Naturally considering their luck, their train got unexpectedly delayed at one of the outlying stops along the way and began to run late. As such, it didn’t pull into the spacious Vanhoover train station until somewhere around midnight that evening (as neither Spike nor Thorax had any sort of timepiece, it was hard to know for sure). Though Spike was still awake when the train finally did arrive, it had gotten late enough and him tired enough that despite staring out the window at the train station and directly at a sign that read “Vanhoover North Train Station,” he almost didn’t realize it.
Fortunately, the announcing shout of the train conductor roused him from his dazed state. “All departing for Vanhoover!” the conductor bellowed loudly to the passengers in the train, the number of which had thinned considerably over the past couple of stops.
As other passengers started to collect their things and move to step off the train, Spike stood up and gave the dozing Thorax a nudge. “Hey, we’re here,” he whispered aloud to the disguised changeling.
Thorax’s camouflaged ice-blue eyes opened immediately as if a switch had been thrown, banishing sleep immediately. He stood up and stretched. “Well, guess we better get off then before the train decides to move on,” he said, awake as if he had never been dozing in the first place.
As they had brought little aboard the train with them that wasn’t already stuffed into Thorax’s saddlebags, they were able to just stroll right off the train and onto the train platform, which was draining itself of travelers just as quickly it had been filled with them exiting the train. Worried that lingering about on the platform was going to draw unwanted attention to them then, Spike and Thorax followed the example of the other passengers stepping off the train by moving on through the quiet and largely vacant train station and out onto the city street beyond, marking the outer edge of the city of Vanhoover. There they sat and watched the other passengers trot on into the dim streets, eager to get to wherever they were heading and none stopping long enough to even notice the dragon and his disguised escort. Not long thereafter, the train they had exited was heard blowing its whistle and then puffing on out of the station again, bringing a sense of silence upon the area shortly thereafter.
Though Vanhoover was certainly a sizable city, still lit with a wide array of twinkling lights in its many skyscrapers, the late hour had made it very quiet and still. It seemed the city had largely shut down for the evening. Intimidated by the tranquil serenity of the city, the two exiles sat on the cobblestone road in silence, taking in their new surroundings.
“So now where to?” Spike asked finally, the sentence partly muddled by an involuntary yawn that slipped from his mouth at roughly the same time.
Thorax noted the yawn with a small smirk. “Sounds like the first thing we should do is find someplace safe to get some sleep,” he reasoned.
“But where? We don’t have any place to stay to spend the night.”
“Oh, I’m sure we can find plenty of places we can spend the night,” Thorax stated confidently, turning and starting down a neighboring side road. “Just leave that to me.”
Since Thorax seemed to know what to do, Spike followed him without protest. It occurred to him that considering Thorax had already been wandering about on his own before now, he was probably more practiced at this part than he was. Either way, Spike was too tired to really object anyway, which was what probably surprised him more, as Thorax seemed perfectly alert and awake, despite having been dozing for the better part of an hour mere moments before. Thorax also seemed to be navigating the dim city streets better than Spike as well, who was struggling even though he’d removed the sunglasses he was wearing as part of his disguise shortly after starting so to be able to see clearer. Twilight had long told him that, as a dragon, he possessed slightly better night vision that ponies, but to Spike the difference couldn’t be that great because he really couldn’t navigate that much better in the dark. Thorax, however, didn’t seem at all bothered by it, which got Spike wondering what sort of night vision the changeling had in those pupiless eyes hidden behind his friend’s current magical mask.
After several minutes of exploring the quiet backstreets of Vanhoover, Thorax eventually led Spike to a block of warehouse-like buildings. An old red-brick one located on the far end appeared to have been long abandoned. Several signs were hung around its vicinity warning that it was still private property and that trespassers would be prosecuted, but the signs were worn and fading and there was clear evidence that they had been getting ignored, as there were clearly pony-sized holes in the equally degrading fence enclosing the building and obvious signs of vandalism.
“You really think we can safely spend the night here?” Spike asked Thorax skeptically as they slipped through one of the holes in the fence and walked up to the two story building.
“There’s an easy way to find out,” Thorax said, strolling up to the building’s dusty brick wall. “Keep an eye out for any trouble for a second, will you?”
Spike nodded and gazed out at their surroundings for anyone that might catch them in the act, but it seemed he had little to worry about. There was simply nopony around at this hour. He glanced back at Thorax in time to see the disguised changeling stroll confidentially up to the building’s exterior and then, without losing stride, began to scale on up the wall as if gravity had suddenly started pulling sideways instead of straight down like normal. Spike felt his eyebrows go up at the sight, having forgotten that changelings could climb walls with such ease.
Thorax climbed as far as where the building’s lowest window was missing more than one pane of glass, and leaned his head over to peer through it. “Oh yeah, no one’s been in here for easily a couple of weeks at least,” he said with confidence. “I can hardly smell any lingering emotion in the air in there.”
Spike blinked, the statement taking a brief second to fully sink in. “Wait—you can smell emotion?”
“Sure I can,” Thorax responded cheerfully, looking back down at Spike. “Can’t you?”
“No. I didn’t even know that was possible.”
“Oh,” Thorax thoughtfully remarked as he scaled back down the wall with ease. He shrugged as he stepped back down onto level ground. “I guess it must be a changeling thing then.” He looked around and then motioned to a large pair of wooden double doors that barred the warehouse entrance. “That way will probably be our best way in.”
While Spike’s tired brain attempted to wrap itself around the idea of being able to smell emotion, they headed over to the doors. Not unexpectedly though, they found the doors had been chained and padlocked shut.
“So…what do emotions even smell like?” Spike asked finally while Thorax examined the lock.
Thorax shrugged again. “Depends on the emotion.”
“Let’s say love, then.”
“Well…um…” Thorax frowned, considering the question. “…hm. I’m not sure I can describe it in a way you could picture without a common frame of reference…in fact I’m not sure the Equestrian language even has the right words for it now that I think about it…I’m going to have to think about that a little. I can at least tell you that love smells good, though.”
Spike shrugged. “Fair enough.”
Setting aside that thought, his friend turned his attention back to the padlock. “Hmm, looks like this is a standard enough of a lock…some basic magical protections in place against lock picking, but that’s about it. Simple alohomora spell ought to do the trick.”
Adjusting his stallion disguise so that a unicorn’s horn now appeared on his forehead, the disguised changeling cast a small spark of magic at the padlock that promptly made it pop open. The door thusly freed, the two then slipped inside. It was almost pitch black inside the warehouse except for what little light was managing to get through the building’s dusty windows, but Thorax fixed this by lighting his horn to make an impromptu flashlight. Shining it around, they saw there was little inside the building except for some forgotten pallets, a few crates larger than they were, and various pieces of garbage, weeds, dead leaves, and other forgotten waste scattered about the floor.
Spike’s nose wrinkled as his sniffed the warehouse’s stale air. “What’s that weird sour smell?” he wondered aloud.
“Urine,” Thorax answered matter-of-factly. “I think we haven’t been the first ones to seek shelter in here.”
Spike glanced around the warehouse again warily. “And…you’re sure there’s no one else in here?” he asked.
“Positive,” Thorax stated with a reassuring grin as they strolled into the middle of the spacious interior. “Nobody has been in here recently enough for there to still to be any lingering emotive energy, so it’s highly doubtful anyone’s been in here for weeks, nor that they’re likely to return soon.” Seeing Spike didn’t fully understand, the changeling elaborated. “All living things produce an aura of sorts of whatever emotions they’re experiencing at any given time. We changelings refer to it as amor, or emotive energy, and that’s more precisely what it is that we’re actually feeding upon. But when whatever’s producing that emotive energy moves about, it’ll leave a little bit behind them wherever they go, a kind of emotive hoofprint if you will. Until that eventually dissipates away again, that emotive energy can still be detected telling a changeling like me roughly how long ago something’s been in the area.”
“Like a hound dog following somebody’s scent,” Spike reasoned, catching on.
“Kind of…can’t really use emotive energy to track down any particular someone, as the smell isn’t distinctive to the individual…but yeah, basically the same sort of idea. Point is that nobody but us has been in here in weeks.”
“Huh.” Spike thought about this new tidbit of data for a moment, finding the idea that he was probably leaving a trail of emotive energy wherever he went right now unusual.
“Anyway, it’s late enough as it is,” Thorax went on, stopping to face Spike. “And it’s been a…long and stressful day for both of us. We’d better get some sleep.”
Spike kicked what appeared to be an old coffee cup probably left behind by some previous intruder, watching it bounce off the warehouse’s concrete floor until it slipped out of the bubble of light Thorax was producing with his horn. “Yeah, and I’m certain this dirty warehouse floor will be the most comfortable of surface ever to sleep on too,” he pointed out semi-sarcastically, even though it was immediately followed by the thought that he was in no position to complain.
Thorax sighed in sympathetic agreement though and looked around. “Well, maybe we can find something else other than the floor to sleep on real quick,” he reasoned. The light his horn was producing suddenly split in two, resulting in a separate orb of light that swooped down to hover near Spike. “You wait here. I’ll go poke around real quick.”
Not eager to explore the dark and creepy warehouse, Spike readily remained put as Thorax walked off, searching for anything that would be better to sleep on than cold hard concrete. He soon vanished behind a short row of forgotten crates, leaving Spike standing on his own in the middle of the warehouse. Suddenly feeling alone and vulnerable, he started to wonder if staying here was what he really wanted to do.
CRASH! “Balani devoveo!”
“Ah!” Spike yelled, startled by the sudden sound. “What? What? What happened? Who’s there?”
“Sorry that was me!” Thorax was heard calling out with a groan. “I tripped over something…I think it’s some old toolbox…”
“Oh. You okay?”
“Yeah I’m fine, though I think I might have bruised my knee…”
“Good, good…but um, that was you that shouted, right? I-I didn’t quite catch what you said, so…”
“What do you mean?” More rattling echoed out as Thorax was heard shuffling around with something.
“When you tripped, you shouted something I didn’t catch…what did you say?”
“Oh, um…” Spike could hear the embarrassment in Thorax’s voice. “…nothing polite.”
Spike paused for a moment, feeling his own face heat up a little. Was Thorax implying that he swore?
Thorax suddenly reappeared from behind the crates, his light breaking up the darkness of the warehouse a welcome sight to Spike. “So, I was able to find some tarps back there,” he explained, nodding his head in roughly the direction he found them as he strolled back up to the dragon, the ball of light that had been hovering around Spike zipping back to meld with the disguised changeling’s light on his horn. “But they’ve been sitting there for who knows how long gathering dust and insects and I figured it wouldn’t be wise to use them in that state. The only other things I found we really could use to sleep on besides that are the old wooden pallets, but uh, they’re old and splintering, so…”
“It’s okay,” Spike interrupted as he sat himself down on the floor. “Thanks for looking anyway.”
He started to lie down on the cement floor, taking off the hat and wig parts of his disguise he was still wearing and setting them to one side. Thorax watched him for a moment, before pulling off the saddlebags still on his back and gently set them down beside Spike’s head. “Here, you can use this as a pillow.”
Spike willingly pulled the bags under his head. “Thanks,” he said, shedding the trench coat he had been wearing and draping it over himself like a blanket.
Thorax waited until the dragon was settled in. Then without removing the cloak he still wore, he dropped his disguise with a flash, returning to his natural changeling form for the first time since they left the Crystal Empire. He then lowered himself to the floor, curling up in a ball so that his head rested on his forehooves while also gradually letting the light his horn produced fade away, permitting the darkness of the warehouse return.
Spike watched him for a moment, letting his eyes adjust to the darkness. “Not going to sleep in disguise?” he asked, more out of curiosity than anything.
Thorax shook his head without opening his eyes. “I generally don’t. If I go to sleep with a disguise on, I’ll eventually relax too much and let the disguise drop anyway.”
“You didn’t do that when you were sleeping on the train.”
“I was more of…cat-napping, then. Didn’t want to accidentally let my guard down.”
Spike kept silent for a moment longer, watching the changeling, starting to realize how little he really knew about this curious creature that was now his only friend. “Thorax?”
“Yeah?”
“We’re friends and all now, but…I’m starting to realize I don’t really know you all that well.”
“There’s…really not a lot to tell about me, Spike. I already told you why I left the hive, and…”
“No, I mean…I don’t really know anything about you as a changeling. There’s all these neat things I didn’t know you could even do…when we get the chance…if we get the chance…can you tell me more about changelings? At least so I can understand you all as a race better?”
Thorax still kept his eyes closed, but a grin appeared on his face. “Sure.” A pause as he waited in case Spike said anything else. He didn’t, so he continued. “Good night Spike.”
Spike rolled over to look up at the dark ceiling of the warehouse. He grinned. “Actually…I think it’s late enough that it’s technically morning now.”
The two chuckled to themselves for a moment.
“Well, good morning then, Spike,” Thorax amended, settling back down to sleep.
Spike settled down himself. “Good morning, Thorax.”