Second Hedgehog to the Right and Straight On ‘Til Changelings

by Scyphi

Rating: everyone
Tags: Slice of Life, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Grubber, Thorax
Length: 11027

Grubber will make sure his paying customer has a pleasant ride while working to fly him safely to his destination. Meanwhile, Thorax is just happy to be aboard.

Grubber will make sure his paying customer has a pleasant ride while working to fly him safely to his destination.

Meanwhile, Thorax is just happy to be aboard.

Judge's Pick in the May 2024 Pairing Contest.

(Due to publishing this at almost literally the eleventh hour, no cover art for now as I've got no time to make one) (Cover now added, and some minor tweaks made to the description)

Published 2024-06-01 04:10:01 UTC
Last updated 2024-06-01 04:10:01 UTC

Second Hedgehog to the Right and Straight On ‘Til Changelings

For Grubber, his day had actually been going okay…up until Brownie decided to throw him out.

“What the hay, dude?!” the vertically challenged dark gray hedgehog grumbled after he’d impacted the road. “What was that for?!”

“It’s for you having had more than your fill!” Brownie replied in exasperation, the ironically blue-colored unicorn standing resolutely between Grubber and the establishment’s entrance. “I’m cutting you off!”

“What? No!” Grubber cried in alarm as he scrambled to his feet. “Dude, don’t do this me! Look at me! I haven’t hit my max yet! You know I haven’t!”

“It’s not a biological limit you’ve hit, Grubber,” Brownie assured sternly, “it’s a financial one!”

“Oh c’mon!” Grubber begged. “You know work is slow at the moment! I promise I’ll pay you back in full as soon as I can so can’t you just put it on my tab?”

“There is no tab here and you know it, Grubber!” Brownie reminded, rubbing at his temples with his hooves, clearly frustrated. “We’ve been through this before! I’ve got my own bills to pay, so as much as I’d like to, I can’t afford to run a charity here. So no money, no service. End of story!”

“Even just for a little?” Grubber asked hopefully, pressing two claws together so to signify how little. “It’s not like I was asking for all that much!”

Brownie stomped a hoof loudly on the front step. “You were on the verge of clearing out my entire stock!”

“…okay, maybe a teeny bit?” Grubber relented uncertainly. “But…”

“This is a bakery, not an all-you-can-eat buffet!” Brownie continued to bellow and pointed at the shop’s cake-shaped sign clearly advertising as such. “I don’t care how much you love baked goods, Grubber! If you aren’t going to pay me for what you eat off my shelves, then I can’t have you here!”

And to make clear he wouldn’t argue the matter further, the unicorn stomped back into the shop, slamming the door shut behind him before Grubber could voice any further objections.

“Well…fine!” Grubber shouted at the closed door anyway. “Have it your way! I’ll just get my cake somewhere else!”

Which was a boldfaced lie and he knew it. All of the shops selling baked goods in Vanhoover were catching on to the hedgehog’s tendency to reliably eat all but unreliably pay back all. Though it wasn’t Grubber’s fault, at least not totally. He really hadn’t gotten all that many jobs for his freelance airship piloting business lately, and no new jobs meant no new bits to spend. Not to say he was flat-out broke or in immediate danger of becoming so. But like Brownie, he had his own bills to pay which meant most of the money he was earning needed to go to that first and foremost or else he’d have even bigger problems. This then meant that Grubber often had to get…creative…finding other ways to get his usual pastry fix. But now it was getting hard to stay in the game when everybody was getting wise to all his methods.

Grubber heaved a great sigh as he nonetheless conceded defeat, dusting off his black tank top then tugging straight the sleeve of the white t-shirt he wore underneath it before turning and trudging down the street. It was becoming clear that there wasn’t anything else for it at this point—he had to fix his lack of funds issue. But he was going to have to do it on his own…a prospect he was still adjusting to. It was times like this that he missed working for Tempest Shadow, since he felt they’d had a good thing going as partners of a sort. But naturally Equestria defeating the Storm King had robbed them both of an employer and left them squatting in the very country they’d tried to help the Storm King conquer, requiring some major changes in both their lives.

They’d stuck together for the first few months, but eventually Tempest decided she needed to go on some kind of quest so to “find herself” or something and didn’t want to burden Grubber with her personal woes. So she encouraged him to go his own way before parting on amicable terms. And he wished the best for Tempest still to this day…but that didn’t mean Grubber didn’t miss the old days too. He may have been working for a mare renowned for her short temper who in turn worked for an evil conqueror that didn’t really care about what happened to the either of them. But at least then he knew where he stood with things and where he needed to go and what to do, whereas now all that was fully open to him and he was finding it a double-edged sword. He had the freedom to do what he wanted (within reason, given Equestrian laws and a few other restrictions the ponies had made given he had still played a role in their near-conquering) but still wasn’t totally sure what to do with that freedom.

At least he knew how to fly an airship, so as long as he still had one of those, which he did, he could still get work and in turn money to buy the confectioneries he adored so much. The problem was simply that work, as already mentioned, was a bit light at the moment. But if he couldn’t get the baked goods he wanted currently, he supposed he might as well check again for the work instead and allowed his trudging to eventually point him towards where his airship was parked.

That was at the Vanhoover airship yard, which functioned as if all one unit, but really held two distinct portions. The largest and most iconic portion was the airship yard itself, an extensive field encircled by hangers from which airships could land or takeoff and have someplace sheltered to stay in-between. But this was mostly used by airships that would be staying there for a prolonged period of time. For airships that were only staying briefly, there was the airship docks, sat at the far end of the yard and composed of a wide and raised platform that airships could come and dock with without actually having to fully land, the advantage being this allowed them to easily depart again at a moment’s notice that a fully landed airship couldn’t quite do from the neighboring hangers.

Grubber’s airship was parked at pier five, nestled in-between a worn down cargo ship to its left and some rich dude’s fancy air yacht on the right. While not the biggest of airships themselves, both still dwarfed his airship which was just a small air skimmer, but Grubber loved the little craft all the same. It had room enough for all of his day-to-day needs and any cargo that might need hauling, was a quick and nimble little craft, and best of all, it was of a make and model he’d flown before and so he was already very familiar with how it worked by the time it came into his possession. He’d even given it a personal touch by repainting it a sporty red color and fiery racing flames across the nose, a paint job he was still quite pleased with how it turned out. So he paused a moment to admire the skimmer, looking over the shipshape craft from stem to stern.

Upon completing that though, he was just about to start for the end of the docks where a job board was posted and look for any new jobs to take when a voice suddenly spoke up from behind him, interrupting his thoughts. “Um, excuse me?”

Grubber, not expecting anyone to be talking to him specifically, first glanced up and down the docks to make sure it hadn’t actually been directed at someone else. However no one else was in immediate view so he turned around to face the speaker. “Yeah, what is—whoa, you’re tall!”

Tall enough, in fact, that at first all Grubber saw was a set of lime green legs. He then had to tilt his head further and further up so to trace those legs all the way up to where they connected to a darker green torso, then from the torso on up the neck to where it connected with the head looking down at the much shorter hedgehog with a smiling face.

“Hi,” the creature, looking to Grubber like the tie-dyed combination of a bug and a pony, greeted casually, waving with one chitinous hoof.

Grubber numbly waved back with one paw, still taking in the creature. “…can I help you?” he finally managed to ask.

“Yes, I was hoping to book transportation on one of these airships and was told to come here to find any operators I could ask,” the creature explained. It was actually a very straightforward reason and not at all an uncommon one.

Nonetheless, Grubber just nodded slowly as he continued to process what was before him. He found the creature’s purple compound eyes hard to look into without any clear pupil to lock onto, so until he figured that out, he focused his eyes on any of the other parts of the creature’s body. Finally, his brain had restrung enough neurons together to register what he was looking at. “…aren’t you a changeling?”

“Oh, well, yeah I guess I kinda am,” the changeling replied, looking like he’d rather not talk too much about that, oblivious to how intimidating him towering over Grubber was. It didn’t help that the pair of long horns—curved on the outer side and jagged on the inside—growing from the top of his head easily added another fourth to the changeling’s total height.

Grubber’s brow furrowed as he recalled everything he knew about changelings…which admittedly wasn’t all that much, having never met one in person before now. “Can’t…changelings fly, though?”

“Well yeah,” the changeling admitted before shrugging. “But why fly yourself when you can enjoy a ride on the marvelous machines that are airships?”

Grubber started to raise a claw and make a counterpoint, paused, then lowered it again. “All right, you’ve got me there,” he admitted. Even if he had the relevant anatomy to fly himself, he’d probably still enjoy catching a lift on an airship from time to time too.

The changeling, meanwhile, was eager to get back on topic. “So…about chartering a ride…do you have, like, a boss or captain or something I can talk to, or…”

“Oh no, I am my own boss currently!” Grubber quickly assured. At least one advantage at having to go at it alone was being able to claim that much. “So you can talk to me.” Turning all business at last, he extended a paw towards the towering changeling. “Name’s Grubber.”

“I’m Thorax,” the changeling said, accepting the offer to shake. “You operate an airship?”

“Yes sir!” Grubber said, striking a prideful pose while backing up a couple of paces so he could rap a loving fist on the nose of his own airship. “This lovely craft right here!”

Thorax looked the skimmer up and down for a moment, taking it in, before making a neutral sounding hum. “Hmm, seems…flamboyant.”

“Then you’ll fit right in aboard her!” Grubber reasoned without missing a beat. The changeling’s own color scheme was rather bright and candy colored. It actually made him think about key lime pie, which in turn reminded him that this was a potential chance to resolve his dilemmas trying to get such goodies. “It’ll cost ya, of course—airship rides aren’t cheap! But if you have the bits to pay, I’m sure we can work something out.”

“Oh, I can pay!” Thorax quickly assured, closing the gap between them again and patted at the saddlebags strapped around his middle. “I have quite a few bits in my bags here.” Grubber blinked at that bold admission and reflexively looked up and down the docks again for anyone who might have overheard. He still didn’t see anyone except for a weird purpley bug crawling around on one of the dock’s support beams, but while Vanhoover wasn’t exactly known for crime, this guy was almost asking to be robbed saying that. “So how much is it?”

Grubber blinked again and got back on topic. “Depends—where are you heading?”

“Changeling Kingdom,” Thorax replied immediately.

Grubber supposed it made sense that a changeling would want to go where all of the other changelings were. “And…where is that, exactly? Never flown there before, you see.” Then, realizing how that sounded, quickly added, “I can totally get you there still, I just need, you know, an exact location or it’s sort of hard to plot a course.”

“Oh, of course,” Thorax said in understanding then rubbed at his chin, pondering how to answer. “…do you have a map? I think it’d be easier if I just showed you.”

Grubber was unfazed by that request—lots of his customers weren’t good with verbal directions and preferred to visually point instead. “Sure do!” he told the changeling and turned to his airship’scargo door, pulling it open. “C’mon in and we’ll talk over a map.”

“Okay!” Thorax said with surprising excitement and quickly followed the hedgehog into the ship’s small cargo hold. He then stopped and pranced in place for a moment as if giddily splashing in a non-existent puddle. “Ooh, I can feel the airship floating underneath me! How weird!”

“…sure?” Grubber replied, confused and completely at a loss as to what the changeling meant. Maybe it was just because he’d spent so much time on airships that he was taking it for granted, but the deck felt as solid under his feet as the ground outside did—that was sort of the point, after all. Any airship that didn’t feel that solid probably shouldn’t be in the air in the first place. “Anyway, follow me.”

He started leading Thorax through another door into a small intermediary area that sat between the cargo hold in the front and the engine room in the back, then stopped to watch as Thorax had to duck his head a little so to avoid catching his orange horns on the door frame. “Do, uh, all changelings have those?” Grubber found himself asking despite himself.

“No, it’s mostly just a me thing,” Thorax replied with a sigh, getting past the door successfully and then frowning up at the horns. “I didn’t use have them, but I guess now I’m stuck with them like it or not.”

“So what’s the point of them then?” Grubber asked as they started up a set of stairs. “Are they antlers or mandibles or something?”

“I really don’t know…antlers, I guess, because I think they’re mostly just decorative.”

“Too bad you can’t just take them off then.”

“You’re telling me. I could shapeshift into something without them, but that’s just a temporary fix at best—they wouldn’t actually go away, you know what I mean?”

“Not in the slightest.”

“Oh…I guess you’d have to be a changeling then.”

They arrived at the top of the stairs which led into a small commons area serving as a hybrid kitchen and dining area, but Grubber ignored it as he led Thorax through another door into the airship’s closet of a chart room. It was a bit of a squeeze for them both, but he was able to get Thorax comfortably seated at one side of the room’s central desk while he went to the other where all of the maps were stored in their proper cubbyholes.

He selected one of the whole continent and rolled it out on the desk between them. “Okay, point where it is you want to go,” he instructed his potential customer.

Thorax surveyed the map for a second so to get his bearings. He apparently already knew how to read maps such as this because it only took him a moment before tapping a chitinous hoof at a spot past Equestria’s southern border. “Here.”

Grubber leaned closer so to see himself and furrowed his brow. “Dead center of the Badlands?” he asked. Though given some of the things he’d heard about changelings before, he again figured that matched up.

Although he had heard Equestria and changelings recently became political allies too, a fact Thorax went on to effectively remind by saying, “Actually, we’re trying to give the area a makeover so it’s less the Badlands and more the Goodlands instead.” Realizing Grubber was staring at him, he coughed awkwardly. “The…name is still being workshopped.”

“Uh-huh,” Grubber said as he plopped into a seat and contemplated how to sell this so to get the maximum amount of bits without also scaring his customer away. “Well, whatever you want to call the area, that’s pretty much on the other side of Equestria from here. It’s going to take…” Grubber ran some numbers in his head, “…about a day to get there.”

“I’m aware,” Thorax confirmed with a nod, signaling that wasn’t a problem.

“So then adding the travel time to the costs for the fuel, supplies, labor…I’ll tell you right now this won’t be all that cheap.” Grubber then smugly leaned back in his chair. “But I’m more than happy to try and cut you a fair deal on this, so let’s talk numbers next. How much are you willing to…?”

He trailed off when Thorax unceremoniously thumped down a bag filled high enough with golden coins that a good handful spilled out onto the desk. Grubber went still as he stared owlishly at the not insignificant amount now sitting before him.

And even more amazing, Thorax didn’t seem to realize the significance of the amount he’d just put forward. “Is this enough?” he innocently asked to Grubber’s internal bafflement. “I admit, I’m not good at figuring out how Equestrian currency works.” He peered into the bag for a moment to make a mental tally of its contents. “I’m…pretty sure there’s about eight hundred or more bits in there, so…is that enough?” He looked at Grubber and started to fret. “It’s not enough, is it? I mean I don’t want to waste your time if it’s not, so…”

He started to take back the bag but Grubber quickly slapped both of his paws over it so to stop him. “That’s okay,” he managed to croak out, “I-I-I can still make this work.” It was only three or four times the amount Grubber was thinking to charge at maximum after all.

Thorax let out his breath in a relieved whoosh. “Oh, I’m glad to hear that,” he said. “But are you sure? Because if that’s really not enough…”

“It’s enough,” Grubber stressed in a final tone, pulling the bag of bits towards him. Oh boy could he buy a whole lot of key lime pie with this. He quickly stuffed the bag into a desk drawer before Thorax could get any more chance to reconsider. “So! To the Changeling Kingdom you said?”

Thorax, perking back up now that the money situation had been sorted, nodded emphatically. “Uh-huh! If it’s not too much trouble or anything.”

Dude, with the amount of bits you just gave me, I don’t care if it is or not, Grubber thought in his head but said aloud instead, while forcing a grin, “No trouble at all!” He stood up, suddenly eager to get his paying customer where he needed to go. “So grab your things and get settled in, because we’re heading to the Badlands!”

“Goodlands, you mean,” Thorax corrected as he followed him back out of the chart room.

“I’m not calling it that.”

“…okay, fair enough.”

It turned out that Thorax didn’t have anything in the way of cargo or anything else to bring aboard other than himself and his saddlebags, for apparently he traveled light. So since everything was already aboard, Grubber got him settled down then proceeded to the ship’s wheel so to disembark right away, backing the skimmer out of its dock and turning to head south. Thorax, interested, watched him do all of this from one side of the ship’s control cabin.

“So what kind of airship is this anyway?” the changeling asked abruptly once Grubber had their course set.

“It’s just a small air skimmer,” Grubber replied without looking away from the ship’s wheel. “Small but quick. Suits my needs just fine.”

“Well, yes, I knew that,” Thorax said. “I meant what make and model of airship is it?”

Grubber glanced his way in confusion, surprised to be asked so specific a question. “…why do you want to know?”

Thorax rubbed at the back of his head with one hoof. “…I like airships,” he replied sheepishly, like he thought that would be explanation enough. “And I’ve been reading up on them, so I’ve picked up a thing or two.”

“…uh-huh…” Grubber said, holding his confused glance for a second longer before turning back to piloting the airship.

Thorax, meanwhile, shrugged to himself. “I guess I’m just trying to figure out which ones are considered good or not by the creatures that actually fly them,” he went on to elaborate.

“You sound like you’re in the market for getting one yourself.”

“I mean…I might?” Thorax admitted uncertainly. He was rubbing the back of his head again. “I don’t know, do you think I should? They’re probably not cheap, airships, are they?”

Given how much money he’d put down just for the fare to ride without hesitation, Grubber suspected money wasn’t the issue here. “Depends on who you buy from,” he instead deflected, though it was still a true point.

“Well, I guess my friend Spike did say he could hook me up with one through some of his connections. Apparently he already knows one that’s available, a Shenandoah Type-40? You know anything about those?”

Grubber did, actually. Specs-wise, Shenandoah airships weren’t necessarily state of the art craft, but they still weren’t shabby in their performance. However what they were most known for wasn’t their specs but rather their luxury—this would be the sort of airship the well-to-do would have. Which really kind of struck Grubber by surprise. Even knowing this changeling had money, he never once had struck him as exactly well-to-do like that. “…I know they kind of appeal to a certain…clientele,” he finally replied delicately. “You get what I’m saying?”

“I think so,” Thorax replied. “But then that’s why I asked in the first place. I kinda want to know all of my options so I can figure out what’d be the best fit for me.” He glanced around the control cabin for a moment. “And this one seems rather nice. Feels capable enough, has amenities enough, room enough for carrying things, decent speed, no open deck…” he nodded at how the deck, instead of being open air like a lot of other airships, was fully enclosed so to meld seamlessly with the envelope lifting the whole airship, “…but it otherwise seems cozy enough. So I figured I’d ask in case I found another I could get for myself.”

Grubber bit his lip at that. “…you’re not going to find one of these on the market,” he promised solemnly.

“Really?” Thorax tilted his head at him more curious than perturbed. “Why?”

Grubber bit his lip harder, knowing this sort of airship had a less than favorable reputation. There was a good reason why he’d repainted it after all (besides to make it look sportier). “…it’s an ex-Storm King air skimmer.”

Thorax blinked, but to Grubber’s surprise, he didn’t react as much as he thought he would. “You mean this make of airship is a Luftschiff?” Noticing Grubber’s surprise at him knowing that, Thorax shrugged. “I said I like airships, didn’t I?”

Grubber continued to stare at the changeling in surprise for a moment longer then shook his head and pressed on. “…yes, it’s a Luftschiff Parseval-class air skimmer,” he confirmed with a sigh. “Captured by Equestria with the rest of the Storm King’s fleet of airships following his defeat, so you can’t exactly just walk into an airship dealership and expect to find one of these—you sort of have to make special arrangements with the Royal Guard, and they took most of them for themselves.”

“You got this one.”

“Because it was an extra they had leftover and had stripped it of its military components for civilian use.” That and Grubber had struck a deal with the official who was overseeing it’s recommissioning so to omit it was sold to him, an ex-Storm King follower that the Royal Guard almost certainly wouldn’t want getting a hold of Storm King equipment regardless of what he planned to do with it. That way Grubber got the airship without anybody coming to look for it and the official got a nice bonus to his personal savings that year. But Grubber wasn’t going to tell Thorax that. “Basically, I got lucky and was in the right place at the right time. I guarantee you won’t have such luck yourself.”

“Ah,” Thorax was thankfully very understanding and didn’t try to press the matter further. Maybe he could tell the topic was making Grubber uncomfortable? He didn’t really like talking about it for obvious reasons. “Well that’s too bad.” Thorax looked around the control cabin again. “She seems like a very nice airship.”

Grubber grinned to himself and gave the ship’s wheel a loving pat. “She is a good airship,” he agreed.

“I never asked—what’s her name?”

“Oh, uh…” Now it was Grubber’s turn to sheepishly rub the back of his head. “…she doesn’t really have one.”

“No name?” Thorax looked aghast to hear this.

“Well, officially, she’s still know by the designation the Royal Guard gave her when they captured her,” Grubber explained hastily. “CSKA-114”

Thorax furrowed his brow. Grubber didn’t know you could do that with chitin. “…which means?”

“It was the one hundred-fourteenth airship they’d cataloged as captured from the Storm King,” Grubber replied, who had asked about this himself when obtaining the air skimmer. “Hence CSKA—‘Captured Storm King Airship.’”

Thorax frowned. “…the Royal Guard aren’t really known for creative names, are they?”

Grubber chuckled. “No, they are not.”

Thorax left the corner of the cabin he had been sitting in this whole time and joined Grubber at the ship’s wheel, looking out the slanted forward windows. At first Grubber thought he was looking at the scenery outside—they were in the process of leaving Vanhoover’s outskirts by this point—but it turned out he was examining what he could see of the skimmer’s exterior from here. “Well…the red paint gives it a sort of fiery appearance…” he slowly reasoned aloud.

“Don’t forget the racing flames,” Grubber couldn’t help but add. He was really proud of those after all.

Thorax nodded. “So what if you gave her a name along those lines?”

Grubber shot the changelings a bemused look. “So we’re naming my airship now, are we?”

Thorax shrugged. “Why not?”

Grubber found he couldn’t really give a counter to that. “Did you have something in mind?”

Thorax tapped at his chin for a moment. “How about Phoenix?”

“I encountered a phoenix in the wild once,” Grubber replied, having been on a brief field assignment for the Storm King at the time. “They’re kind of jerks, those birds.”

Thorax didn’t look like he agreed but he let it slide. “Iblis, then?”

“That sounds like the name for some video game villain.”

“Volcano?”

“Ehhhhhhh—I don’t think she has enough punch to back up a name like that.”

Thorax went silent for a moment as he thought up more names. “How about Wyvern?”

Grubber started to reply, then paused as he found himself liking the sound of the word. He did, however, have a question. “What’s a wyvern?”

“I think they’re like dragons, but a bit more bird like, with wings instead of forelegs.”

Grubber hummed to himself and turned the proposed name over in his head a couple more times. “You know what, I just might consider that.”

Thorax merely beamed, pleased to have contributed.

They continued flying for a few hours without much event. Grubber was pleased at the progress they were making, estimating that they would easily go from Vanhoover to as far as past White Tail Woods by at least nightfall, more than half the distance they needed to cover to reach the location Thorax had specified for the Changeling Kingdom. He figured they’d probably arrive there by late morning tomorrow, sooner if they could travel through the night, but with Grubber being the only pilot aboard, he knew that wasn’t going to happen and hoped Thorax wouldn’t mind.

He sort of doubted he would, since the changeling seemed unbothered about such things. He’d in fact spent most of the voyage so far exploring Grubber’s airship. Since it wasn’t a very big airship, the hedgehog didn’t think it would’ve taken Thorax very long to do, but the changeling managed to find enough interesting things to examine that this period of exploration was easily stretched out for some hours, which was nice as it meant Grubber didn’t have to worry much about keeping his passenger entertained. As a consequence though, it also allowed Grubber to avoid mentioning the need to pause the voyage for longer than he should’ve. Really, he probably should’ve made this need clear before they’d disembarked from Vanhoover, but Grubber had kind of gotten distracted by the large amount of bits Thorax had paid for this trip and thinking about the small mountain of confectioneries that would buy him after it was over(even after excluding what he’d need for fuel and other bills so to keep the proverbial lights on for himself).

So, you know, he totally had a justifiable excuse.

But it couldn’t be put off forever, and as they’d cleared the ever-threatening Ghastly Gorge and the sun starting to set in the west, Grubber knew the time was now to address it. He was in the process of cutting throttle and dropping anchor over a nice little field when Thorax, probably having noticed they’d stopped, poked his head into the control cabin.

“We’re not actually there already, are we?” he asked in confusion.

“No, not yet,” Grubber replied as he finished what he was doing and turned to face the taller changeling. “We’re probably not going to get there until tomorrow morning. But we’re stopping anyway because me staying up all night so to keep us flying…”

“…would be unwise,” Thorax finished, catching on with a sage nod.

Grubber made a relieved sigh, glad that he understood, though again he didn’t really know why he was so worried given how everything had gone so far with the changeling. “Right, and since I’m figuring you aren’t licensed to fly the airship or else you wouldn’t have chartered a ride with me in the first place,” he then continued, “we’re going to have to stop and park for the night.”

“Okay,” Thorax agreed completely without protest. “I’m not in a hurry anyway.”

“Okay, good!” Grubber said, clapping his paws together in further relief. “I still probably should’ve warned you about that in advance, but…”

“No, no, it’s fine,” Thorax assured again, giving the hedgehog a friendly grin. “Do whatever you need to for your own well-being and all that.”

Grubber returned the grin, glad the changeling was so chill. “So anyway, once I’m done here, I’m going to get something to eat. You want anything too?”

“No thank you,” Thorax assured. “I’m good.”

“You sure? I’ve got options.”

“No, really, I’m good. I don’t need much.”

Grubber gave the changeling a doubting look. “…that still implies you need something,” he pointed out knowingly and patted the changeling on the leg as he stepped past him. “Tell you what, I’ll bring you up something simple and then we can go from there.”

Thorax glanced at him as he walked past, looking ready to object, but then shrugged and gave in. “All right, I guess I’ll humor you,” he relented. “Just don’t bring too much. I think you’ll find I don’t need to eat all that much.”

“Yeah, we’ll see about that,” Grubber self-confidently muttered to himself while starting down the stairs into the skimmer’s lower deck.

After all, he knew full well that the bigger the creature was, the bigger the stomach it had to fill. Just ask the Storm Creatures he used to bunk with because, man, could those guys eat. Grubber was no stranger to packing it away himself and even he had to wonder sometimes where they were putting it all. And Thorax wasn’t exactly small himself, so surely he was no exception. So once he stepped into the cargo hold where he kept his food stores in one corner, he started pondering to himself what a changeling might like to eat while also getting something for himself. He had about settled on his choices when he spied something skittering across the floor out of the corner of his eye.

“BUG!” he shouted in alarm while simultaneously twisting around and hurling the first thing his paw laid hold of—a soup can—at the purplish insect that had appeared about three feet away from him.

The paw-sized bug merely side-stepped it like it was no big deal, the can bouncing harmlessly past it. The same thing happened with the next can Grubber threw before the first one had even finished bouncing off the deck. It only really started to move when Grubber finally surged forward with the intent of stomping on it, the bug swiftly scampering out of reach. This resulted in a quick chase around the cargo hold as Grubber repeatedly tried to squish the evasive insect. He wasn’t even sure what kind of insect it was or even how it got aboard. Though now that he thought about it, he did recall seeing a similar insect back at the docks, making him wonder if the docks had passed on an infestation to his airship, and—

Did that bug just blow a raspberry at him?

Convinced that it had, Grubber redoubled his efforts to try and attack the bug while it continued to dance just out of his reach…at least until he tripped on one of the cans he’d thrown earlier and wound up tumbling onto his back. Groaning, he quickly scrambled back to his feet and twirled around several times in search of the offending insect intruding upon his cargo hold, but despite looking everywhere for it, it had vanished as quickly as it had first appeared and was no where to be found. Letting out a frustrated wail and suspecting that bug would come back to haunt him later, he nonetheless conceded he’d lost this round, retrieved the food he’d been gathering, and went back upstairs.

He found Thorax patiently waiting for him at the little dining table in the ship’s commons area. “That took you longer than I thought,” he noted aloud before growing concerned at Grubber’s frazzled look. “Is something wrong?”

“Oh, just found some kind of bug but it got away from me when I tried to squish it,” Grubber replied without thinking as he set down the armful of food on the table. Upon noticing Thorax frown, he suddenly remembered that who he was talking to was technically a pony-sized bug himself. “Oh crap—that probably sounded all sorts of offensive to you, didn’t it?”

Thorax, however, turned confused for a moment. “Huh?” He then blinked and became alarmed. “Oh! No, no, no, no, you’re fine. I know you didn’t mean something like me and instead an, you know, actual insect which…isn’t the same thing as a changeling, obviously.”

Grubber blinked to himself, looking the very bug-like changeling over. “…they aren’t?”

“No, totally different! I’m told changelings are actually more closely related to ponies than any kind of insect, believe it or not, so it’s not like we hold insects in high regard or something. Heck, I don’t like spiders myself.” He shuddered to himself. “So creepy.”

Grubber started to relax again, relieved he hadn’t committed some grave faux pas. “Whew…it’s just you looked upset when I brought it up, so…”

“Well, that was for…different reasons,” Thorax explained vaguely. He went quiet for a moment, watching Grubber start to sort through the food he’d brought up. “By any chance, do you know what kind of bug it was?”

“Nuh-uh,” Grubber admitted. “Honestly, I don’t think I’ve ever seen one like it before today.”

“Mm-hmm,” Thorax hummed, his tone turning flat. “…can you describe it?”

“Um…it was about this big,” Grubber mimed out the size with his claws, “had kind of a long bulky body, lots of legs, and purple and black in color.”

“…was it now?” Thorax said knowingly and with a frown proceeded to glare in the direction of the stairs Grubber had come up from.

Grubber looked between the changeling and the stairs, confused as to what was going on. “Do you know what kind of bug it was?”

“I have a pretty good hunch,” Thorax replied before shouting in the direction of the stairs, “And it better keep it’s distance if it knows what’s good for it!”

No sounds and certainly nothing like any kind of response came from the stairs, but nonetheless, Thorax glared in their direction for a long moment as if he expected there to be. Then he suddenly turned back to Grubber like nothing had happened and changed the subject. “So anyway, you brought food?” he asked.

“Oh, yes, yes I did,” Grubber said, actually thankful to be veering away from that weird conversation and looked at one of his favorite things in the world—things with which to stuff his mouth with. “And don’t worry, I’ve brought plenty for you too!”

“That’s all right,” Thorax assured with a kind grin. “I appreciate the concern but changelings don’t really need to eat all that much food.”

Grubber paused while in the middle of opening his first selection to eat—a pair of prepackaged snack cakes. “What do you mean? Everything’s gotta eat something.”

“Well, okay, changelings don’t really eat these kind of foods,” Thorax clarified, motioning to the spread before them. “At least no more than we have to.”

“…then what do changelings eat?”

“Positive emotions, mostly.”

Grubber’s face scrunched up at that. “Wait…you mean that whole stealing love thing I’d heard about you guys is true?”

“Oh, we don’t steal it anymore!” Thorax quickly assured. “We just accept what is freely shared with us.” He gave his middle a satisfied pat.“And that’s been working out pretty good, so you don’t really need to worry. I’ve already been fed plenty.”

Grubber fell silent for a moment, wondering how that worked. How exactly does one eat emotions anyway? And if a changeling eats love or whatever, then does that mean they poop like hate or something? Finding his brain was on the verge of wandering into some very weird corners of thought, he decided he didn’t want to ask and turned his attention back to the food he’d brought, munching on one of the snack cakes. “Still…I wouldn’t be a very good host if I didn’t at least offer, so…”

Thorax hummed to himself and relented. “Well, okay, I guess I can eat a little,” he said, starting to examine Grubber’s offerings. “Just a little though—I don’t want to overdo it and give myself a stomach ache.”

“No, we wouldn’t want that,” Grubber agreed, having already made the first snack cake vanish and was about to start on the second. He pushed another package of snack cakes towards the changeling. “Here, how about you try one of these?”

But Thorax immediately pulled a face. “Ooh, no, those factory-made things are so sterile and not made with any love at all.” Instead, he seemed more interested in the couple of cans Grubber had also brought up. “So what’s in these?” He pulled one close so to read the label. “‘The Brown Meat,’ I suppose.”

“Yeah, it actually tastes way better than it sounds,” Grubber stated. And it stored very well for a good long while too, making it ideal for keeping aboard an airship, particularly if there were no cakes or pies around, so he’d always made sure he was stocked up on some.

Thorax continued to examine the can skeptically. “But…what kind of meat is it?”

“I don’t know…it’s brown, what else do you need to know?”

“…fair enough, I guess.” Deciding to brave it, Thorax grabbed the can’s pull tab, popped open the top, and after accepting a spoon from Grubber started to munch away at the contents.

They ate in awkward silence for a few moments.

“So, uh, out of curiosity,” Grubber finally spoke up so to break the silence, “what brought you out to Vanhoover in the first place?”

“Oh, no special reason,” Thorax admitted. “I’ve just been trying get out and get more familiar with other parts of the world, see their sights.”

“…and so you came to Vanhoover, of all places.”

“Well, I had never been there before and I wanted to see everything it had. And it had lots of neat things to see! Parks, museums, an aquarium, the Ponies Gate Bridge, Grainville Island, the steam-powered clock, oh, and there was even this little shop I stopped at that sold books and stationery and whose proprietor was this lovely mare named…”

“So I’m guessing you don’t get to do this sort of thing often,” Grubber surmised, cutting Thorax’s list of examples short.

“Well, I didn’t use to, no,” Thorax admitted, averting his gaze. “Things are a lot better for changelings now, but it wasn’t so long ago when it was a lot…tougher…and we didn’t really get to enjoy luxuries like this.”

Grubber sighed, looking down at the fifth snack cake he was in the middle of eating. “I guess I get that,” he said, thinking back to his time working under the Storm King and how it came with its many ups and downs. “My life was kinda like that not so long ago too…it’s still not always smooth sailing even now.”

“I’ve found life’s funny like that,” Thorax agreed before perking up. “But that’s why it’s important to take what chances you can to just go and out and…enjoy it. Because you never know when you might get another chance to, you know?”

Grubber mulled that over while Thorax scraped out a few more bites from his can. “That’s really not bad advice,” he admitted.

“Yeah,” Thorax agreed before making a mocking snort. “Now if only I could get my brother to see it that way. Maybe then he’d stop going on about how oh-so-risky he thinks it is.”

Grubber snorted in amusement. “Kinda overprotective, is he?”

“Oh, you have no idea,” Thorax assured, sharing in the hedgehog’s amusement.

“Well, here’s hoping we can prove to him that this little voyage won’t be so dangerous,” Grubber offered, raising his seventh snack cake in the air as if making a toast.

“Hear hear,” Thorax immediately agreed, tapping his nearly empty can against the snack cake.

After eating they called it a night, each selecting a bunk to sleep in and sleep they did, quite uneventfully. They didn’t seem to bother each other doing so either, which was a small relief to Grubber—Tempest had always claimed that he snored and he didn’t want that disturbing the changeling’s sleep. But upon waking up the following morning, Grubber found that Thorax seemed to have slept well, still curled up in a ball like a cat in his bunk. Though he’d never admit it aloud, the sight of the sleeping changeling was almost adorable.

But all thoughts about that were chased away when he spied that bug from the previous night sitting on the floor in front of the bunks.

“You again!” Grubber declared and charged for it.

The purplish bug immediately turned around and scampered out of the room while the hedgehog gave chase, trying once again to take out the unwelcome insect. But like before, the insect was uncannily quick and nimble and too good at keeping almost mockingly out of Grubber’s reach no matter how hard he tried to close the gap. Quickly the chase brought Grubber from the bunks in the back of the skimmer and all the way into the control cabin in the front, before the bug led Grubber around and around the ship’s wheel a couple of times before, again just like last night, it abruptly vanished again without a trace, like it had never been there. And once again, Grubber was left as the fool standing in the middle of the room and angrily trying to figure out where it’d gone.

It was while he was doing this that he finally noticed that the view outside the forward windows wasn’t quite what he had been expecting it to be for this morning.

The chase must’ve woken Thorax because the changeling came trotting into the room a moment later, rubbing sleep from his eyes. “Good morning, Grubber,” he greeted through the middle of a yawn. He joined the hedgehog at the forward windows and followed his gaze out them. He frowned. “Huh, it’s looking kinda stormy out there.”

“Very stormy,” Grubber corrected, gazing worryingly at the dark clouds that’d gathered close enough to fill the horizon at some point during the night. He scratched at his grayish-white mohawk for a moment. “But…it’s not supposed to be. Today the weather should’ve been scheduled to be sunny and clear in this part of Equestria.”

“Huh,” Thorax said, growing somewhat concerned himself. “Maybe there was a last minute change?”

“That’s…not usually a thing in Equestria though,” Grubber reminded.

They stared at the storm clouds in the distance for a tense moment.

“Is this going to be a problem for us getting the rest of the way to the Changeling Kingdom?” Thorax asked.

Grubber considered the dilemma for a moment. “I’m not sure just yet,” he admitted as he stepped up to the ship’s wheel and started up the engines again. “But we’re going to find out.”

He proceeded to put them back on course for their destination, hoping that the storm clouds would either clear up by the time they neared them, or a break or some other obvious way around them would appear before they reached them. However, neither happened, and the storm only grew closer and closer as they approached, looking no more friendly than it had from afar. The only upside Grubber noticed was that it didn’t seem like an especially powerful storm and just a moderate shower at best. That was good, because it meant so long as he kept the skimmer out of the storm clouds themselves, he should still be able to fly through the storm. It’d be somewhat turbulent and visibility would be lower than ideal, but if he took it slow, he should be able to do it.

None of this explained how the storm got there with so little forewarning though. Grubber had been to parts of the world where there was naturally occurring weather before, but this was Equestria, where the weather was supposed to be micromanaged to the point that the weather doing anything unexpected just wasn’t a thing…unless something had gone very wrong. And he was proven right to suspect that, because turning on to the radio and listening to any chatter on it eventually revealed there had been an accident at the Las Pegasus weather facility and all of their storm clouds had drifted free…and right into their flight path.

There didn’t seem to be any easy way to avoid it either as it was no small storm. Trying to go around them would divert them off their intended course by several miles, and the skimmer wasn’t powerful enough to get the sort of height needed to try going over it. Through wasn’t an option either for safety reasons—the storm would be too turbulent, even just at moderate strength like it was—so really the only option was to try and fly just under it.

Which Thorax quickly noticed was Grubber’s plan. “We’re really going to try flying through that?”

“Really the only other option we have is to just stop here and hope it passes by quickly,” Grubber reasoned. “But we have no way of knowing how long that’d take, and I told you I’d get you with the other changelings by the end of this morning.”

“I know, but I’ve also said I’m not in a hurry,” Thorax reminded. “It’s not like I have to be home by that time. I don’t even have to be home today if it’s necessary.”

“It’s okay, I promise,” Grubber nonetheless pressed on. “I used to fly airships in storms like this all the time. I know what I’m doing.”

Thorax hesitated a moment, looking between the hedgehog at the storm ahead of them, now close enough that it filled their view. Finally he nodded. “Okay,” he said, “I trust you.”

Nodding and praying to himself that this trust wouldn’t prove to be misplaced, Grubber cautiously eased them ahead and into the storm properly. As expected, visibility rapidly decreased once past its outer boundary, especially once the skimmer started getting pelted with a soft rain. But it was still visibility enough to navigate by, especially as the land here was fairly flat and arid, with nothing especially tall to run into. So as long as he kept from going too fast, he shouldn’t be in any danger of a collision, especially after he switched on the skimmer’s exterior lights which helped cut through the closest of the stormy haze.

That is until a range of mountains suddenly faded into view directly in front of them and forced Grubber to bring the skimmer to a halt. “Shhhhhhoot, those are the Macintosh Hills, aren’t they?” he bemoaned aloud, realizing how much of a problem that presented. He thumped a fist against the ship’s wheel. “I completely forgot about those.”

“On the upside, the Badlands start just past those mountains,” Thorax pointed out, trying to find an upside. He stepped closer to the forward windows in search of a safe way to get past the mountains in these conditions, but with their visibility so low, he clearly could tell what Grubber had already determined that trying would be dangerous. “Can you just fly up and over them?” he asked, looking back at the hedgehog pilot.

Grubber shook his head. “Not without putting us within the storm clouds, and that’ll just make things even worse for us.” He sighed. “Not gonna lie, Thorax, we might have to call it here until the storm eases up, because neither of us are gonna want to try and fly through a mountain range mostly blind like this. We’d just guarantee crashing into a mountain we wouldn’t know was there.”

Thorax, however, was silently thinking to himself, tapping at his chin. “What if we did know where the mountains are positioned though? Or at least enough to predict roughly where to expect them?” He looked back at Grubber. “You had a whole bunch of other maps in your chart room. Do you have any topographical ones for this region?”

Grubber thought for a moment. He didn’t really travel through this area so it wouldn’t be one he pulled out very often. But he had made it a point of getting a wide variety of maps for all over the continent and even beyond just in case he ever did need to come this way for this very reason. “You know, I just might?” he concluded and, locking the airship controls for a moment, he ran back into the chart room, Thorax following.

A moment of searching later revealed precisely what they were looking for. “Yeah, here we go!” Grubber declared, unrolling the map out on the desk so they could look at it. “A topographic map of the Appleloosa region, including the Macintosh Hills.” he pointed a claw at the mountains in question, each mountain and their shape and height being clearly marked out upon it.

Thorax studied the map for a moment himself. “I think we should be right about here,” he reasoned, pointing at the spot he estimated the skimmer was currently hovering. He then traced out the rough path they would want to take to get past the mountains without running into any of them. “You know, we might still be able to do this.” He looked up at Grubber. “About how slow can this airship go?”

“In this storm, about ten knots,” Grubber replied. “Anything slower than that and we won’t have enough thrust to cut through any gusts that might try to push us off course.”

Thorax picked up the map and studied it for another moment. “If I follow our path on the map as we go, do you think you can safely follow it at that speed if I call out to you where to expect the mountains as we come upon them?”

Grubber contemplated the proposal. It wasn’t without risk, of course. If it was just him trying to read the map and steer the skimmer at the same time, he wouldn’t have dared try it. But with Thorax handling the map and letting him focus on the steering… “I think so,” he replied cautiously. He smirked, trying to boost his own confidence. “And it’d beat just sitting around waiting for the storm to pass, so let’s try it!” And before his nerves caught up to him preferably, but he kept that part to himself.

They returned to the control cabin with Grubber taking his usual spot at the ship’s wheel while Thorax laid the map down on the floor next to it so he could give Grubber immediate instructions and still have a clear view out the forward windows too. “Are we ready?” Grubber asked as he unlocked the controls and put a paw on the throttle.

“Yes, just a moment,” Grubber caught sight of Thorax making a sweeping motion out of the corner of his eye and turned in time to see him brush away a familiar purplish insect. “Augh, I can see why you were so annoyed with this guy, Grubber, he’s being very under hoof, isn’t he?”

“Do me a favor and just squish him and be done with it next time,” Grubber said, choosing to ignore the intruding bug until after they had successfully cleared the mountains. “Okay, I’m starting us forward now.” He eased the skimmer up to around ten knots, just enough to keep the buffeting from the wind outside at bay, and aimed for the closest gap between the first row of mountains he could make out in the reduced visibility.

Thorax watched carefully, purple eyes going back and forth from the view outside and the map before him. Once they were past the first set of mountains, the ones they could more easily see for themselves, he traced out where the next ones should be on the map. “Okay, so if that mountain’s there…Grubber, turn us to the right.”

Grubber obeyed without question, easing them gently to the right. As he did so, a new mountain loomed from out of the stormy haze and sliding safely past them to their left as hoped. Heartened by this sign that their plan was working, he kept the skimmer moving onward. “Okay, where to next? Thorax?”

“Oh, away with you,” Thorax grumbled under his breath as he again swept away the purplish bug from the map. “Head left, Grubber, just a little though. Go too far and we’d get too close to the next mountain over—darn you, stay off the map!” He again brushed away the bug, refusing to keep away all of a sudden. If Grubber didn’t know better, he’d say the insect was urgently trying to get Thorax’s attention. He wondered if it understood their plan and if so didn’t approve.

Nonetheless, the hedgehog again did as asked, successfully evading the next set of mountains, though he saw Thorax’s point about being careful not to veer too far to either side. Even as it was, he still come uncomfortably close to the mountain that passed to their right that time. “And next?”

Thorax was finding his attention suddenly competing between navigating and keeping the map clear of the intruding insect constantly racing onto it as if in a panic. “Right—no, I mean left, LEFT!”

Grubber quickly swung them back out of the right turn he’d started them into just in time for the next mountain to suddenly emerge to their immediate right. There was a suddenly but brief thump as the skimmer brushed against something as they dodged the closest of the mountain’s rocky outcroppings. That one was a little too close. “Thorax?” he prompted again, hearing the tenseness in his voice.

The changeling was getting real fed up trying to keep that darn bug off the map. “Phary—GRR—I swear, if you don’t stay off, I’LL be the one trying to squish you next!” He more whacked than brushed the bug off the map this time, sending it bouncing into the far side of the cabin.

“Thorax!” Grubber repeated urgently, staring intently into the haze before the skimmer, alarmed by how no new mountains had become visible yet.

“Turn left again then right immediately after that!” Thorax finally replied, tracing their path on the map.

Grubber obliged, successfully avoiding the first mountain in a comfortably wide berth, but he grew worried when he didn’t see the one he assumed was immediately after that during the next turn. “Are you sure?” he asked to confirm.

“Yes!” Thorax assured then squinted at the map then out the forward windows again. “Unless…wait, no, Grubber, stop, STOP!”

Grubber threw the throttle in reverse and did so just in time to stop the skimmer from running into the sheer rock face of another mountain that emerged into view without warning. Staring at the rocky surface illuminated by the exterior lights, the two creatures stopped to try and calm their beating hearts for a second.

“Okay…okay…” Thorax repeated aloud, going back to consulting the map. “Okay, this should be the last set of mountains and then we’re clear.”

“You sure?” Grubber pressed as he started to turn the skimmer away from the mountain they’d nearly collided with. He didn’t want to sound like he doubted Thorax’s word, but they didn’t have any room for getting this wrong at this point.

“As I can be,” Thorax admitted, which wasn’t as much certainty as Grubber would’ve liked, but he’d take it if he had to. “Just… get us around this mountain until it’s directly behind us and then head straight. That should get us through.”

Grubber gave himself a shake so to get his lingering willies out. “Here goes then,” he said.

He did precisely as Thorax said, letting the skimmer hug the mountain and keeping it in ready view out of an abundance of caution. Once he was confident they had gone completely around it and were safely at its opposite side, he pointed the skimmer directly ahead and continued forward. All he saw ahead of them at that point was more stormy haze, so he kept himself on guard in case any unexpected mountains suddenly appeared out of it. But after several minutes, enough time for all of the mountains they had previously passed to fade away from view, it started to become clear there were no more coming.

“I think we did it!” Thorax finally announced, double checking with the map. “We’re clear!”

Grubber breathed a huge sigh of relief at that. “Next time, I think we’ll just stop and wait for the storm to pass,” he quipped with a grin.

Thorax laughed and patted him on the back. “That was some good piloting, Grubber,” He praised.

“Thanks,” Grubber responded as he got them back on course, confident they were past the worst of the navigational hazards for now. “You certainly helped make it happen.”

“It was a team effort then,” Thorax concluded, and they both settled with that.

The rest of the voyage proceeded uneventfully after that. They even managed to reach the other side of the storm just before they reached the Changeling Kingdom and Grubber got his first good view of it. It proved to be a collection of mostly spires grouped together in the rough form of some sort of structure, with various plant life having started to grow upon it. It seemed very friendly, and as Grubber proceeded to set the skimmer down nearby, he saw several other changelings—all much shorter than Thorax—curiously venture forward so to get a look at the visiting airship.

“Whelp, we’re here,” Grubber finally announced once they had set down, turning to Thorax.

“And no worse for wear either,” Thorax agreed as he collected what little he had brought aboard. He grinned approvingly at the hedgehog. “Thank you for being willing to fly me here.”

Grubber made a modest shrug. “Thank you for being willing to hire me,” he said, thinking about the bag of bits he had stashed away, waiting for him to use to buy a whole heap of confectioneries. His stomach could hardly wait.

In the meantime, he walked Thorax down to the cargo hatch so to see the changeling passenger off. “Seriously though,” Grubber continued as he pulled open the hatch, “You were a good passenger, Thorax. I enjoyed traveling with you.”

“Maybe we’ll have to do it again, next time we’re both in the area,” Thorax replied with a grin. “I’ve got a whole list of other places I still want to see after all.”

“Sounds like fun,” Grubber agreed, finding himself more open to the idea than he expected. “So, if you’re really interested, just send me word and we’ll see if we can work something out.”

“Assuming I just don’t go ahead and take Spike up on that offer for an airship of my own,” Thorax reminded.

“True!” Grubber agreed. “But get in touch with me anyway and we’ll have a race to see who’s got the fastest.”

Thorax laughed. “And maybe you’ll have decided to give this lovely craft a name by then.”

“Maybe,” Grubber agreed. “Calling it the Wyvern IS starting to grow on me.”

Thorax grinned and took in a deep breath. “Well anyway, thanks again, Grubber,” he said as he exited the airship finally. “And safe travels, especially with that storm still hanging around those mountains!”

“Don’t worry, I’ll probably take the long way home!” Grubber assured, waving at the changeling as he crossed the gap from the airship to where his fellow changelings were waiting for him, no doubt curious to hear the story of his trip here. He watched long enough to be sure Thorax wouldn’t need anything else then turned, looking back into his airship.

He did so in time to see that darn bug sitting on the floor just behind him. “Oh, that is IT!” he shouted, twisting back around to so grab a wrench from off a hook on the wall, intent on clubbing the insect with it.

But when he turned back to the bug, it was suddenly not a bug anymore but a full sized changeling, slightly shorter than Thorax and a dark cyan color. “Try it,” he told Grubber with a smug grin. “I dare you.”

Instead, Grubber let the wrench fall from his paws, flabbergasted. “You…you were…but that…but…that was…you were the bug?”

“The whole time,” the changeling confirmed, leaning closer to Grubber. “Someone had to make sure you two stayed out of trouble, right?”

“Stayed out of…?” Grubber trailed off as he realized something, recalling something Thorax had said last night. “…you’re Thorax’s brother, aren’t you? The overprotective one?”

“It’s not overprotective,” the changeling quickly stressed, the point clearly a touchy one for him. “It’s securing a vital asset.”

“…right,” Grubber said, unconvinced and motioned to the still open hatch behind him. “Well, you can just go and secure vital assets somewhere else now, Mr…?”

“Pharynx,” the changeling replied. His smug grin returned. “Prince Pharynx.”

Grubber’s eyes went wide at that. “…prince?” he repeated, realizing that meant he’d been trying to squish royalty this whole time.

“Mm-hmm,” Pharynx nodded. He motioned in the direction Thorax had gone. “And that passenger you just flew here was our king.” Taking sadistic amusement at the sight of Grubber’s brain seizing up even further at that news, he started to exit. “Just thought you’d want to know,” he said as he did. “Given you nearly slammed him into the side of a mountain and all.”

He then walked off, Grubber staring after him.

Royalty…they had both been royalty.

But then Grubber concluded that, for royalty, one certainly couldn’t tell too easily. Thorax, in fact, was pretty casual for royalty, and Grubber found he sort of preferred that. Turns out royalty was so much easier to get along with when they’re willing to stay at your social level.

His second thought was that he should’ve charged more for the fare.

Author's Note

So this actually wasn't my first idea for this contest. Not even close. But after spending most of this past month working on it, it eventually became clear it wasn't working and there was not enough time to rework it.

But even though there was only about a week remaining until the deadline, I still wanted to at least try to get an entry in by the deadline. Remembering that I've been interested in exploring whatever Grubber got up to after the MLP movie and having posited the idea he'd take up a career flying airships, that got Thorax in the mix too, given I had previously written him as a lover of airships, and thought that'd make for a good and unique pairing to explore. Hopefully y'all agree--this is a bit more chill of a story than my usual fair.

Also, because I'm getting this submitted so close to the eleventh hour, this has been edited, but not to my usual preferred extent, so if you see any errors I missed, by all means do point them out so I can correct them!