It was now 8pm in the afternoon. The setting sun loomed over the east side of Ponyville as its residents walked around doing their afternoon activities. There was ponies relaxing at local cafes, and others just walked around and shopped. Of course, this was different for the six friends who were different than the six main elements.
Fluttershy briefly visited her house, which was now strewn with paper and dust. The papers all seemed to depict a crude drawing of a tall faceless pony with seemingly threatening words on them. The words had different styles of hoofwriting on each individual sheet
Meanwhile, Thorax decided to go around town and try to blend in with the other standards as he feasted on the scraps of love that he could find. As he walked he could still sense a presence watching him from beyond the trees. He knew what it was but he ignored it and continued to trot through the plaza and browse the different shops.
Twilight and Applejack made a similar decision to Fluttershy’s by visiting their own evacuated homes. Applejack’s farm was barren of any signs of life that were there, besides the apples and squirrels. She perused around her house and saw stuff was still intact but with some uncollected dust and one single half-chewed apple on the clothed table with a letter next to it. She opened it with a grimace as she fought back to Twilight’s announcement of her sister’s death. The letter read:
To the Element of Honesty,
I knew you would come back here. I’m not one of them. If I was, I would not be writing this but sulking around and attacking random ponies with no control over my actions and with no sense of consciousness within my thinking either. You may not know who I am, but yet you would know the face behind the pony who is writing this letter if you ever saw them. I’m close to you, but you may not know who I am. I’m here to say that I’m here to prevent you from putting yourself into harm’s way. I’m not taking your side nor trying to help the creature amongst the tall trees and shrubs of the Everfree. I’m merely here to get you out of this rabbit hole before it’s too late.
Sincerely,
A Stranger
The letter ended with a red frowning face at the bottom that didn’t have its usual circle to contain the face. She really didn’t know who this pony was nor why they knew that she was coming here. The handwriting was very neat but wasn’t too stylish to be that of Rarity’s handwriting. Plus, the frown looked like it was drawn with a red marker and it almost looked like it had had effort put into its slow dragging lines across the paper. Applejack placed the paper back down before trotting out the door as the sun glared against her face.
Meanwhile, at Twilight’s place, there wasn’t that much special. It still looked relatively the same but it was very dark inside. She didn’t know if she wanted to go back in there, they knew where she was and her being in that one single isolated place and it made her feel vulnerable to her current threats. So she walked out, mentally prompting herself to come back when this was all potentially over.
Then the group came back to Rarity’s boutique when the sun started to set and immediately noticed something different upon arrival: the absence of Luna. Rarity was sewing together one of her dresses under a chandelier that lit the room. She looked back at her confused friends who looked around the boutique and saw they were utterly confused. “Oh darlings, what seems to be the problem?” she asked apprehensively as she continued to move through needle through the dress with her magic.
“Well, we’re wondering where did our princess go? Because she was a very important pony amongst our group and we noticed her sudden absence.” Thorax explained plaintively as he walked up to the burgundy-maned unicorn while inspecting the stitches of the dress she was making.
“Oh! I can answer that. Well, you see, while the alicorn was sitting on her rump and looking out the window I decided to hand her a glass to drink. You know have a little mare-talk with her and see what was up. She just took the drink and then dropped it. And then she announced that she was going to the old castle she and her sister owned. I didn’t know why she wanted to go to that place, when I asked her she replied with ‘Finding answers’.” she said with a groan as she whipped her hair back with her right forehoof.
The changeling looked back at the rest of his friends and looked at them with an equally blank and confused stare as the one they gave him. Thorax shrugged and moved past Twilight and sat down at the dining table and slammed his head between his forelegs as they rested on the table. “Welp…we are certainly more vulnerable now.”
Twilight looked at the changeling somberly and walked up to him and rested her hoof on his shoulder and sighed. “Throax…I can tell…I can tell you are going through a lot. I’ve been noticing that you have been quite.. observant to our emotions to say the least and I bet it's taking a toll on you.”
“Well…no shit sparkle butt, shit has been really traumatizing for me. Can we talk about this privately somewhere?” he lifted his head up and looked Twilight deep into her eyes, his stare felt like it was filled with trust towards her and this felt really abnormal to Twilight, because she really didn’t know him that much.
“Well I got a guest bedroom for you two. Sorry that I didn’t mention it early, just I don’t want you darlings to bicker about who gets it.” Rarity announced with her usual high-class flare as she walked around the two as they stared, a small smirk forming on her lips as she guessed why the changeling’s stare was so intense.
Thorax turned his head back at Rairty with an uncertain frown.“Uh..is there 2 beds ooorrr-”
“Nope! It's a queen-sized bed fit for 1 or 2 or 3 ponies. I just really want my guest to feel special.” Rarity proudly answered as she sat down between them smirking at them, smirking wider as she noticed their confusion as they didn't catch her motives.
The pair looked at Rairty for several minutes before looking back at each other with a shrug before getting up and heading to the direction of the bedroom which Rairty was kindly pointing towards. “Just up those stairs dear. The one that spirals up towards the 2nd floor to be more exact.”
Once the Element of magic and The exiled changeling disappeared into the second floor, Applejack groaned as she looked at Rairty’s smug expression. The marshmallow white unicorn whipped her head back to the cowpony with a prideful sparkle in her eyes. “Is something wrong AppleJack?”
“Well I can tell you’re shipping them and you ain’t even know Throax had a lover.” AJ responded egregiously as she took a hard gulp of cider.
Rarity dramatically gasped and leaned her head on the back of her hoof “Oh Applejack! Why shouldn't I? Besides it's almost practically almost dark and I just see the tension they have and are probably in complete denial of it!” She then layed down on the couch with a laugh as looked at AJ. “Twilight needs a stallion like that bug. He is practically foaming at the mouth for her and looking at her like some puppy!” she squealed rolling around laughing at the thought of an adorable romantic relationship between them.
“Ya sure he isn’t looking for some closer? He probably is traumatized by all this shit that's been happening to us! Maybe he sees her as a healer to his recent mental wounds? Just saying because you’ve got a very skewed view on relationships.” AJ grimaced at her friend as she lightly put the cider bottle down on the clothed surface of the dining table.
Rarity got up and walked to the window closest to her and stared out at the darkening sky as the quarter moon slowly got raised up by the Lunar princess. “Well, at least we are getting a break from our little horror story for now. Plus I personally don't think Twilight’s cynical view on relationships isn’t true in my opinion and I believe tonight is the night where she might re-think her perspective.” She said with resentment as she dragged the tip of her hoof on the glass slowly.
It has been 16 minutes since Twilight and Thorax had entered the bedroom and those past few minutes had been spent just blankly staring at the purple queen-sized bed that lay down in front of them as they realized what Rarity was up to.
“Welp…she wants us to have sex doesn't she.” The changeling spoke first while his non-existent irises looked at his unicorn companion. He did kinda like her but felt really uncomfortable with this setup and he could taste her discomfort as well.
“Hughhhh...She does...I know she is a bit of a perv but this is just crossing my boundaries!” Twilight shoved her face into a pillow and groaned with annoyance. The bedroom was quite small with a hexagonal layout with only a set of drawers, a mirror, a large wardrobe, and a decorative crystal ceiling light above the bed.
Thorax sheepishly walked over to her and stared down at her nervously then after a bit before he cleared his throat. “Can we still talk? Like about my pain and what nor?”
She rolled on her side and looked at him with bags under her eyes, he could taste her grumpiness and visually could see how tired she was. “Well I’m not really in the mood for that tonight since we both figured out that she is shipping us. Also im just tired and really sick of sleeping on the floor."
“Well, on the topic of the bed situation, are you ok with me sharing the bed with you? You know, the normal type of sharing the same bed. ” He asked trying to make the question sound less awkward than it already was, but Twilight still grimaced while he gave a sheepish smile.
Twilight groaned and gave herself a face-hoof before quickly got herself under the covers and looked at him.“Ughhh! Just get in the bed already! I don’t care that I can clearly tell that you like me, which I can tell because you are acting way too shy around me. I just want to get some sleep alread!-”
Twilight then noticed that Thorax was now staring intently at the wardrobe rather than her. The changeling could feel some emotion coming from there, it tasted like laughter, concentration, some rage, deep-rooted envy and murderous intent. He slowly walked up to the wardrobe with caution as the floorboards creaked under his shiny black hoves. As he slowly opened the dobble doors by their hinges, light shone through the crack revealing clothes that were already there, as well as a bugged-out eye of somepony hiding between the clothes.
Before Throax could move the clothes out of the way, the stallion in the wardrobe tackled him and stared down at him with those bugged-out bloodshot eyes staring down into his insect-like ones. Twilight immediately lunged out of the bed and shoved a bolt of solidified magic into the intruder’s barrel before freezing as she felt a chill run down he spine as she looked at the intruder's recognizable face.
It was the same dam burnt-up face, same carved-up smile, same half-melted horn, and the same tiny splotches of brown fur that remained. The stallion she only knew by the moniker of Jeff stared up at her with unrecognizable emotion glaring in his dilated eyes and chuckled and hefted up a coughing fit as he did. “The princess and the bug! Such a classical tale, Honestly I expected you to take an interest in him, But im wrong as your friend down there. Also sorry for coming into her humble abode, really just wanted to end a future alicorn monarch before she takes the reigns to exploiting the common pony and hiding an unwanted truth. Oh by the way! The name is not Jeff, It’s Iron Spade.” He tortuously mocked as he cowered in the corner as the bug and the unicorn surrounded him.