Six eyes stared back into Sandbar, unmistakable specks of glistening black among the forest of coarse tan hairs before him, and with nothing between the two of them but the plastic teeth of a comb held in his mouth. The hairy, bulbous body slipped into view quick as a whisper, carried on its eight spindly legs to climb onto the barrier just inches from his snout.
Sandbar sprang back a step. Futile, he knew, with the spider perched on the comb, but reflex got the better of him. And the spider did indeed come along for the ride. That was all it did, and all Sandbar could do was to meet its unerring gaze with his own as the thing paid no mind to the fall Sandbar nearly stumbled it into. Six pitch black spots like plates of glass that showed no concern, no threat, nothing at all.
The moment broke with a flutter of wings, and Professor Fluttershy landed next to him. She cooed and held out a hoof. “You’re a silly little thing, trying to sneak out with my students already. We still have two more classes today!” The spider climbed over to her leg, and she said, “Okay every creature, that’s it. Thank you all for searching. Enjoy the rest of your day!”
Yona craned her neck to look over to them. “Sandbar find spider?” Ocellus poked her head up and over Yona’s other flank with a second comb in her fangs, and Yona nodded to her. “Sandbar find spider!”
A sigh of relief washed over the classroom—Gallus and Silverstream drifting back down from the top of the bookshelves, other students turning away from their own searching—and Ocellus passed the pair of combs back to Cozy Glow. “Oh, I am so glad that’s over. If I never comb another yak in my life it would be too soon.”
Sandbar opened his mouth to respond, but lost his voice at the sight of himself reflected in her eyes. Her two eyes, glistening blue, as steady and unchanging as glass in their own right. Try as he might, no matter how long he stared into them, he could barely bring himself to look away without seeing a glimpse of the spider that was just on his snout.
“Do, uh,” Ocellus held her smile as best she could. “Do I look away first? Do you look away? What’s happening?”
He snapped out of his stupor and shook his head. “Nothing. Sorry, it’s just—nothing.” He watched Fluttershy carry her spider friend to the front of the classroom where he could see the strands of web caught in the sunlight with the rest of the spiders Fluttershy had brought for them. In all the time of the class, he had never thought to ask about all of them. Were they a family? A colony?
A hive?
“Hey!” Smolder called from the door. “What’s the holdup? We’re free!”
They joined their friends and went out to the school halls, Sandbar stealing glances at Ocellus along the way. He tried not to. He tried not to think about her the way he was, tried to forget the color of her eyes for a moment, but he failed spectacularly. They were blue. And nothing else. The spider’s six eyes were black instead, but they both still looked the same. There had been nothing inside them.
She wasn’t a spider, he told himself. She wasn’t a spider. Spiders couldn’t laugh at their friends’ jokes, or pace the class with their test scores. The thought was laughable. They couldn’t even take a test.
Could they?
Ocellus trotted ahead of the group to push open the doors of the school, and she held it for all of them, offering Sandbar a smile as he plodded past her. He tried to return it, but he was sure he couldn’t hide all the guilt he was feeling. He knew perfectly well how the word “bug” would sound to a changeling, but for the life of him he couldn’t get the connection out of his head. Leaving the school grounds didn’t help matters with the dragonflies skimming the surface of the water outside on wings just as translucent as hers.
Her hoofsteps lingered beside him for a time, but he kept his eyes studiously down on the dirt road until she gave up and pulled ahead of him again. He watched her pass and say something to Silverstream, the pair of them sharing a giggle, and it seemed he was the only one who had a care about the lesson at all. He grimaced to himself with a soft groan, as if the combination could force out what his care about the lesson actually was. Maybe he was just dreaming it. It wasn’t like Professor Fluttershy to single one of her students out, so it was just an accident he was trying to compare Ocellus, a friend, to a vermin like a spider.
Again, Ocellus darted ahead to open the door into Sugarcube Corner for everyone, but this time Sandbar missed meeting her eyes completely by frowning to himself. Professor Fluttershy may not have wanted to open one of her students to ridicule, but she certainly didn’t want her students thinking any of her creature friends were vermin either, like the lecture she had once given with Applejack about the fruit bats.
He thought back to that day in class. Kindness wouldn’t always come easy, Applejack had said, but the more they learned to respect any creature, the easier it would be.
Silverstream slapped him on the shoulder. “The one with the brownie chunks, right?”
“Huh?” Sandbar shook his head clear. “What? What’s up?”
She pointed to Mrs. Cake standing behind the counter, smiling at the group. “Your favorite is the milkshake with the brownie chunks in it, right?”
“Oh! Yeah, yeah it is.”
“Awesome! You guys sit down. Yona and me will get everything.”
Smolder had already taken a seat at their usual spot with a high-backed chair for her and seat cushions for the rest of them, and Sandbar eased himself down, trying to banish the doubt that the Cakes would extend the same courtesy to a muddy salamander from the river bank. Bugs were still making his head spin without worrying about things with actual backbones.
Was that the difference, he wondered, taking one more glance at Ocellus.
His luck ran out at last, as she stared straight back at him. “You’ve been quiet, Sandbar.”
“Sorry, I was just... thinking.”
Smolder smirked. “Oh man, no wonder it took you so long to speak up.” She held her knuckles out to Gallus, and he rapped his against them.
Ocellus narrowed her eyes at them, and she turned back to him. “Was it about today’s lesson? I like nature just fine, but I don’t think Professor Fluttershy really gives us that much to think about.”
Gallus blinked, and his smirk mirrored Smolder’s. “Poor Ocellus, not even thinking about what the Professors would think of her saying that.” He reached out to Smolder again.
Sandbar frowned at him. “That wasn’t a burn.”
“Let the dragon be the judge of that,” Smolder said, returning Gallus’ gesture. “What was the big deal though? She just brought in some spiders. We know there are spiders in the world that really like giving ponies flowers now.” She shrugged. “That’s it. What’s so important?”
“Well... it’s just that…” Sandbar scratched his head. “Look, she talks to animals, right? She says go left, they go left. They squeak and grunt, and she says a lot more than just ‘Good boy!’ The spiders too, not just dogs or cats or something. The one I pulled out of Yona walked right onto her hoof like it knew what she wanted. So are they as smart as we are?”
Gallus looked as if he desperately wanted to say something, but Ocellus drowned him out by drumming the table. “What you mean is, if they’re smart enough to understand us, if they can listen and talk,” she quirked an eye at him, “could they learn to read like we can? Or write?”
He shrugged. “What’s stopping them? They don’t seem too different from us now the way Fluttershy talks. Maybe they can learn math too.”
“Ha!” Gallus shook his head. “Knowing one fly in the web is better than none doesn’t take a brain to figure out. It’s just survival.”
Ocellus snorted. “But you can’t figure out that one night of not studying plus two more nights of not studying means you have to retake the test.”
Silence fell over the table, and Ocellus nervously glanced to each of them as it lingered on and on, sinking into her seat cushion every moment. Until Smolder reached across to offer her fist.
“Ooh, what did we miss? What’d we miss?” Silverstream bounded over to them, ever cheerful eyes more alight than usual.
“Nothing,” Gallus hurried to say. “Sandbar just thinks spiders are gonna take over the world.”
Yona stumbled along, bearing a tray of milkshakes between her horns. “Where spiders? Yak smash puny spiders!” She reared up and slammed back to the ground. “No take Yakyakistan! Or Ponyville! Or any friends’ home!”
Sandbar lunged for the wobbling tray before it tipped over. “Easy there, girl! I’m not saying anything about the world, just... I don’t know, what about Ponyville? Could spiders run a town? Could they figure out the post office and stuff?”
“Dude, I don’t understand the post office.” Smolder helped him lower the tray, and passed out the milkshakes across the table. “This letter goes to Canterlot, this one to the changeling’s Hive, wait no, that’s the wrong number. What’s the number for the changeling Hive again?” She pounded the next glass and slid it over to Sandbar. “What’s with all the numbers for every place? How many different hives full of changelings could there possibly be?”
“Seventeen,” Ocellus said.
Silverstream squealed over her. “I would love to see Spider Town! All the buildings would be made of web, and they’d be so sticky and soft you could lie on the walls and sleep on the ceiling! All the daddy spiders kissing the momma spiders goodbye and scurrying off to work,” she said, tapping her claws on the table as her hand moved along, only to clench them under her chin with another squeal. “Oh, those tickly legs on my fur! I wish I could see a pony sized spider!”
Gallus eyed Ocellus. “If the lady’s asking—”
“Veto! Just—no!” Sandbar coughed, and took a sip of his milkshake. “But she has a point. What’s stopping a spider from going to school with us if it can understand the Professors just as well?”
Silverstream gasped, her claws trembling. “C-could he carry his books like this?” she said, crossing her arms in an X across her chest, “while his other legs walk him around? And can he wear a visor? And can I call him Elle, for Eight Legs?”
“Uh, sure. Anyway, I’m just... curious, I guess.” He slumped down to rest his chin on a hoof. “I’ve been thinking about this since class ended. What makes us so different from spiders?”
Gallus glanced sideways to Smolder. “And you wondered why earth ponies weren’t trusted with wings and horns.”
“Burn,” she said, with another fist bump.
“It’s not funny,” Ocellus said. “Look at all of us. We can fly, breathe fire, change shapes... um,” she blinked at Sandbar and Yona. “Smash! We can hit stuff really hard too. And spiders can climb walls.” She shrugged. “What would one more species at school change?”
“But they’re spiders,” Smolder said. “They’re just little scrawny worthless things. What would they even add to school?”
“Ask Gallus,” Yona said. She slammed the table with a thunderous whoop, and thrust her forelegs overhead. “Yak best at burn!”
“Woo-hoo!” Silverstream stuck out a fist. “Bring it here girl!” Yona brought it—at full force—and the only sound louder than the crack of bones was Silverstream’s shrieks. She doubled over, clutching her wrist, and let out one more agonized squawk before forcing her old smile. “Wow!” She tapped one of her good fingers to her temple. “I am never doing that again!”
Gallus sighed and took hold of her injured hand, pressing his frosty glass to her wrist. “We don’t keep you around for your looks, doll.”
“Stop changing the subject,” Smolder snapped. She leveled a claw at Ocellus. “What do you think you could get from a spider? Could you draw any love from them today? Not even a whiff of any kind of emotion? What makes them anything like a pony?”
Ocellus fidgeted, and her wings chirped a soft note. “I-I didn’t think to try that in class. I don’t know.”
Smolder grinned, leaned back, and swirled a finger in her milkshake to scoop some of it out, letting it drip into her mouth.
Sandbar wasn’t finished yet. “What if there weren’t any ponies around? What then?”
“Us dragons would swoop in, snap off all those gold spikes you have up in Canterlot—you’re just asking for that one, by the way—and pillage and plunder every city, village, dell, and bank you ponies have got. You probably shouldn’t have told us about the banks.” Smolder scratched her chin. “Then we would turn on each other, fighting over and stealing all the loot back and forth until it all ends up in the Dragon Lord’s hoard. ‘Swhat we do.”
“Well, yeah,” he said over the chuckles around the table. “But I meant, like, there were never any ponies? No Equestria? What if we stayed frozen in the Hearth’s Warming cave or something? I don’t know.”
Gallus’ eyes widened. “Ooh, this got weird. What lived in Equestria before ponies?”
Sandbar shrugged. “Spiders? A lot of things. Maybe something would have grown up to pony size over the years like Silverstream wanted.” He frowned and glanced at Ocellus. “Maybe the changelings would have taken over?”
She scrunched her face in thought. “I... don’t... think so. If there weren’t ponies here, there wouldn’t be any love around. I don’t know much about the early days of the Hive, but Dad says we were always going to live with ponies like this one day.” She pondered her body for a moment. “Maybe not this this, but something. We conquer the ponies, or they conquer us, he says something was bound to happen. We couldn’t just ignore that much love, but without it, we wouldn’t have a reason to come to Equestria.”
Silverstream bowed her head. “Aw. I’d be down two friends.”
“Three, probably,” Gallus said. “The first griffons that settled here from the Great Eyrie were traders. No ponies, no cities, no trade.”
“So no gold either,” Smolder said. “That’d leave nothing here for us dragons to hoard except grass and leaves. Which means—” She slapped Yona on the back. “Equestria’s all yours. Nothing could stop the yaks from charging down the mountains and taking over.”
Yona brushed her off. “Why you think that? What stop yaks now? Yaks stop yaks! Yakyakistan perfect. Why we leave?”
Sandbar raised an eyebrow. “Yaks don’t go exploring? You’d just sit up there in the snow for thousands of years and never even wonder where the birds go when they fly south?”
She shook her head emphatically. “Yakyakistan perfect for yaks, and yaks perfect for Yakyakistan. Yak travel, but home is home.”
Silverstream let out a short moan, clasping her claws over her head. “Now I really don’t have any friends. I’ll have to find seashells for all of you. You guys are turning me into Skystar!”
Gallus rolled his eyes. “You don’t get what we’re talking—” He blinked and cocked his head to the side. “Wait, seashells? What do seashells have to do with anything?”
“That’s one of our traditions!” Silverstream bolted upright, beaming immediately. “Even before we lived under Mount Aeris it was still an island, you know? Whenever a hippogriff left us they would bring a seashell home first for their family to keep until they came back.” She chuckled to herself. “Skystar went a little crazy after we hid from the Storm King. It was just us and us alone under the waves, so she thought the shells that she found were actually beings. She talked to them and everything!”
Ocellus shuddered. “Now that’s weird to think about.”
Silverstream whirled a claw pointed at her head. “Like I said, crazy.”
“No, that’s not what I meant. Living alone like that. I mean—” Ocellus rubbed her snout and looked at Sandbar. “I always knew about ponies growing up. Even though I never left the Hive I knew there was something else out there. Everyone said it was dangerous to be near them until I was ready to deceive them, but it was something for me to think about.” She went around the table, staring at each of them. “What if... what if we were alone under the waves like that? No dragons? No griffons? Nothing for us to talk to and understand except our own kind?”
Gallus’ blank stare drifted into a grimace. “I’d have to deal with nothing but griffons the rest of my life?”
“No,” Sandbar said. “Your whole life. Not the rest of it. Everything up to now would be nothing but griffons. Nothing but ponies. Or dragons.” The silence that came over them this time was nearly visible. It passed around the table face by face, first Gallus sinking into a hunch with his wings threatening to bunch up and cover his head. Then Smolder narrowed her eyes as she stared into space. Even Ocellus become more forlorn as her idea came back around to settle on her.
He understood their trepidation. The Hearth’s Warming reference he made, it was a time the ponies nearly destroyed themselves. He didn’t have to wonder what the dragons would have done in such a situation thanks to Smolder’s answer earlier. The changelings as well, even the griffons in their own way, had lived by taking from others. What they would have done with no one else to take from would be anyone’s guess.
Silverstream let out a sing-song tone barely over a whisper, “I’m going to need more seashells...”
A round of giggles followed, and Ocellus said, “At least you can hear the ocean in a seashell. You might as well carry some with you. It’d be a change of pace after dealing with every single being you meet from coast to coast, mile after mile, that’s just like you. That’s creepy.”
“Eh.” Smolder pondered the thought a moment longer. “Still not as creepy as the seashell thing. What, are you gonna hang them around your neck or something?” She clutched at her chest, gave a lopsided grin, and bounced her head side to side as she said, “Hi guys! It’s me again. How are you? I’m good. Fat lot of help you were on the test last week. You say you’re the smart ones, but you couldn’t tell me the answers like I asked?”
“W-well why not?” Ocellus asked, fighting to keep her grin under control. “A species has the whole world to itself, climbs the mountains, crosses the seas, swims the rivers, explores the caves, and they’re the only ones they can find to talk to? That can’t be right! Can you imagine how lonely that would be?”
Gallus huffed. “Lonely my tail feathers. If they had the whole world to themselves they wouldn’t be like us. There wouldn’t be guys like the Storm King running around. Griffons don’t like each other, but we still don’t go to war with each other. We leave each other alone.”
“Familiarity breeds contempt,” Ocellus said with a shrug.
Sandbar nodded with her. “Look at Applejack and Rainbow Dash. If every being in the world was like them we’d be in trouble.”
Silverstream blew a raspberry at him. “If they couldn’t get along with each other they could just go to separate corners of the world. Why would everyone waste time fighting over something when everything is open for them? How hard would you have to try to screw that up?”
“There’s only so much of everything to go around, of course.” Gallus smirked at Sandbar. “Sorry pal, but only ponies with stars on their butts are allowed to swim at this beach. You have to go to the other beach down the road.”
“What do you mean?” he said, stifling a laugh. “My cutie mark is literally the ocean!”
“Too bad,” Smolder said, jerking a thumb over her shoulder, “Take a hike. We don’t want your kind here.”
“B-but we’re the same kind!” Sandbar shot back to peals of laughter. “Gallus, buddy, can’t you put in a word for me here? Come on, we’re the only guys in the group. We gotta stick together!”
Silverstream gasped. “That’s right! We outnumber you!” She playfully shoved Gallus away. “Go with your little pal! This is our beach now. There are more of us, so that means we’re stronger than you. We deserve the most of everything!”
Smolder pounded the table until she got herself under control. “I-I’m out here every day clawing through mountains to find gems for our tribe, and you scrawny males can’t even get dinner ready before I come home? Shun the males!”
Silverstream pumped a fist in the air. “Shun them!”
“SHUN!” Yona roared.
Ocellus slapped a hoof to her mouth to ride out her hysterics. She met everyone’s expectant gaze with a fang-baring grin. “What? What is it?”
Gallus erupted in spittle. “Don’t mind her. She’s just out there in the woods every day, looking for that thing like us. We can’t be alone, right?”
Sandbar grinned. “No way, I’ve seen it! It looks just like us, except, you know, bigger. And hairier! And it flew away on an airship like we have too! The truth is out there, my dude, the truth is—”
Ocellus swatted at him. “Now I can’t help but wonder how many ponies made jokes like that about changelings over the years. Sure there are griffons and minotaurs and the like, but black and shiny ponies with holes in their legs? That’s just too much!”
Smolder chuckled, shaking her head. “World’s a crazy place, huh? I guess that’s why we’re here though. Change the world one being at a time.”
“Welcome to Princess Twilight’s School of Mutual Contempt,” Gallus said, grinning. “Learn to stop misunderstanding each other and hate each other that much more instead.”
Silverstream beamed. “I hate you guys!”
Yona raised her glass. “Yak spit on ground you all walk on!”
