Thorax let out a royal-sized yawn. Being a king sure wasn’t kind on one’s sleep schedule.
“Alright, Vector. What’s on the itinerary today?”
The checklist he’d been addressing adjusted itself, allowing a face less rectangular than his to peek over. Vector, his secretary, had carapace the colour of moss and a worried frown on her muzzle. “Your Lordship?”
Thorax cringed. Whenever somepony used that exact expression, it meant he’d said the wrong thing. He’d been hearing those two words quite often as of late. “We just finished going over the itinerary,” she said. “Is everything alright? Do you need a break?”
“Yes, and no, thank you,” Thorax replied, “not that we’d have the time for one anyway.” He pointed at the checklist in her hooves.
Well, at the part she was holding, at least. The fully unfurled scroll circled around the hotel room one and a half times before rolling out the door. “Let’s just go over it one more time.”
Vector nodded and buried herself nose deep in parchment again. “At seven—that’s in half an hour, your highness—you’re to hold a speech to the new nymphs[1]. Your eight o’clock we have your correspondence, with the Crystaller in particular wanting to arrange a meeting of ‘mutual benefit’ in the near future[2]. Your brother has scheduled a meeting to go over the renewed defense plan for the Badlands at nine[3], and finally, at ten, you have a meeting with Count Sphincter of the Whitetail.”
[1] Thorax stiffened. He hated public speaking.
[2] In plain Equestrian: Sunburst had caught Thorax nibbling on the Crystal Heart and was now blackmailing him into babysitting Flurry Heart. Lovely.
[3] Again?!
“Sphincter?!” Thorax moaned. “But he’s a plothole!”
Vector tittered. “Your highness, behave.”
“Doesn’t make it any less true.”
Vector shook her head yet failed to shake off the blush on her cheeks. “Furthermore, I’d scheduled a lunch with the Princess of Friendship at eleven, but she had to cancel due to a ‘Friendship problem.’” Vector glanced at the Great Wall of Parchment. “I say we go over the rest then.”
Thorax let out an annoyed chitter[4].
[4] Owing to the isolated location of the Badlands, the changelings have evolved to have an intricate larynx. Their language followed suit. According to our in-house translator, this particular expression roughly translates to: ‘I would rather get run over by a herd of incontinent buffalo.’
“I thought throwing Chrysalis out would make us all free of reign. Why do I have to be the King?!” Thorax massaged his temples and almost speared his forehooves in his antlers in the process. “I wish I could get away from it all, even for just a little while.”
The sound of his secretary clearing her throat made him jump.
“Well, your Lordship...” Had they had any fur, Thorax knew the hairs on his would have stood on end. “There is that one other issue. No-ling will hold it against you if—”
Thorax was almost out the door, however.
“So about them new nymphs, huh?” He chuckled nervously. “You know what they say: ‘they grow up so fast’? Best not be late.”
Vector let go of her list and was out of the room before it even hit the ground.
The Ponyville Hotel may not have been much, but at least it was worthy of its name. The tapestries were of the cheapest cellulose, and their colour only made you question your sanity if you looked at them for too long. Obviously, the proprietor must’ve thought the building would soon get destroyed anyway—this being Ponyville and all—since they had elected to skimp out on any form of carpet, among other things.
Thorax heard his secretary’s hoofteps too late and failed to pick up his pace sufficiently. When his eyes, roaming around the all-too distraction-free corridor, accidentally landed on Vector’s, the mare didn’t look none too pleased.
“Your Lordship, you can’t keep putting this issue off forever.”
Thorax faux-chuckled again. “What issue? There’s no issue here.”
Vector stepped in front of him and poked him. She poked him until she had backed him against the wall. “You know all too well the hive needs a Queen.”
“That’s sexist!” Thorax sputtered. “Chrysalis didn’t have a King!”
“No, she had several!”
Thorax’s eyes bulged. His jaw nearly unlatched itself. “S-several?!”
“Yes.” Vector huffed. “She was actually very lenient and open about it. She made it abundantly clear that anyling could become ‘her better half’ if they so chose.”
Thorax made a face—the kind you instinctively make when your head gets dunked into a dumpster. “And how many was that?”
Vector froze with her forehoof in the air, and her mouth working like a broken record: without a sound.
“You know what?” The hoof came down. “It doesn’t matter. What’s important is that she had at least a king, and the hive was better off, even if she had to make the choice for them,” she finished too quietly for Thorax to hear.
“Really? How come?”
“Because even if some Changelings got the short end of the stick, most got something out of it.”
“Love?”
“No, discount coupons.” Vector rolled her eyes. “Of course, they got love!”
“But we’ve changed! Can’t we just share?”
“You can’t share what you don’t have, and we need L-O-V-E.” Vector nearly poked him in his bloodshot eyes. “The hive is almost out, and, as you can clearly see, you can’t run everything by yourself.”
Thorax straightened himself up, standing up to his full height. “I can handle—” He let out another, royal-sized yawn. “—This kingdom myself just fine.”
But Vector, although of shorter build, didn’t bow out. “Don’t you realize what you’re doing?” she whispered. “You’re putting the entire kingdom at risk for the sake of your own pride!”
Thorax froze. On the inside, it felt like a train had hit his organs and was presently whisking them away on a magical journey. “You’re right. I’m sorry.”
“Finally.” Vector sighed in relief. She fished out a second checklist from behind a boring-looking pillar. “Now, what I have here is a list of potential candidates—”
“What?!” And just like that, Thorax was again present and desperately trying to backpedal into the wall. “Vector, don’t you think that’s a little fast?”
Vector gave him a look.
Fact number one about changelings is that they are masters of manipulation; their grade of puppy-dog- and doe-eyes are all banned in one convention or another. “Oh, please?” Vector pleaded, voice tiny. “Won’t you at least give them a chance?”
Thorax himself didn’t stand one at all. “I guess I should, wouldn’t be all that fair to outright ignore them.” The mare perked up like a dog after it gets called a good girl. “What’s the first one’s name?”
“Labia.”
Thorax looked at her.
Vector grinned back.
In a single motion, in the most majestic a fashion, King Thorax brought a hoof up to his face and groaned.
“It is.”
“Somehow, I don’t doubt that.” Thorax removed said forehoof, though it seemed to take great effort. “This is absurd, Vector. I’m not going to lower myself to the likes of Chrysalis.”
“Aw, but they’d love you to,” Vector cooed. “Sure, there are still some that see you as that whiny little drone, the wimp that was scared of the dark and was weak as a butterfly…”
“They what now?”
“...but to many, you’re the most eligible ling available.” She gave him a wink that left him with very little to interpret. “You wouldn’t believe the fan mail you’ve been getting. It wouldn’t matter to them.”
“Well, it matters to me.” Thorax stomped his hoof. “Make time for it tomorrow, or the day after, or whenever, but for now the hive can survive another day without a queen, and that’s final!”
He stared her down again, and this time Vector fought back only a moment before relenting and beginning to reel the checklist back in. “As you wish, your Lordship.”
What composure Thorax still had left was promptly pulverized the instant he noticed the second list was actually longer than the first.
Thorax sighed. If he learned to hold his ground at this rate, then he’d be ready to assume a position of leadership in approximately one and a half millennia. Those lessons Ember gave him sure ran out their usefulness quick.
He wished he was stronger. Stronger like Pharynx, like Spike, or like Discord or like any of his friends, really.
Wait a minute. That was it! He could ask all his friends for help. One of them was sure to know how to help him, both in becoming a good leader, and easing his burden. He could ask Spike or Twilight, Discord, or Ember if she was around, or Starlight the next time he had—
No.
Not Starlight.
How could she possibly help him? She tried to help his brother once and look at what had almost happened!
As if that wasn’t bad enough, the way she’d giggled when Pharynx had told her all those stories about his nymphood was downright cruel! The memory of it alone made his heart race. You weren’t supposed to ask those kinds of things about a colt and laugh. And honestly, what right did she have, asking for more?!
No, that was too harsh. Starlight was his friend, and out of all his friends, she was the one he’d seen the most lately. She was there to help out with Pharynx, near catastrophe or no, and when Spike had accidentally invited him and Ember to town at the same time, she’d been there to keep him company. And how could he ever forget that it was only thanks to her that they managed to overthrow Chrysalis? In fact, all changelings owed her.
And well, she was intelligent, strong, authoritative—if it wasn’t for her, he’d never have even heard of the word authoritative. She’d been a mayor of a village once, for Celestia’s sake, so if there was anypony who might know how to lead a kingdom, it was her.
But that would all have to wait. He had a full list of things to do.
Wait, what was that noise?
Thorax stirred. He had been rather abruptly brought back from his daydreaming by a content sort of humming, coming roughly four inches from his face.
Thorax’s eyes blew wide open, and the very first thing he saw was the very wobbly, Vector within sniffing distance. “Uh, Vector?” His voice shook. “Are you okay?”
Vector didn’t seem to hear him, however. “Mmm, Thorax. That was delicious.” She smacked her lips. “So, who is it?”
Thorax put as much distance between them as the walls allowed, which was still unacceptably close. He started shuffling his way around her like a wounded prey would around their hunter. “Uhh, who is what?”
“Your Queen.” Vector’s eyes began to flutter open. “The name of that ‘ling, please?”
She took a step toward him. He took a step back. She took a step forward, and, fortunately for him, he had just backstepped to the exit. “Thorax,” Vector tried to coax him, but all it did was make the bottom of his stomach hit terminal velocity. “What aren’t you telling me?”
“Nothing!” Thorax squeaked. He was desperately fighting to gain purchase on the doorknob. “I mean, everything! I mean, I’m not in love with anypony!”
The knob clicked and clacked, but only when the green glow of Vector’s aura faded from around it did he remember that most changelings could cast magic. “Then who—? Oh, your majesty.”
Thorax flipped around just in time to see Vector’s already flowerlike cheeks blossom with red. “I never realized...”
Once the terrifying realization had hit home for him as well, Thorax opted to just blast a hole in the door.
“My King, stop!” Vector yelled, but the King was already galloping for his deer[5] life.
[5] Pun entirely intended.
Thorax panted for breath. He was exhausted. Last time he’d had to run that fast, he was still black.
The throne room of the Castle of Friendship was enormous, glittering, and most importantly, it came with a very sturdy set of front doors. Thorax scanned the room beyond in a hurry and found several other doors[1] leading deeper into the castle, in case he had to keep fleeing. Hopefully, it didn’t have to come to that.
He’d makeshift bolted the exit shut with a few thrones, just to be sure.
[1] Thorax liked to think of them as ‘emergency exits’.
Thorax laid his head on a hoofrest. The entrance was calming, quiet; his panting was the only sound echoing within. It took him a disappointingly long time to realize that that also meant the knocking had stopped.
Thorax hopped up with joy. The love-hungry mare was gone! For the next ten-or-so minutes, he was free!
Then a door slammed open, and he had a mini heart attack.
Thorax puffed out his chest, stood up to his not-inconsiderable full height, and bared his teeth. Whatever happened, he would face his fate with courage, or at least end what was quite possibly the most ludicrous and nonexistent chase-scene written by an inexperienced author ever. Then his eyes fell on her, and all previous thoughts fled him.
She strode in with long, confident steps despite her short height, her trot oozing authority. Her legs were thin and long, spindly even—something that other, less sensible, out-of-their-minds ponies would call unattractive. Her eyes and the way they twinkled and took in the entire room spoke of cold determination.
And her voice could break the deepest daydream.
“Oh, hey, Thorax," said Starlight Glimmer, who was suddenly standing less than three feet in front of him. It might have not been as sudden had Thorax been sufficiently present. “What brings you here?”
Thorax didn't reply, however. He was far too busy having a meltdown. His upper lip trembled, then his eyebrow twitched. Then his lip twitched, and his eyebrow trembled. His forehoof rose, like a charmed snake, and pointed. “Where did you get those?”
He was, of course, referring to what was on Starlight’s back—something that unicorns, by definition, usually lacked. There, flapping lazily, was a pair of polychrome, delicate, dreamy gossamer wings.
A pair of very bug-like wings.
“Oh, these?” Starlight replied, perfectly oblivious to his quite obvious distress. “Twilight showed me this spell she’d once learned to help out her friend, in exchange for staying out of the castle today. Pretty sweet deal, eh?”
She smiled at him. She was all smiles these days. “Do you like them?”
Thorax was certain he was having a heart attack. His heart was very much attacking his rib cage.
“They’re…” Beautiful, colourful, cool, lovely, neat, astonishing, enticing, sexy...
*Chitter[2]
[2] Well, don't just sit there. Help! Our translator just fainted!
“...They’re nice,” Thorax finished in a hurry. He then imagined stuffing his own hoof in his face once he’d fled back into the hotel room.
Thorax took a deep breath. Actually, he decided to take several. That’s what it always came down to: self-control and nothing more. He could already see himself going over this experience in the “Feelings Forum,” holding his comfort plushie, brushing its soft lilac coat—
Thorax wasn’t entirely certain how his forehoof had ended up on her withers, but it withdrew so fast he thought it’d get ripped off.
Starlight was giving him a look that could not have been good for his health. “Thorax? Mind if I ask you something?”
Thorax chuckled nervously. ”Oh, no, not at all. Ask away!”
Starlight lifted her forehoof, and for a moment, Thorax’s violent heart stopped beating. She was going to call him out for being too scared to even talk to his friends, let alone lead an entire nation. She’d titter like that one time and why was she just pointing somewhere behind him?
“Why is the door blocked with thrones?”
Thorax rubbed the back of his head. He was running low on chuckles. “Funny story that. You see—”
Then the knocking came back. With a vengeance. Thorax let out another loud chitter and almost gained air. “Where’d they get a ram at this hour?!”
Something baa’ad outside the door.
“Thorax, what’s going on?” Starlight asked.
"There’s no time to explain! Quick, grab my hoof!”
Starlight blinked at him. Thorax grabbed her by the hoof and broke into a gallop.
The doors were slammed open, and one of the thrones was sent flying, missing Thorax by just enough to give him incentive to run faster. “After him!” came the yell of his secretary over the swarm of hungry, hungry nymphs.
Thorax barrelled through a door and hit the ground running, with Starlight stringing on. At the end of the hallway, he saw another, much more ornate door, and braced for impact.
Starlight forced him to pull the brakes. “Stop!”
Thorax slammed into the door and fluttered to the floor like a pancake.
“We can’t go in there,” she told him as she helped him up, “Twilight’s in there!”
“Perfect,” Thorax slurred, “she can help us!”
Starlight pulled him away before he could make sawdust of the door. She was surprisingly strong, he found. “No, she can’t!”
“Why not?”
Starlight leaned right in his ear. “Because she’s having a ‘Friendship problem’."
Ah, yes, now that he thought about it he could very well hear the, ahem, friendship problem, in progress. Thorax made a mental note to congratulate the Apple Family the next time he was over, though he would most likely pass on appraising their cousin Braeburn’s impressive rooster.
He had just enough time to finish his thoughts when the chittering of a horde of changelings was again brought to the forefront of his mind. So he chose an exit.
A changeling burst through it.
Thorax chose a different exit.
A ram was grazing there, nibbling on the crystal wall. Also, several changelings.
Thorax then realized he’d ran out of exits long before he could run out of changelings. “This is going to get awkward, isn’t it?”
The changelings swarmed the two. To his surprise, they stopped just a few hooves lengths away. Thorax took that as a yes.
“Welp, time for plan B then.”
Thorax grabbed Starlight by the neck and kissed her.[3]
[3] DISCLAIMER! We here at Horsewords Publishing Inc DO NOT CONDONE the actions of our protagonists. Kissing one of the most powerful mares in existence with little provocation WILL, in best case scenario, fry you instantly. Not a smart move.
Don’t try this at home!
Thorax had been pretty sure that this was not how ponies’ mating rituals should go, but he’d had ridiculously little time to research this. You can then probably understand his shock when, after their lips met, she reciprocated.
Thorax would probably have described the initial feeling as ‘soft’. His brain capacity may also have been somewhat taken up at the time. He didn’t even feel her run one of her hooves on his antlers. A warmth, not unlike getting dipped in a hot spring, filled him to bursting. In his half-cognizant state, Thorax actually thought for a moment that he’d shapeshifted into a balloon—a balloon filled with sunshine, funny jokes, and something scented sweetly.
Eventually, they broke off, with Thorax panting for breath again. The entire world was spinning around him. Had not Starlight’s magic kept him upright, he was sure he would’ve belly-flopped to the ground and stayed there.
His eyes slowly fluttered open. Before him lay some hundred young changelings, out cold. Some were rubbing their bellies, while a few sported some adorable blushes on their cheeks, but for Thorax, it was enough they were down and out.
“Changelings,” he called out to them. His subjects started getting back up on their hooves. “I have a declaration to make, and it concerns all of you!”
Thorax waited until everyling, including those that had failed to sneak out or disguise themselves as debris, was in a position to listen. “Today, I learned something important,” he began, ignoring the sudden urge to write a letter to someone peculiarly specific. “Love is free, something that can’t be forced on anyone.”
One of the changelings raised his forehoof. “But didn’t you just do that?”
Thorax smacked himself in the face. “What I meant to say was: you can’t be forced to love someone, the same way you can’t force someone to love you.”
“Uhh...” One of the changelings interjected again, this time from the back, pointing at Starlight. “Doesn’t she, like, know a spell that can do that?”
Thorax’s eyebrows gained air. He turned to look at her.
Starlight averted her eyes and whistled innocently.
“Well, yeah, probably,” Thorax said, "but she’s the one who drove Chrysalis off, went back in time, and beat an alicorn in a duel. Way I see it, she can do pretty much whatever the Tartarus she wants.”
Thorax took off to better stare down each and every changeling. “But even if you could, doesn’t mean you should. It’s inequine, and that’s not who we are anymore.
“I know everyone wants to be loved, be they pony, changeling, or other. And everyone deserves to be loved, be they pony, changeling, or other. But if you are just willing to hoof out your love, to a pony, changeling or other, somepony will eventually return it.” Thorax struck a pose, spreading his wings in all their colour. “It’s how we came to be like this, after all.”
Thorax landed back down. The changelings stared at him blankly.
Thorax quirked an eyebrow. The changelings just stared at him.
“Uhm,” he mumbled.
The changelings stared at him.
Thorax reached down and picked up a piece of debris, comically shaped like a ball. It glowed green for a second, after which he chucked it out the window. “Here’s some love. Go get it!”
You would not believe how fast the room emptied itself, even if I wrote you an entire paragraph describing it.
Thorax sighed in relief. “Thank Celestia, that that’s over.” He turned to Starlight. “Are you—?”
Whatever the rest of his question was supposed to be was muffled by Starlight kissing him. Aggressively. The warm feeling flooded him again, and his head was doing ballet spins long after the kiss ended.
“Well, look at you, King Thorax.” Starlight proceeded to pin him against the crystal wall like a rare butterfly in a collection. Her voice was dangerously low and husky—it made his stomach flip. “I like a stallion who can take matters into his own hooves.”
Thorax sweated. He hadn't even known that an insect could sweat. There was just thislook in Starlight’s eyes like they were smiling, but the rest of her wasn’t. It reminded him of a manticore he’d once seen.
And it was hungry.
“Remember when you said I could do anything I wanted?”
Her horn turned on.
“Well, you’re gonna love this.”
The next bit isn't exactly kid-friendly, so we’re leaving it out. Long story short, when they came to get him the next day, the changelings had to carry Thorax back to the Badlands on a stretcher.
Author's Note
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