Yawn... What time is it?

I looked up to see I was still in the cave. Okay, now I'm SURE this isn't a dream, that's great, at least. Wait, how did I get here on my bed? Last thing I remember was me trying my best to comfort Lightray... I must have fallen asleep and he carried me to bed. Thank goodness for my small size or I think It'd be impossible to lift me.

I looked around the room. No one was awake except Phospha, who was reading something. I could ask her what she was reading but it's probably morning and I don't really think she's a morning bug. Alas, curiosity took the best of me and I went over to her.

She was by her bed on the floor, laying down, her tail curled up around her. The book was in front of her and she occasionally flipped a page with what was probably her magic. She flicked a glance at me but didn't look at me further. She actually had about 5 books behind her.

"Um, hey Phospha? What are you reading?" I asked.

She didn't look up from what she was reading. "Sparkling history. Why do you ask?"

She seems less grumpy, let's poke some more information out of her. "Just a bit curious.... Where did you get them from?"

"Buzzlight got it and some others for me at my request a few days ago."

"Oh, okay." I walked away. Maybe she wasn't ALWAYS grumpy, maybe yesterday was an exception. I laid in bed, bored. Can't anything happen? Like Buzzlight walking in for some reason, I like her.

Then Buzzlight entered our room.

Wow, I'm good at guessing.

"Phospha, are the other's awake?" Buzzlight asked.

"Only Flicker, the rest are still sleeping." Phospha gestured her tail towards me.

"Ah, good morning to the two of you." She waved a holed hoof towards me, "Do you mind waking Lightray and Firefly up? Today is the start of your studies as it's been a week since all of the new nymphs' first molt."

"Not at all."

"Oh, and your mother would like me to tell you that she wants to start your first studies with her, she's meeting you at the throne room. And as for you Flickers, I need both you and your other hatchmates to come with me so I can show you the choice board."

Phospha nodded and trotted out the door. I cocked my head to the side, this is... a little complicated, "What's the choice board?"

"It's all the diffrent paths you can take, you can pick multiple as well... But for now, all Sparklings has to pick the Scout path till we get more Sparklings..." Her tone saddened a bit. Okay, what happened? WHY won't they tell us...? Suddenly, her tone became brighter and more chipper. "But first, wake them up and meet me outside the door!"

I woke up Firefly pretty easily, she's a light sleeper, and I pushed Lightray of the bed. Luckily, he didn't attempt to murder me, but I still woke him up either way. Though, he might be grumpy for the rest of the day.

Anyways, I pushed the door open with a hoof, they followed behind me. Lightray was muttering something about murder, not sure what his problem, though!

Buzzlight was humming when she noticed us. "Oh, there you are! Let's hurry, the studies should start soon."

"Where are we even going? What do you mean 'studies'?" Firefly asked.

"Oh, Flickers didn't tell you?" She glanced at me, wait, I was suppose to tell them. Oh. "I'll explain while we walk, I didn't explain fully about Paths even with Flickers."

She started trotting at a brisk pace and we matched it.

"Well, every sparkling has choose at least one path, we can choose multiple as well. You'll usually pick a path or paths with the rest of your brood but you were taken before then... Well, once you choose one, you'll get a token to signify where you belong. Once you finish your studies, you get your official badge and titles to use when your on duty, or if you have one you want to be called."

"Is that it...?" Lightray asked pretty narcissistically.

"Uh, yeah, pretty much unless I forgot something, anyways, we are here!"

In front of us was a a room with a giant stone wall. There was a giant white circle in the middle, it had 8 lines stretching out into other circles... Not too much to look out, though...

In each branching circle were diffrent color blocks, one was blue, one was orange, one was pink, one was purple, one was white, one was red, and one was pink. Each one had a name and a description beside it.

SCOUT

Scouts are the basic building blocks of Sparkling hives. Scout's do many of the jobs like expanding the hive, assisting when needed, fighting, and most of all, gathering energy for the hive to feed on. They have the highest death counts due to cave-ins, and dangerous missions.

GAURDS

Guards mainly guard the main hive as well as fight on the front lines. They often accompany important figures when leaving the hive. Their are many types of guards such as, solders, archers, brutes, and warriors.

INVENTOR

Inventors discover and make things that could help the hive with the assistance of magic and their hooves and tails. These projects are usually helpful to the hive by helping out on the battlefield, healing, and many more. This job has the second highest death count due to failed projects, mainly explosion.

MAGES

Mages are experts in magic and often help out on the battlefield, become advisors to the queen, or just continue to study magic.

HEALER

Healers are important to the hive as they fix injuries and sickness a sparkling might catch.

CARETAKER

Caretakers take care of new hatchlings, as well as act as messagers, advisors (usually if the caretaker was the caretaker of the queen).

Well, out of all of the paths I could choose, one caught my eye. Inventor. I was kind of a inventor back on earth, I made stuff out of... well, anything I found. Whether it was cardboard, metal, a person- okay, ALMOST a person. I felt like it would be fun, and I also wanted to do a bit o magic as well... I might sign for that, not as a serious role but still.

"Are you ready yet? It's going to be time soon." Buzzlight said impatiently.

"Yeah, I'm just sticking with Scout... And I guess healer?" Firefly said.

"I, uh, yeah, I want Mage." Lightray said.

"I want to be an Inventor!"

"Ah, Okay. Give me a second.." She turned around approaching a chest I did not notice before. She then pulled out three blue rocks, one red rock, one orange rock, and one purple rock.

She gave Firefly a blue rock and a red rock. Lightray a blue and purple rock. And ~~me~~ I a blue and orange rock.

"Okay, make sure you don't lose them." Buzzlight then started walking in a brisk pace. "I doubt you'd even lose them in the short time it takes to get there. Come on!"

A few things has happened. There was this boring event thingy where they called us up and blablabla, but it was SO boring I won't even mention it. For now, the only studies that are going on is Scout studies, which I think I understand. We luckily don't have anything like regular school, so if we plan to learn about history or something, we'd have to read from books.

The very first Scout lesson was bit uneventful. There was this VERY cool teacher named Fulgur that was short like me and is VERY sneaky. Is that the only reason why I think he's cool, mayybe. He gave us a quick lecture about how Scout is not just a simple role and their are many branches of it blablabla anyways he gave us test which ~~me~~ I and my siblings DESTROYED, figuratively, and literally. We were surprisingly good at the flight, especially me. I went really fast and broke some of the obstacles and it DID hurt pretty bad, butttt, I can essentially become a bullet, yes, a slow bullet, but still a bullet.

I found out a cool thing about us, and me. We eat ENERGY! Specifically active magic, like a unicorn casting a spell, or a Pegasus moving a cloud, or a earth pony growing plants... Or from sentient beings, there's always at LEAST some active magic in sentient beings.

Anyways, I cool thing I learned I can do is use my tail to sense for magic. I found out while we were doing the magic test with our tails. We can use our tail to take Energy from our Energy stores and can dispel it at the end of our tail. It went wrong and somehow I just magic LiDAR scanned the room by accident. At the end, I told Fulgur about it. He was surprised since it was a rare ability Sparklings occasionally get.

I was on my way to Inventor studies. Once I got there I sat down on a cushion. It looked someone took a section of a library and just made it into a classroom, with long tables. There was only one blue finned Sparkling that looked very nervous when I showed up. I think I was early cause there was only one other 'ling here.

Then another older looking yellow-finned Sparkling came in, yawning. He was definitely sleep deprived.

"Hello everyling- Oh, there's barely anyone here... Hm, I am High Inventor Salvis and I will be your inventor instructor. You two can introduce yourselves."

Wait. THIS IS ALL?! That's surprising, I thought more people would be here, but I guess not.

I didn't want to go first so I just looked at the blue sparkling. She looked very nervous, maybe I should've gone first...

"Don't be nervous, there's only two 'ling other than yourself, c'mon, you don't have to come to the front. Just say your name." Salvis prompted.

"Um... I'm Salus."

He turned to me, "Now you."

"Oh, well, I'm Flickers." I responded, putting my head on my table.

"Flickers? Oh, you're the demi-royal I've heard about? Never would I thought I'd see one, especially attending my class, but I suppose anything can change."

Salvis stepped a bit closer, "Now both of you tell me what being an Inventor means."

I raised my head and decided to speak up first. I don't think Salus would want to speak first again. "To help the hive with making helpful stuff."

"And?"

"And what?" I tilted my head. I mean, that's the rock board said.

"What else? Because that is not all that being a inventor is."

"... It's risking your life to help the hive, even if its not as heroic or as tragic... I think." Salus spoke up.

"Good job, that's a good definition, I'm impressed."

Ohh! So we were suppose to say what our hearts say it means. Aw...

Salvis stepped back until he was by the books, "If you were expecting us to just starting working with metal and gears, you'd be wrong, as we have to go over safety." He started to circle the empty classroom. "As you know from the Path Board, being a Inventor is the most dangerous job, and most of the deaths is caused by being stupid. Even the smartest inventor could die do to a overlooked mistakes. And though I can't stop you from forgetting, I'm going to make sure to try my hardest to make you remember safety."

That makes sense. I don't want to die prematurely just because I wasn't careful.

"Now, today we will go over three very important rules. Never take unnecessary risks, Always make your invention useful, and NEVER shall your invention be used to maliciously hurt another Sparkling. These are rules you must ALWAYS follow while inventing."

The lesson continued like that. He went a bit deeper into each of the three rules and after that we were free to go, I decided to talk to Salus a bit. Salvis exited the room shortly after he said we could go.

"Hey Salus!" I approached her happily.

"... Hello Flickers." She looked down.

Okay, how do I make friends... I mean, there is the way I used to make friends, but will it work?

"Do you want be friends?"

"Uh- I- huh?" I think I broke her, oops.

"Oh, well, it's okay if you don't want to!"

"No! I- yes, I'll be your friend. I don't want you to get upset..."

Upset? Why would I get upset over that? "Huh? Upset? Well, thank you! I have to go now before my siblings get worried."

"At the palace...?" She looked up at me with a questioning face.

"Sure, I guess. Anyways, bye!" I waved a hoof out before skipping out. Man, skipping's kind of hard as a bug pony... Oh well.

At least I have a new friend now!

Author's Note

Y'all I'm so sorry about not posting a new chapter for like... 3 month, I kind of forgot then remembered and got invested in writing again-

Anyways, three fun facts and a picture of an Average Sparkling:

There are four other hives with changeling deviations on Solus; the Buzzling hive, the Illusionling hive, and the regular Changeling hive.

Sparklings are usually half the size of regular changelings. That's one of the main reasons why they don't like to get into conflicts (Though, even though they are allied, Buzzlings sometimes call Sparklings wimps since they are smaller yet more aggressive.)

Solus started from fleeing changelings from an escaping hive. They spilt up, one group went to the Demented forest which started the first Buzzling, and the other fled to the other end of the island underground, which started the first Sparklings. Illusionlings were created by Changeling experimenting, they were meant to create a weapon that could help in war, but accidently created the first Illusionlings. The queen then escaped one day and started her hive. Though now, the history has been mixed up. every 'ling on Solus thinks that all 'lings other than changelings were created by changelings themselves.

(I'm bad at drawing forgive me if it looks bad :[ )