//------------------------------// // Opposing Views // Story: The Light Within Us // by theOwtcast //------------------------------// I woke up barely rested and with nervous knots in my stomach even before I remembered what I was supposed to deal with today, the said knots twisting themselves tighter as soon as I did remember. I wished I could attribute the unpleasant feeling to a nightmare or at least to my general tendency to worry, but I’d had no dreams tonight, pleasant or otherwise, and there was plenty enough going on around here to justify worrying. At least my headache was gone. For now, anyway. I rubbed my eyes and stirred. This was going to be a demanding day and I didn’t want to be the one who would have to face all the dissatisfied drones and try to find some kind of a solution all of them would approve of, or at least a compromise they could all live with, but unfortunately, I didn’t have a say in the matter. Destiny had chosen me to turn their lives upside-down and tear down everything they’d been taught to believe, and I’d done that gladly thinking I was doing the right thing, but destroying the old meant that I had to replace it with something new, which again I’d done gladly, thinking I’d brought something better. Would I have done it had I known my idea of ‘something better’ would have caused so much strife? Yes, I had to admit it to myself, I would have. I still believed the change brought forth was for the better despite the difficulties and setbacks; the challenges were only temporary! They had to be! I could still figure out what to do to overcome them! They couldn’t be too different from what I’d faced while searching for my first friends! If I’d succeeded then, I could succeed now! Destiny had chosen me to bring the blessing of friendship to my kind, and it wouldn’t have done so unless I had what it takes to find a way! Of course, I wouldn’t mind if Destiny had made it any easier for me to do what it- Wait, what was that big blob of resin doing in my… bedchamber... Wait a minute, that was my bed! When had I fallen off? And how hadn’t I noticed that I’d rolled almost all the way to the wall?! Okay, maybe I hadn’t had a nightmare, but I definitely hadn’t slept well! No wonder I wasn’t feeling rested if I’d spent the night tossing and turning so hard that I’d fallen off the bed and moved this far away from it! Would it affect my likelihood of finding a solution to the problem the hive was dealing with? I didn’t know, but the very thought was enough to shatter my self-confidence! Okay, Thorax, calm down and take deep, slow breaths. You can do this! The Harmony believes in you! It wouldn’t have set you up for this if it didn’t! Yeah, not working. Whatever spell I’d had on myself a minute ago was now broken. I forced myself to get up. The day wasn’t going to wait for me, and if I was lucky, maybe noling would want to see me yet and I’d have some time to prepare for whatever they would present me with. One look at the throne room killed that hope. Two groups of drones, one of renegades and one of the reformed ones, both of considerable size, were there already, obviously waiting for me and spending the wait making a show of ignoring each other. The tension in their auras was worse than in the midst of last evening’s fight. Here goes nothing… I swallowed a lump in my throat and stepped out of the hallway. “Good morning,” I said hesitantly when all eyes locked on to me. “You’re all here for-” “For getting you to sort them out,” a reformed drone barked, pointing at the renegades, who scowled and hissed in reply. “You need to get sorted out!” Cockroach growled. “Why don’t you all calm down and start from the beginning?” I said. “One at a time, please.” “Fine.” One of the reformed drones stepped forward. “I think you already know what the problem is, but let me spell it out to you just in case. It’s these guys! They’ve been a royal pain in the flank ever since we transformed and it’s getting worse by the minute! All they do is rampage about and wreak havoc! We’ve been trying to have a peaceful life like you want us to, and it would be a great change of pace after Chrysalis if we could only get to actually do that! But whatever we start on, they show up and interfere and disrupt our efforts! They even tore down a lot of what we’ve built! I have yet to see a planter or a notice board that hasn’t been wrecked within an hour!” “Serves you right when you waste your lives on pointless dawdling!” a renegade retorted. “This would never have happened under Chrysalis! She would have kept you all in check and so busy doing drills that you wouldn’t have time or energy for these idiocies!” “There’s more to life than fighting enemies and creating more enemies so you can fight them!” Elytra exclaimed. “I agree! There’s also showing to your enemies that you’re superior to them in every way!” “Superior?! You can’t seriously think that!” “I know it! But guess what? Now we’re not doing any of it because some idiot of a traitor got brainwashed into thinking we’d be better off by becoming weak and pathetic like our enemies!” “How can you find it weak and-” “And guess what else? We are weak and pathetic! I’m ashamed of what we’ve become and it’s thanks to you idiots who fell for-” He pointed a hoof at me. “-that fool’s delusions of sappy, rainbow-colored so-called bliss that will in reality be the end of us all! And don’t get me started on feeding! What - just what - makes you think you’ll be less hungry if you give away all your food?! Sorry to burst your bubble, but it doesn’t work like that! Never has and never will! You wanna eat, you have to hunt down your food just like hawks and timberwolves! You don’t see them hugging their prey, do you? That’s because they’d die of starvation if they did! And so will you idiots if you don’t stop this nonsense!” “You’re such an expert on food matters all of a sudden, aren’t you? Have you tried sharing love to know it doesn’t work?” “I don’t have to! I’m smart enough to tell it’s pointless!” “Then how do you explain us not only surviving, but thriving on shared love and refusing to go back?” “Because you’re so brainwashed you don’t even realize how stupid you’ve gotten!” “Excuse me,” I interjected, “can you stop insulting them and just say what you came here to discuss with me?” “Discuss with you?” he scoffed. “We have nothing to discuss with retarded usurpers! We’re here only to make sure they-” He pointed to the reformed drones. “-don’t give you ideas even crazier than your own!” Don’t snap at him, I told myself. “Don’t know about the rest of you,” another renegade interjected, “but I’m here to make sure they don’t kick us out of our own land! If anyling needs to get kicked out, it’s them, and then we’ll bring Chrysalis back so she can hunt down and punish the traitors!” “It’s our land too, you dimwit!” “Not for much longer, cuddleclown! You’re a disgrace to the changeling kind and the hive needs to get purged of you!” “Guys, can we please not throw insults?” “You’re the ones the hive needs to get purged of, you stubborn, entitled, self-centered freaks!” “Freaks?! I’ll show you freaks!” “Guys, please calm down-” My plea got drowned out in the cacophony of threats and curses; if anyling had even registered it, they’d chosen to ignore it and do the exact opposite. The ice-hot flavor of their auras grew rapidly with each passing second and every insult uttered, until it exploded almost tangibly when Hyena decided she’d had enough and sank her fangs in the nearest reformed drone. He yelped and fell unconscious; the reformed drones rushed to retaliate as the renegades took Hyena’s act as a signal to do away with whatever restraints they still had, and before I knew it, the throne room was a warzone worse than Canterlot! I watched helplessly as the chaos unfolded beyond my worst nightmares, willing myself to think of something to tell them, some way to get them to see reason, and failing miserably to even get them to acknowledge my presence. How could I have allowed this to happen? I should have known! I should have figured getting them in the same room at the same time would end in disaster! The exact details of the disaster didn’t even matter; it had been bound to happen and I should have known it! Just because unreformed drones were a minority now didn’t mean they couldn’t stir up Tartarus; they’d spent their whole lives training to do just that and, unlike the reformed ones, had no qualms about disregarding my nonviolence rules and putting their training to use! If only I could get them to stop, just to stop for a moment, just enough to cool down and start acting reasonably again! Maybe if I could, they’d be willing to listen and partake in a civil conversation instead of this madness! Except at this rate, I’d have to physically separate them and- That’s it! I’d done that last evening and it had worked! Maybe it would work again! It was worth a try! I focused my magic. I’d never deliberately levitated this many objects, or creatures, or anything, and it wasn’t helping any that all of them were in motion, but I got them in the end and broke them up, then set them on the ground to- -watch as they shrugged off the interruption without a glance at what could have caused it and continued right where they’d left off. Seriously?! This didn’t even count as a warning anymore? Or a request, or anything for that matter? As much as I disagreed with the renegades on pretty much everything, it was hard to deny that Chrysalis wouldn’t have allowed such obvious disregard of her command to go without consequences. Very painful consequences. Well, it wasn’t like I’d be glad to routinely resort to manipulating them like that. It felt wrong, almost like depriving them of their freedom, the ‘almost’ part simply because the deprivation of freedom would only last as long as I maintained the spell. Maybe it was a good thing the approach had become ineffective so quickly, before I grew to rely on it too much... The bad thing was that I’d moved back to zero progress. Worse than zero, even; by the looks of it, it was only a matter of moment when the throne room would get its very own lake of blood and the hive its first post-reformation fatality! And it was equally likely that the fatality would be on either of the two sides! There could even be fatalities on both sides! Didn’t they care about that at least, about not killing their peers, even if they were in disagreement? Even the reformed drones? Did nothing matter to them anymore? Had it ever even mattered, if only for a little while? I’d thought they’d reformed and gotten past their savage tendencies, but was it all a lie? No… I couldn’t believe it! They’d sided with me, and still claimed to be on my side, and there had to be some truth in it if they were trying to keep the renegades from restoring Chrysalis to power! But why were they going about it in all the wrong ways? They’d promised me they wouldn’t resort to violence anymore! So why all this?! “Enough!” I cried before I could stop myself. Miraculously, everyling stopped fighting, but I was so worked up that I barely noticed. “What is wrong with you?! I get that the renegades are acting out, but a lot of you are reformed! You said you were done with the old ways! That you would pursue friendship from now on! Does this look like friendship to you?! Or like a calm and civil discussion that we agreed to have just last evening? Do you even want my help?! Because it looks like you couldn’t care less! You’re just as bad as the renegades!” I stormed off into the nearest hallway, trying to hide the tears that were about to start pouring down my contorted face. My facial muscles hurt as they maintained the pained grimace, but what hurt more was how the reformed drones had betrayed my trust in them. What was I going to do? They’d said they wanted me as their king, they’d said they’d follow my command and learn from my example, but did I still have a reason to believe any of it had been true? Maybe the intention was there, or had once been, but how to make use of it if they couldn’t bring themselves to stop relapsing into the behavior they’d vowed to leave behind? Was this how it was going to be from now on? Were all my efforts to bring out the best in changelings destined to fail? Did anything I wanted or tried to do even matter? I didn’t know anymore. I wanted to believe; goodness, how I wanted to convince myself that this was only a temporary hiccup and that all would turn out well eventually, but no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t… I just couldn’t. I walked on through the hive, not paying much attention to where I was going, unsure of how much, if anything, it would accomplish. If I was lucky, it would help me calm down and clear my head; if not, I’d end up right where I’d started or even worse off. As far as I knew, I could run into more fights and again fail to resolve the issue if not create a bigger one! As if I wasn’t already feeling bad enough for having failed as a king! And that had to be saying something, considering I hadn’t even wanted the title! Wait. Did that make any sense or was I rambling gibberish? What did my leadership skills have to do with my desire to lead? Did my lack of ambition make me a horrible leader? Was that it, even though I’d wanted everything I’d introduced into the hive after earning my title, except the title itself? Would things start getting better if I kept making an effort but relinquished the title? Could I even relinquish the title? I was about to go discuss it with Urtica when I came across another drone, one I’d been wanting to talk to regardless of this more recent conundrum. Actually, could he help me about that one, too? “Hi, Pharynx,” I said to him. “Where have you been yesterday? I didn’t see you…” “What do you think?” “Um… cleaning something?” He gave a slight snort and continued on his way. I followed. “Sorry,” I tried again. “I know you don’t like being a janitor, but it won’t last for very long now, and you’ll be free to do whatever you-” He stopped in his tracks and turned to face me. “What do you want?” “I was just trying to talk to you… you know, you’re my brother and I’ve-” “Quit rambling. What do you want?” “Well, if I have to want something to be eligible for talking to you… I was wondering… could you… maybe… could you help me with something?” “That depends.” “On what?” He rolled his eyes. “On whether or not I can help you. What is it?” “You, uh, might have noticed that the renegades have been causing trouble recently and the reformed drones have been forced to fight them…” “Good, they still remember how to do that.” “That’s not what I meant!” “Okay, I admit they’ve gotten rusty since you terminated their training, but at least they’re making an effort.” “But they shouldn’t be fighting at all!” “You’d rather have the renegades rip them to pieces?” “No! I’d rather they didn’t fight at all!” “Well, good luck with that,” he shrugged, trotting off again. “Pharynx!” “What?” “Aren’t you going to help?” “No.” “Why?” “Why do you want me to help you?” “Please?” “What is it exactly that you’d want me to do, Thorax?” “I don’t know… can you talk to them or something? You know, convince them to stop fighting?” “Didn’t you try to do that?” “…yes…” “And how’s it working out so far?” “I can’t get them to be in the same room for two minutes without fighting-” “So how am I supposed to have better luck?” “You used to be First Commander… they listened to you undeservedly…” He snorted again. “Heh, ‘used to’ is right…” “So… could you do that again?” “Get them to listen? Forget it! If they won’t listen to the king, why should they care about what a failed-First-Commander-turned-janitor has to say?” “Maybe I don’t have to be the king-” He about-faced and fixed me with an incredulous glare. “What did you say?!” “I’ve been thinking. Do I really need to be the king, Pharynx? Couldn’t I just step down and keep introducing friendship to them like an ordinary drone? I never expected to be a leader, let alone wanted to be one, and it’s not like they’re listening to me anyway!” “Are you out of your mind?!” Something in the tone of his voice sent cold shivers down my carapace. “What do you mean?” “Do you want Chrysalis to take over again after everything you’ve been through?!” “But she’s gone-” “You’re more naive than I thought! Yes, she may have left the premises after you defeated her, but if I know her at all, she’ll have kept a close eye on what’s going on here, wherever she is, and as soon as word spreads that you’re no longer the king, she’ll come running to seize the throne by whatever means necessary before someling else can do it! And she’ll have neither forgotten nor forgiven so many drones siding with you! As soon as her position here is secured, she’ll execute you, me, and every reformed drone she can get hold of!” “You can’t seriously-” “Losing so many drones at once will be a terrible blow to the hive no matter who the leader is, and it’ll leave her weak, but she’s had to have had similar setbacks in all the centuries she’s been alive! She’ll know how to restore her lost power and will get there no matter how long it takes, and all your efforts will have been for nothing! Is that what you want?” I sighed. “No, but do you really think-” “Yes, I really think it would happen. I think it so hard I’d bet both our lives on it, so don’t you dare give up your title if you want to live!” “Okay, I won’t,” I sighed, “but if I’m keeping the title, can’t you at least try to help me talk the renegades down?” “Wasted effort, Thorax! I told you already they won’t listen! Now leave me alone; the badlands perimeter isn’t gonna defend itself!” He buzzed his wings and flew down a tunnel. “Pharynx, wait-” “Quit wasting my time! Not happening!” I groaned inwardly. Now what?