The Light Within Us

by theOwtcast

One Year of Friendship

“Congratulations!” I said to Pharynx after the award ceremony.

“Eh, whatever. Now teleport me to that cave.”

“Sure! Where is it?”

“North-east from the city, in the snowy outskirts-”

My eyes widened and I gasped. It couldn’t be…

“This one?” I asked as we materialized in one of the very familiar caverns.

“Yeah, why?”

“I didn’t realize you knew about it…”

“The scouts for the mission of replacing the royals used it as their base camp. Why? What’s so special about some hole in the ground?”

“...this is where I hid while they were looking for me…”

Pharynx said nothing, but the look in his eyes told me I had his full attention.

“I discovered it shortly after coming here, which was just after Flurry was born and the city’s aura went so bright that I sensed it all the way from Vanhoover. I needed shelter, and… well, I started needing shelter even more a couple of days later when it turned out I’d been noticed, so I blocked off all the entrances to keep the Royal Guards out, and spent probably weeks inside until Spike fell through a snow-covered opening I’d neglected, and you know the rest.”

“At least you had plenty to eat.”

“I didn’t. Well, okay, I did, but I never touched it because it would have been stealing as much as if I’d drawn it from a pony I attacked…”

He facehoofed. “Only you, Thorax. Only you would starve yourself next to an endless supply of food!”

“But because I did it, we now have just as endless supply of food at the hive!”

“Ugh, I guess. So where are the entrances?”

“Other than the one Spike fell through, this cavern only has one, behind that pile of glowing crystals. Beyond that are more caverns with their own exits. This one was the easiest to block off.”

“You couldn’t have piled all that onto the exit yourself!”

“I did. Not at first, I admit, but the more unbearable my hunger got, the more desperate I became to keep myself from rushing out and attacking ponies.”

“I better not ask anything else,” he muttered.

“It wasn’t easy, but I pulled through, and it was still easier to bear than Chrysalis’ torture sessions or surrendering myself into becoming like everyling else was back then, and yes, it was worth it, and I’d do it again a million times if need be for the same reasons.”

“I don’t doubt it. Will you let me sleep now?”

“Uh, right, sure. Shall I come fetch you when it’s time to leave?”

“Only if that love explosion thing doesn’t wake me up first, which I can’t imagine won’t happen.”

“Alright then, good night!”

He was already curled up on a rock and barely waved a dismissing hoof.

I left him there and flew to the city, stopping by to say hello to my flower for a minute. It was flourishing spectacularly and spreading further down the slopes of its hill than ever before! I’d known to expect to see it grow, but to see it happen this quickly… it was more than I could have asked for, and my heart swelled in pride!

If only I could show it to Pharynx… but he was asleep, and he wouldn’t have cared, anyway. Oh well, maybe in a few years, or decades, he would learn enough patience to at least feign interest… Until then, I was willing to wait.

The Faire was still going as usual when I finally returned, and the ponies didn’t seem to have noticed my absence. They must have just assumed I was entertaining someone else, though, and I got back to mingling as if nothing had happened. Unlike Spike, I still wasn’t getting overwhelmed by the crowds, so I even managed to hang out with Sunburst and my Ponyville friends a few minutes at a time, even with Rainbow, who had in the meantime calmed down enough to be somewhat rational about her defeat, but not so much that she’d give up wanting a rematch.

At some point halfway into the afternoon, I sensed waves of love erupt from somewhere just off-north of the castle. It puzzled me at first, and so did the other changelings in sight, and though it wasn’t enough to overload the Crystal Heart into a premature climax of the day’s event, it nevertheless began spinning a little more vividly. It must have been Paladin and his wife, I realized, welcoming their foal into the world.

Not long afterwards, I came across Pharynx as he walked around with a confused look in his eyes.

“Awake already?” I asked.

“I thought the ponies are supposed to turn translucent when the Crystal Heart explodes,” he said.

“They do!”

“They don’t look translucent.”

“That’s because the Crystal Heart hasn’t ‘exploded’ yet, as you put it.”

“What woke me up, then?”

“Huh? Oh, you mean that surge of love! I don’t know for sure what it was, but I was told earlier today that a friend’s wife went into labor this morning, and the surge came from where the hospital is, so I’m guessing the foal was born.”

“Figures.”

“Hey, if you’re still tired, you can use my room in the castle-”

“No thank you, Thorax, I’m not lying down into one of those cutesy-soft pony beds! Having to do it on the mission was more than enough!”

“But there’s still a good hour or so before we share love with the Heart…”

“I’ll find something to do.”

The ‘something’, as far as I could tell, turned out to be the continuation of his aimless wandering while avoiding interaction with everypony. Was he pretending to patrol? Was he suspecting threats and actually patrolling? Was he just trying to keep himself from falling asleep? I did my best to ignore him while mingling with more ponies, but every now and then, he would surface from the crowd and disappear again.

Oh well, maybe he was just bored out of his mind, now that the jousting was over.

I’d just bought a plush bunny from Whirligig’s toy stand and given it to Shining Armor with a short congratulatory note to pass to Paladin and his foal when the time came for the climax of the Faire, and as if on cue, Pharynx happened to be nearby again.

“Hey, they’re gonna begin the speech now!” I called to him.

“Oh joy,” he retorted. “So can we go now?”

“And miss the main part? C’mon, don’t be such a grump for once!”

He rolled his eyes and positioned himself next to me to listen to Cadance and Shining’s speech, or at least to pretend to.

Like last year, the speech began with nods of gratitude to everyone present and a few historical notes, which they wove into a tale of reflections of that history in the world of today, with a great focus on unity and the forging of friendship even with former enemies, ending with a message that no feat was impossible as long as one dared to hope.

The aura around me grew steadily throughout the speech until it reached a climax with the conclusion of Cadance’s words. Everypony bowed gracefully and poured their love into the crystally roads beneath their hooves, and I joined wholeheartedly; the other changelings mostly seemed confused at first, having never partaken in the ritual before, but quickly realized what was happening and followed suit, love seeping out visibly from their hearts. Even Pharynx had decided to abandon his grumpy stance and allowed himself to not exactly fall, but at least stumble under the spell of Cadance and Shining’s heartwarming speech, and was now ready to contribute to the renewal of the Crystal Heart’s magic.

I sensed a sharp tinge of apprehension coming from my drones as the Heart’s magic began to spread out and engulf the city in its blinding light before blossoming into soothing ripples in the sky, but I wasn’t afraid; this time, I knew what was coming.

Sort of.

The explosion of light left the ponies translucent in their intricately-decorated crystal forms, and I knew something similar was to happen to us, but the sight of our crystallized selves took my breath away: in addition to becoming translucent, we were now adorned with ribbons, an occasional bay wreath, and swirly and floral patterns over our hooves and elytra, and our wings doubled in size and detail! Pharynx sported a necklace that he didn’t seem to be too thrilled about despite his medal being embedded in it, and upon closer inspection in the mirror-like surface of a nearby wall, I found myself wearing a similar necklace and a tiara of sorts.

“Great,” Pharynx groaned. “Just when I was beginning to think we couldn’t get any more glittery…”

---

The journey back was a pleasant one. We’d spent some time with our friends until the train’s departure, and the first hour or so of the ride had been dedicated to sharing impressions with one another. Grim had had the time of her life with the foals, Antenna had sold all the flowers, Mystique and Elytra had not only sold all their arts and crafts but also received commissions for more, Whisper was still humming to herself, and Carapace had lost his voice from telling so many stories to his eager audience. The rest were impressed by everything they’d seen and experienced, and only slightly less impressed by the weight of the bags of earnings that they’d helped carry. Bandit was going to have his hooves full by the looks of it!

Pharynx was still feigning indifference to the playful taunting about his faux-battle victory but putting very little effort into concealing the brightness of his aura. The effort would have been wasted; the piece of pony metal on a string, as he’d called it, still hung proudly around his neck as we flew over the southernmost trees of the jungle and the hive came into view.

It was Wednesday evening by then, as Chief Thundehooves had met us in Appleloosa to invite us to partake in the traditional all-day stampeding and I’d had no heart to refuse the drones’ pleading looks, and afterwards, during the flight over the jungle, everyling was begging for frequent rests due to the weight of their cargo. It seemed odd, knowing they’d transported the merchandise much more easily on the way to the Faire, but Pharynx wasn’t complaining about the danger of resting in unfamiliar areas for once, and our communicator scarabs weren’t glowing with Psycho’s pleas for help with any emergencies, so I allowed it. Maybe the stampeding had worn them out more than they cared to admit, after all! As a result, our return to the hive came after midnight, and though I still wasn’t quite as exhausted as I might have been without the frequent resting, Pharynx practically commanded us into bed right away as we all had duties awaiting us in the morning.

I must have been wrong about not being especially tired, as I ended up oversleeping my usual wake-up time by over an hour, only opening my eyes to the sound of many galloping hooves and unbridled laughter. Were these the same drones I’d taken to the Crystal Empire or some others? And how were they awake already?

Maybe I needed to get myself an alarm clock. A new one, that is; the one I’d had in the Crystal Empire was way too loud even for a building with doors that closed. It wouldn’t do to give half the hive a heart attack whenever I needed to be up early! I didn’t want to take my chances with Pharynx, either; knowing him, he’d either annihilate the clock on its first wake-up duty or insist on implementing the early hour as the new norm for when the daily duties were supposed to begin in an attempt to encourage discipline or something. I didn’t know which was worse.

All of this could wait until another time, though. My duties must have accumulated over the past several days and I had to tackle those first.

I stepped into the throne room and-

“SURPRISE!”

“Gah! What the-” I stammered through the blizzard of confetti. “Huh?!”

The throne room was fuller than it had ever been since my coronation. Most of the drones I’d taken to the Crystal Empire were there, and some I hadn’t, but they weren’t the only ones; mixed in with them were my friends from Ponyville and the Crystal Empire, the Equestrian Princesses, Ember, some yaks and buffalo, and several ponies with cameras, one or two of whom were already snapping photos. In addition, a large table with cakes and drinks was set up in the middle of the plateau, and a dozen of smaller tables with sandwiches and fruits were along the edges, as well as extra flowerpots, and there were chairs and cushions to sit on pretty much everywhere… and where had all these flagpoles and their respective flags come from?

“It’s a party, silly,” Pinkie said. “Do you like it?”

“...we’re celebrating something?”

Her gasp drowned out everyone else’s murmurs momentarily.

Pharynx facehoofed. “How did you of all people forget?”

“Uh…”

“You overthrew Chrysalis a year ago! Today is the one-year anniversary of your reign!”

“Oh… that… heh… I guess it did slip my mind…” I shuffled awkwardly. “Didn’t expect a celebration, either…”

“Everyling’s been asking,” Psycho said, “and you never said anything so I wasn’t sure what to tell them, but the feelings forum that you missed for the Grand Galloping Gala concluded with overwhelming majority that they wanted to make the date a national holiday and celebrate. We called it Freedom Day, by the way, though if you want a different name, that’s alright.”

“We figured you’d be on board with it,” Feisty continued, “but we weren’t sure at first whether it would be better to involve you in the preparations or to surprise you, so in the end, Psycho offered to keep it a surprise unless you brought up the matter yourself.”

“I’m kind of glad I did because you might have gotten so involved in it that you’d miss the Crystal Faire. As it is, the drones had a fun time and managed to stall your return enough to let us work without having to dodge you or risk spoiling the surprise.”

“So that’s why they found the money bags so heavy all of a sudden!”

“But not so heavy that you’d end up missing the whole thing,” Pharynx shrugged.

“Wow, even you were in on it?! But how come we didn't see the ponies and others overtake us?”

“We teleported,” Cadance said. “Though, we rode a train to Equestria proper first to avoid getting thrown off course by a thaumic vortex despite there not being any major ones.”

“Of course. Pinkie baked these cakes, I take it?”

“Yep! And Berry made the drinks and sandwiches!”

The crystal mare smiled sheepishly.

“Well, right, this is a surprise, but a pleasant one! I appreciate that you wanted a holiday celebrating the deposal of Chrysalis, but it’s not a holiday for just me; it’s for all of us! I could never have done it without you, and we all reap the benefits today, not just me! Freedom Day? Yeah, I like the sound of it. Uh, happy Freedom Day, everyling and everypony!”

They all stomped their hooves and cheered. As I watched them, my gaze fell on something I hadn’t noticed before.

“Oh, and you decorated my throne?” I flew closer to take a look at the flowers adorning the branches of the tree incorporated into the throne. “No, wait, it’s blooming?! Did I miss the buds a few days ago?”

“That’s weird,” Antenna mused. “It shouldn’t bloom for another few years! When did it happen?”

“On the evening of the Crystal Faire, after the tendrils of the Crystal Heart’s magic showed up in the sky,” Psycho explained. “At least that’s what Blade says they are. I think the tree responded to them.”

“What does usually happen when the Crystal Heart’s magic reaches the hive?”

“It hasn’t reached this far since the Empire’s return until now and there’s no record in the archive that it used to prior to the Empire’s disappearance,” Pharynx stated. “They weren’t even visible on the horizon beyond the jungle, or someling on patrol would have noticed and reported it.”

“Oh? Could Chrysalis’ throne have been repelling them more strongly than other magic?”

“The tendrils have always only reached roughly to the southern border of Equestria, or more accurately, in all directions in a circle of that radius,” Celestia said. “It varied a little depending on how many ponies there were to charge it on a particular yearly festival.”

“Then it must have been Thorax and the changelings,” Sunburst mused. “We’ve already seen their love is strong enough to collapse a building made of solid rock, so it stands to reason it could have doubled if not tripled the Crystal Heart’s output. And if the tree in your throne is at all receptive to your magical or aural signature, which has occasionally been documented as a phenomenon, then it could have responded to the love you fed to the Crystal Heart and triggered the blooming… I think you’re the one who decorated your throne, Thorax!”

I smiled sheepishly. “Well, at least I did something for the celebration, even if it’s the most insignificant part… But seriously, you were all in on it? Guess I shouldn’t anger you or you’ll gang up and overthrow me, huh?” An awkward silence followed and I rubbed the back of my head. “I mean, as much as I enjoy the surprise, I kinda would have liked to take part in the preparations… but no harm done, right? I can do that next year… Anyway, I haven’t prepared any speeches in case you’ve been waiting for one, so let’s just get on to celebrating, shall we?”

They needed no prodding. As soon as the words left my mouth, a DJ booth sprang to life and the throne plateau turned into a dance floor, attracting drones from the lower levels to fill the remaining space and, when that became too tight a few minutes later, to swarm the sky around the hive’s top. The cake table was just as much of a hit with the ponies and other guests, though they had to work to get to it, even if some had the advantage of wings or levitation or just raw size. What I admired most was the surreal light, born brom the morning sun and the Crystal Heart’s magic still rippling through the sky and tempered by the multitude of air-dancing changelings’ wings, that created a vivid kaleidoscope of dancing rainbow over the plateau and everyone’s faces; truly a unique sight!

I couldn’t have been the only one who’d noticed; the flashes of reporters’ cameras pierced that perfection until their owners caught on and disabled them. One of them was standing close enough that I heard her mutter a satisfied remark at a glance of the polaroid photo taken under pure ambient light.

Then she realized who was standing near her and a sparkle ignited in her eyes.

“King Thorax?” she said. “I’m Quillstroke of Crystal Empire Times. May I ask you a few questions?”

“Sure- hey, aren’t you Paladin’s wife?”

“Yes! I’m flattered that you recognize me! Has he told you I’ve been fascinated by you ever since you turned up in the Crystal Empire?”

“He has! But didn’t you just have a foal the other day, and you’re working already?”

“I’m actually on maternity leave, but we were coming over anyway, so I figured I might as well take the opportunity to write an article. My boss agreed, and since the whole family is here, the plan is for all of us to take turns watching Aurora and Love Ablaze.”

“You have twins?! Wow, congratulations! Can I see them?”

“I think they’re still sleeping, unless this music woke them up. I took Gossamer’s suggestion to leave them in the hive nursery, and Rock Solid asked to stay with them.”

I assumed that was her son, who had come up in a conversation with Paladin once or twice but without mention of his name.

“Anyway…” She levitated a pencil and notebook from her saddlebag. “It’s been a year since you defeated Queen Chrysalis and took the throne. How would you summarize that year?”

“It’s been… hectic, for me at least, especially in the first days when I didn’t know the first thing about ruling a kingdom. I’ve adjusted to my role by now but there are still challenges to overcome every so often, but then again, there probably always will be, but I can rely on my brother and subjects to help me get through them. They needed some time to adjust too after my predecessor’s tyranny, and their lives are much more fulfilled today than ever before. I can’t claim the full credit for it; other lands are beginning to realize we’ve abandoned our old ways and a lot of drones have friends outside of the hive as a result.”

“But they wouldn’t if you hadn’t broken the ice!”

“Maybe, but some of those friends are people the drones were in regular contact with during infiltration assignments and who have since forgiven being lied to. I like to think that, if it weren’t for me, some of those infiltrators would have learned to share love and become genuine friends with their, um… targets, for the lack of a better word, and decided to share that knowledge with other drones.”

“Would Chrysalis have allowed it?”

“No, and they’d have had to take it gradually and be careful not to tell anyling who’d snitch on them, but if they’d succeeded, they could eventually have built up a large enough group to at least stand a chance if they had to fight back when she decided to execute them. Whether or not their efforts would have gotten as far as triggering a metamorphosis… in the best case scenario, it would have been inevitable eventually, though the question remains how long they’d have to wait to get there.”

“What about Freedom Day?”

“It’s a new holiday, obviously, and my subjects came up with it. I wasn’t consulted but I’d have approved wholeheartedly. It warms my heart to know that they’ve grown past their old instincts and indoctrination to want to celebrate what they’ve become!”

“So this will be a recurring holiday every year, I take it?”

“Absolutely! I’m already excited about actively taking part in the preparations next year!”

“It was mentioned that your subjects managed to keep the holiday as a surprise from you until the very last moment so you probably haven’t had the time to give it much thought, but from what you’ve seen of it, is there a message the other lands can draw from the holiday?”

“Only that good changelings are here to stay, which is an important message for anyone out there who still has doubts about us.”

“Holidays aside, what are your plans for the future?”

“To keep spreading friendship! There can never be too much of it!”

“Thank you! That would be all for now… I’ll let you enjoy the party!”

“Thanks! You too have fun!”

Enjoying the party had to wait a little longer, as other reporters had caught wind that I was answering questions and rushed to bombard me with some of their own. Much of it was similar to what Quillstroke had asked, though, so my answers were ready. Pharynx dropped by about halfway through the ordeal and stood aside watching, and for a moment, I worried he was going to shoo them away, but he didn’t as long as they were busy with me. That changed as soon as one of them attempted to direct a question at him, which resulted in the entire group taking their abrupt leave in a better-safe-than-sorry fashion, though I later caught a glimpse of some of them maintaining a very low profile among the other ponies.

All of my friends were busy either eating or dancing, so I decided to sneak out to the nursery for a few minutes. There, among many larvae and nymphs, slept two newborn fillies, being fawned over by Grim and Gossamer, and the sight of them awakened the irresistible urge in me to amply contribute.

“Aww, they’re so cute!” I cooed over the little bundles of joy. “I wanna hug them so much!”

“I know, right?” Grim said. “They’re so adorable… Can we keep them?”

“You’re putting me in a very difficult position now,” I teased. “And today of all days at that! We don’t ‘keep’ ponies anymore, but when something so precious drops by, I almost wish we could keep them just for a little while, just for hugging at least…”

“Watch it, Thorax, you’re getting evil around the edges,” Gossamer chuckled.

“What?! I don’t- why do you- I just-”

“Hey, breathe! I’m just messing with you! I don’t think there’s a force in the entire universe that could turn you evil!”

“Yeah,” Grim snickered, “or it would have happened a long time ago!”

“Hey look, they’re waking up!”

“Quillstroke said they’ll be hungry,” Gossamer said. She was probably right; one’s face was scrunched and the other was crying. “Wanna feed one? She left milk bottles for them.”

“Do I!” I picked up the blue filly, who had woken up first, and left the white one to Grim, who passed me a bottle that the filly then eagerly accepted. “Here you go, breakfast right on time! Aww, how cute… What’s your name?”

“That’s Love Ablaze,” Grim said. “This one is Aurora.”

“Pleased to meet you, Love and Aurora! I’m Thorax. I’m friends with your daddy, and I guess with your mommy too as of today, heh…” They were paying all the attention to their bottles and none to my attempt at introduction. “You’re right, food is more important. There’ll be plenty of time for us to get to know each other!”

I watched them gulp down the milk and started to cuddle Love when she was done, only to have my attention demanded by another filly.

“Oh, hi, Flurry!” I exclaimed softly, careful not to wake up Love, who had already fallen asleep again. “It’s always a pleasure to see you!”

“Bad Tora!” she pouted. “Pwomise pway an then go! Why no wanna pway wi me?”

Uh-oh… I’d promised to play with her at the Faire! Why hadn’t I looked for her?

“Oh, I’m sorry… I must have gotten distracted… I did want to play with you! Say, how about we play now?”

“Yea! Tora pway!”

“Watch out, I’m gonna chase you!” I taunted, having passed Love to Gossamer. “You can’t run from me!”

She blew a raspberry and dashed away to prove me wrong. She didn’t even have to put in much effort; though not entirely out of shape due to chasing nymphs on a regular basis, I was still untrained enough to barely keep up with her boundless energy. The challenge of catching the young princess grew as nymphs and a few fillies and colts took notice of us and eagerly joined, forcing me to keep track of multiple targets without disappointing any, and soon the cavern echoed with laughter and excited squealing.

After what seemed like hours to me and probably a pitiable few seconds to them, just as I thought I was finally about to catch one, the others executed a team effort to disorient me by whizzing past in quick succession, causing me to bank hard to avoid collision probably a dozen times in only a couple of seconds, and as a result, I was left tumbling through the air with a choice only between entangling myself in hanging vines or crashing onto the ground.

I chose the latter. Ouch… Where had the nymphs learned to be so sneaky?

A possible explanation came in the form of hooves stepping right in front of my face.

“Pharynx?” I said, looking up at his smirk. “Have you been looking for me? How did you know I was here?”

“Your guests are starting to wonder where you’ve disappeared to. As for how I found you… well, there’s only one reason why the nymphs are ever as loud as this, and even without that, you’re painfully predictable. I didn’t even have to track your aura this time.”

I got up. “This time? That sounds like I’m not as predictable as you’re making me sound!”

“Dream on, Thorax. I only track your aura when you freak out so I can get to any threats faster and deal with them before they can do anything. Not that there’s a lot of actual threats these days…”

“For the record, I don’t freak out nearly as often as I used to!”

“Your life used to be one giant freakout. I’d be seriously concerned about my senses playing tricks on me if they started telling me you’ve managed to top that.”

“Fine,” I groaned. “Now that you’re here, would you like to play chase with us?”

“What I’d like is for you to get back to your duties. That crowd came to see Thorax, the king of the mighty changelings, not me or any other drone, and you’re going to entertain them.”

“Aww, but we just started!” Nettle protested.

“Tough break. Thorax is the king, and as such, he has duties that come first. If he wants to play with you, he can when he’s finished with the more important stuff.”

Now all the nymphs moaned dejectedly.

“C’mon Pharynx, look what you’ve done!”

“Being realistic is what I’ve done. Your duty is to your subjects; playing can wait!”

“But the nymphs are my subjects too!”

“I know that. But are they defending the land, or crafting products for usage within the hive or sale to other lands, or healing the sick, or contributing to society in any way?”

“They will when they grow up! Being too young to do any of that is no reason to slight them!”

“And until they grow up and start contributing, they’d better learn that the world doesn’t revolve around them.”

“The world doesn’t revolve around anyone, Pharynx, not even me, no matter how much you like to pretend that it does. Not that I’m ungrateful that you care so much; it just comes out as a bit hypocritical, don’t you think?”

He let out a noncommittal grunt and walked away.

“Sorry about that,” I said to the nymphs and foals. “He has a weird way of caring, but he does care… I’m sure he just wanted to toughen you up a little… Anyway, what do you say to joining me and the others at the festival?”

Comments

[redmar]

It seems as if Pharynx is afraid of showing he can be something other than a jerk.

[Yuri Bacon]

11898089
Yes, and it's adorable.

[Yuri Bacon]

This story is criminally under rated. Finding out you posted a new chapter always makes my day!