The Light Within Us

The big day had arrived. Ocellus trotted into the throne room with a bursting aura and a matching grin, and her parents and siblings followed shortly. Spiracle carried a saddlebag.

“Ah, there you are!” I exclaimed. “Good morning! I see you’re all ready and excited!”

“‘Excited’ is an understatement,” Banshee replied, stroking the oldest nymph’s head. “Ocellus hasn’t stopped talking about the school all day yesterday! I don’t think she even got any sleep tonight!”

Ocellus smiled sheepishly.

“Well, it’s time to get going or we’ll miss the meet-and-greet! Are all of you coming?”

“We were hoping to, yes,” Spiracle said. “Unless it would be too demanding on your magic…”

“I think I’ll manage, though I might not be able to cover as much distance in a single jump as I would alone. Pharynx, are you coming?”

“You don’t need me there and I’ve got drills to oversee.”

“Then I can leave you in charge today? Don’t worry, you don’t have to deal with routine stuff. Just sort out any emergencies and I’ll handle the rest when I get back.”

“Figured as much. That ought to leave me plenty of time to introduce the nymphs into the military.”

“Pharynx!”

He smirked. “Relax, I don’t think they’d be interested anyway. Most of them, at least. They enjoy playing with you too much to suddenly obey orders.”

“Very funny. Alright then, see you later today! I think…”

I let my magic reach out to the family of drones and carry the six of us across the world. As I’d expected, it took two more jumps to get to Ponyville than a few weeks ago when it had been just Pharynx and me, but fortunately, without stopping by the immediate vicinity of any wild beasts. Less than a minute after leaving the hive, we were at Twilight’s castle.

“Whoa… Is that the school?” Banshee pointed to a large building at the base of a hill near the castle, across a pond.

“It must be,” I mused. “I haven’t seen it before, and Twilight did mention construction works… though I’m not sure how I failed to see it when Pharynx and I were- Nevermind. But there’s too many ponies standing in front of it to make it random.”

Ocellus withdrew into herself. “Are they all students?”

“Some of them look to old to be students, therefore they’re probably the parents, plus I can see Rutherford and Ember and an avian creature taller than the ponies. Maybe that’s a hippogriff? Why do you ask, Ocellus? Is something wrong?”

“She’s just shy,” Spiracle explained, giving her a hug, which seemed to help a little. “Don’t worry, Celly, you’ll be fine. They’re here to learn friendship just like you are, and if anything happens, you can trust your teachers to help you!”

“And you have that newspaper delivery thingy if you need us,” Banshee reminded her. “I’m sure the newspony will be happy to teleport your letter to the hive if you ask nicely!”

“He will,” I said. “Twilight told me so. She talked to him and he said no problem.”

“Oh look, the doors are opening! I think we’re supposed to come in! Go on, Ocellus, you’re the student!”

She did, albeit hesitantly, and turned into a filly when nopony was looking. Her siblings didn’t seem to have any qualms about showing themselves, as they took the moving crowd as their cue to flutter above in a game of chase, catching the interest of some of the students, who then joined in playful pursuit. Ocellus watched them for a while, then cast a nervous look at her parents.

“Don’t worry, you can show your true form,” Spiracle encouraged her, but to little avail. Even her aura seemed to be trying to shrink into itself to avoid getting noticed!

“Whoa, you guys are cool!” a pegasus colt said to the two younger nymphs when their game slowed down a little. “Are you our classmates? I heard rumors there’d be only one changeling in the school!”

“You heard right,” Cicada said, buzzing down near the still-disguised Ocellus and giving her a tap on the head along the way, which caused the older nymph to recoil slightly. “And it’s our sister! C’mon Celly, don’t be such a drama queen! They’re not gonna eat you!”

Some more encouraging nods on our part finally convinced her to show herself.

“What is that?!” another presumed student, a hippogriff if my guess about her species was correct, stopped in her tracks and leaped over before Ocellus’ magic had fully dissipated. “I’ve never seen a- er, excuse me, what are you?”

“A changeling,” I said as Ocellus was attempting to hide behind my leg following the energetic interruption.

“Ponies can turn into changelings?!”

“No,” Banshee said, “but changelings can turn into pretty much anything, ponies included.”

“Wow! I can only turn into a seapony - that’s what I used to be, by the way; long story - and it’s so fun to be something new for a change! And this place has so much more than we had underwater, I can’t wait to see it all! But you probably- hey, is that a dragon?!”

...aaand she was off as fast as she’d arrived, on her way to hunt down Ember and the young dragon she’d brought along, who looked about as thrilled to be here as Pharynx would be in a flower garden.

“Please excuse her manners, King Thorax,” the adult hippogriff said, approaching us. “There wasn’t much to do underwater and our young are still… overwhelmed with the abundance of everything the world suddenly has to offer now that the Storm King is no more.”

“I understand; some of the drones were like that too for a while after Chrysalis got overthrown!”

“Still, it’s no excuse for a queen’s niece,” he insisted. “Though there’s nothing I can do about it, as I’m not a family member.”

“Oh… Sorry, I kind of assumed you were her father…”

“He happens to be sick with the feather flu, otherwise he’d have been the one to accompany Silverstream, or her mother would if she hadn’t opted to care for him until he recovers. I’m his friend from the navy. Admiral Sea Spray.”

“Pleased to meet you, Admiral!”

“Forgive my bluntness,” he said, “but I must ask. There have been rumors, so… is it true that you killed the former queen yourself?”

“What?!” I gasped. “No! I’d never do that, no matter how badly she treated us!”

“Ah, I see. One of your subjects, then?”

“Not as far as- wait, are you telling me she’s dead?”

“It must be a misunderstanding, then. We heard she was overthrown and must have assumed that meant dead. But if she were dead in that way, surely you would have known about it. Our long separation from the rest of the world and the aftermath of Storm King’s threat to our safety must have warped our perception of reality. This isn’t the first time my kind has reached that conclusion upon returning to the aboveworld.”

“Maybe… Anyway, she fled immediately after our mass-metamorphosis and we don’t know where she is and what she’s doing. We tried to find her shortly afterwards but gave up eventually, as she could have been anywhere in the world by then. For all we know, she could be dead, though I doubt it; she’s too cunning to get killed… except that she is alone now, so… nevermind.”

“And if you do find her? Alive, I mean.”

“Honestly, I don’t know. I’ve been hoping to somehow get her to see reason and accept our new ways, though I doubt there’s much to hope for. Everything I know about her says she’ll turn out to be irredeemable, so I should have some idea of what to do with her, but I don’t. I’m guessing Tartarus might be an option, assuming she doesn’t escape on the way there, that is.”

“Or from it. It’s rare but not unheard of.”

“Yeah… that too…”

At that moment, a bell sounded, and Twilight appeared at a podium set up on the far end of the main lobby.

“May I have your attention, please?” she addressed the crowd.

“Thank you for clearing that up, Your Highness,” Sea Spray said to me as we moved closer to the podium with everyone else. “Queen Novo will be interested to hear it.”

I nodded. “Please, just Thorax is fine!”

“Good morning, everyone, students, parents, and guardians alike,” Twilight began, “and welcome to the School of Friendship! I’m Twilight Sparkle, the school’s founder and headmare, and these are my friends and co-founders: Applejack, Fluttershy, Pinkie Pie, Rainbow Dash, and Rarity. Together, we will teach our classes and shape young minds to understand the importance and magic of friendship and its many applications in the world we live in. Friendship is indeed an all-encompassing and powerful force, and sadly often underappreciated in the past, so much so that we’ve only recently begun to discover its full potential. It warms my heart to see so many of you thirsting to uncover its secrets! But more on that during the school year, heh… I’ll have to stop now or we’ll be here forever!”

A chuckle spread through the audience. Something told me that last part was Spike’s doing…

“Anyway,” she continued, “please follow Guidance Counselor Starlight Glimmer to get your class assignments. While you’re at it, the six of us will take groups of students on tour around the school to help familiarize you with the building and the school rules, lest we overwhelm the counselor all at once. Parents and guardians are welcome to join us for the tour! If you have any questions, feel free to ask at any time! Finally, when all the tours and signing-in is done, we’ll serve refreshments in the mess hall and here in the main lobby. There’s plenty for everyone, and we’ve made sure to include options for non-ponies among you as well!”

We waited for Ocellus to sign in and she asked us to tag along for her tour of the school, which turned out to be bigger than I’d initially estimated and just as impressive as Twilight’s castle! How had they built it so quickly? If I hadn’t known it was brand new, I’d have thought construction had to have taken years! But for all its size and magnificence, nothing was overdone or out of place… How had they done it?

Our guide, Fluttershy, seemed just as overwhelmed at first, though I suspected the audience she’d been given was more to blame than the building itself. Not that there was anything wrong with the audience, though, except maybe for two young nymphs running around beneath everypony’s hooves ignorant of their mother’s attempts at scolding. They were, however, powerless against Fluttershy’s adoring coos and nuzzles once she’d caught them, and quickly surrendered to their fate of riding the rest of the tour on the pegasus’ back, only occasionally chirping and chittering in the interludes between playing with her mane and feathers. This seemed to have a calming effect on Fluttershy, as her aura unstrung itself and she continued the tour with a radiant smile and a clear voice. The only downside was that some of the students - and parents, too - became somewhat distracted by this display of affection to the little cuties, a sight so adorable that even Banshee was reluctant to reclaim her young upon the ending of the tour!

She did reclaim them eventually, when the time came to join the other groups in the mess hall. The nymphs didn’t even need convincing this time; they recognized an impending feast and went right back to their parents, who they knew would provide all the snuggling and delicious love a changeling could ask for. Ocellus hung around for a while too, until her attention switched to the lively hippogriff we’d met earlier and a blue griffon and joined them instead. They had to have become friends in the meantime, as she didn’t even resort to a disguise before trotting off with them! She only rejoined us much later, after the lunch was over, and though Banshee and Spiracle admitted to already miss her, we left for the hive with warmth in our hearts knowing our little Ocellus was going to be alright in her new school.

“I can’t believe it’s been a month already!” I said as Ocellus’ parents and siblings joined me in the throne room.

“And we can’t believe it’s been only a month!” Banshee countered. “We miss her so much!”

“She’s been writing letters to us regularly,” Spiracle added, “but this is the longest she’s been away from us! Uh, the longest since you took over the hive and we got reunited, I mean. The point is, we can’t wait to see her again!”

“Well, we’ll be there shortly.” The friends-and-family gathering was scheduled for about half an hour from now, and though I too was itching to see Ocellus and ask her how she liked the school, she was probably in class at the moment and couldn’t see us just yet. “How has she been doing, by the way?”

“She’s been… pretty stressed lately, according to her letters,” Spiracle said hesitantly. “She said things were fine during the first couple of days until Twilight started dropping by in classes and noticing the teaching style of the other professors wasn’t meeting her expectations and, apparently, the demands of some rulebook. Ocellus didn’t see the problem about following the rulebook at first, but then the professors’ enthusiasm plummeted, classes got dull, and Ocellus is beginning to question the usefulness of the things she’s being taught.”

“We want to think it’s just a phase that everyone goes through at some point,” Banshee continued. “Maybe she needs more time to get used to pony schools - after all, their style of teaching has to be different from the basic training she received under Chrysalis’ reign - or maybe the pieces will fall in place after she’s learned a little more… or maybe she’s just too homesick to focus on school properly…”

“...but what if this isn’t something she can handle?” Spiracle interjected. “She wanted this, and we thought we were doing the right thing by sending her to school, but what if we’ve made a mistake?”

“I can’t imagine why friendship would be a problem for her,” I mused. “I’m sure there’s a perfectly understandable explanation… talking to her might help us figure out what went wrong… and if nothing else works, I’m sure Twilight will hear you out and try to help…”

“Can you ask her?”

“Sure! But if this started happening after only a few days, why didn’t you say anything sooner?”

“We… thought she just needed more time to adjust… and we didn’t want to bother you and the Princess…”

“That’s not ‘bothering me’! If there’s a problem, I want to know about it, guys!”

“Okay,” Banshee said sheepishly. “I guess we still haven’t entirely unlearned the living-under-tyranny mindset…”

I nodded, understanding; I too still caught myself fretting about consequences of the old regime at times.

“Let’s get there,” I said. “Even if Ocellus is busy at the moment, maybe we can figure out something from others.”

They stepped closer, and I commenced a sequence of teleports that would take us to Ponyville.

Many of the students’ family members were already there by the time we popped onto the meadow just outside the school grounds, including the non-ponies. We barely had time to say hello to them when a colossal bumblebee buzzed into view from somewhere behind the school building, carrying a group of creatures, a couple of which I remembered from the opening event.

“The school is under attack!” somepony shouted, and a reddish-orange ray of magic shot towards the bumblebee.

The insect swerved to dodge the blast and crashed into one of the school towers, dropping the other creatures in the process and bursting into a flame that revealed our own nymph. Banshee gasped and took to the air, but Ocellus had by then recovered enough to buzz her wings and slow down her fall, landing next to the creatures she’d carried, who seemed to be fine, even if two of them didn’t have wings. The others must have caught them!

“What is going on here?!” Twilight demanded.

“Sorry, Professor Twilight…” Silverstream said, grinning sheepishly. “We got a bit carried away…”

“Those are students?!” an important-looking stallion exclaimed, stepping into view; I recognized him as the owner of the voice that had accused the disguised Ocellus of attacking the school. “I thought this school was supposed to teach ponies how to defend themselves from dangerous creatures!”

“Did that guy miss a memo?” Spiracle muttered at my side. “All but one of them are Equestria’s allies!”

“First of all, Chancellor Neighsay,” Twilight countered, “these creatures aren’t dangerous. Second, this isn’t a military school; we teach friendship, and friendship isn’t only meant for ponies!”

“It should be!” he growled.

I gasped as everything I’d been through to prove myself worthy of friendship and teach my kind to abandon their hostile ways flashed in my mind. I couldn’t speak for the other creatures, but how much more did he need to realize the changelings had turned themselves around and neither were nor wanted to be vicious beasts anymore? I fought the urge to walk up to him and demand an explanation, it must have been obvious, as Banshee, Spiracle, both of their younger nymphs, and a few of the nearby ponies put reassuring hooves on me, their auras bursting with concern.

Prince Rutherford didn’t have such qualms. “Unicorn think yaks no want friendship? Maybe yaks no want pony school if this how ponies treat yaks!”

“Feel free to return to your kind, then,” Neighsay retorted.

“‘Your kind’?” Ember snarled. “Smolder, let’s go!”

“This school was stupid anyway,” an elderly griffon spat, dragging Gallus away by the tail.

“Queen Novo will hear of this!” Admiral Sea Spray threatened.

Rutherford simply marched away with a sulking young yak in tow. Most of the ponies were still around, watching in bitter silence as the non-pony students followed their leaders to their respective homes. My drones and I just stood there. Were we supposed to pull Ocellus from the school too? I hated to do this to her after she’d been so thrilled to enroll, but if that was the proper way of dealing with this kind of situation… But I still didn’t want to do it! It wasn’t her fault, or Twilight’s for that matter, that this guy didn’t see reason!

In the end, the decision was made for us.

“Princess Twilight,” Neighsay said, “knowing your background, I didn’t expect you to fail to meet the EEA’s standards. But this… irresponsible teachers, students destroying school property and likely skipping class, and nonexistent standards for who gets admitted… Your school is a recipe for disaster and we can all thank Celestia nopony got hurt!”

“Nopony was going to get hurt! This school-”

“-is being shut down by the order of the EEA!” He touched his medallion, and chains sprouted over the school’s main gate. “One day you’ll thank me, Princess.”

With that, he teleported away, leaving Twilight in stunned tears while the crowd dispersed. I walked up to her.

“I… I can’t believe he…” Her friends had arrived in the meantime and were hugging her.

“I know,” I said gently, giving her a hug myself while watching Ocellus sob on her mother’s shoulder, barely keeping myself together. “I’m sorry…”

“Aren’t you supposed to be at that pony school thing?” Pharynx asked upon running into me shortly after I’d returned to the hive and parted with Ocellus and her family.

I sighed. “It ended abruptly, and not in a good way.”

“Explain!”

So I did. It took a while, especially after getting to the part about Neighsay, as the story had to be put on hold every couple of sentences to wait out his strings of increasingly creative expletives and to tone down his seething, red-hot aura. By the end, the floor was shaking under his hooves, and I was sure everyling within ten levels above and below us had suffered rage poisoning.

Pharynx wasn’t done, however, and I stopped paying attention to the particulars of his torture plan for Neighsay while trying to rein him in lest he start a war with our allies.

“Will you shut it with the ranting already?!” I spat eventually, fed up with failing to get a word in sideways.

“Will you stop defending him already?!” he spat back.

“I’m not defending him! I just don’t want you to do something we’ll soon regret!”

“People have gone to war over less, Thorax! Tortured and executed for less, too, in case you forgot!”

“Maybe under Chrysalis, but there has to be a better way!”

“Well I’m all ears,” he growled.

“I haven’t thought of one-”

“So we’re supposed to let ourselves be doormats in the meantime?”

“I didn’t say that. But things will be a lot harder to sort out in any favorable way if we deliberately turn things ugly-”

“He started it!”

“Pharynx, what happened to your anger management?”

He raised an eyebrow.

“Not that long ago, you decided not to hurt Shining Armor again because you wanted to demonstrate you’re better than him, even though you still hated him. Why can’t you do the same with Neighsay?”

“The key word is ‘again’, Thorax. Shining Armor needed punishment and I delivered it, so delivering it twice wasn’t mandatory. Plus, I later realized that his perspective was unclear, which still doesn’t excuse him but it’s enough for me to consider his punishment adequate enough. Neighsay, on the other hoof, had every proof available to him that none of the creatures there were hostile, including the knowledge that most were in fact allies of his people if he’s at all in touch with reality, and he still chose to ignore it, and I doubt he’d have suffered any consequences for it by now, if he’s going to at all. Regardless of what pony princesses might tell you, those pompous high-ranking types can sometimes get away with things.”

“Okay, I get your reasoning, but I’m still not okay with you acting on it.”

“Whatever.” He started to walk away, and the hardening of his aura alarmed me more than all his unbridled rampaging.

“Pharynx?”

“What?”

“I want to think I’ve been talking to a sensible guy who will see the benefits of considering a less volatile strategy, but in case I wasn’t…” I sighed heavily. “I hate that it might be necessary to say this, but I command you to forgo any hostile actions towards Neighsay or any other pony, soldier. Am I understood?”

After a tense moment, he snapped to attention. “Yes, Sir.”

“Good,” I whispered upon continuing on my way. “I hope you mean it…”

I returned to the throne room to continue my duties, still mulling over everything that had happened. It was hard to believe that the friendliest country in the world could harbor somepony so cold-hearted! Maybe doing something else would get my mind off him just for a bit and help me calm down and clear my head… but after several hours of attempting to tackle routine stuff and repeatedly zoning out and succumbing to the bitterness of the unicorn’s disdain that still lingered in my head, I finally gave up. Someling was probably having it worse, though, and I decided to check on her.

The crushing darkness of her aura that hit me on the way there and accompanied me to her family’s burrow killed every hope that she might have found comfort in something in the meantime.

Banshee didn’t even have to say anything when she saw me at the burrow’s entrance.

“She’s in there,” she said, pointing to one of the side-chambers. “Spiracle just went to the library, to see if he can find some way to… She didn’t even care to follow him…”

I nodded grimly. If Ocellus couldn’t even find comfort in her books… What was I going to do?

Determined to try anyway, I followed the sobbing, trodding gingerly lest I startle her, and put a gentle hoof on her carapace.

“Ocellus…” I whispered.

Her swollen, bloodshot eyes turned up to me, and I pulled her closer, off the ground she’d sprawled on and into my embrace.

“T-thorax…” she stammered through the tears. “Why did he… What did I do wrong? I was so happy, and he… he just… I’m sorry, I-”

“Sssshhh… it’s not your fault… we’ll figure something out…”

“...b-but… h-he closed the school…”

“Ocellus, I promise you, if there’s anything to be done to resolve the situation, I’ll figure it out and do it! I’m sure Twilight is already working on it; I’ll write to her and see what she needs help with. Meanwhile, is there anything that you think might help you feel better?”

“I don’t know…”

“Maybe write to your friends, then? I’m sure they aren’t too happy about this, either, but there’s no rule that says you guys have to break up just because your school closed! After all, friendship is what the school was about, right? Even if nothing else works, you’ve found a few friends along the way; but I’m sure you’ll share a classroom again, so why not keep the friendship warm in the meantime?”

The tempest of tears on my shoulder calmed down. “Yes, I… I think I’ll do that,” she said.