//------------------------------// // Chapter XI - Discussed // Story: Let's Try This Again // by HypernovaBolts11 //------------------------------// He made his way to the spa, and pushed the door open a bit. He looked around for a moment, and walked over to Rarity, who was fiddling around with Cadance's tricolored mane, which had been laced with gems, shimmering and extraordinary. He sat down a meter or so away from the seamstress, watching with interest as she worked at the bundle of keratin. He felt as he had when he'd first seen Spike transcribing the legal debates over his rights. He was able to understand what she was doing on a basic sense, but he couldn't understand how she did it so well, so cleanly, and with so little energy. The unicorn was fussing over individual hairs, and without the use of any external help. No changeling could do that. Every worker needed instructions from the hive mind in order to do anything, otherwise it would simply sit there, waiting for orders, and if none came, it would simply starve to death. The workers didn't understand how their own bodies worked, how they did anything. A worker would be told to fly, and it would simply flap its thick, elytrous wings until it reached a specific altitude, or rose until it suffocated in the upper atmosphere. But in the worker's own mind, it wasn't moving at all, it wasn't doing anything, it was simply doing what it had to in order to stay a few meters above the ground —not that it even understood what the ground was. They didn't keep or make any memories. They had specific recollection of what they had already done in regards to their current instructions, but once the task was complete, a worker forgot everything. They had no personality, no thought process, and no emotion. Workers could recognize patterns, but that was the only thing that persisted between tasks, which the hive mind kept safe for them, so all workers had the same shapes memorized. A worker hatched just two days ago was just as smart as the oldest worker alive. The queen never forgot anything. She had a hive mind all to herself, like a backup server for a computer. She could remember everything that had ever happened to her, and only forgot things she consciously chose to delete. Sometimes the memories could become corrupted, and became less accurate over time, but she was the one giving orders, not taking them. Ponies, ponies were different. Fangheart had never been told the limits of a drone's mind, but he knew that he'd never be as talented or as specialized as a pony. Ponies could remember processes, think creatively through problems they'd never been taught to solve, attain skills, and, from what he'd seen, reach a much higher state of mind, where familiar work took almost no effort at all, best known as the zone. Drones were, as he understood things, necessary for the survival of the changeling race, but useless for anything else. Drones were sperm donors, and that was that. They could act in very specific ways in familiar and foreign environments, so long as they had been taught to behave that way. Fangheart had been taught how to behave in all of the situations he'd come across since he'd escaped near certain death in Canterlot. Most of his actions had been basically the same things his mother had taught him to do in the situations he'd found himself in. He'd not had to think outside of his small, helpless box. He'd never had a creative thought, and all of his escape plans had been more or less basic knowledge to him. The only things he'd done in any variation from what a perfect changeling might have, were the ones he wasn't even proud of; sparing Twilight from even the smallest portion of his hunger, failing to take the well of emotion in the Crystal Empire's center, and not avenging his mother's defeat in Princess Cadance. Drones were supposed to be happy, mindless chromosome factories. They were supposed to be proud of everything they did, of every changeling they knew was their child. What a terrible drone he was then. He wasn't proud of anything he'd done. He didn't have a single child, and he'd never have any, now that he was on the farthest corner of the continent from the nearest changeling. He'd been a pretty big screw up as far as drones went, and he was the last drone in existence. Great, so the changelings wouldn't go out shouting their war cries, singing their songs, or even feeding upon some prisoner of war. The changelings wouldn't go extinct because of the desert winds or the lack of food. They wouldn't go down with glory. All of the infiltrators had forgotten those songs, were still waiting for their next orders from a dead queen, and could never form an army now. Their last battle had been a crushingly decisive defeat, with a mortality ratio of zero to a few thousand. And, on top of all of that, the last male changeling wasn't even good at being a male or a changeling. Princess Cadance asked him, "So, Rarity tells me that you're not romantically involved with Twilight, but that she's the one who dragged you along." He sat up straight, and nodded. "Yes, that's all true," he said. She added, "And nopony was ever named Fangheart in the census before." "I changed it from something else," he told her, which wasn't a lie. Rarity took a step back from the princess, and declared, "All done. I'll just um... walk over here while you two get to know each other." She took a few steps back, then darted to the opposite end of the spa. Princess Cadance narrowed her eyes at the pegasus. "And what was it previously?" she asked him. "Love Bite," he answered immediately, wincing. Again, that wasn't a lie. He figured that was all she needed to convict him of being a changeling. Little did he know that there was a very unfortunate foal elsewhere, whose parents had named her a combination of their pet names. She asked him, "Where are you from?" "South of Appleloosa," he said. Again, he wasn't lying. "What happened that made you leave?" she asked him. "Familial issues," he answered her. That was technically true, if a revolutionary war between a monarch and her thousands of genetically distant cousins and descendants counted as familial disputes. That wacky technicality was only true due to an odd quirk in changeling physiology, which basically dictated that Chrysalis's eggs only had the minimum amount of genes necessary for a changeling to do its job. Variations could only be introduced by drones —who were basically genetic wildcards— and infiltrators, the latter of which picked them up by stealing them from any ponies they'd managed to seduce. Princess Cadance leaned ever so slightly forward on her couch, and she asked him, "Someone die?" He winced, and nodded. He looked down, and said, "So I h-" "Was it your mother?" the princess asked him. He nodded again and said, "Is something wrong, your highness? You seem to be a bit on edge." Princess Cadance leaned back a bit, and said coolly, "Just answer one more question for me. Will anyone have to worry about more people like you?" He gulped and said, "No, your highness. It's just me, and I don't think I'd like to see any more." She said, "Then stay out of trouble, and make sure that you don't try anything too radical. If what you say is true, then any civil rights movement would be a wasted effort." "Yes, your highness," he said, his voice dry and timid. He looked up at her, and said, "I... I know that you have a lot of reason for your bias, but the remaining ones might do something stupid, and I won't be held accountable for it. I may be the smartest left, but that doesn't mean I have control over them." Cadance nodded. "I understand, Fangheart," she said. She sat there for a while, and eventually added, "I'm sure that the city has shown you its kindness. You know, the crystal ponies were once quite comfortable around changelings. They would feed upon the Crystal Heart with discretion, and served as the bulk of the military until Sombra took over." He hadn't known that, but didn't doubt her so much as to think she was lying. "So, that's what that thing was," he said. "I... I'll recommend this place as a home to any changelings." He took a moment to think, and added, "Assuming I don't turn them over to the royal guard, of course." Cadance nodded, and said, "I'm sure we can arrange an alternative to the guard. Perhaps a sort of... underground railroad could be set up for these people." Princess Cadance stood at the balcony on the palace, joined by the real Games Inspector, and her husband. She held a microphone to her mouth, and announced, "The next host of the Equestria Games is..." She paused, so as to let the suspense build for a moment. "The Crystal Empire!" All of the crystal ponies on the ground below her erupted into cheers, shouting and waving flags in the air. Rainbow Dash shouted, "We did it!" The road began to glow, expanding outwards from the Crystal Heart. "Congratulations, crystal ponies," Cadance said. The glow receded, and the Crystal Heart was surrounded by an aura of love, one which everyone could see. It began spinning, and sent a golden glow up the Crystal Palace, which then shot a rainbow into the sky. The beam of love met the first cloud, and erupted into an outwardly expanding ring, trailed by tendrils of various colors. Fangheart looked up, smiling at the whole display. While his actions hadn't felt right at the time, he was glad to have let the crystal ponies have their moment, their city, their home, and their family. All of which he lacked, but found that minor detail trivial compared to the charge in the air. He turned around to catch up with Twilight, and froze. A crystal pony had sat there, rather than celebrating, cheering, or even acknowledging the princess's announcement. It was a filly, barely old enough to speak, but one he'd seen running around all day with one of her friends. She cocked her head at him, and blinked a few times. "What're you?" she asked him. He knew that look, from stories rather than practice. That was the look of a seer, one who didn't even know what they were looking at, what power they possessed. He swallowed hard, ruffling his wings a bit, and said, "I'm just a figment of your imagination." The filly narrowed her eyes at him, and said, "You look like one of my friends, but she's gone now. Momma tells me that she was a chan-j-ling, but won't tell me any more." Fangheart went completely still, and asked, "Do you think that changelings are bad?" The filly shook her head, and asked, "Why would they be bad? She was funny, liked playing tag, and said my drawings were good." Fangheart's mind felt like it was melting. He was talking to a pony, who wouldn't assume anything bad of him. Even Twilight, the most accepting pony he'd met until that point, had accused him of bad intentions. This filly, this child, this pony, associated changelings with good memories. Little did he know, so little he did know. If only he'd known to whom the child was referring, he'd have dropped his disguise right then and there, if he'd only known. The naïve foal was referring to one of the Crystal Empire's princesses, her foal sitter, the sister of Princess Mi Amore, who Sombra had killed. If he'd have stayed even a minute more, he would have learned so much more about his place in the world, but it was not to be. Twilight's voice broke through the sounds of delighted ponies, "Fangheart, we have to go." Fangheart called back, "I'll be right there." He turned to the child, taking her hoof in his, and told her, "If you ever meet a changeling, and are in need of help, tell them this. Siro pahak. Tell any changeling that, and if they do not help you, run. If they repeat it to you, they are your friend. Siro pahak. Siro pahak." The filly nodded, and repeated the phrase with disturbing skill, "Siro pahak." She may not have understood the significance of that phrase, and she may never have found need of it, but it calmed Fangheart to know that the foal would never be harmed by a changeling. Such innocence as hers, and her untainted perception of changelings, was more than worth protecting. He nodded to her, and repeated, "Siro pahak. Never tell it to a pony. Never let your parents hear it. Remind yourself of it every chance you get. It will save your life, and if you ever see me again, tell it to me." And with that, he stood up, and left.