//------------------------------// // The Bug Lover // Story: Plus Ones // by Hammerhead //------------------------------// Pharynx was spending time standing around a window, although he could be pretending to be window decoration as the time passed. One of the servers approached him to offer a drink, which he freely took and made little mention of. It was not until a group of three ponies having a conversation surrounding poems that caught his attention, noticing the absent-minded Garble on the other end of the room, an idea formed in his head. He cleared his throat to get their attention. “Hey, I couldn’t help but overhear that you lot were talking about poems?” he asked, acting as casual as he could while doing so. “Why yes, we were. We’re part of the Royal Canterlot Poetry Society: Laurie Ate, Son Ate, High Cue.” Replied Laurie, gesturing towards the others. “Are you… interested in poetry yourself?” “Uh, not really. BUT my friend Garble over there, he loves poetry. The Dragon Lord brought him here because he’s the Dragon Lands’ resident poet, you should totally talk to him since you have the chance.” Pharynx pointed over to Garble, as he was inspecting some of the food laid out on the table on the other side of the room. The three poetry ponies all took intrigue, with Laurie deciding the group should approach. “Let’s see you try to be sophisticated now, hothead” he uttered to himself with a smirk on his face, looking forward to Garble trying to struggle with three aristocratic ponies. He turns around and suddenly there is a mare standing in front of him, light yellow in colour with a light blue mane. The moment Pharynx sees her, she jumps slightly but keeps her eyes on the changeling. It felt a bit confusing as others would avoid approaching or looking at him for long. “Uh, can I help you?” Pharynx asked. The young mare shuffles a bit before giving a response. “Y-your name is Pharynx, right?” “General Pharynx, actually.” He corrected, remaining stern with being formal. The nervous mare is quick to lower her head to apologise. “S-sorry, I’m Spindle Web. I-I’ve noticed you and your majesty for a while, and I really wanted to speak with you. W-would you mind if I ask something about changelings?” Her nerves were very apparent, Pharynx was not sure if the nerves were just from naturally being shy or his own. He shrugged and said “Sure”, he hasn’t had anyone else willing to talk with him since Garble, and in comparison, Garble was talking to three other ponies and the poetry fanatics he sent across hadn’t even approached him yet. Spindle head shot up and a wide grin appeared across her face, “Okay! So changelings are able to change their appearance into any creature? How does that work?” Of course, the first question anyone asks a changeling is how they can change. “Magic.” Pharynx answered bluntly. “We use magic.” Spindle was taken back. “O-oh… of course.” She felt slightly disappointed with such a short answer. “It would be cool to magically look like someone else. Are you limited to what you can change to? Like size?” Pharynx shrugged again. “Not really, as long as you know what you’re changing into. If I were trained as a scout, no creature could tell the difference between yourself and the actual thing. Size isn’t a limit either; I usually change into something bigger to fight other creatures.” “Ooh okay!” Now Spindle felt like she was getting somewhere “So changelings get their energy from love, what does love taste like?” “Don’t know” he answered bluntly again. Pharynx was not a fan of the typical love-tasting question, and if Thorax were around, he would rather push them onto him instead. Although when he saw Spindle look disappointed once more, he could not help but feel bad. “I… rarely eat anything else apart from leaves. One of the younglings says it’s tastes like…” “Hello there, General~!” called the sound of a fancy mare on the approach. Pharynx was interrupted by three well-dressed mares, pushing Spindle out of the way, and moved close into his personal space. “We thought a tough, brave soldier like yourself could use some company.” Unlike Spindle, these mares were really getting to close, and very clingy. What made it worse was that Pharynx could sense the love from all three of them, and whatever he thought it tasted like, it was not satisfying all at once. “Your dragon friend said you lead an entire army, that’s quite impressive! Do you think you can handle all three of us at once?” one of them asked with a longing gaze. Without causing a scene, Pharynx really could not do much and felt himself being pushed away as Spindle couldn’t get in-between them. “Uh, you know what, I think I can do with some fresh air!” he remarked and started to trot away in the hopes they could take a hint. Unfortunately, they interpreted it as an invitation and started to follow. Pharynx picked up the pace and quickly found an entrance towards the Palace gardens. Home to many flowers and small creatures, he could see from the windows that there wasn’t a pony in sight. He made his way in and quickly transformed into one of the bushes to hide, but the mares made their way into the garden. “Oh General~! If you like to play, we have a few games you could try~!” Pharynx was starting to feel desperate, he wanted to have as little attention as possible for the sake of putting his brother at ease, but now he was being followed by mares who were giving too much attention. He thought that something needed to be done to get some peace and quiet. As the mares looked around the garden, a bright green flash appears amongst the bushes. Curious, they approach slowly, before a large dark green creature jumps out. The front two of its eight long legs were raised up as it hissed loudly at the three ponies who could only stare in utter shock. “EEK! A SPIDER! A GIANT SPIDER!” one of the three shrieked as they fled back inside the palace. As the coast cleared, Pharynx changed back and had a long sigh of relief, followed by a smirk on his face. “Heh, glad that scared them off!” He could finally relax, except when he recalled what he promised Thorax at the start of the party: not to scare or cause trouble. The consequences were starting to set in motion when he could overhear through the window the same three mares panicking towards the guards. “THERE’S A GIANT GREEN SPIDER IN THE GARDEN! ONE THAT’S TEN FEET TALL AND HAS VICIOUS FANGS!” “Oh no…” Pharynx thought, he could hear more commotion going on inside, murmurings of other guests at the thought of giant monster causing chaos within the Palace walls. The only voice of reason he could hear was of Princess Twilight Sparkle, her voice was incredibly calm in stark contrast with the rest of the worried crowd around her. “Everyone, please! Let me assure you all that there is no creature that the Palace has not been able to deal with during an event like this. Guards, please inspect the gardens, if you find anything of concern, I want you to inform me immediately.” “Well that’s just great…” Pharynx though, the Palace Guards are going to find him in the garden, nothing could look better with that. He contemplated hiding as something else or fleeing the garden altogether, but his mind started playing out scenarios that he could get caught or cause more panic if the guards could not find anything. He was starting to get desperate; he needed a way to make everyone think there is no reason to think that a giant creature was rampaging the Palace grounds or Pharynx got a little too angry… As the Guards made their way through the Garden, the three mares were huddled at the end of the main hall, with Princess Twilight nearby. Everyone else continued to murmur amongst themselves at what could be outside. "Uh, just once it would be nice to go to the Gala and not chaos going on, do you remember when Discord brought along the Smooze one year?" "The thought of a giant spider reminds me of what happened at the Royal Wedding all those years ago, the changelings were everywhere..." None of them was as worried as Thorax, who sitting anxiously beside the Princess. “Oh Pharynx, what did you do? I cannot see him anywhere…” he whined, his head shifting back and forth along the crowed and peering towards. “Relax Thorax, I’m sure Pharynx doesn’t have anything to do with this. At least I’m hoping Garble wasn’t pulling anything…” Ember tried to assure Thorax, although she was focusing her attention on the other dragon guest, who was trying to avoid any attention towards himself. “All the Ponies are gonna think we’re mean and scary again, I just know it…” Thorax whined once more, the murmurings of the guests were starting to get to him. “Calm down Thorax, no one is assuming anything of that sort right now. It’s probably a misunderstanding.” Said Spike, his own attempt to reassure Thorax did not appear to work. “Your friends are right, Thorax.” Princess Twilight chimed in. “The Royal Guards haven’t returned yet, and I don’t think anyone here should be jumping to conclusions.” It was then that the Royal Guards returned to the main hall, one by one, and all of them were smiling. The last guard approached the three mares, with his right hoof curled up like its holding something. “Miss, is this the spider you’re referring to?” The guard asked as his stretch out his right hoof, revealing a dark green spider, no more than 3cm in length. Confusion spread around the room, as most could not even see the spider standing without standing nearest to the guard in question. One of the three mares had a closer look, and like earlier, the spider hissed and raised its front two legs, causing her to flinch. “Um… it looks similar, but I swear to Celestia it was way, WAY, larger than… that.” Twilight leaned over to Thorax, “Do you think that could be your brother?” she whispered. “I don’t think so…” Thorax’s responded with a slight sense of relief, but he remained uncertain as he tried to look carefully at the spider in question. “I’ve never known Pharynx to change into something smaller than his own body.” Twilight started to ponder, if Pharynx transforming appears unlikely, it does not rule out the possibility that the spider could change size either naturally or through magic. She did not want to make a hasty decision but also didn’t want to leave everyone else unsure or concerned for any longer. She thought that if she had read up on her etymology books much sooner, she would have had an easier time to be sure. “Um… do you mind if I have a look at it?” a timid voice piped up amongst the crowd. Heads turned, and suddenly everyone was looking at a light-yellow mare, it was Spindle Web. “I study insects and arachnids, it’s a bit of a hobby of mine” she says lightly, slowly approaching the guard holding the spider. The room quietened and most of the other guests stepped away to let her through, the small spider turned towards Spindle as she moved closer to the guard’s hoof. It tried to hiss as it did earlier, but unlike other ponies, Spindle didn’t flinch at all. Instead, she reached out her own hoof. “Come on, don’t be shy…” she cooed silently, giving a friendly smile as she offered it to jump towards her like she was calling over a cat or dog. The small spider moved forward to the edge of the guard’s hoof, and with one quick leap, made it onto Spindle’s. She brought the hoof nearer to her own face to inspect the little spider as it lay still on her hoof, and after a few seconds, she appeared to chuckle a little. “It looks like an ordinary Green Huntsman Spider” she states. “They're pretty harmless and don’t get bigger than this, I’m guessing this one hasn’t seen so many creatures as large as us.” Slowly the crowd starts talking amongst themselves, quietly laughing and joking amongst themselves. "Well, thank goodness for that." someone in the crowd uttered to themselves. "So much panic over a tiny little spider." Thorax, Spike, Ember and Twilight could breathe a sigh of relief while the three mares who started the panic felt embarrassed, unsure if the spider they saw in the garden was either their imagination or an exaggeration of what they saw. “I-if it’s okay with you, I could take it back outside” Spindle offered. “I’ve been needing some fresh air.” After the guards looked towards the Princess in approval, they returned to their posts, some of them trying to hold their own laughter at what transpired. Spindle made her way back out to the quiet palace gardens and lowered her curled hoof towards the grass. The spider jumped off her hoof and landed onto the soft ground, barely making a sound as it started to make a move. That was until Spindle talked to the spider once more. “I think the coast is clear now, General Pharynx.” Having stopped in its place, a green flare emerged around it. When the flare cleared away, Pharynx appeared in the spider’s place. He turned back around looking confused. “You knew it was me… No one else could, not even my own brother… and yet you could tell it was me?” Spindle could only smile and chuckle, she did not appear as nervous as she did earlier. “Green Huntsmen Spiders actually are a much brighter green in colour, closer to your brother’s shade of green.” Spindle explained... “They are also usually half the size you were, and aren’t known to hiss at any creature…” Pharynx paused at the moment, trying to think back to how he tried to look. All he could think of was trying to be a large scary spider, and then later the same spider but smaller. He did not consider being accurate in physical appearance to any actual spider, it could have caught him out by anyone else. “In fairness, I used to be Head of Patrol, so not the best at disguises I guess…” he confessed, rubbing the back of his neck with his hoof, looking down and away as he did so. At that moment, the only sound of crickets could be heard in the night sky and muffled chatter coming from inside the palace. “So… you’re into bugs and spiders then?” Pharynx followed. “Y-yeah… thing Is, I don’t like going to these kinds of parties…” Spindle admitted, rubbing one of her hooves along her arm. “But when I heard that changelings were going to attend, I thought it would be a good opportunity to go. Maybe it was wrong to get my hopes up.” Pharynx could see Spindle go back to feeling disappointed, feeling shame that he was avoiding most of the party when he could have at least tried to be nice for a short while. “Thing is… I do not like parties either. But if my choices for the night were doing my duties as a General, being chased by three obsessive ponies or spending time with one nice pony, I’d probably choose the latter.” The two traded smiles, as the music from inside started to play and could be heard from the nearest window in the garden. Listening to the music led to Spindle wanting to ask the changeling in front of her. “Um… General Pharynx?” “You can call me Pharynx, I don’t mind.” he politely corrected her, feeling he could be less formal around her. “O-oh okay, Pharynx. Would you like to dance?” she offered. Pharynx blushed at the thought and was rubbing the back of his neck again. “Um… I don’t really dance. I mean, I don’t know how to…” Spindle chucked and made another offer. “I can show you a thing or two, it’s not like anyone will be looking for us…” She offered out a hoof, and Pharynx looked up and down between it and her smile, before eventually putting his own hoof on top. “Sure”