//------------------------------// // Interview // Story: EoH Evolution Interlude: Integration // by Bahamut0 //------------------------------// A whole week had passed by since Narico had successfully integrated his people's soldiers into the royal guard. However, the young king's work wasn't done yet. All of Unity had yet to hear from him. And after the failed invasion during the royal wedding, the citizens of the changelings' new home could use some reassurance. "Guys c'mon. . . " Narico groaned as Rarity fussed over his appearance. "My hair's fine. Do I really need to completely change its style?" The young royal changeling managed to escape the Element of Generosity's well-intentioned gesture and returned his hair to its natural state. "I get looking good. But you're kind of taking it a bit too far. It's not like I'm gonna be on television!" Oh how wrong he was. The second Narico met with his interviewer, he was met with the sight of a camera recording them. The interviewer smiled. "A pleasure to meet you King Narico. Don't worry this will be short and quick. Just answer my questions truthfully, and we'll make sure all the people there know how you're running things. Shall we begin?" Narico nodded nervously. "Excellent! First question: Do you plan on uniting your kingdom with ours by marrying one of our rulers?" "PFFFFT! WHAT?!" Narico shouted as he spat out the water he'd been drinking! "You can't be serious, right? I was just a kid only a week ago! I haven't even had my first kiss yet! How could I possibly think of getting married?" The interviewer nodded. "Hmm. Interesting. So you really don't know what you're doing, do you?" Narico didn't have any time to answer as the interviewer jumped right into a barrage of questions. "What makes you any different than Queen Chrysalis? Have you apologized to Princess Cadence for what happened at the royal wedding? Are you going to make it so that your people wear some form of identification to distinguish them? Where do you plan on making your capital?" "Uh. . . uh. . . " Narico's head was spinning. "Could you excuse me for a moment? I have something important I forgot about." Narico teleported away in a flash of green fire to his guest room at the castle, and threw himself on the bed. He promptly screamed into a pillow. "AAAUUGH! AAAGGGHHHH! WHY?! WHY DID I THINK THIS WAS A GOOD IDEA?!" After a solid minute of screaming, Narico removed his fluffy venting mechanism. "I need to cool my head. But I can't go out like this. I'd be dealing with a different and far more dangerous swarm." A flash of green fire washed over Narico, and he was now disguised as a human version of himself. He also changed his outfit to look more casual and stand out less. "Much better." Narico said with a sigh of relief as he teleported away to the city streets of Castalot. "Now to cool off." Narico walked into the nearest ice cream parlor, and ordered a double scoop. "Ice cream. Take away my worries." Narico practically threw himself onto the nearby bench, and started munching away at his ice cream. Man, this sucks! I don't even want to be king! But if I'm not, then all of my people won't have anyone to help them out. I'd be worse than Chrysalis if I did that. The young king of the changelings let out a sad sigh. "I don't want to be anything like her. I want to use the better way of helping my people. But how can I do that when none of us lifted a finger to stop the ones who attacked without any hesitation?" Narico hung his head in defeat. "Maybe I was stupid to think this could be done so easily or so soon. I probably should've had that Thorax guy take charge instead. He wasn't afraid to speak out against Chrysalis. Not to mention I have the funny feeling he'll be important later." "Mind if I grab a seat next to you?" A new voice asked. Narico was so caught up in his ramblings that he didn't even notice that someone was standing over him. The source of the voice was a woman with pure white skin. And in sharp contrast, her hair was pitch black while her eyes were a medium grey. She wore a simple grey dress, and had a kind smile on her face. "But then again, you seemed quite preoccupied. So if you're too busy-" Narico shook his head. "N-No! I'm not! I mean, I'm not taking up this whole space!" Narico was blushing pretty badly upon realizing he'd been caught rambling on with his thoughts. "It's just, I've got a lot to deal with right now. Everyone's got a lot of questions for me, and I don't know if I can answer them all. But that's not the worst of it." "Hmm." The woman grabbed a seat next to Narico. "Well, would you care to elaborate? I don't know if I can give you any advice, but it's healthier to let out your problems. Bottling them up makes them explode. And quite violently." Narico took in a deep breath. "Well, there's this interview I have. And that's where my problem with questions comes from. I was being asked so much at once that I didn't even understand which one to answer. All of it was right there in front of me, and I just wanted to get through it. But I couldn't! AGH! It's just so. . . frustrating!" Narico took a large bite out of his ice cream to emphasis his state of mind. "Interesting." The woman said with a small smile. "You know? I think I know how to help you out." Narico's perked up at hearing this. "Your problem is pretty simple. You're trying to get everything done at once. It's admirable that you want to get your work done as quickly as you can. But a rushed job is far worse than an incomplete one. Don't jump head first without thinking. I'm sure that's part of why your former queen's plan blew up spectacularly." Narico smiled at first, but his eyes went wide as he heard the woman mention Chrysalis. "You don't have to worry your highness." The woman said with a giggle as she raised her hand for silence. "My lips are sealed. As for how I knew? Let's just say you were almost hiding in plain sight." She then got up to leave and pointed at Narico's ice cream. "If you want to thank me next time, buy me a scoop." And with that, the woman left with a content smile on her face. Narico shook his head. "Well, she was nice. I guess." Narico teleported back to his interview. "Sorry for the abrupt departure. To answer your first question, the difference between me and Chrysalis is that I know what it's like to love and be loved by others. See, my adoptive siblings, the mutant changelings who defected, heard Chrysalis plotted to either kill me or mutate me like them because I had the potential to become a royal changeling. She wanted to preserve her own reign at any cost. Which led to me winding up in Unityville. That's where I met Night Fang. You might know him better as the Element of Determination. He was like me. A little different from everyone else. I didn't hunger for love and he had wolf ears and a tail. So yeah. We kinda became family during that Nightmare Night. " "Fang always took care of me. He made sure I had a place to call home, and he'd always pick me up from school. And when Chrysalis sent soldiers to come and get me, Fang fought them back. He'd always get a bit beat up, but he never gave up. Because he wanted me to be safe, and he knew that I had a home with me and the friends I made here. And when I did show myself to the friends I'd made, they didn't care. That made me think, maybe there was a better way." The interviewer nodded. "Interesting. But I must also ask, is Chrysalis your mother? Your old home was a hive in structure. So is this the equivalent of teenage rebellion?" "No. Chrysalis will never be my mother." Narico said as he shook his head. "She didn't give birth to us all. All changelings have mates of their own. But all changelings are taught to obey the queen from the day we're hatched. Chrysalis never really bothered to raise any of us. Just because we're an insect-like race doesn't mean we're all related. Not to mention Chrysalis was never really invested in raising us. She never really paid much attention to us. Much less show us any affection. Most of us were raised to do little more than follow her orders. To never question." Narico snapped himself out of his unpleasant memories. "I encourage my people to speak their minds. To question me. Because if I can't listen to my people, how can I fix their problems? As for your second question, I haven't apologized to Princess Cadence because I'm scared. Chrysalis would have ruined what was supposed to be the happiest day of her life. It was a royal changeling that caused her so much trouble. Me and my people have caused her enough trouble. I figured the best thing to do would be to leave her be." "As for identification," Narico began. "I stressed the importance of being individuals to my people. Each of them took to altering their appearance so that none of them looked the same. They still have their same body frames, but I guess they all got inspired by all the colors they see around them in this land. Back at the hive, there really wasn't much variance in terms of colors. It was all either black or green. It's a nice color scheme, but seeing nothing but that for your entire life would be pretty dull. Especially since you look almost identical to everyone else." Narico took a deep breath. "And to answer your last question, I don't plan on making a new kingdom here. So there's no need to make a capital. I want to make a new home for my people here. The mistake of Chrysalis was that she thought the world was wrong, and she needed to change it. But in reality? There's nothing wrong with the world itself. Just the people living in it. If she really wanted to change the world, she should've changed herself. Because if you can't change who you are, then what hope does the world have of changing?" Narico let out a sigh of relief. "I guess that's all I really need to say. Thanks for having me." And with that, Narico flew off. Hoping that whatever changes this event brought on would be for the better.