//------------------------------// // Burden // Story: Blood Thicker Than Venom // by theOwtcast //------------------------------// Several days passed. We’d received confirmation of Celestia and Luna’s capture, and Chrysalis had taken upon herself to raise the sun and moon. The task had required her to feed on a good percentage of the hive’s reserves in order to gain enough power, but she’d felt confident it would only be a temporary measure until she could start draining Celestia. I’d watched the sunrises ever since. They were a bit clumsy, but few ponies were up at such an early hour, so it wasn’t likely to get noticed. The Ponyville team had reported Starlight Glimmer having returned from a trip somewhere and disappearing the same night for an unknown reason, but other than that, the ponies of Ponyville and Canterlot were still oblivious to their princesses and heroes being missing. The same could be said for the Crystal Empire, I’d reported, and neither Raptor nor Plague had contradicted me. Chrysalis hadn’t questioned my reports, but I suspected she’d been holding back from showing her impatience to hear one particular bit of news. Raptor was still doing routine royal business in the throne room. Plague was still driving her foalsitters crazy. I was still spending most of the days cooped up in my office. In all honesty, there wasn’t much to tell Chrysalis; I’d arranged it that way deliberately. By keeping to the alleged paperwork and security logs - only partially true, because I was focusing on rereading Sunburst’s diary and only checking the logs that had something to do with Thorax - I was avoiding contact with ponies, making sure I wouldn’t accidentally run into my brother or somepony who would bring him up in a conversation. Originally, I’d intended to do that either until I formed a strategy, or until the approach lost its credibility. I’d hoped the former would happen before the latter. I’d been fooling myself. The time was running out; I was still no closer to forming a solid enough plan to cover for Thorax, and the ponies were beginning to eye me curiously during what little time I spent among them. Soon they would start asking questions, if they hadn’t already, and I wasn’t sure if I’d know what to tell them. I certainly couldn’t vouch for Raptor to keep his mouth shut, or even for Plague if she were to switch to a different disguise for any reason! They knew, I was sure of it. I’d caught them eyeing me questioningly a few times and exchanging meaningful glances when they thought I couldn’t see them. Had they realized that I’d figured out that they knew? Or were they simply wondering what was taking me so long? But did they know where Thorax was at this moment? Were they planning to orchestrate our supposedly sudden reunion so they could get things to finally start moving along? It would have been easy to lure us into the same room. It should have been easy - I’d learned from Sunburst’s diary that Thorax had been given a room in the castle itself to live in - but so far, I hadn’t seen any signs of him other than the records of his existence in Sunburst’s bag, even though I’d gone looking randomly through the castle once or twice in the middle of the night. He just wasn’t there, wherever I’d looked. Had he disguised himself? Had he run away? Both were possible, but their likelihood depended on whether or not Sunburst had warned him about us. Had he noticed us at any point after Sunburst’s so-called departure? Pretty much the same thing. Was he away on an errand unrelated to us? Again, I could neither confirm it nor rule it out. Had he been captured already? Stashed away somewhere out of sight until an appropriate moment came up for Raptor and Plague - and possibly Phantom and Viscera too - to confront me with the truth before sending us to the hive for Thorax’s punishment? Our punishment. I’d hoped it wouldn’t come to that, but as time passed without a possible way out coming to me, I realized eventually that there might not be a way out after all, not after such a long time; I was merely postponing the inevitable. I may get to Thorax at some point and convince him to leave and never turn back, I may even join him in exile for both our sake - I’d probably have to by now - but what kind of life would it be? Thorax may blend in easily enough wherever in Equestria we ended up next, having done that once already, but I was bound to stick out like a sore fang! Would either of us be okay with living like that? I certainly wouldn’t, and I doubted Thorax would either with his fantasies of changelings and ponies living in friendship, not if we were to spend the rest of our lives in disguise! But even then, Chrysalis and her armies would find us sooner or later, I was sure of it. Would we see them coming? Could we give them the slip again? And where would we go, and how many times would we have to uproot ourselves again before we ran out of places we hadn’t yet taken refuge in? Would either of us care anymore after a while? Or would we be so tired of running and hiding and living a lie that capture would come as a salvation? It was while I lay in bed in the early morning hours, kept awake by my tormenting thoughts and waiting for the morning sun, that a curious feeling washed over me: strange, ominous, both terrible and oddly reassuring, and stronger than the aura of love all around me, larger than life, larger than the world itself. Whatever was going to happen, I realized, would happen today, good or bad. Today, I would know. I got out of bed. Chrysalis would raise the sun any moment now anyway. If anyling had ever told me I’d be considering leaving the hive at any point in my life, seriously planning to turn my back on them for the sake of one pathetic drone, I would have ripped them apart and put their dead body on display as a warning to others against disputing my loyalty to the Queen. Up until a few days ago, I would have done it, I told myself as I looked out the window at the night sky. Now look at me. I’d done the unthinkable, I’d betrayed everything I’d ever worked for, and I’d done it for the sake of the one drone who shouldn’t even be alive anymore by any normal standard! I’d hoped initially that I could find some kind of balance between the two, but I’d been such a fool! That had never been an option; the only option I’d ever had was to betray my hive, or to betray my brother. And I’d betrayed both. Up until a few days ago, I would have called myself a first-class coward for making a decision to leave the hive and join Thorax in exile. How perspective had changed in an instant! Bravery and cowardice had nothing to do with it; it was only a matter of what the sensible thing would be! I couldn’t go back to the hive ever again! The only thing I could do was to follow Thorax to wherever life took him next and keep him safe from the perils he would undoubtedly face sooner or later. I had no purpose in the hive anymore - I never would now that they knew what I’d done - but I could still be useful to Thorax! I could find new purpose with him, wherever life took us! But first, I had to find him. How was it possible that I hadn’t run into him so far, not even heard a stray mention? Had he moved away? Run away? Been taken away? Was he even alive? And, for the thousandth time, the most difficult burden of all: what would I do without him? How could I possibly go on knowing that I’d failed him completely? Raptor joining me at the window snapped me out of my reverie. “What’s with the sun?” he asked. I realized he had a point: the sun should be up by now! Had something happened? Why hadn’t Chrysalis raised it yet? “I don’t know,” I admitted, eyes still fixed to the dark horizon. “Are we about to have our cover blown?” “I’m sure Banshee and Grim will think of some excuse.” I didn’t really believe it would convince anypony in the long run, but there was nothing I could do about it. “I’m more concerned about Chrysalis. Try to get to her.” He activated the communicator and waited for someling to reply. And waited. And waited. And waited. He deactivated the communicator and tried again. Same result. “I don’t like this, Sir!” he groaned. “Why aren’t they answering?” “It could just be a communicator malfunction,” I told him, not really believing it. “They’ll sort it out sooner or later.” “I don’t know, Sir. First the sun, and now this! Do you think the hive’s in danger?” “Even if it is, what can we do about it? We’re days away!” “We could make an excuse to leave unexpectedly and go check it out!” “No. Our orders are to stay here and pose as the royal family! If something has happened, the supports or infiltrators will find out soon enough and come tell us! Until we have solid reason to believe that the hive is in the kind of danger they can’t handle themselves, we’re staying here!” “As you wish,” he snorted and applied his disguise before starting his daily duties. Just then, I noticed a slight change on the horizon. “The sun’s coming up,” I announced with disputable relief. Raptor came back and looked through the window again. “Good,” he said. “I was starting to get worried.”