Back to reality, I told myself while staring at the bag on my desk. Part of me dreaded opening it; what would I find inside? That one photo alone had been enough to crash whatever confidence I’d had about this mission, throw me head-first into uncharted waters, and kill all the trust I’d had in my teammates! For once, I’d had plenty of surprises and complications; I didn’t need any more!
Part of me wished I’d never gone scouting the castle. If only I’d ignored my gut feeling and stayed in the royal bedroom; I wouldn’t have run into Sunburst, I wouldn’t have found that photo, and I wouldn’t be freaking out over it now!
But the rest of me knew it had been unavoidable; if I hadn’t found out alone in the middle of the night, I definitely would have during the day, in front of witnesses - I may have even run into Thorax himself at some point - and that would have easily blown the whole mission if I were to reacted with as much shock and disbelief as I actually had! Not only that, it would have revealed me as a traitor’s accomplice and sent both of us into the kind of trouble we’d never get out of! Therefore, what had happened had actually been a blessing of sorts: it had allowed me to react to the find in safety and bought me time to plan my approach. I wasn’t going to be caught unaware of my brother’s presence here, but if I wanted to keep both of us safe and prevent my teammates from finding out that I knew about Thorax, I had to learn more.
I reached into the bag.
The framed photos were all very much alike the one I’d seen first: locations were different, the ponies varied somewhat, but they all had one thing in common: an undisguised changeling, happy to be there. Not much was obvious in terms of context so I set them aside for now.
Next, I pulled out one of the notebooks. It was a journal of sorts; skimming through a few random paragraphs told me it was likely Sunburst’s. He’d written about books, and about magic spells, and about Flurry Heart, and about his letters to Starlight… I even caught a mention of Thorax once or twice in the more recent pages. It looked to be potentially helpful, but it was pretty long too; I set it aside until I finished going through the bag.
I grabbed the other notebook. It turned out not to be a notebook at all, but a photo album. It started innocently enough, with photos of Cadance and Shining Armor with Flurry Heart, and Twilight Sparkle with Flurry Heart, and Sunburst with Flurry Heart, and the aforementioned ponies in different combinations and company of other ponies… nothing one wouldn’t expect from ponies, really.
But eventually a new face joined in, shyly and gingerly at first, but gradually with more confidence and ease.
Thorax posing with Sunburst and Flurry Heart in front of Spike’s statue. Thorax playing with Flurry Heart in the castle. Thorax building a snowpony for Flurry Heart. Thorax pretending to be a living snowpony for a group of fillies.
Thorax and Sunburst in a snowball fight. Thorax getting avalanched by a stray burst of Flurry Heart’s magic. Thorax halfway dug out of the avalanche, clutching his head while Sunburst and Shining Armor cleared the snow. Thorax and Sunburst laughing in the snow.
I skipped ahead through a few pages of photos of little relevance.
Then, there was a photo of a group at a party, gathered around a large cake with ‘Happy Birthday, Trusty Shield!’ written on it - Thorax and Sunburst among them, along with several off-duty Royal Guards. Thorax dancing with Sunburst. Thorax getting kicked out of balance while carrying a tray of cupcakes. A close-up of Thorax smiling at the camera, his wings shining in the party lights as if he’d fallen into a barrel of glitter.
Thorax in a group hug with a few crystal ponies, gazing into the distance with his mouth open slightly and the tips of his forked tongue sticking out. Had a good meal?
That was the last photo of interest. Finally, I reached for the rolled-up drawings.
There weren’t many of them, but they all had the same overall theme: changelings playing in fields of flowers, changelings being friendly with ponies, changelings doing pony activities, changelings living undisguised among ponies.
No doubt who the author is, I said to myself. I rolled them back up and added them to the pile, then continued staring at it, lost in thought.
Thorax had been living here for a while, then, like I’d guessed earlier. He’d made himself comfortable to the point of living undisguised, and apparently the ponies didn’t mind him in the least. But while obviously beneficial to him, that approach had left him exposed to our infiltrators and the support team assigned to this mission. I found it inconceivable that they would have failed to notice him in all this time! But how long had they known, and where was Thorax now? And why hadn’t anyling told me about him?
The answer, I feared, was obvious: Chrysalis was using him as bait for me, again like I’d guessed earlier, hoping to trick me into revealing myself as a traitor too, and if I knew her at all, taking perverse pleasure in watching me struggle. But did she know things for sure, or was she simply guessing?
Again, where was Thorax now? Was he aware of the danger looming over his head? Could I warn him, send him away to rebuild his life someplace else where Chrysalis would have to start looking for him all over again? But how would I do it without revealing myself to the rest of my team in the process? Surely they would have been instructed to keep their eyes open for me!
Could I give him an indirect warning somehow? Possibly, but I would have to figure out how, and that could take time now that I had to work against my own team as well as against the ponies!
For the briefest of moments, I wished I hadn’t sent Sunburst away. If I’d thought to leave him here until he regained consciousness - if I’d held off from biting him in the first place - I could have interrogated him and maybe learned more! With any luck, I might have even gotten him to cooperate and get Thorax to safety!
Listen to yourself, Pharynx, I scolded myself. Conspiring with the enemy, now? What makes you think he would ever trust you? How would you have ever convinced him that you’re on the same side when Thorax is concerned?
I looked back at Sunburst’s diary. It was useless to whine about a wasted opportunity that might not have even been a real opportunity to begin with, but I could still help myself to a written record of his thoughts. He’d written about Thorax; I hadn’t paid attention to the particulars before, but if I were to read the relevant parts of the diary in detail, there was still a chance it would at least give me an idea of where to look for Thorax, if not an actual address. Either way, it would tell me more about his time here and help me plan my own deception game against the deception game my teammates were already playing against me. Even if I wouldn’t have a clear idea what to do immediately, I was determined to stay in my office and keep reading until I got through the whole diary, no matter how long it took.
Hang in there, Thorax, while I figure this out.
I opened the first page.
That evening, Chrysalis laughed herself to tears when my report got to the point of telling her about the conversation I’d overheard after breakfast.
“Raptor pregnant? Now that’s an idea!” she said, trying to compose herself.
“Do you actually want us to go down that route, Your Highness?” I asked, eyeing her curiously. I’d never seen her in such a state!
She finally succeeded in composing herself.
“We’ll see,” she said. “It would complicate the plan, but if it gets the ponies to produce love for one more royal foal… It could work to our advantage, assuming we can figure out how to handle the actual birth without blowing Raptor’s cover.”
I saw Raptor cringe at the mention of that. I would have too, probably, if the role of Cadance were mine.
“Do I get a say in the matter?” he asked.
“Do you have a suggestion on how to pull it off?”
“I was hoping I wouldn’t have to do it at all,” he muttered.
“In that case, you absolutely will!” she roared. “I’m the Queen here, which means I’m the one who gets to make decisions, not you!”
“Not so loud, Your Highness!” I warned her. “We’re in the castle! Somepony might overhear!”
She looked daggers at me, but stopped herself from lashing out again.
“Okay, if we’re doing this, we’ll need one more drone to act as Cadance’s second foal eventually,” I mused. “And you said we were short on deployable drones not that long ago. Will you be able to spare one?”
“Another generation will have completed their training by then. I’ll choose one of them. It’s going to be easy for him or her to just lie down and sleep all day, with little risk of getting their cover blown, and the rest of you can continue teaching him how to live in disguise as time goes on and the so-called foal grows.”
“Can I at least postpone growing my belly until you’ve selected my supposed child?” Raptor asked.
“Have you forgotten pony biology? The belly doesn’t show until some time into the pregnancy, by which time the new drone will already be there!”
He groaned but said nothing.
“Okay, with that settled, tell me about the rest of the day.”
“Nothing of interest. Raptor’s been handling routine stuff in the throne room, Plague drove her foalsitter insane, and I spent the day digging through security logs in Shining’s office.” Actually digging through Sunburst’s diary, mostly, but I wasn’t going to tell her that. All she had to know about Sunburst was that his cocoon was on its way to the hive, which I’d already covered. “They’re so boring that I’d trade roles with Plague in an instant.” Normally I might have meant it, but with Thorax to worry about, I had to stick to being Shining Armor - wanted to keep the role of Shining Armor - for now. “Anything I should keep an eye on?”
“I’m sure you’ll recognize anything good when you see it,” she smirked.
Like Thorax, you mean?
I nodded, and she broke the communicator link.
“I’m gonna kill you,” Raptor snapped at me. “Why did you have to bring that up?”
“She said to tell her everything, didn’t she?” My real reason had been to try to distract her from the matter of Thorax, if such a thing was possible at all anymore.
“That meant strategic information, not some random chit-chat of two gossipy servants!”
“Are you passing an opportunity to get more food?”
“Isn’t there plenty of that here for a hundred hives already?”
“You know as well as I do that we’re capable of eating all of it and more!”
“Whatever. But don’t expect me to lend a hoof if you get in trouble!”
He conjured up his disguise and stormed out of the room.
Had he just given me a hint about knowing something I didn’t want him to know?