“FUCK!”
Ocellus slammed her hoof onto the makeshift pinewood desk, her head following soon after. The normally reserved and quiet changeling screamed in frustration, voice echoing off the tight walls of the bedchamber. She laid her head to the side, making manual breaths in an attempt to calm herself and re-focus. Pushing against the desk, she narrowed her eyes at the target of her ire, the bane of her existence currently.
On the desk laid a simple sheet of peach-colored parchment, titled and captioned by Ocellus herself.
“Why I Want to go to the School of Friendship – By Ocellus”
This titling was written on the upper-center portion of the parchment in Ocellus’s small, intricate hornwriting. Carefully written, Ocellus took pride in how her typography almost perfectly straddled the line between aesthetically pleasing and legible to the average creature.
What Ocellus took much less pride in was what was written underneath the parchment’s title. To be specific, the complete lack of anything else written on said parchment. The parchment had remained in this state for three hours now, despite her best effort.
She leaned back in her chair, sighing deeply. She telekinetically grasped her nearby cup and drank from it, her stress gradually getting massaged away with each gulp of cool water. Finishing her drink and putting it back, Ocellus exhaled the rest of her built-up frustration away, and mentally reviewed her task.
Twilight Sparkle, the world-famous Princess of Friendship, was building a school. This school ‘s primary purpose involved not only teaching the concepts of Friendship that Twilight had learned over the years, but also to extend the opportunity to teach those valuable lessons to non-ponies. King Thorax announced the latter detail a week ago and began deliberating over the important question of which Changeling to send.
The only caveat for the chosen Changeling is that they must submit a letter detailing why they want to go to the school. The creation of a “cover letter” was standard procedure for any students applying to a private school, at least from what she overheard from Twilight and Thorax discussing Equestria’s education standards. The letter would be just a formality; as long as the chosen Changeling wrote one, they would be accepted into the new school. The only requirement was one that Twilight insisted on: that said letter was written from a personal point of view. The writer needed to express their personal reasons for wanting to learn about Friendship, and any sort of “professional speak” would be rejected outright. It did not matter how short or how long said letter was, just that it was honest.
Thus, the challenge that sat right in front of the young Changeling’s face. The page remained blank in defiance of her desire to go to the school. The ticket to a once-in-a-lifetime experience laid right in front of her eyes, and all she had to do to cash it in was fill in this piece of paper with…anything. Anything at all about herself, about the new Changeling way of life, about how Friendship could benefit her and others, even about the fucking weather that one could easily see from the throne room.
Ocellus seethed, grasping the quill in her magic and nearly squeezing it into dust. One of the simplest tasks of her life, and she couldn’t do it in the moment that mattered most. An incredible opportunity solely for her, and she was blockaded by an invisible wall. The easiest game of “Winner Takes It All” that she ever played, and she was about to lose from failure to participate.
“Stop”, she said out loud. “Breathe.”
Ocellus exhaled, and dropped the crushed quill, the remains flumping onto the desk. She brought her right forehoof to her forehead and closed her eyes. Stress would only kill her ability to think. Instead, she thought back to the events of the last month, hoping that something from recent events would inspire her.
Two days after the initial announcement regarding the school, Ocellus had been roused from her sleep. Two Changeling guards arrived at the peak of dawn to bring her to King Thorax for an urgent message, and she had arrived to the throne room just as the sun was rising. Even with the sun shining in to somewhat blind her vision, she could remember how nervous and fidgety he was. He informed her that she had been chosen to be the Changeling representative and transfer student to Twilight Sparkle’s new “School of Friendship”. Nervously, he had informed her that she would need to write a letter about herself prior to her attendance. She didn’t know why he was so nervous; she didn’t foresee any issues with studying in another location, especially one with a much richer library than the meager Changeling library. Not to mention, a “cover letter” would be larva’s play to do; she’d written plenty of letters in the past. How hard could writing one more letter be?
Harder than the hive walls, apparently.
Although, it was no surprise she was chosen for the role of transfer student. She had barely left the larva state before she found herself immersed in the hive’s library, absorbing every piece of collected knowledge her species had, a habit that would continue even to the current day. Her expansive book knowledge of both the Changeling species as well as other species made her the perfect candidate to turn that book knowledge into practical knowledge.
Much to her dismay, her superior knowledge of other species landed her into Infiltrator training while the hive was still under Chrysalis’s rule. Ocellus just HAD to correct her broodmates on what Yaks did for the holidays as the Queen was walking by. One interrogation into her extracurricular habits later and several weeks of excruciating training, Ocellus became Infiltrator Certified. Fortunately for her, the reformation of Changelings and the usurpation by Thorax took place before she received a field assignment.
The horrible part of the training wasn’t the physical exercises, nor being forced to live with other trainee Changelings that teased and insulted her for every misstep. Not even being unable to read her precious books paled in comparison to what she hated most.
What she hated most was the point of her training: she was being trained to lie.
Ocellus didn’t exactly enjoy thinking about the realities of Changeling life, that tricking creatures into feeling affection in order to steal it was a necessity. Now that she was learning to participate in that reality? She despised it.
The Infiltration and Love Extraction training was simple: disguise as a creature, and convince another trainee to give up their love to you. It required both good understanding of the creature you were disguised as, as well as the ability to manipulate emotions to their peak in order to reap the most love possible.
All her life, she learned about the various truths of the world. She dreamed about how she could use those truths to help her kind survive. Now, she was using those truths to perform a lie.
The worst part?
She was good at it.
How could she not be? Not only did she know the social behaviors and customs of most sentient and nonsentient creatures, her usual shyness took a backseat whenever she was disguised. It shocked her how easy she slipped into acting like the creature she was disguised as. Trainees easily gave up their love thanks to her mask and mannerisms, despite knowing it was her.
Chrysalis, usually sneering and taking sick joy at the sight of trainees struggling, remained horrifyingly silent during these moments. Ocellus knew that only meant one thing: Chrysalis was pleased with what she saw.
Ocellus shuddered. It was the worst experience of her young life.
She got up to refill her mug.
Inspiration struck. The idea shot into Ocellus’s mind, like a bee that suddenly landed on you and stung.
Her time in Infiltrator training fit the needs of her letter perfectly. It involved a past event she hated, and let her write about her current happy life as a contrast. She could demonstrate why she wanted to go to this school: to learn more about Friendship, and help prevent future Changelings from having to experience anything like she did.
Ocellus placed the mug back on the desk, retrieved a new quill from the quill holder, dipped the quill tip in ink, and was about to write before she paused.
Was this the best idea? Describing in vivid detail these horrible experiences to somecreature that had not experienced them. Would
“No” she spoke quietly. She crushed that line of thinking down with prejudice. She finally had something about herself to write about, and it tied very well into the topic of the need for Friendship. This was her letter, and she was tasked with writing something personal.
That’s what she would do.
Ocellus began to write.
“Are you sure this is what you want me to send to Twilight?” Thorax asked cautiously, eyes alternating between re-reading Ocellus’s letter and looking at the Changeling in question.
“Yes, I think so. I mean, we had to write about who we are and where we came from and why we need to learn about Friendship and I wanted it to be meaningful and the best I could make it and ahahaha yeah I’ll stop talking now.” Her head fell, weighed down by her worry and anxiety. She could barely feel her legs.
Thorax raised an eyebrow, but otherwise said nothing. Ocellus could feel herself sweating. Had she overthought this? Was what she wrote about too personal or even worse, classified information? Did she actually screw up her once in a lifetime chance?
After a few moments, Thorax pulled an envelope over with his magic, then folded her letter inside.
“Well then, I should send this off to Twilight.” Thorax put down the envelope and smiled his goofy smile towards her. “Congratulations Ocellus, you’re going to the School of Friendship!”
She looked up slowly, hope burning away the buildup of stress and anxiety from everything leading up to this point. “Really?” she managed to croak out.
“Yes, really. You wrote the letter, and now you’re going.” He shook the envelope in his magic for a moment. “If anything, I’m impressed you wrote so much for this, and about such a personal topic. That must have taken some real bravery and effort on your part. Your parents should be proud of you.”
Ocellus couldn’t help but smile at such praise. Although, said smile dropped a bit as a thought occurred to her. “I mean, that was what we had to do for the letter, right? Write about why I need Friendship in my life?”
Thorax nodded. “Yes that’s right, although anything would have been okay. You didn’t have to write about something so distressing to you if you didn’t want to, of course.”
Although she didn’t know why, Ocellus felt offended by this. “You mean I could’ve wrote anything down and it would have been accepted?
Thorax smiled sympathetically and laid her right forehoof on her shoulder. “What you wrote was not a waste if you were happy with it. The point of this letter was to write about yourself. All Twilight wants is something more personal than some official application form that schools use. She wants to see each student express themselves and state their bit about why Friendship is important to them.” He then gave her shoulder a gentle pat. “If what you wrote about was honest, then it was the right thing to write.”
Ocellus sighed again and looked up into his eyes, with a gentle smile. “Then I guess I wrote the right thing then.”