Soon after Thorax returned to using the icy ravine for shelter, classes within the previously abandoned building had begun. A stroke of luck led to one of the windows giving the perfect view of the black board that the pegasus teacher wrote on, and the lack of soundproofing let him listen almost as if he were in the room himself.

Honestly, he was enjoying himself far more than he had ever since the city reappeared, his little pony tail swinging back and forth. Back at the hive, school was the best time of the day, as few bothered him fearing punishment over disruptive behavior. Sure, he got punished too, as there was zero tolerance of interruptions during class time, but few changelings were willing to bite their wing just to spite him. Although, from what little he could tell from his short time observing, the ponies preferred to reprimand the aggressor, which made the idea of staying with them even more appealing.

Either way, listening in on the lessons taught him far more than what ponies thought about things, as he could also learn that from listening on various conversations elsewhere. Right now, he was learning about the very basis of the Ponish script, what made their writing make sense, what the teacher called an alphabet. While he had noticed that some of the symbols of the few words he could read were the same, he hadn't thought much of it until now. This was by design, though, and so long as you knew the correct combinations of characters, you could write any word from them. Even if you didn't, the letters gave a clue to sounding out the word to try and pin it down. How amazing it was that the ponies could and would teach their hatchlings this skill he never really learned!

Suddenly, the teacher looked straight at him, and Thorax froze, hoping she wouldn't see him. Those hopes vanished when she opened her mouth and said, "You could join us inside for the lesson, you know."

The disguised changeling bolted as fast as the little colt legs could take him.

There was no denying it, that mysterious little colt was the same one Apple Skies saw the day she arrived. Same colors, same size, same oddly intent look for a pony his age.

It seemed he wanted to learn but was afraid to get caught in the act. Well, that won't do. Learning is for everypony, after all.

She was able to tell which direction he ran off in, towards the backyard where she was planning on setting up a flight camp once she got some pegasus foals enrolled in it. Thanks to how the buildings and fencing were structured, the path he took was the only way in for a ground-bound pony, except for going through her schoolhouse.

After encouraging her students to quietly practice amongst themselves (figuring that if they were to start goofing off, it shouldn't be too loud) and excusing herself from the classroom, she went out the backdoor. As she expected, the colt was in one of the far corners of the yard, jumping and turning towards her at the sound of her arrival.

"You can calm down, you're not in trouble or anything," she said as she slowly walked to him, careful to keep a decent distance from him so that he doesn't feel cornered. "So, what's your name?"

The colt remained silent, panic still evident in his eyes.

The mare slowly lowered herself to the ground, feeling the grass brush against her belly fur. "I'm Apple Skies, the teacher here, but you've probably figured that out by now. You can join the lesson inside where it's warmer."

That and the warm smile she was giving him seemed to have finally calmed him down. "Okay," he said at a volume that she strained to properly hear. "I-I'm Insect Wing."

Apple Skies couldn't help but raise an eyebrow at yet another odd crystal pony name, but forced it back down. Looking judgmental about names is not part of being a good teacher. "It's nice to meet you, Insect Wing. Let's go inside, there's a class waiting for the two of us."

She got up and turned back to the house, and the colt followed her. Just before she got to the door, though, she was interrupted by him asking, "What's that say?"

He was pointing at the little sign she made and put under the old portrait's new place on the back outside wall. "You can't read it?" After she got a shake of the head from him, she continued, " Don't worry, we're working on that right now in class. Anyway, it says, 'In memory of this forgotten soldier and his family. He may have fought for Sombra, but they didn't have a choice.'"

The two ponies looked silently at the memorial for a moment before returning to a class who had managed to fold their worksheets into paper hats.

It was several months later, and Thorax was wandering around the city in his Insect Wing persona after finishing the latest school day. He learned quite a few words in his time at the school and had learned to read and write a good fraction of those he knew already. For example, he could now read the two-part sign hanging on the front: the crystal slab on top had 'Central City Elementary' on it in gold stenciling, while the second half was a pair of wooden planks haphazardly tied to the part above it with rope. The words '& Apple Skies's Junior Flight Camp' were written on the lower half in curly script with red marker.

But yes, he was greatly enjoying his time learning with the local foals. That was another word he had learned, and was doing his best to identify with it. After all, his classmates already found him odd and avoided interacting with him, so no need to add fuel to the fire. That suited him fine, though, as not needing to come up with information on the spot should somepony ask him something would help keep the fun going for a while.

It did leave him with nothing to do on the days when school was off. The concept itself was almost strange, as the schools in the changeling hive ran every day. He certainly enjoyed the class more than the free time he got, since most of that was spent sleeping somewhere out of the way or getting bullied by classmates, another new word he learned. Isn't it great to learn a way to express something after searching for it for years? Thankfully the latter didn't happen here, so his enjoyment of learning new things went untainted.

It might start to get boring again soon, what with the first snow coming in and Miss Apple Skies mentioning that winter break was coming. If it was anything like summer break, things would get boring again. However, this time, he could head to the public library and spend his time reading. He did try that in the summer, but found a book with a few letters he didn't recognize and so many words he didn't recognize the spelling of, though they did familiar. After the break, he asked the teacher about it, and then learned that the old books were written in Middle Ponish, which had a few characters which were since dropped and ponies spelt things differently. At least now he knew to stick to the recent imports from Equestria, which he can read.

Head held high and humming a tune he overheard from one of the Equestrian students, he aimlessly wandered through the streets. Once he lost any potential followers, he would find a secluded spot and swap forms to something else, even if it was just a color change. Then, he would head on hom- to the ravine most school days. Yes, another wonderful thing about the school was that Miss Skies just oozed affection and care for her students, and he could easily fill himself up from it. He might even be developing a layer of fat, which was practically unheard of among changelings.

He wasn't sure how long all this would last, as winter would probably make things tricky, but life was good.

Author's Note

Thorax is terrible with making up a name on the spot. Also, the only sneaky that changelings are good at is blending into a crowd, there's a little too much Kool-Aid passed around in the hive for most of them to manage much else in infiltration.