Linked
“Thorax, do you know where my bowtie is?” Spike asked urgently one morning a couple of days later, the half-dressed dragon down on the floor and peeking under the wardrobe in their room.
Thorax, presently undisguised, looked up from the magic book he had been idly skimming through while waiting for Fly Leaf to call them down for breakfast. “Not off hoof, no,” he admitted after briefly searching his memory. “Last I saw it, you were still wearing it.”
“You must have seen it somewhere since then,” Spike pressed as he straightened and scratched at his green spines, eyes roving the room for any sign of it.
“I really don’t recall seeing it, Spike,” the changeling repeated apologetically. “You’re usually pretty good of keeping track of it on your own anyway.” It was true. Though Spike didn’t seem to practice the organization skills he clearly knew anywhere near as fervently in his private life, he still had a place for everything, and everything in its place.
“Well, I can’t find it now!” Spike persisted, trotting over to Thorax’s sleeping nest the changeling was sitting on and sifting through the edges of it in search of the lost bowtie. “And I need it for my disguise!”
Thorax blinked and frowned as he shut his book, surprised at his friend’s unease. “Do you really?” he asked as he watched Spike straighten again and begin to wring his claws anxiously while continuing to glance around. “I mean, the bowtie’s just an added decoration, really. I doubt you not wearing it will really risk giving yourself away in any manner.” Thorax shrugged. “Besides, even if you have misplaced it somewhere, I’m sure it’ll still turn up soon. I wouldn’t worry about it.” When he saw that Spike didn’t calm down any, he added, “Ask Miss Fly about it. Maybe she’s seen it.”
“Maybe,” Spike agreed half-heartedly with a nod.
But when they both went downstairs and gathered around the table for breakfast, Fly Leaf could only repeat what Thorax said. “Last I saw, it was still around your neck, Spark,” she said.
Spike groaned and let his head thump against the table in dismay.
“Now don’t be like that,” Fly reprimanded gently. “You still look fine without it, and I’ll bet you no pony will even notice you’re not wearing it. In the meantime, I’m sure it’s around here somewhere. It’ll turn up. We all just need to keep an eye out for it.”
But as the day wore on, it still went unfound, and this was with Spike making just about any excuse he could throughout the morning to search every place in the building he could think of for it. He even asked a few of the regular customers as they turned up in the store if they had seen any sign of the bowtie. But no one had. Both Fly and Thorax kept their eyes out for it, but they weren’t finding it either. Fly maintained the attitude that it’ll turn up in due time, but Thorax, more sensitive to Spike’s emotions than everyone else, quickly began to see there was something more to all of this and was starting to grow concerned as he sensed his friend growing increasingly more and more worried the longer the bowtie remained missing. So when Spike went upstairs for his lunchbreak around noon, Thorax followed him.
He found Spike in their room, again shifting through every corner of the room in search for the missing bowtie. “Still no sign of the bowtie?” he asked.
Spike, surprised Thorax was there, glanced up at him and shook his head. “I’m starting to get worried,” he admitted as he went back to searching.
“I know,” Thorax stated as he closed the door to their room and dropped his disguise. “But that’s what puzzles me about it, Spike. You’re getting oddly worried over what is just a bowtie that’s probably only been misplaced and will pop up safe and sound soon.”
“But what if it’s not safe and sound?” Spike asked, getting up and facing the changeling. “What if it’s gotten somewhere where it can be destroyed or ruined? I…I…” Spike trailed off, claws fumbling about in the air as he struggled to convey his concerns.
“Spike,” Thorax said, approaching his friend gently. “I can see you like the bowtie…but it’s just a bowtie.”
“No, you don’t understand!” Spike persisted, gazing up at Thorax’s chitinous face. “Rarity gave me that bowtie!”
Thorax’s eyebrows—or at least the changeling equivalent of eyebrows—went up. “Rarity?” he repeated, of course recognizing the name. “As in, element of generosity, Rarity?”
Spike nodded. “She’s…it’s just…” he trailed off again, blushing a little as he averted his gaze. “…it’s the only thing I’ve got left to remember her by…I’d shudder to think that I might’ve lost it.”
Thorax was silent for a moment, quietly letting what Spike had left unspoken find voice through the wash of emotions the dragon was putting off. “Well then,” he said finally, sitting down before the dragon. “Looking at it logically, where were you and what were you doing when you took it off? Certainly if we can figure out that much, the bowtie can’t be far off.”
Spike let out a groan at this. “And that’s the problem!” he whined in dismay. “I’ve been racking my brain all morning, but I’ve forgotten and can’t remember. I mean, obviously I took it off sometime before bed last night, but I don’t remember when and where. I’d thought it was up here in our room like usual, but I can’t find it in here! I can’t find it anywhere!” Stressed, he rubbed at his eyes with his palms. “And I just…can’t recall anything either! Any memory I had of what I did with it is just gone.”
“Now that’s not necessarily true,” Thorax assured, wrapping one of his dark holed hooves around his dragon friend. “I can almost guarantee you that the memory is still in there in your head, it’s just gotten where it can’t resurface easily.”
“But what could I possibly do to change that?” Spike asked the changeling, feeling helpless.
“One is to keep searching for the right trigger that will bring back the memory.”
“Well okay…but I don’t know what that trigger could be, and searching for it blindly could take ages, IF I find it at all.”
“True,” Thorax conceded. He hesitated for a moment, but feeling concerned about his friend’s anxiety, he came to a decision he wouldn’t make in normal situations. “So I might be able to assist in another way to help you find it more…manually. I just need your permission first.”
Spike’s brow furrowed and he studied Thorax in puzzlement for a moment, wondering what was meant by the vague statement. “Manually?” he repeated.
Thorax nodded, and now he averted his gaze for a moment before locking eyes with the dragon again. “I think I probably could help pick out the missing memories you need to find the bowtie quickly,” he said seriously. “…but to do it, I’d need to forge a mental link with you.”
Spike gaped at him for a long moment. “Wait a minute, wait a minute, hold on…” he said, waving his claws for Thorax to stop talking. He pinched the bridge of his snout for a moment as he processed this unexpected information. “Mental link? Thorax…are you telling me that you’re telepathic?”
Thorax hesitated for a second while half-heartedly shrugging his shoulders like it was no big deal. “Well…latently, yes. All changelings are.”
Spike gaped at him. “Seriously?”
Thorax blinked innocently. “Quite. Why wouldn’t I be?”
“You’re legitimately telepathic…and you never said anything about it before now?”
“I’ve had fairly little training or past experience using it. In fact, usually only healers specifically trained to treat mental injuries would have more training than that. Otherwise, few changelings make full use of these…to use your term…telepathic abilities in this day and age. So I didn’t think I’d even need to rely on them like this anytime soon.” He shook his head, realizing he was getting off topic. “But that’s neither here nor there. My point is that I could use such a mental link to help you find your bowtie by manually enticing your mind to replay the memory of wherever it was you left it.”
Spike stared at his changeling friend with wide-eyes. When he finally found his ability to speak again, he blurted out the first thing that came to mind. “But I’m not a changeling like you!”
“You don’t have to be a changeling for me to forge a mental link with you,” Thorax explained. “Though I will admit that you being a dragon does complicate it a little.” He tapped his curved, black, horn. “See, changelings forge the link via their horns, which serves as an ideal conduit when in contact. If you were, say, a unicorn, then I could easily use the unicorn horn as a substitute conduit. Since you don’t though, I’ll have to magically cobble together an artificial replacement to get by with…so it’d be a bit of a crude link, but yes, I could still do it…but only if I have your permission first.”
Spike gave the changeling a questioning look. “Why my permission?” he asked.
“Because it’s your mind Spike…and no matter how you look at this, you would be letting me access it and potentially every thought and memory within it, no matter how private.” Realizing that how he was making that sound, Thorax hurried to reassure the dragon. “Not that I would go looking for anything like that while linked, of course. I would work to stay out of all of that as much as the link’s quality will permit me while I look for the right memories…but I’m not going to do it at all unless you are okay with it.”
Spike’s brow only furrowed more though. “If it’s so…personal…” he began, “then doesn’t it seem a little…drastic…to resort to it for something like this?”
Thorax bit his lip. “Maybe,” he admitted. “…but you’re so worried about this that I feel obligated to help, and this is the best way I can think of to do it…especially since this bowtie clearly means so much to you.”
Spike couldn’t help but grin a little at Thorax’s desire to assist, but nonetheless, he still had some misgivings. “You said earlier you hadn’t used your telepathy before though,” he pointed out.
“No, I said I didn’t have a lot of practice with it,” Thorax corrected. “But any changeling can forge a simple mental link with another like this. It’s simple, at least for us. Most of us can do it almost instinctively upon hatching, and those that don’t are taught pretty quickly. So again, I can definitely do this, especially as it’d only be a temporary link.”
Spike considered it a moment longer, but still had his worries. “And you’re sure it’s safe?” he asked.
“I’d just do a very basic link,” Thorax assured. “It’ll barely even scratch the surface of either our minds. I shouldn’t need more than that. And even if something were to go wrong, there’s almost no chance it’d bring harm to either of us, lasting or otherwise.”
Spike fidgeted with his claws for a second. “…but there’s still a chance?”
Thorax used his reassuring hoof he still had hooked around his friend’s shoulder to give it a comforting pat. “I’m just offering as a friend Spike,” he said. “A mental link is a very personal thing no matter how you spin it though, and I recognize that, so I’m not going to do it unless you’re sure you want me to.”
Spike again hesitated. He certainly wanted to; he knew this wasn’t an experience he could get every day and didn’t doubt Thorax’s promise that it would help find the elusive bowtie he desperately wanted back in his possession. Fly Leaf was probably right in saying it would turn up on its own in due time but he didn’t want to wait until then, for fear of what would happen if the bowtie wasn’t someplace safe. At the same time though, he knew it wasn’t something he should treat lightly either. They were talking about linking their minds together, even if for a second, and while Spike knew Thorax wouldn’t be intrusive about it or do anything Spike wouldn’t want him to, they would be basically granting each other access to their inner thoughts and memories. A large part of what made him nervous about the idea actually was just what might be unveiled during the link.
But ultimately curiosity and his desire to get back his only reminder of one of his more cherished of pony friends won out. “Just for a minute, then,” he agreed and turned himself so he faced Thorax too. “Is…there anything I need to do to prepare?”
Thorax shook his head. “Just keep still. I can’t guarantee a successful link if you move around too much.”
“Okay,” Spike said, taking a deep breath and working to still himself as much as he could. “…I’m ready.”
“Right then.” Thorax lit his horn as he made his own preparations. “If at any time you change your mind about this, just shout, and I’ll stop immediately.”
“Got it.”
With one last nod, Thorax then carefully lowered his horn until the tip gingerly tapped Spike’s forehead, just under the base of his green spines. Spike could already feel the flickering warmth of the changeling’s magic starting to lap at him as Thorax took in a deep breath of his own, closing his eyes to concentrate. Spike, following his example, closed his as well.
“So you’re aware,” Thorax added as he quickly sensed a slight resistance to the link forming, “you’re probably going to see a quick mish-mash of memories from both yourself and myself for the first few moments due to how jury-rigged I’m going to have to make this link. I should be able to stabilize it quickly, but until then, I can only do so much to control what is shared. Are you still okay with that?”
Spike took in another deep breath before replying. He wasn’t, but he didn’t want to let his doubts pull him out now. “Let’s just get it over with.”
Thorax nodded. Letting his breath out again with a slow whoosh, he quietly began. As the tension from the anticipation was building, Spike was just starting to wonder how much longer it was going to take when he felt a very small prickle in the spot of his forehead where Thorax’s horn touched, and then, very jarringly, the link began. The experience was very hard for Spike to describe, but it was as if a metaphorical bridge had been built between his mind and Thorax’s and he had been moved to stand upon it. There, he was immediately assaulted by what he could only describe as a tidal wave of thoughts, and for a moment he could see into both minds at will. He had no real control over it though, as Thorax had forewarned; what memories or thoughts he was able to focus on were mere flashes that seemed to surface at random, and just as unpredictably, would fade away again, giving mere glimpses at them.
Some of the thoughts and memories that flashed before him were familiar and were recognizable as his own, but there were several that his mind felt were foreign. Among these memories, Spike saw glimpses of the attempted changeling invasion of Canterlot, except from above, in the sky. He saw glimpses of walking along the path in the mountains heading north, which he recognized to incidentally be the same mountains that ran near Ponyville, but he knew he had never set claw on this particular path before in his life. This was followed by a glimpse of himself, standing in a familiar frozen cave deep in the frozen wastes thrusting his claws hopefully as an offer to help towards the onlooker of the memory, whom Spike realized could only be Thorax. With a belated inward start he realized these foreign memories were all Thorax’s. The thought briefly stunned him as he thought how bizarre it was to see the event as seen from Thorax’s eyes instead of his.
There were others, though. He also saw glimpses of the throne room at the Crystal Castle with Shining Armor standing sternly before him as the unicorn uniformly announced Thorax’s banishment while to one side Spike saw himself trying to fight the guards holding him back, keeping him from interfering, the dragon bellowing out his protests to this ruling. It plodded up unwanted feelings of the event within Spike against his will, but thankfully the glimpses were short and soon he was watching a glimpse of himself wearing his disguise as Spark standing with Fly Leaf sharing a laugh over a joke just yesterday. It was at this point that Thorax seemed to seize full control of the link and, having realized they were in the right area of memories, focused on dredging up all the memories he could of the day in question.
The memories were initially a mix of Spike’s and Thorax’s throughout their workday yesterday, but rapidly Spike’s started to outnumber Thorax’s and replayed in longer and longer lengths as the memories started to group more and more around the events of that evening. Finally, one of Spike’s memories coalesced before him, replaying in staggered jumps, but Spike remembered it was yesterday evening, as they were closing the shop. Thorax had already gone upstairs. Fly Leaf was in the living room at her desk working on some final paperwork for the day. Spike himself, as the memory showed, was still in front, wrapping up some final cleaning. As it had been a fairly warm day that day, Spike had been growing hot and was anxious to pull off his shirt and sweater vest he wore as part of his disguise so to cool off. In his memory, he reached up to start untying the bowtie around his collar when he heard Fly Leaf call for him, asking him to retrieve one of the large jars of glitter glue they sold from in back so she could refer to the manufacturer information printed on it while filling out an order form for a new supply.
Spike had done so, and the memory jumped ahead to Spike in back, having pulled out the box in question and opening it so to pull out a jar with one set of claws while pulling the bowtie off his neck with the other. The jar proved to be heavier than he expected though, and that was when Spike saw in the memory of himself setting the bowtie down on top of a second jar that was in the box so the dragon could have both sets of claws free to lift the jar free from the box. The memory then skipped ahead again as Spike walked off with the jar to set beside Fly Leaf on her desk, but Spike focused on the memory of what was in his claws in that moment, and quickly noticed the bowtie was absent. He had forgotten to pick it back up again. It was then the memories turned back into a series of uncontrolled glimpses again, the memory at first jumping ahead to later that same evening with a memory of Spike and Thorax bidding each other a good night as they turned in, before becoming more random from there.
He saw a glimpse from his own memories of fawning over Rarity’s beauty while she worked at a sewing project easily a year previous from now. He then saw a glimpse of a cavern filled with hatching pale green eggs with what Spike could only describe as white worms with black spots but also the childish faces of changelings emerging from them. Another glimpse showed the memory of looking at a reflection of a pool in another, similar, cave except the face staring back in the reflection was, oddly, that of a depressed looking bovine. Then he saw a sorrowful glance back at the Crystal Empire, Shining, Twilight, and a series of crystal guards standing at the border, doing nothing but watch as the changeling and dragon they had allowed to be cast out trudged away.
With a gasp, feeling a flood of turbulent emotions bubble back up at the mere sight of the memory, many of which echoes that he had felt in the moment at the time, Spike instinctively jerked backwards and he felt the tip of Thorax’s horn leave his forehead. Immediately, the link ended, and Spike was back to standing before the seated Thorax in their room, panting heavily from the experience. Thorax, too, seemed to have been affected emotionally from the experience, but he hid it better and looked at Spike with a predominately concerned look, worried for his friend’s well-being. Indeed, Spike needed a moment to silently recollect himself, his brain struggling to piece together what had happened and to adjust to the glimpsed copies of memories he knew were not his now in his mind. Questions began to surface as gradually his mind reordered things, but then the replayed memory of what Spike had done with his bowtie came to the forefront.
“The box of glitter glue!” Spike burst aloud in a whispered exclamation unnecessarily, and quickly spun about to head for the door leading downstairs.
As he hurried downstairs, he noticed Thorax was quietly but urgently following, having put his Thornton disguise back up. Skirting along the edges of the noontime rush crowd in the shop, the two slipped into the back and into the corridor lined with boxes that served as Fly’s stockroom. Spike promptly went to nearly the very end, where the corridor terminated with the door that led onto the back porch, and found the box in question already pulled out, Spike having not put it back when he had pulled it down last night. Throwing open the cardboard flaps, he couldn’t help but let out an elated gasp when he spied his missing bowtie right where he had left it on top of the other jar inside. Snatching it up and pressing it to his chest, Spike felt the turmoil of emotions that the mental link had stirred up within him get the better of him, and tears of joy started to gather in the corner of his eyes.
He turned around to see Thorax standing just behind him, watching all of this with a pleased expression, and wrapped the changeling in a grateful hug. “Thank you,” he whispered earnestly.
Thorax wrapped one hoof around the dragon and returned the hug. “You’re welcome,” he responded back in kind.
So...this chapter...this chapter proved to be more of a challenge to write than expected. My original premise for it was basically that a minor incident would get Spike and Thorax talking, Thorax would bring up changeling ability of telepathy, and upon Spike showing interest, Thorax would then demonstrate and answer a few questions afterwards so to clear up loose ends. Seemed simple enough. But when going to actually write it, I quickly realized I was tapping into a much bigger subject than I had recognized, one I couldn't just blur through. It occurred to me that this was a potentially very deep subject, and I had to treat it as such...or it'd all fall flat.
This lead to a major rewrite, of course, and the whole premise of the chapter changed, hinging upon an event to justify the subject coming up altogether. I had a couple different ideas for that, including one in which Spike was found in an alley with a minor head injury as if he had been mugged, but Spike couldn't clearly recall what had happened himself, so Thorax, fearing they might have been discovered, links with him to double-check...but that idea felt like it required an awful lot of setup for what was intended to just demonstrate that Thorax is a touch-based telepath, so I abandoned it and other ideas like it for something...simpler.
I'm not sure this premise with the lost bowtie is quite adequate enough of a justification, but it suited my needs perfectly while also setting the right sort of scene I was looking for, so that's what I ran with.
But because the chapter did get revised, we did lose a couple of fun moments, including a conversational blurb in which Thorax whimsically recalls one of his clutchmates had struggled greatly in figuring out how to form a mental link and required extra aide and training than most, and a moment where Thorax drops an obvious Star Trek reference ("my thoughts to your thoughts") before an annoyed Spike calls him out on it, calling it cheesy (and it was, which was why I dropped it)...but it was necessary to insure a better chapter overall, I felt. I do hope it lives up to the hype I ended up generating a bit more of than I had really intended to do. 
Also, I figure you all still have questions about all of this, but never fear; this ended up not fitting all into one chapter, so the rest will be covered in the next two chapters as well. Both of those should hopefully answer most of the major questions at least. 
Stats
Page generated in 0.032 seconds
Total duration
960 users online
1,539,699 hits today, 2,591,549 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. Did not see that coming. Looks like changelings have all sorts of abilities in this AU.
Why do I get the feeling spikes gonna have a go at thorax when the memory of twilight feeling guilty about letting him be banished shows up
This is a nice scene.
interesting chapter
I liked this chapter, it was quite nice. And I'm gonna go ahead and add this mental link to my personal changeling abilities list...
I imagine this being a problem if they get caught and spike is found with traces of changeling mind magic still with him. It would make it impossible to deny thorax mind controlling him. Yikes.
It's traditional to abuse awesome magical might in the pursuit of missing socks (or ties).
Later that day, the first customer: "Hello Spark! ...Wait... You don't wear a bowtie! I recognise you. You are Spike, a wanted criminal and Traitor! Guards!"
I don't really understand why Changelings don't use her telepathic ability more common. A hive-mind could be very practical; at the very least to deliver messages. If one drone sees an intruder in the hive, immediatly all drones would know about it.
Or are you talking about an other kind of telepathic?
(Or I will just shut up and wait for the promised next chapter.)
7984315
I advise the latter (next chapter will go up later this evening).
FEELS!!!
Man I wish there was a real life version of this. I'm almost always missing *something.*
Right in the feels
.
The only thing I’d say about this chapter is I think you spent a little too much time emphasizing/questioning whether the bow tie was serious enough to use telepathy to find.
With how Spike was acting, to me, it was clearly worth it- a treasured item from a crush. But when you start questioning whether it’s a good decision not once, but at least three times in the chapter, the ‘questioning’ starts to sink in a little too much, and I’m ultimately left less convinced that it was a good choice than at the start.