight could be seen shaking her head. “That wouldn’t be a good idea right now, princess,” she replied.

“I can understand that,” Celestia said patiently, shooting a brief glance at the others still watching and listening from the doorway. “But bottling it up won’t help you either, Twilight, and we’re all very concerned for you right now.”

“Don’t be, princess,” Twilight retorted. “What has befallen me, I’ve only brought down upon myself.”

“Twilight,” Celestia continued, frowning slightly at this comment. “I want to make this absolutely clear. You didn’t make Chrysalis kill him anymore than the rest of us. That was her choice, her actions, not yours.”

“With all due respect, princess, I can’t see it that way, because I still got the ball rolling for it.”

“Well I don’t, and so do others. Even most of the changelings seem to put the blame for Thorax’s death on Chrysalis rather than you.”

“Then if she’s really to blame, why was Starlight so quick to offer Chrysalis the chance to reform?” Twilight challenged back.

Questioning gazes turned to Starlight at this, as Twilight wasn’t the only one wondering this. Starlight shuffled her hooves sheepishly under the pressure and for a moment wasn’t sure how to reply. “Well…” she began finally, looking at her mentor even though she still had her back turned to them, “…I guess because if I didn’t, then that would have made me no better than her, wouldn’t it? Chrysalis couldn’t forgive…but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t as well.” She paused, studying Twilight for a moment and suspecting why Twilight brought it up. “Do I really need to say you still have precisely the same opportunity too, Twilight?” she asked. “Because, for the record, you absolutely do, no matter what you have done, or think you’ve done.”

Twilight snorted at that. “That’s easier said than done,” she grumbled. She bowed her head, curling up on her body slightly as if she had been physically wounded. “Because of my actions, I’ve turned lives upside-down and alienated others…some who had once been very close to me. And someone’s still died from this that didn’t need to. Hay, I nearly started a war with the dragons over this, didn’t I? It’s a lot of bad things to even think about tackling, much less forgive. Right now…I’m feeling like the real villain in all of this.”

“Did Spike tell you that?” Fluttershy asked, worried.

“He didn’t have to,” Twilight replied simply. Though they still couldn’t see her face, they could still see her turning distant. “He just reminded me of my many sins in all of this.”

Celestia glanced back at the others for a moment, starting to get an idea how the falling out between Twilight and Spike had gone. “And what do you plan to do about those sins?” she asked the other princess, turning back to look at her.

“Accept them,” Twilight concluded simply. She shrugged her shoulders limply. “I should’ve done so long before now.”

“Do you intend to just let them weigh you down then, or do you have any plans to try and correct those sins?”

“Correct them?” Twilight snorted as if finding the idea ridiculous. “You do realize the full scope of what it is that I’ve done, right princess? Everything I have done for the past four moons was wrong, completely and utterly…and I’ve greatly hurt my closest of friends in refusing to stop, again and again until it built up to the point that, today, I think it caved in upon itself from the weight.”

A moment of silence fell as Twilight’s bitter words sank in. “Well, that’s gloomy,” Pinkie observed, sounding disappointed.

“My point is that my crimes aren’t just going to go away,” Twilight concluded.

Celestia paused to choose her words carefully before replying. “Overcoming those sins will take time, as will regaining the trust of those that have been wronged at any time in all of this,” she calmly agreed. “I won’t deny that, because that is the truth. But the truth is also that they won’t ever stop weighing down on your conscience unless you take the steps to make amends, Twilight.”

Twilight shook her head. She still hadn’t turned around. “You really think that’s even an option still, don’t you, princess?” she asked aloud, in an oddly contemptuous tone.

Celestia didn’t like it at all. “It isn’t going to go away or be surmounted overnight, certainly,” she stressed, moving her hoof to rub Twilight’s shoulder reassuringly. “But the healing you surely must know you need can’t happen at all unless the steps towards it are taken…but right now it seems to me you won’t even try.”

“Forgive me if I’ve been wallowing in my grief too much to even consider it, princess,” Twilight replied, her voice thick with cold sarcasm. “Let’s just say…I had my eyes opened up to reality today…and it sort of…crushed my soul in the process, you know?”

Celestia didn’t reply to that right away. “Twilight,” she began patiently. “What happened between you and Spike?”

Twilight was silent for a long moment, clearly not wanting to. She still hadn’t turned around. “How’s Cadance doing?” she asked suddenly instead, changing the subject.

Celestia suppressed a sigh at Twilight’s shirking but still relented and answered the question. “She’s doing fine now,” she assured. “The changelings were kind enough to treat and bandage her leg accordingly, and she will come out of the event no worse for wear. Last I checked, she was with Shining and her daughter.” She paused to gauge Twilight’s reaction for a moment. “Cadance doesn’t blame Spike at all for clawing her leg.”

“Of course not,” Twilight agreed morbidly. “Who could blame him for wanting to do that after everything that’s happened?”

“I remain quite convinced that it was entirely an accident and that his intention was merely to push her away, not hurt her,” Celestia reminded. “It didn’t come up when I spoke with him earlier, but nonetheless, I was left impressed afterwards that he wasn’t even aware he had done it, his grieving for Thorax being so fierce at the time.” She went quiet for a moment then moved the subject back to the topic at hoof. “I know things did not go well when you tried to speak with him yourself.”

“Yeah,” Twilight replied, and her head visibly drooped in shame. “I don’t know why I bothered…he obviously hates me now.”

Celestia took a deep breath and moved herself a step closer to Twilight. “He lost a good friend today, Twilight,” she reminded. “His emotions are of course going to be running high, so he may…”

“No,” Twilight interrupted, persistent. “He hates me. And he has every reason to. After what I’ve done to him, why would he do anything else?” A sob was heard escaping her. “I messed up too badly this time, princess. So I’ve only brought this down upon myself…and I deserve every bit of it.”

“Twilight Sparkle,” Celestia spoke sharply. “I will not listen to you berate yourself like this, no matter the circumstances. I am not here just so to give you the justification to hurt yourself further, I am here to try and help you get through this however necessary.” She reached out with one hoof for the smaller pony. “Twilight…please turn around so we can talk about this properly.”

Twilight at first made no motion to respond. But finally, she relented, and while keeping her ashamed gaze lowered, she slowly repositioned herself to face Celestia and, by extension, the doorway in which the others were all gathered and watching.

By doing this, she also revealed the rivulet of dried red blood running down the left side of her face from an unsightly gash on her upper temple.

Some of the others gasped, and Fluttershy, despite not being invited in, abruptly bolted into the room and hurried up beside Twilight so to look the thankfully no longer bleeding wound over. “What happened, Twilight?” the yellow pegasus demanded.

Twilight’s eyes were dejected and distant as she half-heartedly answered. “Spike threw a rock at me.”

The others exchanged concerned glances at this. As Twilight did not object Fluttershy’s entrance into the room, the others started to file in as well.

“I can’t see Spike meaning to do deliberate harm like that, Twilight,” Rarity noted gravely as she moved to stand beside Celestia. “As angry as he may be, he’s still never really been one to be recklessly violent like that.”

“It’s true, though,” Twilight persisted dimly, leaning her head slightly away from Fluttershy’s probing hooves as she worked to ensure the gash at least wasn’t going to need serious attention.

“That still doesn’t mean he intended to do it,” Rarity persisted back.

“Why wouldn’t he have?” Twilight replied, continuing to be defeatist about it.

“Twilight,” Applejack interjected sternly, not willing to stand for this. “Trust me, when ya git ta grievin’ as hard as he’s doin’ right now, it can git real easy ta stupidly let yer emotions take control and act without thinkin’.” She spoke with a voice of experience.

Unfortunately, it was lost on Twilight. “He knew what he was doing when he did it,” she still assured.

Applejack again moved to object, but Celestia calmly stopped her with one hoof, seeing nothing to be gained from arguing it. “Nevertheless,” she remarked in a collected tone, “what’s important now is that we’re here to remind you that no matter what, it is gravely important that you do not give up on yourself over this.”

“Too late,” Twilight said with finality. She then closed her eyes again, fighting back tears. “Besides, that’s only half the matter…Spike isn’t in a good place right now,” she turned ashamed once more as her tears renewed themselves. “No thanks to me.”

“So we fix it,” Pinkie concluded simply. “And we make it up to Spike.”

“Ah hate ta be a buzzkill, Pinkie, but Ah think it ain’t gunna be that simple,” Applejack responded gravely. “And ’sides…” the apple farmer looked at Twilight. “Let’s not kid ourselves…it ain’t us that he has issues with.”

A heavy silence fell upon the group as Twilight averted her gaze, ashamed.

Then, unexpectedly, Trixie pushed her way to the front the group. “What did you say to him, Twilight?” she asked her longtime rival, breaking a long period of silent listening.

Twilight shifted her gaze onto Trixie, surprised. “To Spike?” she repeated to confirm. Her expression immediately turned guilty. “All of the wrong things, obviously.”

“But what were they?” Trixie pressed, looking for details. She gazed at Twilight with an expression that was partly serious and partly sympathetic. “Did you try to apologize for what you did?”

Twilight averted her gaze again. “…no,” she admitted reluctantly.

“Twilight,” Rarity gasped, shocked.

“I know, I know, it should’ve been the first thing out of my mouth, but…” Twilight shook her head, tearing up but too angry at herself to shed them. “It’s just—my brain locked up, and…he…he caught me off guard, immediately blaming me for killing his friend, and…”

“Wait, you?” Applejack interrupted here. “But we have no idea if Thorax wouldn’t have still died even if ya—”

“Shh, let her finish,” Trixie interjected, cutting Applejack short while listening intently to Twilight’s words.

“The point is that he blamed me for everything,” Twilight continued miserably. She began to nod her head in agreement. “And…frankly…he’s entirely right to. I should’ve just let him.” Her nod transformed into a shake. “But instead…I tried to defend myself…and stupidly tried to pin the blame on him instead.”

Even Celestia’s eyes widened in surprise at this. “Twilight…” she breathed. “Why in Equestria would you do such a thing to him and at a time like this, no less?”

“You see?” Twilight suddenly snapped, whipping her head up to stare them all down. “Even when I had my one chance to try and make amends, I blew it! I should’ve gone in there begging for forgiveness, and instead I kicked him while he was down, insulting him and his friend on top of that! Obviously, I still can’t see the truth, I still can’t learn!” Her voice gradually grew into a roar. “I chased Spike away needlessly, forcing him to risk his life for nothing just because I was too stupid to see that I was completely and utterly WRONG! Spike’s never going to forgive me for that, and right now I don’t think I want him to! I don’t deserve forgiveness even if I somehow still could because after everything I’ve done, WHO WOULD FORGIVE SOMEONE LIKE ME AT THIS POINT?”

A heavy silence fell upon the group, staring as Twilight sat there panting and quietly sobbing to herself.

“Thorax would’ve.”

All eyes turned to Trixie. Twilight stared at her as if she had grown a second head.

“He’s dead,” the alicorn pointed out bitterly.

Trixie frowned. “I haven’t forgotten,” she replied darkly. “But if he was still alive…he would’ve.”

Twilight just continued to gape at her. “Not that it matters now, but why would he do that?” she demanded.

At this, Trixie simply shrugged. “That’s just who he was, Twilight,” she whispered. “He…he liked to see the good in everyone…liked to think every wrong could be made a right if we just tried.”

“That’s hardly realistic,” Twilight argued.

Trixie wasn’t swayed. “Is it? Have you even tried to right your wrongs?”

Twilight responded by closing her eyes and turning her head away. “Can I even?”

“Seems clear to me you want to, or else would you even be this worked up over it?”

“Does it matter what I want right now, Trixie?”

“Absolutely. Because speaking as a mare that got everything she has now because she wanted it badly enough to earn it, where there’s a will, there is a way.”

“It’s a bold philosophy, Trixie…but I just can’t believe it until I actually see it happen.”

“So you’re basically saying you’re just going to give up on yourself until someone actually forgives you for this?”

Twilight thought about it for a moment. “…I guess I am.”

Starlight interrupted the discussion by placing a hoof on her friend’s shoulder. “Trixie, where are you going with this?” she asked.

Trixie looked at her for a moment, then at the others. She lowered her gaze, biting her lip. “It’s just…it’d be all too easy to blame Twilight for everything and basically crucify her for it without anybody complaining…”

“Gee, thanks, Trixie,” Twilight grumbled sarcastically.

“But…” Trixie continued, “…if we did that…would it really prove we’ve learned anything?”

The others stared at her blankly. “What are you getting at?” Pinkie asked, confused.

“Look, this all began because we refused to forgive a changeling, right?” Trixie asked. She waited until the others slowly started to nod their heads before continuing. “Because we didn’t think it realistic that a changeling would want to try and change, right?” Again, she received confirming nods. “We all know better now, or at least I hope we do, but…if we forgive someone like the changelings, only to turn around and refuse to do so for someone else, like Twilight here, then aren’t we just…being hypocrites? Why is one grave enemy deserving of forgiveness when the other isn’t?”

The others stared at Trixie for a long moment, surprised by her providing this potent thought. “She has a point,” Starlight finally agreed. She looked back at Twilight. “That was part of what Thorax was all about.”

“I know, he told me, and I think the best way to honor his memory is to follow his example,” Trixie continued seriously. “Especially if it means forgiving those we might not want to.” She focused her gaze on Twilight and approached the mare. “Thorax and I were close, Twilight,” she stated bluntly, which earned her a few surprised glances as not everyone in the room was aware of this yet. “And like Spike…his death cuts me very deep. I very much want to blame someone and hate them for all eternity for taking that wonderful changeling away from me.” She heaved a heavy sigh. “But I also know that would mean letting the example he taught me go in one ear and out the other…and that just seems…totally dishonorable to him, and to me…because I know I can do better. I want to do better. I’ve already been trying to do better.” She stopped to lick her lips. “So before I do anything else, I think I gotta do this, for the good of both of us.” She took a deep breath. “You know I’ve made stupid mistakes too, and you, Twilight Sparkle, haven’t ever really forgiven me for it. That’s long been frustrating for me, trying to do all I can to earn that forgiveness and never being good enough for it in your eyes, to the point that, on top of all of this now, I’ve long held a grudge against you over that. But I’m seeing now that, maybe, if I really ever want to have any chance of getting your forgiveness…I need to show you the same courtesy, and since you seem to think you need someone to forgive you in order to spur you to do the rest, well…I guess it’s obvious what to do.”

Then, as what she intended was only just starting to sink in for everybody watching, Trixie stepped forward and gently took Twilight by both shoulders, looking her right in the eye. “I…I forgive you, Twilight Sparkle,” she said resolutely, with only a brief flicker of hesitation, “For everything.”

Twilight gaped at her for a long moment. “You don’t actually—”

“But I do,” Trixie assured seriously.

“But why?” Twilight breathed, not understanding.

“Because Thorax would’ve,” Trixie pressed on, having somehow taken full control of the conversation, leaving the others standing to one side and watching in awe. “In fact, he probably already had forgiven you, right on up to his death. And that’s the other thing you need to understand, Twilight. You…you acknowledge you messed up and misjudged him…but you still haven’t acknowledged who he was, what he did. He died, Twilight, saving your life. Despite everything you’ve done to abuse him, he gave himself up, so to save you. Doesn’t that suggest he thought you were still worth saving? He had already forgiven you, Twilight, but since he can’t be here to show it himself…I will.” She shook her head, her eyes watering slightly. “Oh, Thorax…I regret you never got to know him like I did, Twilight, like all the rest of us did…and maybe that’s your real problem right there. Everyone else here got to know him enough to know there was far more to him than what met the eye, but you haven’t, and now you’re never going to get the chance to, not like we have…and that’s a darn shame.”

“Where are you going with this, Trixie?” Twilight asked softly, breathless.

Trixie stopped to lick her lips again. “You want to make amends for you mistakes, right? Then I think the first thing you need to do is learn all you can about the changeling that had to suffer because of those mistakes. And to do that…I guess you’re going to need to talk to someone who knew Thorax, who can explain to you just who he was and why he needs to be cherished for having ever been in this world to begin with.” She gazed knowingly at Twilight. “Someone who would know him even better than me.”

Twilight’s face fell, understanding exactly who Trixie referred to. “I already tried. He won’t talk to me. You know that.”

“Maybe not now. But Thorax meant the world to him, and so did what he stood for. Sooner or later, Twilight…he’s going to remember that. And when it does…I’m willing to stake my reputation as the Great and Powerful Trixie that it’ll overpower his anger. It may not be tonight, tomorrow, next week, or maybe even next year…but it’ll come. Will you be ready for it when that time comes? Or are you only going to prove him right, show him you really aren’t repentant and that he doesn’t mean enough for you to even try?”

Twilight didn’t respond to that. Trixie, however, didn’t seem to expect a response as she instead took in a deep breath as she turned away from Twilight, slipping back through the shocked group and quietly sitting herself on the floor against the side chamber wall, closing her eyes and leaning her head back on its resinous surface. A heavy moment of silence hung in the room as Trixie’s words sank in.

Twilight, finally, broke the silence with a groan, leaning back her head too. “I do want to make it up to Spike,” she murmured aloud. “I really do…but I still can’t help but think he’s right. If he really meant what I always thought to me, I never would’ve let this happen in the first place. So I don’t know if I even deserve to try.”

The others turned their gazes back at her. “Then do nothing,” Starlight challenged abruptly.

“Starlight!” Rarity declared, shocked.

Starlight was resolute, though. “If you really think that, Twilight, then don’t do anything,” she declared. “If you really think you don’t deserve that chance to at least start trying to make amends…then ultimately, that’s up to you, not us.” She took a step forward. “Whether either of you can forgive the other isn’t what is important for right now anyway, because I think, regardless of whether or not it can be worked out…I don’t think either of you are going to find the closure you both need until you can talk it through properly…together. Not shout angrily at each other. But actually talk…figure out where you both need to be and what that means for the other. Otherwise neither of you will ever really know what could’ve been had you tried…and I speak with the utmost confidence when I say that would haunt the both of you forever.”

“Besides, Twilight,” Celestia spoke up suddenly, “could you really live with yourself if you let it end here? That the last things either of you said to each other were words of malice and hatred?”

Twilight closed her eyes wearily. “…no.”

“But…” Rainbow Dash interjected suddenly after a long moment of silence, looking uncertain, “…how can we really expect either of them to work this out, to any degree? I mean…I don’t wanna be all down on Twi or Spike, but…” she looked at Twilight knowingly, “…you are both still right about one thing.”

Twilight met Rainbow’s gaze and slowly nodded her head, understanding. “I messed up,” she summed up. “Big time. Worse, I’ve hurt Spike…then hurt him even worse when I failed to acknowledge it. I can’t just apologize for that and expect everything to be…to be…”

“Hunky-dory?” Pinkie offered, trying to be helpful.

“Exactly. It might as well have been me stabbing Spike instead of Chrysalis stabbing Thorax, I’ve hurt him that badly. That’s not going to just vanish…” she shook her head sadly. “…maybe that’s my punishment…the consequences of my actions…” she closed her eyes again. “And yet even that doesn’t feel like punishment enough.”

“Torturing yourself over this won’t help, Twilight,” Celestia warned gently. “Trust me…I’ve tried it before.”

Everypony knew better than to pry details from her on that.

Starlight sighed after a momentary silence. “Twilight, I don’t mean to downplay the seriousness of what’s happened,” she said. “And…I can’t lie. Knowing now what it was you said to Spike that led to that fight earlier…I honestly can understand why Spike reacted the way he did.” Twilight snorted at that, but Starlight didn’t acknowledge it and kept talking. “And Rainbow is right…it’s probably unrealistic for any of us to expect forgiveness, of any sort, to take place between you two any time soon. But Twilight…I think I know what your one mistake was. You let your feelings blind you to the damage of your actions because you feared for the safety of us all, most especially Spike’s safety, and you just didn’t show enough faith in trusting him judging for himself… so you acted as you thought you had to.”

“She’s right, Twilight, you became so focused on that fear that you never stopped to think that you didn’t need to fear,” Fluttershy added. “And…fear’s a powerful thing, so…in a way, I can understand why you failed to see that sooner.”

“That doesn’t make it right or justify it,” Twilight stressed. She averted her gaze in shame. “No matter how much I want it to.”

“No, it won’t, and that all said,” Celestia interjected, drawing Twilight’s attention back onto her, “there will still be many consequences that will follow all of this, not all of which I can even safely predict, and they will still be extremely trying for us all.” She raised Twilight’s chin with one hoof. “Are you going to be strong enough to face them yourself?”

Twilight looked at Celestia for a second then closed her eyes in shame. “No,” she decided.

“Then that’s why we’re here, sugarcube,” Applejack assured, stepping forward too. “Ta help pick up the slack and give ya the support ya need ta face ‘em.”

Twilight kept her eyes closed for a moment, breathing deeply. “I really don’t deserve that though,” she repeated. “Not after how much I’ve messed up.”

“We all messed up, Twilight,” Starlight stressed, the others immediately nodding in agreement. “We all could have done more sooner to prevent what happened, but at some point, we all voluntarily chose not to and instead further promoted a wrong, just like you did. Whatever penalties awaiting you are still awaiting us too.” She shrugged. “So we might as well all face them together.”

They fell silent as they watched Twilight mull upon all of this, anxiously awaiting her next response to this. Eventually, the purple mare focused her attention back on Celestia. “So what happens now, princess?”

Celestia took a deep breath. “Much of that is still to be decided,” she admitted first of all. “For right this moment, we will finish up the remaining affairs here at the changeling hive, assisting how we can. Once we return to Equestria, and by extension Canterlot, we will then sit down with the nobility and…we will discuss what needs to follow next.” Celestia bit her lip. “I won’t lie, Twilight…they will likely not go easy on either of us. But I will not let them or you assign the majority of the blame only on you for this, because it wasn’t just you who was at fault.” Her eyes turned sad as she looked over the grieving pony before her. “And as far as I am concerned, you have already suffered enough…so I think right now, you just need the chance to…try and make amends for your actions.”

“Make amends,” Twilight repeated to herself. She sighed. “Unfortunately, the one I really need to make amends with the most…died…and probably because I couldn’t trust him when I had the chance.” She shook her head. “Spike said it himself…I’m supposed to be the princess of friendship…I should’ve been the first to befriend Thorax…but not only did I not, I turned around and tried to demonize him just because…I didn’t want to be wrong. Clearly, I don’t know as much about friendship as everypony thought.”

A long moment of silence fell, the others all watching Twilight closely, wondering what she would say next.

“Princess Celestia,” she said, addressing the other alicorn directly, “I hereby offer my resignation as the princess of friendship.”

All eyes shot to Twilight in shock. Trixie, who hadn’t shifted from her spot since she had moved away, abruptly gasped. Celestia locked eyes with Twilight seriously, who resolutely returned the gaze, awaiting Celestia’s response.

“She can’t do that,” Rainbow remarked suddenly, pointing a hoof at Twilight. “Can she?”

“She can,” Celestia confirmed seriously. She looked Twilight directly in the eyes, who continued to return the gaze, undeterred. “But only if I choose to accept her resignation and allow it to be enacted.”

Already guessing what her response was likely to be then, Twilight immediately moved to press her case. “Princess, please,” she pleaded. “It’s only fair after how royally I’ve screwed up.”

“And you think I haven’t?” Celestia suddenly snapped back, startling Twilight into silence. “My poor choice of actions in all of this led us here just as much as yours simply because I, too, failed to see what was really going on sooner, so Thorax’s blood is just as much on my hooves as they are on yours. Should I resign as princess too, then?”

Twilight, surprised, started shaking her head. “No, of course not, because it wasn’t the same for you, you were only acting upon what little knowledge you were given, as you thought best…princess, this isn’t your fau—”

“Yes it is, just as much if not more than it is for you, Twilight.”

“Then fine!” Twilight concluded, frustrated. “Consider me on voluntary time off from all princess duties until further notice, because it doesn’t matter what all of you think about this, the fact of the matter is I just don’t feel worthy of being a princess right now, and if I don’t feel that, how can you expect me to perform the duties as needed?” She looked at all of them one by one. “Please…I need this. You don’t need to understand why. Just know…I need to do this so to work this out…maybe use it to try again and start over. I feel it’s the only way I can have any hope of…making any reparations in the end, big or small.”

Celestia sighed. “I’m not going to talk you out of this then, am I?” she asked. As Twilight shook her head, she mulled upon the matter for a second. “Then we will leave it to the courts to have the final decision on that,” she concluded. “We will not be able to avoid them regardless, so we might as well postpone a ruling on this matter until then anyway. In the meantime, though…I will respect your wishes in that I will consider you on…prolonged leave from princess duties. I am certain Luna and I will be more than willing and able to pick up the slack for now.”

Twilight nodded, finding that agreeable. “Thank you, princess.”

Another moment of silence fell, the group unsure what to say next.

“So what now?” Fluttershy finally asked.

“Well, what about Spike?” Pinkie suggested. She turned concerned. “At the very least, sounds to me like…like he could really use a friend to lean on right now.”

“Indeed, I imagine he would, the poor dragon,” Rarity agreed and turned to the others. “And now that Pinkie’s brought it up, I am starting to worry about him, especially as I believe the viewing for Thorax has ended and he could very well be all alone now. We should check up on him, try to give him support to…if he will permit it.”

“But we can’t all go,” Applejack objected and motioned to Twilight. “Twi needs our support too.”

“Don’t worry about me, Applejack,” Twilight assured dejectedly. “It’s not like—”

“Ya need it too, Twilight,” Applejack interrupted, refusing to let Twilight turn them away. She turned to the others. “We could split up. Some of us can go ta Spike, the rest will stay with Twilight here.”

Starlight rose to her hooves. “I’ll go,” she decided immediately, turning for the door. “I’m probably the one he’ll most likely allow to try, so I’ll drop in and check in on him, make sure he isn’t—”

“You will not be able to,” Princess Luna announced, interrupting as she abruptly entered the chamber to the surprise of all present.

“Luna!” Celestia declared, turning around to meet her younger sister. “I was unaware you had returned.”

“I had only just arrived back at the hive about a half-hour ago,” Luna reported as she joined the group, accepting a brief hug from Celestia. “But I am pleased to report that all is well in Canterlot and in Equestria on a whole, and that nopony there was hurt. It seems word quickly reached the changeling agents that Chrysalis’s attempted takeover had failed and as such, any changelings in the area appear to have already fled by the time I arrived, leaving most ponies not even aware such a takeover had been taking place.”

“Gotta give Chrysalis some props for getting that far and barely drawing any attention to herself in the process then,” Rainbow admitted in a grumble.

“But Ah don’t git it, if the changelings were all the way out in Equestria when the stuff here was goin’ down, then how did they know what had happened soon enough so to flee at all?” Applejack asked, sounding partly confused and partly concerned. “Did someone here at the hive somehow manage ta git word out without anypony noticin’?”

“Or could Chrysalis have somehow gotten to them first, trying to recruit as many followers still loyal to her as she can?” Starlight suggested, also sounding concerned.

“That would seem like best course of action left to her at this point,” Twilight mumbled aloud, who was showing enough concern to overlook her own grieving for a second.

“I cannot say,” Luna admitted. “Thus far, we have been able to uncover very few clues that could explain it. If Chrysalis was somehow involved, she was able to do so quite discreetly and without any detection by Equestrian forces at least. But even if she is, I would sooner expect her to go into hiding regardless, so to regroup and plan her next move, thus buying time for us to prepare if we need it. Regardless, I have already taken the liberty of informing changelings here at the hive of the matter, and have already been told they will investigate as they can. Meanwhile, the royal guards have been tasked with sweeping Canterlot Castle, the Crystal Castle, Twilight’s Castle of Friendship and other suspected locations of changeling infiltration for any clues, traps they may have left, or perhaps even any changelings that may be still lingering in the area.”

“Important question,” Trixie interjected here, raising a hoof as she approached Luna. “My wagon got left in Ponyville when escaping the changelings. Is it still intact and unharmed and, follow-up question, are the guards searching it too?”

“According to what the guard has told me, yes and yes,” Luna replied patiently. “And they will not harm any of your belongings in or out of said wagon, Miss Trixie.”

Trixie sighed, relieved. “Well, at least something has gone right today…”

“Do you think the royal guard will find anything?” Rarity asked, drawing Luna’s attention.

“Not especially, but I believe I speak for all of us when I say I would prefer to be certain first,” Luna concluded. “Now, all locations presently under investigation the guard have asked be kept vacated so to aid in their search, but once they give the all clear, we will all then be free to return to them at our leisure.”

“Then back to Spike,” Starlight said, bringing the subject back on topic. “You were saying we would not be able to visit him?” She turned concerned. “Why?”

“As my duties in Canterlot had prevented me from doing so sooner, upon my return here, I wished to take the time to pay my respects to the late Thorax, as I hope all of you have already done,” Luna began by explaining, her expression falling as she did so. “But I found the doors closed and was told young Spike has sealed himself within with Thorax. He will not permit entry for anyone now, not even the changelings.”

The others exchanged concerned glances. “What’s he doing in there?” Rainbow asked, not understanding why Spike would do this.

“What do you think, Miss Dash?” Luna replied sadly, looking at the cyan mare. “He is grieving…the only way he knows how. And right now he wishes to do so in privacy.”

“Far be it for me to do anything to disturb him and his wishes at this trying time,” Celestia remarked, “but in his emotional state, I fear what he may decide to do in such utter solitude with no one watching over him.”

“As do I,” Twilight agreed, rising to her hooves. “He’s been hurt enough already—I don’t need him doing something…reckless…on top of that.”

“I will see to Spike’s wellbeing until morning,” Luna promised the group as she turned for the door, though she did not elaborate on how she would keep that promise. “And I intend to intervene if I suspect he does choose any such ill-advised actions and stop him.” She nodded her head at Twilight especially. “You have my word on that. But until then, I feel it will be best to leave Spike be…give him the chance he needs to try and work through some of his feelings on his own. Besides…I do not believe he intends to do anything of the such to himself or others, he just wishes to mourn for his friend in peace. At the growing lateness of the hour, I suspect he will be falling asleep soon anyway. So I will go now and stand guard, and it is my hope that by morning, after some needed rest, he will be in a better position to proceed with whatever the next step should be for him.”

“And if he isn’t?” Applejack challenged.

“Leave that to me,” Luna vowed, giving them a final glance as she exited.

Author's Note

Whoo boy...this chapter was hard.

It was mostly because readers were...very divided...about where the story needed to go next. Worse, while I wanted to keep in mind reader input on the matter, in hopes of keeping the story believable, I had my own ideas on where I wanted to story to go next (of course) that I was finding wasn't always compatible with reader input, and so it was a real chore trying to find a nice balance between all of them that I was satisfied with. And it took a lot of reshuffling, rewriting, cutting out and inserting in and cutting back out and inserting back in to do it...but I think I've done it. At least I'm satisfied with it, and that's what really matters at the moment, I guess.

Half the things I was originally expecting to end up in this chapter ended up not getting there (Celestia originally had this whole speech talking about her own many past sins and how being a princess meant pushing past, learning from, and overcoming those sins), and that bit with Trixie was one of those moments that didn't make it. In fact, that one was probably the most turbulent. Originally, Trixie wasn't there at all, then she was, then she had that whole speech, then I cut it out, then I put it back in, then I debated cutting it out again. Ultimately, I left it in, because, dang it, there's just something powerful about what Trixie says and does here...especially as it's coming from Trixie, who, frankly, isn't known for being eloquent like that.

Only other thing I can think to say at this point is that I thought it kind of funny that, after what went down with Twilight last chapter, everybody seemed to straightaway assume that Twilight was never going to change. No, she always was going to, or at least start down that path, and she was nearly there already last chapter...she still just needed one final shove to get there.