He hated school with every fiber in his body, with every centimeter of his carapace and skin. In honesty, Veere would call it torture and a mistake that should've never been invented, but it was a thing. A pony thing. Besides, who needed to learn? Survival is all you need in this cruel and unfair world. He narrowed his eyes slightly as he slumped further into his seat during class, staring at the filly in front of him that had a snobby attitude. Ponies. He hated them.
"Bug," she'd say constantly, muttering it with such hatred that he could counter with his own bit of venom if he wasn't under careful watch by the teacher twenty-four-seven in case he tried to 'feed' or 'attack' her harmless foals.
Harmless? Physically. Verbally it stung him like his forced-dueling matches he would have to partake in every crescent, when his opponent's fangs tore through his flesh and injected such a paralyzing strike in his nerves like a death sentence...
Veere shook his head, growling to himself about how he was getting off topic. Nothing could shake his gaze from the orange filly with purple hair sitting across the room from him, staring at him as if he were an oncoming wave of death and terror and she was standing right in the center of it. It wasn't his fault his kind were keen to taking a pony's love, or even a life if necessary. They put us in this situation, Veere bitterly thought, crossing his arms and staring at the teacher as she gave her lessons to the students, casting an uneasy half-second glance to Veere every so often. We're forced to live like the brutes we were. Were.
He found himself getting the sniffles, and involuntarily swiping his arm across his nostrils to wipe it away. Like the blood from a fresh snout bleed..
Veere needed to stop such traumatic thoughts. Then again, he had lived through it, destined to become Drone 501. He always dreamed of walking around with a metal rod shooting a blue laser out of it, screaming about some Imperial faction he had no clue of, but merely thought it up on the spot. Yeah, he liked those memories.
"Veere? Veere!" The red shaded teacher called, breaking Veere of his rather random train of thought as he sifted himself back up, unfolding his arms as he leaned against the small counter he was given that was attached to his seat. "Yes, ma'am?" His voice was like gravel, rasp and deep for such his age.
"Can you answer ten times three?" The teacher asked, tapping a hoof on the chalkboard which held the math problem '10 x 3' written largely across it for those who couldn't read it from the back of the class.
Scanning his brain for an answer, he felt sudden shame for being so mentally behind in terms of education. Maybe that's why a year or so ago when his kind attacked they failed. He cleared his throat, staring uneasily among the judging glares and eyes of the colts and fillies, specifically the snobby filly and the orange one. He tapped his front hooves together as he stared at the counter, "I-I don't know it." Veere stammered, glancing away in a pathetic attempt to hide his shame for not knowing such a basic question.
The teacher's eyes softened, but he did not see it, and she glanced at the class, "Does anypony else know the answer?" The filly in front of Veere shot her hoof up, making his current attitude all the more sad when she answered confidently and abrasive, "It's thirty!"
He could not know how much emotion could be used in two words. A hint of jealously flared in his eyes as he leaned forward in his seat, folding his arms across the table as he dug his face into it. His tear ducts stung at him when the teacher gave a small smile and approved of her answer, before erasing the problem on the board and turning back around to continue the next lesson.
"Dumb bug," the filly before him hissed, "can't even solve a simple question."
"Sh-shut up." Veere muttered, his pupil-less blue eyes starting to gloss as she continue her silent verbal onslaught on the poor colt. "How'd you even get in here? You were probably too dumb to open the door that when Miss Cheerilee opened it she had to hold you up like a foal and carry you in your seat, because you're stupid."
Stupid..
Veere was.. stupid? Dumb? He shut his eyes in a weak attempt to block out the oncoming tears, and luckily that weak attempt managed to hold on. Huffing, he wiped his eyes of any stray tears and straightened himself, staring at the teacher who was explaining multiplication in the basics.
"When you multiply something, you copy it. For example, if I were to multiply, say, Scootaloo," Cheerilee said, pointing to the orange filly who was staring at the teacher blankly, "Since there's one of her, and I would like two, I use the problem one times two, and since two is multiplied by one once, there would be two Scootaloos here."
Back to zoning her out again. Well, he learned what multiplication was. The bare bones of it, anyways. The bell rung and kids went to the school playground, leaving Veere alone in his seat as he contemplated whether going outside or staying here until the final bell rung and he would be the usual last one out. He blinked, realizing he had blanked out for at least five minutes, realizing recess would be done in twenty minutes. Cheerilee stared at him with such genuine worry, he was beginning to hate her for such sympathetic feelings. Ponies are too mushy-mushy, Veere thought, a scowl forming, too soft.
"It's not right to be bullied, Veere." Cheerilee started off, pushing some papers off her desk to the side, "I know what you're feeling right now, and it isn't right at all."
What he was feeling? How could she know? She didn't know the constant judging stares, the whispers and the rumors that were spread about him. Carrying cooties, some sort of foal-only sickness. That was a thing? He didn't know. But apparently he held cooties. He bit his lip, a fang protruding out as Cheerilee continued, "Diamond Tiara will get a harsh talk about it. Listen, Veere, I care for you like I care for every colt and filly in here."
Now that was rich.
"If you're ever having an issue or in a bad pickle, I want to let you know that you can come to me for help. No matter what you think about me, I'm here for you." Cheerilee said, a small frown forming as she spoke more and more to Veere. He narrowed his eyes, thinking of it as some sudden sympathetic blockade that she stashed up to make him feel like he was safe. He wasn't.
Veere gathered his two books, math and science, planted them in his ragged rucksack and walked out to the playground. Now, the playground wasn't nothing special, two swing sets, some spinning thingies he had no clue were called, some plastic thing that swung one end in the air and the other down, and vice versa. There was a lot of ground though, and many toys and balls many groups of friends sat around with and talked to.
Adjusting his rucksack, he opened the door and walked down the wooden steps, ignoring each stare and whisper the foals were throwing at him. He sat at the spin circle thing and reached into a second bag, pulling out a poorly made daffodil sandwich. He took a bite, cringing at the taste as his teeth stung and screamed at him in pain. He had learned something about cleaning teeth, but how did you do it? Veere had no clue, and he didn't intend on-
Okay, that last bite really hurt. He cringed as he felt a fang jiggle and ache in pain at him silently as he took the bite. Teeth pain is harsh, he thought, swallowing the piece. Finishing his sandwich, he dangled his legs off the spin thingy. Something was to be thought of here, but at the current moment it wasn't anything he cared for. Not at the time, at least. Hopping off the spin thingy, he pressed on towards a dirt mound where he usually sat and watched the other colts and fillies play, but today was something traumatic and something he never knew of, but grew to hate instantly.
"BUG PILE!" A colt screamed, before the thunderous pounds of an entire horde of laughing and angry foals came rampaging at him like a bull who had seen red ten hooves away. He turned around, his eyes widened before he shielded himself, becoming violently crushed in a giant suffocating and blinding pile of colts and fillies who were crushing him and screaming in his ears, making him cry out in sudden pressure and pain, tears streaming down his cheeks.
Why does it hurt so much? I've faced so many worse things.. but it hurts so MUCH! Veere thought frantically, tears streaming down like a waterfall as he felt his body become numb on the left side, which was smashing into the ground. Eventually, they filed off him, leaving him cradling himself and crying like a foal who had just seen everything he knew evaporate before him. Laughter rang in his ears as he could make through blurry vision that one of the colts had picked up his rucksack and was emptying it out and tossing the sack on the floor, stomping on it as the foals around him cheered.
I hate ponies. I hate ponies. I hate ponies. I hate ponies. I hate ponies. Veere repeated, the more he said the more his mind screamed to attack, to unleash havoc upon these ponies, to give them the experience of an enraged Changeling. But his eye twitched, and nothing happened. His mind blanked, standing up and cutting their laughter off one by one as he just.. walked away. Not even Diamond Tiara's verbal harassment that followed him out of the school grounds stopped him.
He hated school, and he would have to come back tomorrow for another round of punishment. He never did notice the saddened glances of three fillies watching as he ventured out with a blank face and nothing he once had in his possession.
I hate ponies. He sniffed, his lips trembling as he walked away giving a silent sob to no audience but himself.
"Now, now, call me a villain, but is feeding off love really that bad?" Veere paced back and forth in his self-made shack, which was really rotten wood with "borrowed" tools that were hanging off the more sturdy wall as the sun peaked in through one of the uneven planks in the ceilings, the ground a complete brown. A single cot was in the corner along with a "borrowed" table nearby and an entire loaf of bread with daffodils and hay collected from farmsteads and the ground itself. He wasn't proud of his gathering, but it was good enough.
Veere stared at the stuffed bear leaning on the wall in front of him. "Rock, do you have a suggestion?" His voice as deep like a certain Riddick's, staring at the bear. His accent being Changinese had a firm emphasis on Equestrian syllables, forcing his dialogue to sound more slow and artificial. The bear lacked a response, staring at him. Veere frowned, his confidence wavering. He was talking to a toy for crying out loud! Veere had this much stupidity and mental capacity to speak to an inanimate object? He was stupid! Or was he? That pink filly's words echoed through his mind, it's venomous fang poised to strike his weak and crumbling insides that he could not repair no matter how many walls of steel and magic he could put in front of it, it was no use. That moment of realization struck him like the Drone Trainers across the cheek, and it hurt immensely. It stopped his train of thought and froze his nerves into place. Veere suddenly stopped, pulling his neck back and realizing the hilarity and pathetic aspect of this situation. His ears folded back and he collapsed onto his rump, grabbing his head and mumbling, "I'm not stupid, I'm not stupid.." It was his only solace to repeat those words. I'm not stupid. To think he was would be breaking Changeling pride itself without even doing anything as lifting a hoof, but opening your mouth.
Maybe he was. Or was he not? To be educated is to be smart, and if he's not educated, then he is stupid. But if he figured that out, does that make him dumb-smart? Or does that make him worthy to be educated? His brain rattled with intensity at these questions, clenching his teeth as the sun's yellow glow dulled to an orange, the sunset process beginning. Time blurred as Veere found himself tossing and turning as he held his head, trying his best to contemplate what he is feeling and thinking, his rage at lacking the knowledge and having so many questions but lacking any answer to scream at him overwhelming him as he turned the table over with the stuffed bear on it. It hit the dirt, the shack rumbling just a little bit as he screamed a feral screech, pounding at the floor and even as his bones and body ached, his mind still going into overdrive to figure such a trivial issue. Was he too stupid to be educated or too smart to be educated? Or can you be smart without education? Isn't that being what the ponies call 'booksmart'? What were these battles waging in his mind, these battles he could not explain or even control as the feelings of confusion and clarity fought an escalating battle that he could only watch in horror.
Words pierced him like a sword would to flesh, and he despised it. How did all these years he managed to exist he will never know. Perhaps his own kind were speaking about him as if he were also the menace. That he was useless, or dumb, or mentally behind! Tears struck at his ducts, unknowing of a brown colt's eye peeking through one of the boards. This war his mind waged was proving to be a detrimental loss and victory to both sides, exhausting all their stallionpower to keep it going in order to prove who was wrong and who was right. The suffering of so many mental stallions being torn apart and killed made a white vein appear in his eye, one by one. It was until his eyes looked like literal spiderwebs, a web that he could not escape and one that he could not overcome. Why was it so hurting?
Yes, he's seen death and murder, he was no stranger to it. But, of all things, why was he beginning to crumble at the aspect of so much invisible bloodshed being thrown about in his mind? He let out another screech, throwing the table into the wall as one of the boards collapsed, that entire side collapsing inwards on itself and forcing the weaker parts to join it's fallen brothers of turmoil. Time seemed to slow as he watched the boards and dust fly towards him at break neck speeds, threatening to crack his carapace and take his fragile life, as a moment of clarity washed over him.
To be smart is to be knowledgeable of your surroundings and adapting to them. Not to be taught what words were by a book or what something was by a writing on a wall. That was an illusion to think you were being smart. To be smart is to manifest that information and apply it to reality, to let it settle within your brain and allow it access to wisdom and knowledge, knowledge that everypony has, and each of it is different. They say the youngest turn the wisest at an early age because of their ability to take notice of their situation and analyze it; to glance around and question what was occurring. But something was tugging at him. If he figured this out now, why didn't he figure it out before?
Because it didn't trigger in his mind to unlock the knowledge until he questioned it.
At least, that's what he thought it was until his world turned black and the all too familiar stings of pain echoed throughout his being, but he took no mind to it. He had the satisfaction of overcoming this brief but traumatic war that only he could've won, and he did it by himself. Not that friendship nonsense those ponies always spoke about, not that kindness those ponies gawked and praised. He conquered his fears and inner turmoil by himself in a matter of thrashing about and potentially losing his life in the process. He bested the ponies, and if he could grin triumphantly and scream that he is leaving Ponyville, he would. Just keeping to himself will work out for the rest of his life.
