Spike and Thorax sat quietly together as they watched Twilight merrily walking back and forth, using her magic to levitate a number of items out from the basement into the main chamber of the Library. What she was up to the two had no clue, but it was clear from the look on her face that she was excited about it. After a while, she was done, and before the two was her setup. A chalk board, with the associated chalk beside it of course, a few wooden seats and a textbook in her hooves. After clearing her throat, she finally boke the silence between them. "Okay, the time has come for me to rectify a long-standing problem." She pointed at Thorax. "Namely, your education!"
Thorax blinked slowly. "But...I never had one."
Twilight nodded firmly. "Exactly correct! Thanks to the negligence of your old queen, you have gone through life without even basic tutelage. That simply will not stand. Not in this household!"
Thorax pointed to her. "My Queen, with the greatest respect, I have already explained this matter to you. We drones don't have it in us for that kind of learning."
Twilight frowned as she walked closer to him. "And I simply will not accept that, Thorax!" She gently placed her hoof upon his shoulder. "I refuse to believe that you and your kind just didn't have the right brains for it, or whatever nonsense Chrysalis was spouting when she told you that. You're an intelligent being, Thorax, and nothing I've seen of you in your time here has given me reason to believe otherwise."
Thorax bowed his head slightly. "You honour me with your kind words, but..."
Alas, he was cut off by Twilight's hoof being put onto his lips. "Ah! No buts, Mister! If I'm going to be responsible for you, then I'm going to be responsible for your growth, starting with the growth of your mind." She emphasised that latter point with a quick boop to his forehead. "Just ask Spike. I taught him back in the day and he was able to take to it just fine."
The young dragon chuckled to that. "Just be wary of year two of her curriculum. By that point she'll be asking you question like what notes Starswirl's hat-bells produced."
"That's valuable information and everypony knows it!" Twilight declared. Then, after turning to the chalk-board, she reached for one of the tiny pieces for writing before looking and smiling to her new student. "Who knows? If this works out I might actually give some serious thought to becoming a teacher one day." Looking again to the board, she took a moment to busy herself with writing a few things upon it. Namely the first three letters of the alphabet and the first few numbers that anypony would learn at a young age. "Alrighty then. We'll start with some of the basics. Your A, B, Cs and your one, two and threes." But before she could continue, she saw Spike raise his claw. "Yes, Spike?"
"Well...doesn't he have a language?" Seeing the two of them look to him, Spike explained himself. "I mean, I know he's been speaking ponish this whole time, but that can't be his original language, right?"
Twilight, after looking a touch embarrassed at not considering that point herself, cleared her throat and looked to Thorax. "Well...he raises a good point. Maybe if you teach us a few things about your language we can put it into words. Help you to read and write that first."
Thorax looked to her with some skepticism. "With great apology, Highness, I'm not sure my language is something either of you could really grasp all that well."
Twilight rolled her eyes. "Come on, Thorax. I know this is new territory for Spike and me, but I think you'll find we've coped with some pretty big things in our life. So go ahead. show us what you've got."
Thorax, after giving a quick shrug, opened his mouth. What came out of it was no sound that either of the others had any real understanding of. It was like some horrific combination of screeching and clicking that, at any moment, felt like it was going to be loud enough to make their collective eardrums burst. Naturally, this new and thoroughly unpleasant noise caused them to back away slightly, looking to him with confusion and even slight concern. After a while though, Thorax closed his mouth, and once a moment or two had passed he looked to Spike, then to Twilight, before again speaking in typical ponish. "For the record, I was saying good morning." With the expressions on the other two giving away that they now realised that they'd bitten off more than they could chew, Thorax gestured to his queen. "If you like, we can put a pin in that for now and carry on with ponish."
"Yes please," Twilight answered hurriedly. Getting back to the board, Twilight tapped where the letters were. "Now, everything I've read about education says it'll be pretty difficult for us to be able to do this." She then pointed to him. "Not because you're incapable, I've made my position on that very clear." Again, she tapped the board. "But because of your age. It's often said that learning is a good deal easier when you're younger, but hey, we're gonna give it a try anyway." As before, Spike raised his claw, and this time Twilight addressed him with a touch of exasperation. "Yes, Spike?"
This time, Spike looked to Thorax instead of her. "So...um...how old are you?" The question caught Twilight off-guard, because looking at him, being roughly the same size as her, it was more than likely that she'd assumed he was the same age. But, with the recent and stark reminder that he was a completely different species, her number one assistant had hit the nail right on the head, and so she too looked to Thorax with curiosity over the possible answer.
Thorax, for his part, considered his response. "Well, we Changelings don't really mark our development as you do, but in your measurements I would be...five years old, I think?"
Hearing that, Twilight looked to him, aghast, even dropping her chalk. "You...you're only five years old?!" Before Thorax could answer her, she clasped her hooved over her mouth. "You mean to tell me...that Chrysalis sent a minor to war?!"
Thorax shook his head. "Growth is different for my kind, Highness. It takes very little for us to reach maturity compared to ponies."
"Even so," Twilight began.
"Well, look at it this way, at least the whole learning thing might not be as hard now, right?" Spike added, clearly looking for a bright spot.
Twilight, after rubbing her temples from the revelation she'd just been given, sighed before giving a smile to her longest friend. "You're right. Nevertheless it is an unexpected development." She turned again to the board. "So many differences between us, it's small wonder so many of your brothers have refused to follow your example and meet up with us."
Thorax looked to the side, as if troubled by something, before looking to his queen. "You needn't trouble yourself. I am old enough to be able to be of service."
"Well, you're old enough to be a student, that much is certain," Twilight replied, regaining her smile. After looking at her chalk for a time, she considered something, then glanced over to her charge. "How about you come up here? See if you can try your hoof at writing. Nothing too much, just doing your best with the letters I've written."
Thorax looked to the chalk, then to the simple alphabet that had been written on the board. It was an easy enough task, but something inside him made him very much aware of things being wrong. For the sake of his current carer, however, he got up, though Spike could see that it was taking him a bit longer than usual to do so. The drone stepped over to Twilight, taking the offered chalk from her before moving over to the board, with Twilight apparently not catching onto the somewhat laboured breathing he was doing. Raising it up, Thorax placed the tip of the chalk onto the board, just underneath where Twilight's own writing was. And here was where it started. His grip began to wobble, his breathing became heavier, and his vision started to blur. Twilight, finally noticing, spoke with concern. "Thorax?"
The Changeling, growing increasingly tiered-looking, wasn't even able to get any full sentences out, instead being reduced to little more than hushed whispers that Twilight's ears could only just make out. "I...I...I can't..."
And with those final words, the dam burst. Thorax dropped the chalk, his legs finally giving out, and he fell in a heap on the floor, having first collided with the board, knocking it over. Spike leapt off his chair and rushed to his side, as did Twilight. "THORAX!!!" they both exclaimed together.
But he was unresponsive. His usually dark colouring was growing pale, his breathing was becoming more and more strained, and his body as a whole shivered as it lay upon the ground. Spike, with understandable fear and panic, looked to Twilight for answers. "Wha...what do we do?!"
Twilight herself was at a loss here. She had no clue what they should be doing, and so her only course was to kneel beside Thorax and lean in as close as she could. "Thorax! If you can answer, please, tell us what we need to do!"
For a time, more laboured breathing was her answer, until finally, Thorax's eyes turned slightly in her direction, and his voice, though quiet to the point of almost silence, was heard. "Get me...to...to wall..."
Neither of them understood what he really wanted, but given the circumstances they had little choice but to follow his instructions. And so, with greater care than they'd put into anything else in their lives, they tried lifting the prone Thorax as best they could, bringing him slowly but surely towards the closest wall of the Library. Once there, Twilight again looked to the helpless Changeling. "What now?"
"Put...down..." Thorax said weakly.
They did so, albeit very gently. Then, with presumably what little strength he had left, Thorax turned his head upwards to the wall he'd been placed by, before opening his mouth. Moments later, Twilight and Spike took a step backwards, for from that open mouth now spewed a torrent of some kind of white fluid. It sprayed over the wall, congealing upon impact, before sliding down and starting to envelope Thorax. But ever he kept spewing, the hissing sound of it almost deafening. Spike, his own breathing becoming erratic from the stress of the situation, looked to Twilight. "What's he doing?!"
But Twilight had no answer for him. Instead, all she could do was keep on watching as the drone who had pledged himself to her continued to do this to himself. Eventually, after almost a full minute of this, it was finally done. Thorax could no longer be seen, having been fully encased in whatever this substance was, which appeared even now to be drying out and hardening. Slowly, Twilight drew nearer, with Spike keeping a wary eye on her. After reaching this white mass in the corner of her home, she started to lean in. Carefully, she placed her ear against it, closing her eyes, and after a moment, she withdrew, looking to Spike. "I can still hear his heartbeat. It's slow, but it's still going." She looked to the formation beside her. "If I were to hazard a guess, I'd say this is some sort of cocoon. A kind of biological stasis for himself, now that..."
"Now that what?!" Spike asked.
A long sigh escaped his friend. "It finally happened, Spike. He went too far without feeding upon love. If he hadn't done this to himself, he..."
She couldn't bring herself to finish, and Spike, walking up to the cocoon himself, looked to it for a while before finally addressing Twilight again. "So...what do we do for him now?"
Taking in a deep breath, Twilight took on a firmer expression. "We get help."