Specters
“…and that’s it,” Thorax concluded, averting his gaze away from the attentive little dragon he had crossed paths with. “That’s my story.”
“So, you’re out here because you want to make friends with ponies, not enemies, and that the love of friendship would be all that’s needed to keep changelings fed and sated?” Spike summarized with wide-eyed wonder.
“I know, it’s probably never going to happen…” Thorax said dejectedly, averting his gaze.
“No, I think it’s a brilliant idea!” Spike declared eagerly, grinning broadly as he threw his arms out. “Once we tell everypony about this, we can bring peace between changelings and ponies forever and ever, you’ll never go hungry again, and you’ll have lots and lots of friends!”
Thorax grinned himself, enthralled by that prospect and Spike’s enthusiasm, and started forward to hug the little dragon, as he assumed that’s what friends did.
But then a metal cage suddenly appeared around Thorax, halting him in his tracks.
“Not so fast, criminal scum!” Shining Armor declared in a booming voice, standing so darkly over them that he almost seemed to tower over them. As a spotlight suddenly shone down on Spike, isolating the dragon from the rest, the stallion focused his attention on him. “Spike the Dragon, the brave and glorious, you stand accused of aiding and abetting a known enemy of Equestria, attempting to assist in the escape of that enemy, theft of prison keys, disobeying the orders of the crown, and above all, putting the enemy above the needs of your fellow ponies! How do you plead?”
Having turned extremely determined and resolute, albeit angry to the point of barely constrained fury, Spike had his answer ready immediately. “Guilty!”
“No!” Thorax objected, trying to squeeze between the bars of his cage unsuccessfully. “No, don’t punish him, punish me! He did nothing wrong! He doesn’t deserve this! For queen’s sake, he’s one of your own!”
Thorax’s pleas went unheard. “Then you leave us no choice!” Shining Armor declared boldly. “Spike the Dragon, for your crimes of betraying the ponies of Equestria, you are hereby banished from Equestria and all affiliated territories, and will henceforth be denied access within these proud lands at any time on the grounds that you will face grave punishment should you be found in violation of this decree!”
“We expected better of you, Spike,” Princess Twilight said gravely as she appeared beside Shining Armor, staring at the unrepentant dragon with a dark expression.
“You were supposed to be our friend,” Princess Cadance added as she appeared on Shining’s other side, wearing an expression almost identical to Twilight’s.
“If you all won’t let me befriend Thorax simply because he’s a changeling, then all of you are no friends of mine!” Spike declared with a bravado that defied his usual character.
“No!” Thorax again tried to object. “Don’t blame him for any of this! He was just being kind, a friend! It was…it was all me, my fault, not his! Don’t punish him for my actions! Leave him out of this! Please!” Seeing he still wasn’t being heard by the dragon’s accusers, he turned to Spike. “Please, Spike, don’t do this!” he pleaded. “Don’t sacrifice your livelihood for my sake!”
“It is already done!” Spike determinedly declared. “I will not cave to the peer pressure of others that are blinded to the good that is within you, fair Thorax! I know you are telling the truth, that you will do no harm!”
“We will not believe that,” Cadance stated firmly, stepping forward.
“But it is true!” Thorax persisted. “I want to be your friend! Your ally! I don’t want to harm anypony!”
“Then who is that you have in your hooves?” Cadance asked bitterly as she approached the caged changeling.
Thorax gazed down and saw in horror that he had Starlight Glimmer held in his hooves, the mare with her eyes rolled up, legs stiffly poking aimlessly upward, and her tongue lolling limply out of her mouth being nearly completely drained of emotive energy.
With a yelp, Thorax dropped Starlight, clamping both of his holed hooves over his mouth to stop himself from feeding further off the mare’s emotive energy he hadn’t even realized he had been devouring without restraint. Starlight didn’t respond as she hit the floor and laid there unmoving with her legs in the air.
Thorax attempted to articulate some sort of response as he backed up into a wall, eyes locked on Starlight. “But…I didn’t…I didn’t realize…I didn’t mean to…I don’t want to harm anyone! I’M NOT LIKE THIS!”
“Oh, but you are,” Cadance pointed out with emphasis.
Only it wasn’t Cadance’s voice anymore, and Thorax looked up to see with a chill of fear it was Queen Chrysalis that stood before him now.
“This is what you are, Thorax,” his former queen reprimanded with malice. “You are a changeling, you will always be a changeling, and you can try to fool yourself as much as you want, but you can never change the fact that you are the predator, and they are your prey.” A twisted grin appeared on her face. “So why fight it? Give in. Feed. Take your fill!”
Thorax pressed his forehooves over his mouth, feeling the burning desire to feed suddenly reaching intolerable levels like he hadn’t eaten in many moons. “NO!” he shouted, turning himself away from the changeling queen.
Something then wrapped itself tightly around his neck and, his breathing constricted, Chrysalis used her magic to involuntarily drag Thorax up to her, who gazed at him with an unforgiving smirk that said refusal wasn’t going to be an option.
“Come,” she said coldly, “Feast with us.”
She then stood to one side, revealing to Thorax’s horror Spike sealed within a green cocoon, floating within a slurry of suspensive fluids, weakly struggling against his confinement. He’d open his mouth as if to shout, but only a soupy stream of bubbles would emerge from it. Thorax knew what he was trying to say though; he was calling for Thorax to help him. But Thorax was more concerned by the swarm of very hungry changelings that had gathered around the cocoon.
“No!” Thorax choked out, knowing what was about to happen and started forward to try and stop it, but the grip around his throat jerked him back and held him tight. “Don’t!”
He was ignored, and as one, the changelings, showing no restraint, all began to feed upon the trapped dragon. Thorax was helpless as he watched his friend slowly be drained of emotion, growing weaker and stiller…
“NO!” Thorax as he desperately struggled against his restraints with little avail. He turned to Chrysalis, taking joy in watching Thorax squirm. “Please, your highness, spare him!” Chrysalis only laughed at his pleading, which infuriated Thorax. “Why are you doing this!?”
“Survival of the fittest, Thorax,” Chrysalis replied calmly. “What cannot fight back does not survive.” She narrowed her eyes at him. “And you need the reminder.”
Thorax, in a panic now, desperately tried to free himself as the feeding continued, but Spike had gone frightfully still already and Thorax was afraid that, under the onslaught of several changelings feeding at once, it was already too late. “No, please…” he murmured, trying to grab at the magic pinning his throat. “He’s got nothing left! He deserves better than this! Please! I don’t want to see him harmed, I want protect him from harm!”
Shining Armor suddenly reappeared in front of him, armed with a spear now which he placed the point over Thorax’s heart menacingly. “You were never going to be able to protect him,” the stallion growled dangerously. “You are a changeling. Harm and destruction surround your very being. You were going to bring him to harm the moment you got him to side with you over us. And you knew that. You KNEW you were always going to lead him to harm and you did it anyway!”
Thorax felt tears come to his eyes as he weakly struggled against the magic that still wrapped around his neck, holding him still. “I’m sorry…” he whispered aloud, squeezing his eyes shut to try and hold back the hot tears. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean for any of this to happen!”
He opened his eyes to see that it was Princess Twilight holding the spear over his heart now, looking utterly unforgiving. “Too late,” she stated in a snarl.
She then drove the spear down.
And with a start, Thorax awoke in a cold sweat, breathing hard.
Wiping the genuine tears that had seeped into his solid blue eyes, the disoriented changeling looked around to get his bearings. He was still in the abandoned warehouse, now much more lit from the light generated as the sky outside gradually brightened in preparation for dawn. He found the cloak he had gone to sleep with still fastened about him was now wrapped around him so that the collar about his neck dug into his throat, explaining the choking feeling he felt in his nightmare. It appeared he had unknowingly tried to use the cloak to form something resembling the mossy nests he used to sleep in back in the hive during the night and ended up only entangling himself. But Thorax ignored all of this and turned his attention to Spike. The dragon still had his head on the saddlebags, but he otherwise lay sprawled out on the cement floor of the warehouse so quiet and still that the changeling suddenly felt a flare of fear rise up within him.
“Spike!” he said, his voice sounding raw. “Spike!”
With a snort, Spike suddenly awoke and looked up sleepily at Thorax, to the changeling’s utter relief. “Thorax?” the dragon mumbled as he blinked several times, trying to refocus his vision. “What is it?”
Thorax didn’t reply but instead let out a heavy sigh of relief as he pressed his hooves over his eyes again, trying to calm his unraveled nerves.
Spike sensed the changeling’s distress. “Thorax?” he prompted again, worried as he sat up.
Thorax pinched the bridge of his snout with one holed hoof and took a deep breath. “I…I had a bad dream,” he admitted reluctantly.
“Oh,” Spike murmured in understanding, sympathetic. “What was it about?”
Thorax again hesitated. “It started out simply enough,” he admitted. “…you and me were talking about how I wanted to befriend ponies…but then Prince Shining Armor appeared…and we got banished but with more…gravitas…then I realized that Starlight Glimmer was…and there was Queen Chrysalis…but you were in a cocoon…they were feeding…I was choking…then Shining Armor…he turned into Princess Twilight…and then she…” Half-heartedly, Thorax mimed out being stabbed by a spear.
Spike blinked to himself for a few moments, trying to process the very disjointed and confusing narrative. He didn’t quite follow with all of it, but he got enough to get an idea of the scope of the nightmare. He winced, and couldn’t help but inwardly compare it to the significantly more innocent dream he had just been having, where he and Rarity, alone, worked to navigate a whole valley made of strawberry ice cream in a quest for the perfect potato chip, which seemed all that more ridiculous in comparison to Thorax’s dream. Even though his silly dream still painfully reminded him that their banishment likely meant he wasn’t going to associate with the fashionista anymore, Spike pushed the thought of his dream aside in favor of Thorax’s.
“You…going to be all right?” he asked his changeling friend as he watched Thorax gradually calm down again.
Thorax took a few more deep breaths. “Yeah,” he said after a brief pause. “Yeah, I think so.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah.” Thorax waved a hoof in Spike’s direction as he turned away. “You can go back to sleep…sorry for disturbing you.”
Spike didn’t obey right away. But seeing that Thorax didn’t want to talk about it any further, the dragon eventually conceded and settled back down to go back to sleep. It was only once Thorax heard his little friend start to snore that he looked back at his cohort. He couldn’t help but grin sadly, glad he had the dragon’s company, who had done so much for him already and at such a great price, far more than Thorax could have ever hoped or dared to ask. But the rebukes of his nightmare still weighed heavily on his mind, and he found himself very worried if they would still prove true in some manner. Neither of them knew what the future held in store for them.
But Thorax rose and stood protectively over the dragon for a moment, determined to prove the specters of his dream wrong. Spike was the only friend and ally he had left in the world. He wasn’t about to let anything to take even that away from him now.
I figured it was time we explored some of Thorax's fears and demons about their situation this time around.
And since this is Equestria and dreamwalking's a thing, no, Thorax's dream was NOT brought on by any outside meddling by say Chrysalis trying to mislead him or Luna trying to punish him or anything like that. Sometimes a dream...is just dream. 
Stats
Page generated in 0.04 seconds
Total duration
1,093 users online
2,172,162 hits today, 2,054,621 yesterday
FIMFiction
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
Designed and coded by knighty & Xaquseg - © 2011-2024
Follow & Support Us
Support us
SubStar
Chat!
Discord
Follow us
Twitter
MLP: Friendship is Magic® - © 2024 Hasbro Inc.®
Fimfiction is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by Hasbro Inc.®
Huh. Interesting.
Great chapter. But very interesting dream
One of my favourite chapters so far! Loved it.
I really wanted Luna to intervene and be like "I know your a changeling but seeing your nightmare shows me your not too bad." She might need t be able to help much but I really just want them to have more allies in this XD
very good. Speaking of luna this does bring up we need her view. This is more me wanting this than anything but her looking for them via dreams would be cool
Amazingly sad.
Just cause Thorax's dream
I was really hoping Luna would show up during the dream
Or maybe she sees his nightmare and will start to think twice about him being evil
Yeah, I can see how that dream would freak him out...
7791329
I was actually thinking about how I could get Luna's views across just last night, but I haven't quite come up with a means of doing it that I like that won't also shoot myself in the foot on what I've got planned for the rest of the story. So it'll probably be a little bit still before we get that input.
I will say that when I do figure it out, I'll probably will have Luna be the one who is the most...on the fence...on the matter.
And if for some reason all else fails, I can tell you that Luna will play a very predominate role in one of the ending chapters, so you'd at least have that.
7791448 Yeah, Luna's really slacking on her job! Someone crack the whip on that blue lazybutt.
7792823 I'll half agree with you on that
But Luna's still my favorite princess
If it was just a nightmare y didat lulu help him
gifreply.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/that-escalated-quickly.jpg
took me a bit to long to see through that it was a dream.
stop ride there, criminal scum
It would be grand if Luna witnessed the nightmare and realized he was genuinely good!
Just finished 'Spectres', and it's fairly enjoyable thus far. Thought I'd voice some thoughts from my journey.
Firstly, I do have to say, while Shining and Cadance's reactions make perfect sense (given the trauma experienced personally at their wedding), Twilight's decision making makes for a bit of a stretch for me, personally. She's always been the problem solver, the peace keeper - very insightful and logical in her approach to situations since she's developed her character across six seasons. I find it hard to believe that she'd shut down with no input, just going along with Shining and Cadance's decisions when the situation involved Spike, one of her essentially family.
Shutting down may have been something Twilight would have done in the initial seasons for a situation like this, but I can't personally see S6 Princess Twilight deciding what she did, here. I think she'd try and reach a middle ground to allow overseeing of Thorax's actions until his claims could be further examined, or something like that. I feel like Twilight would sooner try to understand Spike's side but ultimately get overruled by Shining and Cadance (since Twilight is out of her immediate jurisdiction in the Crystal Empire), than for her to quietly go along with them from the start.
However, this is the Alternate Universe tag, which is literally a tag for disregarding canon in it's entirety.
So all of that said, it doesn't matter for the sake of the storytelling how she reacted. :) Her entire past and personality quirks could be slightly different under that tag. I just wanted to voice the thoughts I had in my head, after reading through the reactions.
Something I did really like was Thorax being haunted by Chrysalis in his dreams about his 'true nature', etc. That's entirely fitting to both their characters and was very cool to see. Thorax is the antithesis for Chrysalis, which gives them a unique and naturally dramatic character dynamic, so it's fun to see them written together.
Altogether a very good 'what if' based story so far, Scyphi.
I will have to continue digging as I find the time.
plead
very effective nightmare
As I said with Spike, I believe in you Thorax
.
If that's the case, then wouldn't Princess Luna have her attention drawn by the nightmare, and realize what it was about? Her job is to find and stop nightmares, so surely this would demand her attention?
Even if it wouldn't sway her immediately, it would still plant the seeds (especially considering she's a reformed villain herself).
Unless she's simply just prevented from seeing ANY Changeling's dreams; that would suck.