The sun was pretty high up in the sky by the time I stepped out of prison and into the streets. The day was beautiful, the sky bright with ripples of magic swirling and dancing in all directions, and ponies strolled about happily, as if nothing had happened yesterday, as if a chained-up changeling being dragged to prison hadn’t disturbed their blissful idyll. Had they forgotten? Or had they simply assumed the changeling would remain locked up safely away from them? Had they decided to deliberately ignore it all?
Whichever of the possibilities was the case, it hadn’t lasted long. The prison guards may have decided to obey Princess Cadance’s decision to release me and were refraining from voicing their opinions on the matter, at least while we were still within earshot, but as soon as the first civilian ponies took notice of a once-again-free changeling approaching them, they stopped in their tracks to stare and whisper among themselves, much as they’d been doing even before I’d been taken to prison.
Oh well, at least most of them hadn’t flinched and gasped as if expecting me to eat them. Or screamed and galloped away as if I’d approached them with my fangs bared, drooling rivers of venom, ready to rip them apart. Or demanded that I return to the darkest pit of the dungeons where I belonged.
Though it was an improvement compared to how everypony had treated me until just a few days ago, the improvement was a pitiful one: we may have agreed to stop trying to wipe you out of existence, but don’t expect us to act like you’re welcome or wanted anywhere near us! And Spike had insisted that these ponies were going to like me! I didn’t want to accuse him of having been mistaken or deluded or of having lied to me deliberately - it was, after all, possible that the ponies were simply going to need more time to warm up to me - but what if acceptance wasn’t a matter of time? What if this was the best they would ever be able to offer a changeling? Were my few friends an anomaly of their own kind just like I was an anomaly of mine?
As the disapproving stares and incredulous whispering continued further down the street and deeper into the city, my spirits deflated again, and eventually I was dragging myself forward with my head hung so low that my face might as well have dug a trench in the crystally road. Cadance, walking by my side, noticed.
“Don’t let them dishearten you,” she said. “Our early attempts to find you have put them on edge with worry, and now that you’ve turned out to be friendly, well… they’re just confused. They don’t know what to think, and it’s my fault, really.”
I looked questions at her.
“Back when you were first noticed, Shining and I freaked out, thinking that Chrysalis was plotting something again, but we couldn’t figure out what. Flurry had just been born and what we feared most was that she might be the target of an impending attack so we vowed to never leave her side, but we couldn’t abandon our subjects either, so I got an idea to send a warning scroll to every house, one that would include an explanation why changelings were so dangerous, and the guards dispatched the scrolls during the night when we hoped to minimize the chance that any changelings lurking in the city would see them.”
“And I chose that very night to explore the city in peace so I wouldn’t be completely and obviously lost the next day when I planned to try to meet and befriend somepony,” I sighed.
“You saw the guards.” Somehow, she didn’t seem surprised by the revelation.
“Yes, and managed to get into a house and read the scroll delivered there. I’m sorry, I wouldn’t have gone into ponies’ homes uninvited, but curiosity got the best of me!”
“It’s alright. Shining warned me that something like that might still happen, but he didn’t have a better idea either, so all we could do was hope that the scrolls wouldn’t end up in the wrong hooves. Now that I’ve gotten to know you, I’m actually glad that you found one of the scrolls! You might not have avoided capture otherwise, and I don’t think any of us would have listened to your side of the story if you’d had to tell it all by yourself!”
“Don’t beat yourself up over it, Princess! I might have befriended somepony by then, and they might have stood up for me like Spike had!”
“I don’t think anypony would have wanted to befriend you at the time, regardless of a disguise. You would have been an unfamiliar face, and they would have tried to avoid coming in contact with unfamiliar faces as the scrolls instructed them, fearing that you might be an evil changeling! You might not have even gotten a chance to figure out why they were avoiding you!”
I nodded grimly. It made sense.
“And they still haven’t shaken off that fear, despite having been told there was no need to fear me.”
“And I’m sorry for that!”
I was baffled. She was apologizing to me? Why would royalty apologize to their subjects for anything?
“Why are you looking at me like that?” she asked.
“I… I can’t believe you’re apologizing…”
“Thorax, I really am sorry for what I-”
“No, it’s not that! I believe you! But you’re a princess, and I… well… I’m just a useless little drone who never accomplished anything in life. Why would I be worthy of an apology? Uh, and sorry for interrupting.”
“Oh, Thorax…” she sighed. “Everyone is worthy of an apology! Who or what you are and what you’ve accomplished in life has nothing to do with it! Just because I’m a princess doesn’t mean I’m infallible or exempt from admitting my mistakes!”
“I know of someone who would disagree…” I mumbled to myself.
“But you’re not around her anymore, are you?” she winked. We were at the base of the castle by now. “Would you like to join Shining and me for lunch?”
Lunch?! With royalty, after what had happened? Had I heard that right?
“I…” How to be polite about it? “I don’t want to intrude…”
“You’re not intruding if I invited you!”
“But Prince Shining was furious with me the last time I saw him… I’m not sure he’d be okay with my presence…”
“Shining can grin and bear it! Besides, I think he could use an explanation from you about why it was wrong of him to lock you up on an impulse like that!”
“But he had a reason… I confessed to attacking a pony-”
“And that reason was revenge on behalf of the pony you attacked in a fit of starvation! Remember what I said about the ponies’ stance on revenge?”
“Ponies don’t approve of it?”
“That’s right. I know Shining had the best intentions, but I also know that the… incident… at our wedding took a toll on him. I’m sure he can grow to like you, he just needs a little nudge in the right direction!”
“And you think me joining you for a meal can provide that nudge?”
“He’ll probably need a little more than that, but it’s a start. Unless you’ve already made other plans?”
I hadn’t. How would I? I’d been locked in prison with questionable chances of ever seeing the outside world again!
Princess Cadance led me upstairs into the castle and then to the dining room where I’d met Spike and Twilight’s friends from Ponyville. The plates and decorations were already set, but the meal wasn’t there; I assumed it would be brought in due time. Sunburst and little Flurry Heart were already sitting at the table.
Flurry flew over to her mother as soon as we entered, and she took her in her hooves, hugged her, and continued to play with her. The love coming off from each of them was so sweet, so pure and strong, I couldn’t help but wish to be allowed to take a sip! It would be one of the best meals I’d ever had! But though I’d been invited to lunch, Cadance hadn’t explicitly said I would be permitted to feed on either of them, and it would be so awkward to ask… Unless that changed during the meal, I would probably leave the table hungry. Not nearly as hungry as I’d used to be; I’d had a very rich meal yesterday, when I shared love with my new Ponyville friends, so I knew it wasn’t going to be a problem in the sense that I was risking to drive myself to starvation strong enough to make me do something I would later regret… but it still felt a little anticlimactic, disappointing even.
Quit being so selfish! You should be grateful and honored to even be permitted to be in the same room- no, the same kingdom with them!
Sunburst got up from his chair and approached me.
“I’m glad to see you’re back,” he said. “I hope it wasn’t too hard for you?”
“Don’t worry, I’ve…” How to phrase it? “I’ve been through worse,” I shrugged.
“Wanna talk about it?”
Shining entered the room, this time without his armor.
“Um…” I whispered, catching Shining’s annoyed glare as he laid his eyes on me. “Maybe later?”
Sunburst nodded and returned to his seat. I waited for Cadance and Shining to sit down too and put Flurry in a chair between themselves, then realized that I wasn’t sure whether or not I was supposed to actually sit with them at the table. A plate hadn’t been set for me. Had somepony forgotten? Had Cadance’s decision to invite me been a last-minute one? Had they assumed that I wouldn’t need a plate? Or was it intended as a hint that I should remain standing aside? Yeah, probably the latter. I started to retreat into the nearest niche, wondering whether or not to transform into some kind of decoration.
“Aren’t you going to sit down?” Cadance asked, pointing at an empty chair next to her.
Oh. So I was supposed to join them! “R-right. Thank you,” I said.
As if on cue, a pony entered the room, pushing a trolley with a pot of steaming liquid, a bowl of something I couldn’t name, and a pitcher filled with pink juice.
“Hello, everyone,” she said cheerfully. “Such a lovely day today, isn’t it? And Princess Flurry, how is my favorite filly?”
Flurry replied with content gurgles.
The servant became aware of an unusual guest at the table. “Oh,” she said, turning serious. “I haven’t realized we were expecting a changeling for lunch…”
I fumbled, unable to think of how to respond to this. Say something! But what? Was I supposed to say anything? Or would I do better to keep quiet and let the Princess handle the situation? I let my ears drop, bit my lip, and became very interested in a barely-visible speck on the table’s surface.
“I’m sorry, Berry, I should have told you,” Cadance said, then turned to me. “Thorax, will you need a plate?”
“Huh-plate-why?” I blurted. Way to go, Thorax! Make yourself look stupid as well as evil, why don’t you?
But she simply chuckled to my idiotic response. “What we mean is, you’re free to try pony food if you like.”
“Oh, right, um…” Pull yourself together! “Thank you kindly, Princess, but I, uh, can’t digest pony food. Changelings can eat it if necessary, such as for disguise credibility, but it doesn’t sate our hunger. I shouldn’t waste the resources that are useful to you and your subjects!”
“If that’s what you want…” Berry shrugged, then moved the contents of her trolley onto the table, and left.
I waited for the others to fill their plates, building up the courage to ask something that was suddenly bothering me.
“Uh, Princess?” I almost-whispered. “Forgive me if I’m stepping out of line, but I was wondering…”
“Don’t worry about it! You can ask anything, and there’s no need to apologize in advance!”
“Thank you. I was wondering, should I have accepted your offer to eat pony food like the rest of you? Berry seemed offended, and I don’t want to be rude or-”
Splat!
Something incredibly hot collided with my face without warning, nearly knocking me over on impact. I flailed my forelegs around frantically until I managed to wipe some of it away - it could have been the plateful of that mushy stuff Berry had brought, as far as I could tell by touch alone - and involuntarily let out a loud hiss as I struggled to get rid of the rest of it that still clung to my face after the bowl and some of the stuff fell onto the table or floor or both, probably in a big mess. Some of it had gotten in my eyes, and it hurt so bad! Granted, it wasn’t quite as painful as Chrysalis’ torture spells, but the other drones would have undoubtedly used it on me at some point if they’d known about it! How come didn’t they know about it? A lot of them seemed to know so much about ponies otherwise; how could this have slipped past them?
Flurry’s giggles suddenly went silent for a moment, then turned to screaming and wailing. When I finally managed to open my eyes, I saw her crying in her mother’s grasp. Oh, no! I’d scared her, hadn’t I?
Cadance’s attention was focused solely on little Flurry as she snuggled her and whispered comforting words in her ear. It wasn’t working, and my heart skipped a beat when I realized that I had no idea if it could work at all! Had I just scarred poor Flurry forever?
One glance at Shining Armor was all that my hooves needed to gallop me out of the room before I could ask myself if that might make the situation even worse, let alone to stop them.
I didn’t bother to remember where I was running, or to even take a good look at my surroundings; my eyes were still hurting fiercely, my vision was blurred, and whatever was left of my survival instinct now demanded that I put as much distance between myself and Shining as possible by whatever means available to me. Apparently it meant crashing face-first into a couple of walls hard enough to make holes in them that I could run through, though the said walls were tougher than my survival instinct had anticipated, and therefore remained intact.
One large vase, however, hadn’t survived contact with a terrified changeling that had run directly into it. I tripped on the fragments and fell flat on my face, thankfully without cutting myself, but at least it snapped me out of the blind run. I wasn’t in the clear, though: galloping hooves echoed closer, and I was about to get into even more trouble for destroying castle property on top of everything else!
What now?!
I pushed as many of the fragments as I could behind a nearby pillar, then stood where the vase had been and unleashed a burst of my magic.
The hoofsteps were still getting closer! They could be here any moment now!
Stop shivering!
...but how?
The hoofsteps slowed down, and though I wasn’t looking, I was sure they would be in this room soon enough if they weren’t already.
Pull yourself together! You’ll never fool him like this!
If only I could…
A few more hoofsteps sounded, very close now… and suddenly, a wave of searing pain washed over me as I was blasted into dizziness again, dropping my disguise in the process. Shining had his horn at the magic-spattering ready, his glare was trying to burn a fresh hole in me, and Sunburst stood behind him, watching wide-eyed.
I let out a yelp, plopped onto the floor, and covered my head with my forelegs.
“Please don’t kill me,” I squeaked, looking at him pleadingly, still shivering all over.
“Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t!” he roared.
All I managed to give him was a wince and a hopeless whimper.
“Shining, don’t!” Sunburst put himself between the Prince and me. “What’s he done to deserve this?”
“Where were you when he hissed at Flurry just now?”
“And where were you when she threw hot oatmeal in his face?”
“So my daughter is to blame for getting hissed at?”
“You can’t blame Thorax for hissing in pain! That thing hurts like all Tartarus! And in case you forgot, I blasted Flurry the first time I got her hot oatmeal in the face! Why didn’t you kill me?”
“That was different!”
“How? Because I’m Flurry’s crystaller and not a changeling? That’s-”
“What’s going on here?” Cadance trotted in with Flurry on her back; the filly had calmed down in the meantime! One glance at us was enough to tell her how things stood. “What’s gotten into you, Shining?”
“Cady, you saw-”
“None of that! We talked about this already! You can’t lash out at Thorax whenever he does anything that doesn’t fit your impossible criteria for what a changeling should be like! Yes, I saw what happened, and I don’t blame him, and neither should you!”
“So what, we just let him hiss around whenever he wants?”
“I’ve got a better idea: next time Flurry launches a hot meal in your face, don’t put up a shield around yourself! Let it hit you and try to endure the pain without complaining, and then I might take you seriously!”
“You know that’s impossible-”
“Then why expect it of Thorax? Look, I know it’s hard to trust changelings after what Chrysalis did, but you’re not even giving him a chance! All you’ve done is try to get revenge!” She sighed. “On our way back from prison, I explained to Thorax how ponies feel about revenge and why we don’t build our judicial system around it. Please don’t make me eat my own words! I know you’re better than this!”
“Fine,” he huffed after a moment. “Let’s finish lunch.”
They left, and Sunburst cast me a worried glance, as if unsure whether or not my continued presence at lunch would be a good idea.
Reluctantly, I got up and followed.