//------------------------------//
// Chapter II - Problems 
// Story: How Love Works 
// by HypernovaBolts11 
//------------------------------//

	When the bell rang two classes later, I made my way to the lunch room, carrying my bags and a few flasks of pink liquid with my magic. The bottles glowed as I made my way to the same table I'd always sat at. I set down my bags beneath the table, and the flasks on the top of the table.

There was a rule about the table I sat at, that stated, unless they had permission from me, no one could sit there. The rule had been written after a particularly strong advance from another of the students. Now, my table was my table, and everyone knew that.

I closed my teeth around the cork on one of the flasks, and pulled it out with a loud popping sound. I eyed the bottle for a moment, and slid it in circles on the table's surface, sloshing the pink fluid inside. I sighed as I stilled the bottle, and the liquid continued to spin.

I watched my reflection on the fluid, and shook my head slowly. I saw another figure in the reflection, and looked up to see who it was. I blinked at Ladybug, and sat up, suddenly self conscious. "H-hello, Miss Spring," I said, ears perking up and my eyes widening.

She smiled at me and said, "Hi, Toothless. May I sit with you?"

I sat there for a moment, unmoving, and tried to imagine what my sisters would say. I looked over my shoulder, as though to make sure that no one was watching, and said, "Sure. I would also like to talk with you, if that's alright with you."

"Thanks," she said, taking her seat a quarter of the table to my left. She leaned her neck back to reach into her bag, and pulled out a brown paper bag. She lifted a hoof to wipe away a stray lock of her rosy mane, and smiled nervously at me. "The other students seem to think that I'm going to threaten them in some way."

I blinked, then shook my head to stop staring at her. I thought for a moment, and said, "Well..." I considered how best to explain this. "Most of them do have some sort of crush on me," I finished. I watched her for her reaction, trying to gauge how much this information affected her.

She raised an eyebrow at me, and asked, "Aren't they supposed to be related to you?"

"Yes and no. The thing is, while the other students share parents with me, we aren't genetically similar enough to be related. I'm more of a pony than any of them, as my father used to be a pony, but my conception used the only pony DNA he had stored from his youth. And um... That sounds really weird, doesn't it?" I said, biting my lip, trying to figure out how to fix my mistake.

"Basically, I'm the only male their age, and they seem to think that it's a race to become my favorite," I added. I smiled nervously, and rubbed the back of my head with a hoof.

Ladybug smiled at me, and said, "They think I'm going to steal your heart?" She sounded amused, like such an opinion of her wasn't to be taken seriously. She snorted, then laughed, "Like that'll ever happen." She laughed for a bit, then stopped abruptly, her eyes filling with a sort of displacement. She sighed heavily, and muttered under her breath, "Like that'll ever happen."

She placed her hoof on top of an apple from her lunch, and rolled it around on the table idly. She frowned a bit, and looked down at the table. "Stupid..." she muttered.

I felt my own lips curling down in sympathy, not enough to make out from another table, but enough that I felt my own mind supporting the weight of some shared burden. I —without really thinking, or I wouldn't have done it— made my way towards her, and placed my left hoof on her shoulder.

With her forelegs crossed over the top of the table, she hid her head in them, and a soft sobbing sound accompanied the erratic motions of her chest. Her wings went limp at her sides, and her ears pinned back as she cried.

I hesitated, finally considering the implications of what I was about to do. None of my sisters had ever come to me for comfort, but I'd served as confidant for both of my parents before, and learned most of my manners and etiquette from them. I was royalty, and —whether I liked it or not— royalty didn't cry, nor did they show themselves as creatures of emotion.

The sobbing was interrupted by a sniffle, and that made up my mind.

I found myself in a position in which no monarch would in their right minds wind up, comforting their subjects. This, I knew, was not my job, nor was it proper. It wasn't correct, and it wasn't helpful to my public image. What I did in that moment would haunt me throughout the duration of my life, and, consequently, my reign.

But screw that, because no one should be above helping another. No matter the hierarchy, no matter the status, no matter the time or place, we are social creatures. We must help one another, or the world is the lesser. Let my sisters and my parents think of me what they wish, but I am not above showing kindness to a fellow creature.

With my left foreleg wrapped around her, from shoulder to shoulder, and my ears standing as stiffly as they could, I said, "You can tell me what's wrong." I placed my hoof on the back of her head and softly patted it.

A few moments later, the sniffling and the sobbing stopped. Ladybug cried into her hooves, "M... My uncle died." She sniffled once, and wiped her eyes clean. She sat up to face me, her eyes still bleary, and her eyes filled with pain. She wrapped her forelegs around me, and let her head rest on my shoulder.

I felt my shoulders tense, as I was not used to so much physical contact, but knew that a hug was a part of being a real person. I hadn't been given the chance to be so sympathetic, but it'd always bothered me to be the stuck up prince. I'd never been known as a real person.

It was time I started being one.

I nodded and carefully wrapped my forelegs around her, letting her cry into my shoulder. I said, "That'll hurt for a while..." I bit my lip and thought for a moment. "Here's what I do when someone I know passes on. I think for a while, about what lessons I've learned from them, and I teach others that same lesson. I do what I can to make sure that their values and knowledge gets passed on."

I leaned forward a bit, my own heart sinking with every sound the pegasus in front of me made. I hadn't come up with those words, but my father had told them to me each time one of the element bearers had passed away. They'd been close friends of his mother, and his aunt's pupil had been his mentor for a while.

The last one of them had died right in this city. Rainbow Dash had been running my older sisters and me through some laps, keeping us in good shape, when she'd suffered from a fit of coughing. She'd told me that it was nothing when I'd asked, but the coughing only got worse throughout the day.

She'd called us back to the castle, and, upon delivering me back to my parents, coughed up a bit of blood. My parents had both rushed her to the medical ward, where she'd told my parents, "Keep my daughter safe for me." She'd died before the sun set, and the sky had lit itself into a brilliant display of rainbows, signaling her death to the world.

Her daughter had been a changeling hybrid, and most well recognized for her multitude of colors. She'd been named Tsiatsan, the Changeling word for rainbow. I'd met her a few times, and after a particularly rough fight with her father, she'd disappeared into the Everfree Forest, where no one had found her.

I blinked, and felt my limbs warming, as the pegasus's body temperature was higher than mine. I asked, "The cold doesn't bother you, does it?" I lifted a napkin from the middle of the table, and held it in front of her.

She shook her head against my shoulder, and grabbed the napkin. She held it to her nose and blew into it, then sat up. She didn't make any move to end the hug, nor did she look me in the eye. She said, "Thank you. I... I needed that more than I was willing to admit."

I nodded, and gave her a warm smile. I said, "Don't tell my sisters that I helped, or they'll feel even more threatened."

"Toothless?" a familiar voice asked me.

My smile evaporated, replaced immediately by a snarl on the left corner of my lips. I didn't look at the orange changeling to my left, but acknowledged her presence with a rumbling growl. "Go away, Grgrrel," I hissed. I whispered through the right side of my mouth, with closed teeth, "Sorry."

I grit my teeth, and released Ladybug. I turned towards the table, whispering to the pegasus, "Do not give her your attention. Don't look at her, and don't listen to a word that slips from her tongue." I stood up, and took my original seat. I placed the open flask to my lips, and tipped it back, letting the sweet fluid drain into my mouth.

Grgrrel was nothing if not persistent, and she knew that she'd get nowhere from talking to me. She sat down where I'd just been, her side brushing against Ladybug's lemon yellow coat. She said, "So, there's an alien in town."

Ladybug's eyes widened almost enough that her pupils replaced her irises. Her wings stiffened against her sides, and her back straightened out, like one of those anklets I'd seen some people wear. She poured the smell and flavor of fear into the air, so thick that it made me scared.

I hissed at the orange, "Lrrir, Grgrrel, kam yes kstoragri ayd zspich' kargy." I set down the flask on the wooden table, and marched over to the pair. I looked the orange in the eye and said, "Leave our guest alone, or I will alert our parents that a third lawsuit is in order."

Grgrrel looked at me, and then at the pegasus. "Stay away from him, y-"

"Now!" I snapped.

The orange jumped, and darted away, her wings buzzing frantically. She poked her head out from behind someone at another table, and shouted, "You galloping g-"

I slammed my hoof against the ground, my horn igniting into a brilliant white glow. "I will tell you this one last time. Back off, you've done enough damage. I know that you can hear my thoughts, Grgrrel, so tell everyone in this room what I'm thinking right now!" I shouted.

Grgrrel's ears flopped down, and she said, "Yes ch'yem sirum k'yez." She looked down, biting her lip, and repeated the thought to herself, "You don't love me." She turned to walk away.

I nodded, and pointed at the ground in front of me. "Now, come over here, and repeat that name you called my guest to my face!" I shouted to her.

The orange hung her head low, and stood in front of me. She opened her mouth to speak, but choked on the phrase. "Y-y..." she managed. She closed her eyes, as though the pain inflicted upon Ladybug by that very insult were hitting her. Truth be told, that's exactly what was happening.

I was redirecting the emotional torment she had placed upon Ladybug back to her, showing her just how painful it was. "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you," I growled. "Remember this feeling, Grgrrel. Remember that when you think about insulting the people I talk to, or anyone else."

The orange sniffled as the pain grew sharper, then, I closed the tap, stopping the worst of it before she could feel all of it. "That, what you just felt, wasn't even half of what that phrase means to Ladybug. Are you ready to apologize now?" I asked the orange.

The orange shook her head, not letting it get through her thick skull, and hung her head as she walked past me. Before she passed Ladybug though, she slapped one of her front hooves against my backside, earning a whinny and a stern glare from me. She said, "Pony boy's got a marefriend now, and she's an alien."

I whipped around to face my sister, my horn burning a bright pink at the tip, and baby blue at the bottom. "Lrrir!" I shouted at the orange, and released upon her all of Ladybug's pain, allowing my own to spill over with it.

Grgrrel continued to walk, not showing any sign of emotion, until my rage flooded over into her, and she froze. She took a shaky step forward, drawing in a sharp breath. She kept walking.

My eyes began to glow, the left one turned bright pink, and the right one shone bright blue. I forced upon her all of the pain she'd inflicted upon me in previous years, from the annoyance to the downright heartless insults I'd seen her throwing around like they meant nothing.

Grgrrel's step wavered.

Something blocked my view.

I blinked, and the glow in my eyes faded. My horn sputtered a bit, first blue, then pink sparks burst forth, and went out.

"Stop," Ladybug commanded me. Her right eye had lazed a bit, and was now pointed at some part of the ceiling.

I felt like my mother had just shouted at me. Shame, like nothing else, washed over me. It cut like a knife and dove straight for a bone, which it knew was evil. I bit my lip, and took a deep breath. I opened my mouth to speak, but no words came. I nodded, knowing what to do, and hung my head as I walked towards my sister.

I said, "Grgrrel, that wasn't necessary of me. I shouldn't have done that to you. I just felt like nothing else I do works." I caught up to her and placed a hoof on her shoulder.

Grgrrel whipped her head around to face me, and growled, pushing my hoof away with her own. She looked straight ahead, and marched forward.

I blinked, my head lowering towards the ground. I turned around and walked back to the table. I sat down in my initial spot, and sighed.

I watched Ladybug for a moment, whose eye had realigned itself with the other. She went about her lunch with a sullen look about her, her heart heavy, and her expression empty. She glanced at me from time to time, not saying anything, and bit down on her apple.

Eventually, I got up the nerve to speak, and said, "I'm really sorry for doing that, and I wish you hadn't seen it, that I hadn't done it. Why do I keep talking to people if it gets me nowhere?" I crossed my forelegs on the table, and let my head rest on them, not crying, but certainly less than happy.

Ladybug said, "It's alright."

I groaned, nearly laughing at her naïvety. "Nope, it's not alright. If it were alright, I wouldn't have just used your emotions as a weapon, and I wouldn't look like a serious donkey, no offense to any donkeys in the general area," I said. I sat up, bit my lip, and turned to face the pegasus.

"None taken," a deep voice said from somewhere out of sight.

Ladybug raised an eyebrow at me. "You don't swear, there's a good thing," she said.

I said, "I'm a prince. If I swear, I'm in trouble. If I show kindness, I'm in trouble. If I fail my classes, I'm in trouble. If I use the wrong fork, I'm in serious trouble. If I get hurt, I'm in trouble. If my parents die, I'm just..." I leaned my head back, trying to think of the right word.

"Screwed?" she suggested.

"...mated," I said, decidedly removing the cork from the second flask at my disposal. I placed its rim to my lips and drank it down. I placed it back on the table, and remembered the question I'd meant to ask her. "You know how changelings sustain themselves on the emotions of others?"

Ladybug nodded.

"Well, changelings can also smell and taste emotions. So, when I met you, I took to memory how you felt towards me, and I've been rather stuck after sorting out curiosity and interest," I said. I looked her in the eye, and blushed as I heard myself speak. "So I was wondering if you could just tell me how you felt about me."

I smiled as the words left my mouth, and snorted, "It sounds like a much deeper question than it is. I'm not trying to make any romantic advances here." My bright blue blush deepened, and my ears began to burn.

Ladybug nodded, a look of quiet understanding in her eyes. "At first, a bit awed. I didn't know changelings could be born without such large fangs, and such wings," she said. "Then I sort of freaked out when everyone started staring at me. I looked at you, and then forgot them. Something about you seemed familiar, and homely."

I smiled at her, and said, "You know, I think we're going to get along quite well."

She returned the smile, and nodded. "I hope so," she said. "Now, can you explain to me this game they keep talking about, truth or tell?"

Truth or tell was one of the games the oranges played, in which one person would either have to tell everyone at the lunch table their deepest secret, or whisper it into my ear. I hated the game because most of my sisters chose to trust me with their secrets, leaving me to know horrifying —sometimes incriminating— things about my sisters.

I turned to Ladybug and said, "Just don't play it."