//------------------------------// // 19 - Acceptance is Calming // Story: Hive Alive // by BlackWater //------------------------------// Chrysalis had no trouble at all with the imagery that came into her own mind. She was used to a much greater volume of it in her past even if such quantity had never before included the colorful variety that Twilight's connections did. The pony queen was preoccupied with one in particular and thus failed to take note of some others that should have been of just as much concern. It couldn't be ignored that Chrysalis had experienced a sort of block in the last instance of the sleep ring hivemind. She had then not been able to see whole memories, thoughts, or unspoken conversations. This still occurred now, though of obviously lesser degree. The changeling could access some thoughts and not others without any immediately logical reason. As it had been before, it was again frustrating to her. Pinkie Pie's silence was obvious enough to one who took focus to her new presence in the hivemind. The others were far too busy handling the flood of memories jumbling about mentally, but the sole changeling fought the tide even with that itch of pain on her underside. No doubt it would hurt worse when she awoke again. In other circumstances, Chrysalis would be more concerned with getting Twilight's attention back to her. All these new ponies adding to her queen's hive were a great distraction from the void that existed before but Chrysalis still desired love as much as she did simple hivemind company. It could never be denied that changelings, in the end, always fed off of that emotion. Thus, its importance could likewise never be undermined. Breaking just for a moment from Chrysalis' musing in the hivemind, Direway might be the one pony most interested to know why there seemed so much preoccupation with one central idea. That is to say, all the others mixing and matching thoughts all had at least one common denominator and that was a stress on the significance of love. For a changeling, this was understandable. But why was Twilight Sparkle, Fluttershy, Rainbow Dash, and even Midnight Strike so utterly invested in it? What it came down to, in no small thanks to the logical revelations courtesy of the queen, was that love had many forms both romantic and non-romantic. But regardless of form, love was the most important thing nestled inside the deepest parts of everypony's mind. Foals could literally die without it and even grown-ups would wither away should they receive none. For some, one form of love was more important than another. Midnight Strike had himself invested heavily in an impossible romantic love. Direway, on the other hoof, was instead centered on a camaraderie-based love. In both cases, it drove them to be what they were and gave them the power to reach even further, though Midnight's subject of love was no longer who it had been. This, being shared and picked up by Chrysalis, was helpful clarity to Pinkie Pie's own life. The Earth pony was unique in the kind of love she centered upon, as much as the special relationship Chrysalis had formed with her savior. Pinkie loved parties, yes. She loved balloons and cupcakes to be sure. But she loved her friends with a jealous passion that was usually translated to an annoying excess of energy to those that knew her. Pinkie Pie's silence had nothing to do with the fact that her life had just been put up on display in the hivemind. Neither did it have anything to do with the fact that she saw Twilight's past and a few private hijinks therein. Thirdly, it had nothing to do with Twilight's extensive knowledge of magic that had just been acquired within her own mind and thus fused with her own personal understanding of the mechanics of the universe. The bubbly party pony was silent because she had also seen several other pasts. It had been almost to the point of being painful and the flashes she got here and there from this pony or that were not always of the positive variety that she preferred. Midnight Strike's was kind of sad and Fluttershy's was the coup de grâce. Sure, life on a rock farm was a little gray at times - Pinkie Pie fully intended the pun and was not as happy about it as she had hoped - but actually being mistreated by one's own family was a shock for her. Or perhaps it was more the intensity to which Fluttershy had been treated. In any case, Pinkie's thoughts of an “It'll Be Okay” party fell as flat as her mane. Everything she saw had been in the past, so bringing it up now would only make her sad again, right? That was the internal struggle an oddly sensible Pinkie was fighting when the next thing happened. Rainbow Dash entered into the pool of the hivemind. That meaning, of course, that she was connected to Twilight and the others beyond her simple physical manifestation in the imaginary hivemind space. Her life began flashing through just as Pinkie's did, if perhaps a bit more colorfully. Not that Pinkie's wasn't full of life and energy but those years on the rock farm literally lacked color without her first parties she threw for her family. Pinkie saw Rainbow Dash's past just as Twilight did, though some different things here and there caught her attention. What remained the same were the key moments that had to be talked about after the connection was finished. Yes, talked about. Twilight wanted to make better use of the hivemind by leaning on thought to communicate rather than vocal words from their manifested bodies. But that was just an optimization that wouldn't cut it for the shock of what they all saw in Rainbow's past. Nevermind that Twilight had started having suspicions about the psychological implications of communicating serious past events only mentally and without vocal relation. Such was typical for the alicorn who spent perhaps far too much time in books, research, and analysis. The sole Earth pony remained silent as the last connection was finalized. Now she had an entirely new set of memories to mull over. Her eternally sugar-pumped brain may have been capable of taking it all in at rates beyond the normal limits, but she couldn't decide the color of the streamers for the “Rainbow's Revelation” party. And that wasn't even to speak of whether or not Rainbow, like Fluttershy, would even want a party that brought up old less-than-happy memories. Thankfully, she was too busy opening and closing her mouth while not being able to decide one thing or another to make an interruption to the worried conversation that had just started. “Rainbow...Dash?” Twilight's voice spoke into the silence that otherwise hung there under the willow tree. The two guards were doing their usual duty in being silent and obedient. Fluttershy was mute by what she had also seen in Rainbow's past. Not a few conversations between her and her rainbow-maned friend were to be had later. Chrysalis, on the other hoof, closed her eyes calmly and took everything in. If she wanted to be on Twilight's good side after this was all over then she would have to swallow every curse she wanted to throw at the blue pegasus for physically injuring her and generally being a bad egotistical busy-body. But that was her own heated opinion in the moment. She was not completely insensitive to what spots of the mare's memories she had born witness to. “Dash?” Twilight asked again. Both mares, Rainbow and the hive's queen alicorn, were now fully back at attention under the willow, where all the others were around them. Really, neither had ever left that space, but their minds had drifted about during the connection. The Element of Loyalty's face was still only a breath's distance from Twilight's own and it, unlike the royal's, was paled by fear. Or was that some kind of shock? She had seen Twilight's life in its entirety so perhaps she had seen something that surprised her. Twilight knew better, though. Because it was Twilight who was now seeing her friend's every thought as if it was posted on a bulletin board. “It's okay,” Twilight soothed as she stretched out a hoof behind her friend's mane. She stroked it with gentle affection. “Be what you want, Dashie.” One thought of Rainbow's was to cry. But she didn't want to cry because she was a tough rough-and-tumble pegasus. She was the unruly pony of her pack of friends, the invincible Element of Loyalty. She cried. Twilight drew her in for a hug and let the tears soak her shoulder where Rainbow buried her face. What was it with all the strong emotions that had been going on in her hive? Had everypony expressed some by now? It nearly seemed so. Only the mass of intel that Twilight had been consuming through her connections allowed her to understand why. That or Chrysalis had injected that revelation on intention. To be laid bare so fully and completely before somepony else was a terrifying idea. That alone could drive even Rainbow Dash to a sense of stage fright. But it was actually the stress that made the tears come so inevitably. In other words, it was not the secrets being revealed that made Rainbow cry. It was the fear of being rejected because of them. The fear of being judged and mocked. Yes, that was the very same fear that had made her keep her other self a secret for so long. Rainbow Dash didn't say anything even after the tears dried up. Nopony else dared to speak and, when Pinkie Pie was about to break her own silence to try cheering things up, Chrysalis managed to keep the place quiet. The party pony hadn't even seen the black holey hoof wrap around her and cover her mouth just as it opened. The changeling knew Twilight wanted a moment's silence from all present so that she could speak straightforward with the latest hive addition. It was a small favor that might land Chrysalis something later on. Once Twilight was more comfortable with the hivemind, perhaps she would be capable of muting and unmuting members thereof without concentrated effort. For now, Chrysalis lent her hoof. “Dashie,” Twilight said again with a continued hold against her friend. “I'm still the same pony you've always known. I'll never leave you.” The blue mare's breath seemed indication that she agreed and knew all along. Twilight didn't want to be hard on her but she had to do what came next. “Dashie,” Twilight repeated the name with as much a reassuring tone as possible. “I want you to tell me what happened.” “Why?” Rainbow's voice was muffled against the purple coat. “Because it will help if you tell me yourself,” the alicorn explained. “Trust me...okay?” Rainbow sniffled and then took a deep breath before backing out of the embrace. Her face looked about as red as one would expect from the crying. “I guess you want me to start with my parents?” Twilight nodded, though she was going to let her start anywhere she wanted anyways. The female pegasus sat before her friend and started with a lowered head. “I remember when I was young that things were never right between mom and dad...” Fluttershy frowned sadly as she too listened. She knew from what she had seen that her and Rainbow had both experienced less-than-ideal lives growing up, each for different but very important reasons. She had incorrectly assumed that her pegasus friend had it better all along when that was never really the case. “Dad...” Rainbow Dash continued, “he never really cared about mom. I don't know how they ever got together in the first place with the way he didn't seem to love her. But he wasn't like that with me. It was weird. He was nice to everypony but mom. He never talked about why.” Pinkie Pie kept her silence this time out of respect for the situation, which Chrysalis let her hoof fall away in faith for. “Mom seemed to like him but things changed slowly over time. She started getting as cold as him sometime around...well...” Rainbow started tearing up again because of the coming memory that haunted her. Twilight stretched her hoof out again in case she needed to be comforted, but the pegasus continued anyways. “I h-had a sister,” she finally got out. She had a little trouble here for emotional reasons. “Her name was Sky Prism. I was just s-so...excited about having a sister. But mom...she started treating me like a stranger after my sister was born. I thought sometimes that it was because dad treated me so nice and never paid attention to her. Mom started getting weird about Prism, like she was her only daughter and I didn't exist. She started separating us and not allowing us to be around each other.” Twilight pressed her lips together, knowing the results to come. “One day, mom had to spend extra time at work and dad had to pick up Prism from the nursery since he came home earlier to pick me up from elementary. He had never had to pick Prism up before. Mom had always been possessive about doing it. But dad never came to pick me up that day. I sat there in the schoolyard for I don't know how many hours until a policepony showed up and took me to a hospital.” The two guardponies looked at each other and exchanged sad looks. Both knew what it must have been like for the service pony to escort a young filly like that. It was like having to deliver the bad news to the wife of a fallen guardpony. It was something that all desperately hoped would never happen. “Dad and mom were there but they didn't pay much attention to me. Even dad. I found out when I was older that he had gone to pick up Prism and was coming to pick me up with her when an accident happened at the weather factory. He...was passing the cloud exit docks just as it happened because he knew it was a shortcut to my school. There was a spray of lightning from some clouds that had gotten charged up by accident and some of them struck dad and Prism.” Twilight would have preferred to spare any of her friends such grief, but she could tell from the tonality in Rainbow's voice that something was lifting off of her already. “They both survived the shock but something started going wrong with Prism's heart because she was so young. She was still just a baby then. She...” Rainbow's voice caught on itself and she had to sniffle before proceeding. “She didn't make it.” Pinkie Pie's mane wilted for the second or third time. She had a few sisters of her own and couldn't bear the thought the first time it had come to her in the hivemind and again now that Rainbow voiced it. “Mom blamed dad for her death,” the blue mare composed herself again. “She just divorced him after that like there was nothing to it. She didn't even say good-bye to me and I never saw her again. Dad took care of me by himself after that...but he never really got over what happened either. He loved Prism as much as he did me. It ate away at him. I could tell every time we visited her grave near Mt. Canter. He had chosen that spot....” Rainbow choked up and took a full minute to make it through. “He chose that spot,” she resumed, “because Prism had always been fond of looking down there even though she was just a foal. She always smiled the most when mom would sit on the edge of the city and show her the lands and skies beyond. All I could do was watch them from a distance because mom didn't really want me around. Well, anyways, you know the rest...” The queen encouraged her friend with thought this time. She wanted the pegasus to finish because she knew there was more on her mind, heavy things already known but not yet related. It made Rainbow uncomfortable to have shared them voicelessly, which was why Twilight wanted her to keep going. The cyan mare sighed and went on. She got the message and she really was feeling better for some stupid reason she couldn't figure out. Trust an egghead like Twilight to use some dumb rule of psychology when the hivemind should have otherwise been more efficient. Of course, what Twilight had realized was that the connections did indeed lack certain psychological things that ponies needed even if changelings did not. “I took after my dad, I guess. He was my only parent and I kind of didn't like my mom after what happened. Maybe she did what she did because dad was mean to her. I don't know. He was always nice to me even though it was hard for him to raise me alone. I acted as much like him as possible when I was around other ponies because I wanted to be strong like him and I didn't want him to worry about me.” Rainbow moved against her spot on the grass, obviously feeling awkward about what she was going to say. She continued, “I hated it when the others at school started treating me like a colt and making fun of me. But I kept it up because I didn't want to cause my dad any trouble. He was getting overworked by then and hardly slept. I could only be my real self when I was alone in my bedroom. I had saved one of Prism's dolls before the rest of her things were gotten rid of. Dad just couldn't bear remembering her through the stuff. But I really wanted to play with a doll, so I took it and things...well, I don't know when I started doing it but...” She got to another hard part because she ground to a halt. This time it was more a lack of words than any sadness. “Dashie,” Twilight gave a rare word of interruption. The rest was spoken with thoughts. She told her it was okay to take her time. They had all the time in the world. “I pretended that I was the mom I never really had,” Rainbow found the words to say and gave a flash of a thankful smile to Twilight, who she had kept her focus on this whole time. She didn't want to think about the other ponies around them at the moment. “I guess I always wanted mom to be there for me, so I used the doll to imagine it all. I promised that one day I'd really be that mom. I'd have my own kid and love them the way my mom never loved me. I kept at it secretly, playing around with the doll and stuff until sometime right before I met Gilda, I think. There wasn't really any more to it, except that I did sort of resent Fluttershy a bit during those years.” Fluttershy drooped from her place to the side of Twilight. Rainbow knew they had much to discuss and she had much to apologize for to the animal lover. But that would have to be after this. “I was shallow,” the Element of Loyalty admitted. “Though I wonder if it was just Gilda rubbing off on me. After I graduated, I took some basic weather jobs. But dad passed away after a few more years and I couldn't stand Cloudsdale anymore. It just made me depressed, so I moved to Ponyville. I heard Fluttershy had moved there and it was cheap. Gilda had disappeared somewhere over a year before that so I didn't have anypony tying me down. Then, one day, you showed up.” Rainbow Dash locked eyes with Twilight directly and with a calm grace she hadn't had before. Almost as if she wasn't feeling the slightest bit of worry anymore. “I had friends here and there in Ponyville but you were different. I don't know if it was because you were from Canterlot or if it really was destiny...Magic girl.” Twilight couldn't help crack a smile before getting it back under control. It seemed the regular Dash variety of jabby remarks was sticking around. “I liked you when we first met but it took a while for me to find out how much,” Rainbow confessed. “You made me feel...I don't know...safe? I thought maybe I could eventually slip into my old self around you and you wouldn't mind. The one where I could play around in dresses or mess with new make-up techniques... or... maybe... make breakfast in the morning for my special somepony. I could spend the whole day cooking, cleaning, doing laundry...” It was rare for Twilight to hear another girl talk about such things like it was something to be desired. In fact, she couldn't recall ever hearing a mare talk of being a “domestic engineer” in an eager tone of voice. That same hopeful tone was being directed her way, the sparkle in Rainbow's eyes impossible to miss. Truly this was something that would never have come out if it wasn't for all the hivemind business. The other ponies and one changeling had kept such a resolute quietness that perhaps their lack of interruption merited a trophy of some kind. Or perhaps it wasn't so unusual after all. Fluttershy and the guards were normally quiet anyways and Chrysalis was too strategic to make a blunder so obvious. The only one that was any surprise then was Pinkie Pie, who had been silent before for various reasons. Chrysalis' hooves were back against the mare's mouth, however, because Pinkie had again attempted some interruptions prior. “I thought maybe I could still have my dream of being a loving mother,” Rainbow concluded. “And I wouldn't have to keep up some dumb jock persona.” “You were never a dumb jock, Dashie,” Twilight frowned with her interjection. “Oh yeah?” the pegasus argued. “I gave up on being a mother and then picked it up again when I decided that I liked you. A mare. How stupid can I get?” Never had Twilight honestly been angry at any of the things Rainbow had related, though she had been a bit peeved at how her mother had walked out on her. But if there was one thing the alicorn queen wasn't going to take then it was Rainbow beating herself up like this. “Stop it,” she commanded and pulled her in again in an embrace. “Love is never stupid and nothing is ever impossible.” “You can't make a mare a stallion,” the rainbow mare mumbled with resilient stubbornness over Twilight's shoulder. “I was just trying to be humble when I said that,” Twilight responded to the remark. “Anything really is possible.” Rainbow darted back from hugging Twilight. Her eyes were wide. “I only said possible, as in theoretical,” the queen giggled. “I don't know what the future holds. None of us do.” The Element of Loyalty blinked and rather wanted to make some kind of reply. But for everything that she had just gotten off her chest and everything Twilight had implied, no words found their way up her throat. “You feel better now,” the queen said. It had been a statement rather than a question. Rainbow, attempting to project her usual outward self, tried for something to put things back in typical scope. “Hey, don't think this gets you off the hook for skipping town without me.” Twilight smiled and even giggled once more, knowing it was just one of her friend's ways of saying she really was alright after all. Rainbow sniffled again and wiped at her nose with a forehoof. “You could really spruce this place up you know,” Rainbow tried for another jab. “This hivemind thing is a dump.” Twilight forgot all sensitivities and took on a cross expression. “Going for the gold, huh, Dashie?” “You know me,” Rainbow grinned. “All of me.” “And that may come with some side-effects I hadn't considered before,” the queen looked back at her wings and waved them up and down. “Knowing something and being able to do it may be two separate things but knowledge is still half the battle.” “What do you mean?” Rainbow Dash quirked her brows, not catching on for all the help the hivemind should have been. Twilight smiled again. “All that athletic training you did. My body may not have magically changed to match your level of fitness, but I'm getting how you do everything that you hark about all the time.” Chrysalis must have decided this was as appropriate as any time could be because that was when she slipped her hooves away from Pinkie Pie and hence released the torrent of words. Needless to say, Pinkie Pie was back to her normal energy levels. She had decided, as she often did, that it was better to remain cheerful than stay gloomy about the unchangeable past. “Yeah!” Pinkie laughed. “So like maybe it takes a while for all of us to get everything that's going on in our silly little brains but it's still coming and oh my gosh this is so awesome! Maybe I can do a sonic rainboom too! Because I totally didn't get how you did it before and I don't know if you really got it either but I can totally see everything and even feel everything when you did it and maybe I can practice until I can do it too. But it wouldn't be a sonic rainboom because it would be me and not you and I'm pink not blue. Hey that rhymed! Oh my gosh I wasn't even trying! So it'd be a Pinkie Pieboom. Or would that be a sonic pinkboom? Oh, maybe a Pie Blast? Sounds like some crazy awesome flavor for a breakfast pastry!” She gave her funny snort and chuckle, apparently never in need of oxygen or proper intonation with her sentences. “Maybe I can use Twilight's Magic-For-Earth-Ponies theory to help out because I'm totally getting her weird magic know-how thingies in my brains!” Twilight gulped, not having realized before all of the implications in what she had done. In a manner of speaking, the floodgates had been opened.