Molting
The following Saturday found Thorax recovered even more from his illness and again recharged and eager to do something productive today. As the weather, which had finally stopped raining during the past week but had remained off-and-on gloomy all throughout, was proving to be bright and sunny yet pleasantly cool that day, this didn’t help. Unfortunately, as the shop was not open on weekends and none of them feeling quite confident enough to let Thorax to go out and about town on his own should his still-recovering stamina abruptly give out again like it did the previous day, there was only so much for the changeling to preoccupy himself with. At first he kept himself busy by finishing drying the cloths and blankets for his sleeping nest and then painstakingly reassembling the nest to his tastes, but this didn’t take up nearly as much time as it seemed he had hoped.
So he focused his attention on reading his books or listening to his radio dramas, but surprisingly, the slightly stir-crazy changeling couldn’t keep focused on either of them for long and was eager for something else to do. For him, the only real highlight during the first half of the day was when Fly Leaf returned after going out to run some quick errands with a midnight blue hoodie for Thorax, “for you to wear should you ever get caught in the rain again and absolutely insist you have to walk in it.” Thorax took a quick liking to it, and after Fly had left, spent several minutes in front of the bathroom mirror alternating between his natural changeling form and his Thornton disguise gauging how it looked on him. He concluded it looked good in either form. He also noted that the hoodie had been professionally magicked so to be water-resistant, despite being made out of cotton cloth.
“But why make it only water-resistant when you could go a step further and make it fully waterproof?” Spike inquired when Thorax mentioned this.
“Because then I’d imagine it’d be very hard to wash,” Thorax reasoned, and seemed satisfied enough with that.
He wanted to put the jacket to immediate use, but again as he still had lingering symptoms from his illness, he was advised to stay at the shop so to avoid accidentally overexerting himself. So, still in need of something to do, Spike decided to keep an eye out for some kind of project Thorax could do today while he also went out to run some errands for the two of them. He soon found it when passing a nearby store while between destinations, and as a bonus, would help resolve another problem in the same go. Now that he and Thorax had settled yet again on staying in Vanhoover, this had brought up a problem they had both been off-and-on pondering on; how to safely stash their growing funds.
Once cashed-in, they had been setting aside part of their paychecks for saving ever since beginning to work with Fly Leaf on the understanding that they would likely make heavy use of those funds once they traveled out of Vanhoover to their next destination. So, since they were not doing that for now, this meant their unspent savings were growing bigger and harder to contain, and both were starting to fear trouble would arise unless they found a way to store it in a safer place than what they’d been using currently; in a series of shoeboxes they had been keeping on the top shelf of their wardrobe.
The obvious idea would be to take their savings and put them in an account at the local bank, but found doing so would only raise problems as the bank wouldn’t let them open an account without a great deal of identification information. Obviously they couldn’t use their real identities seeing they were in hiding, and falsified identities would only add to their troubles if discovered, thus both agreed this wasn’t an option they could use. So when Spike saw that the local locksmith was having a significant sale on safes, he bought a medium-sized grey safe with a standard padlock on it. He then took it back to Thorax and challenged the changeling to find some way to magically modify it so to make it even more secure than it already was. Thorax eagerly rose to the challenge and spent most of the rest of the day working on it, cross-referencing with the various magic textbooks he had been gradually collecting during their time in Vanhoover as he worked.
He ended up being very thorough, starting off with taking the time to first dismantle the locking system on the safe entirely (which Spike pointed out voided the included warranty that had come with purchasing the safe, and in turn led to a discussion explaining to Thorax just what a “warranty” was and how it worked), and proceeded to work out a new way to fit it all back together, retooling it mechanically so to make it far harder to crack. This and the fact that Thorax painstakingly cast a variety of security spells on each individual part meant it was now heavily shielded from any attempts to pick the lock. He also cast a number of other magical failsafes to further protect the safe, forming various contingency protections to fall upon should the “frontline protections,” as Thorax phrased it, fail for whatever reason.
Finally, as Thorax began the task of fitting everything back together, he added another series of spells that, when working together, would check the operator’s identity and confirm it was either Spike or Thorax who was attempting to open the safe. Anyone else and the failsafe spells will be triggered, causing the lock and any other mechanisms within the safe to seize up, refusing to unlock unless given a specific counterspell to reset the lock back to its normal state (still locked). This required a specific magical frequency only Thorax would know and would be difficult to just randomly guess. Any attempts to force or break the safe or its lock would result in the same seizing. And this was all on top of the safe’s original padlock mechanism, which Spike had been assured when he bought it that it already had various defenses against lock picking and couldn’t be readily cracked, leaving the contents secure.
So altogether, both of the two outcasts felt that this left it feeling like a very secure place to put their excess funds, as well as anything else they may deem needs the added security in the future. Of course, despite all these protections, there were still ways around all of them. But it was Thorax’s reasoning that all of them working together would still be enough to deter any casual attempts to force the safe to unlock and severely discourage most who might want to try. And no matter what, any successful attempts to pick the lock would almost certainly require a skilled magician to pull it off, necessitating magical talent and training that the average unicorn didn’t generally have, limiting the number of candidates who could even successfully try it. Naturally, Spike knew that Twilight Sparkle would have that sort of skill, but he and Thorax both agreed that if she had gotten as far as trying to force open their safe, that probably would mean she had already discovered them and had them in custody, so whatever became of the safe after that point was pretty much moot.
Above all though, the task kept Thorax preoccupied enough to keep him distracted for the rest of the day and also wore him out enough that he chose to turn in early that evening, demonstrating that he truly wasn’t fully recovered from his illness just yet…but getting close. Spike hoped that full recovery would be coming very soon, if not by tomorrow, or else he would no doubt have to come up with something else to keep the restless changeling occupied, and he was rapidly running out of ideas that would also keep Thorax inside the shop instead of wandering about town where he could still overexert himself. But upon waking up that Sunday morning, they found that Thorax had an entirely new problem; he was feeling extremely itchy all over.
It wasn’t hard to figure out why; Thorax’s chitin was still peeling all over his body thanks to his illness, and was overall dried out and flaking. It was easy to see how that would be itchy for the changeling. It did raise problems though, because even though Thorax was able to hide the peeling chitin behind his usual disguise easily enough—which he now could maintain continuously like before again—it didn’t hide the itch. Thus through most of that day, it wasn’t uncommon to see Thorax frequently scratching one or more particularly troublesome spot on his figure, especially wherever the peeling had become especially bad. Not only was this beginning to drive Thorax up the wall, it also surprisingly caused his disguise to begin to break out into a rash against Thorax’s control.
“It’s because of a subconscious adaptation control in the disguise,” Thorax explained to Spike when the dragon showed confusion about how and why a false and magical illusion could do such a thing. “There’s more for a changeling to maintain in a disguise than the mere shape and features of the body or shape. In order to be fully realistic and prevent the obvious clues that it’s not real, there is an extreme need for the disguise to be fully detailed, to the point that it’d be ridiculous to expect any changeling to be able to give enough conscious thought to maintaining all of them. Things like goosebumps, hair growth, smile lines or even the pupils in your eyes dilating size in reaction to differences in light.” He tapped his hoof over one of his ice-blue eyes he wore as part of his disguise.
Spike blinked and involuntarily looked his own body over, suddenly aware of all the little things it did without him even thinking about it, but would all be obvious telltales that it was a false image if it ever appeared to stop doing them. “I guess that would be a lot of things to try and keep track of,” he admitted.
“Right,” Thorax agreed with a nod. “So the disguise is rigged to react subconsciously to any outward changes to the changeling’s own body, that way we don’t have to remember to recreate all those little details all the time when disguised. For example, if you were to, say, punch me in the face, the disguise will subconsciously change its appearance to adapt accordingly by rendering a bruise or whatever over the struck area without me even needing to think about it. It’ll do that for every little change of state like that.”
“Even rendering the disguise breaking out in a rash when the changeling underneath it is feeling overly itchy,” Spike summarized, catching on with a grin.
“Exactly,” Thorax confirmed.
Fly Leaf, of course, noticed the rashes developing on Thorax and his continued scratching of them, but she didn’t really question it, assuming it was just a lingering final symptom from his illness, instead suggesting he try not to scratch and offering an ointment he could use that might sooth the scratching. Thorax actually did accept and, in private so he could lower his disguise, applied as much of the ointment he could to the peeling and troublesome areas on his body with hope that would relieve the itching. Unfortunately for him, it didn’t seem to work on changeling chitin like it would on pony skin, doing little. And relief didn’t seem to be sight soon either as it persisted on into the evening and poor Thorax was forced trying to go to sleep while still itching all over.
But at last, relief came only about an hour after he and Spike had gone to bed when Thorax suddenly sat up and clambered out of his sleeping nest. “Finally!” he declared as he arose and moved to stand in the middle of the room.
Spike was jolted awake from his exclamation and peered at him with groggy eyes. “What’s up?” he asked through a yawn.
Thorax glanced at him for a moment, looking like he didn’t quite know how to explain. “I suppose you’ve never seen a changeling molt before,” he remarked, merely stating fact.
Spike sat up. “No,” he replied, then confused, repeated, “Molt? You mean like a snake?”
Thorax nodded. “To shed an old layer of dead skin, or in my case chitin, that has either become too damaged, too worn, or too small to keep any longer,” he explained. He tilted his head at Spike. “I had assumed dragons do the same, but I’m surmising from your confusion that they don’t actually.”
Spike shook his head. “Not all at once, at least,” he explained as he rubbed at his tired eyes. “Old scales just fall off whenever needed, and usually no more than one or two at a time. I guess it’d be like a pony and hair, always shedding it, but not usually all at once.”
Thorax frowned. “But…don’t ponies grow and then shed winter coats?”
Spike shrugged. “Never really paid that close attention to be honest. Twilight’s probably given me a lecture on the subject at some point, but that must have been one of those long, weary, and highly technical ones using big words I don’t understand that I tend to tune out.” He shook his head. “That’s not really the same though. That’s all about hair. We’re talking about skin here. And even with the hair, that’s still a gradual process, isn’t it? I mean, it’s not like a pony’s body just decides “oh, winter’s over, time to get rid of this extra hair” and boom, it all falls out just right then and there.”
Thorax laughed. “Well, first of all, it’s chitin, so not technically skin, at least not in the sense you’re thinking of.” He shrugged and grinned whimsically. “But that said, changelings do molt all at once, usually about once every year, exactly when generally depending on when you hatched. I typically molt in the springtime, but thanks to my recent bout of mutatum aegritudo, it’s triggered a new molt ahead of schedule.” He gazed off thinking, distractingly scratching at an itch on his front. “…I wonder if I will still molt at the usual time next spring, or if this will cause a hard reset, and I’ll start molting yearly around this time of year now…”
Meanwhile, Spike had noticed that Thorax’s dark chitin seemed to be peeling and blistering more than usual. “So I’m guessing that’s what you got up to do then,” Spike said, presuming that this molt was imminent.
Thorax nodded. “Yes,” he said. “Sorry to wake you, but it was probably going to wake you up anyway.”
Spike shrugged, still not sure he understood. “So…what?” he asked, unsure how this was going to work. “You’re just going to sit down and peel off the old chitin, or…”
Thorax licked his lips thoughtfully. “It’s a little more…bombastic…than that.” He returned his gaze to Spike. “Really the best way to understand is to see it for yourself.”
Spike adjusted his position so to be more comfortable to watch. “All right, I’m watching,” he announced.
“Well, it might take a moment. I can feel this chitin is ready to come off and my body gearing up for the final phase, but I still have to wait for it to decide to start the final process.”
So they waited, Thorax standing patiently in the middle of the room and Spike sitting on the window seat, tired and waiting. Eventually Spike realized as he watched that Thorax’s chitin was gradually peeling and forming boils more and more right before his eyes, almost as if the changeling’s chitin was trying to bubble right off of him.
“Uh…Thorax?” Spike began, unsure what to make of that.
“Shh,” Thorax shushed, who had closed his eyes, looking like he was concentrating, waiting for the right moment.
Not long after that, Spike noticed the temperature in the room seemed to be getting warmer, and after a moment’s confusion about where it was coming from, he realized Thorax’s body had begun to shimmer faintly with heat.
“Thorax?” Spike asked again, wide awake now as he started to become alarmed.
Thorax didn’t reply this time, his breathing starting to accelerate. Whatever was going to happen, Spike realized it was going to be very soon. He wasn’t disappointed. Flickers of cyan magic started to appear around Thorax’s figure, and then Thorax suddenly inhaled sharply, throwing back his head and arching his back before the changeling suddenly vanished from view in a burst of cyan flames.
“Whoa!” Spike declared, reeling back in surprise.
The burst of flames was at first similar to whenever Thorax activated or deactivated his disguise, but in those instances it was always for less than a second. Here the flames continued to persist well after that, and only grew in intensity until Thorax was nothing more than a very big and very bright ball of flames. Furthermore, the flames, being magical in nature, were typically very cool in temperature in the past, but this time heat bled off the flames in waves that gushed through the room, generating a hot wind that fluttered about Spike. Save for the color, it was all feeling too much like real fire.
“Thorax!” Spike exclaimed in fear, beginning to think that something had gone wrong and Thorax was truly on fire.
But as quickly as it had started, it abruptly ceased, the flames vanishing suddenly as Thorax became visible again, standing in a thin cloud of swirling grey powder and completely unharmed.
“Whoo!” Thorax cried with glee, his chitin now clean and unblemished so that it now shone freshly. Even his gossamer wings sparkled faintly in the sliver of moonlight that was streaming through a crack in the window drapes behind Spike, ruffled by the hot wind the event had fleetingly kicked up. “Now that’s better!” A shudder went down his spine and Thorax shook himself, pleased. “Oh yes, that’s much better,” he gushed as he stretched.
Spike blinked several times as he processed what just happened, watching the cloud of grey powder settle down onto the floor and forming a moderate-sized grey blast pattern on the wooden panels Thorax stood upon. He suddenly realized what he was looking at was the ash from the old layer of Thorax’s chitin; it had been magically burned right off of his body. “That was…” he began, stumbling about his words as he attempted to speak his mind. “That was…”
“Quite a sight, wasn’t it?” Thorax asked, shaking himself once more before turning to face the little dragon.
Spike snorted anxiously, not finding that description appropriate. “It was certainly intense,” he stated, putting his claws to his forehead, trying to calm his beating heart. He looked back at Thorax. “Didn’t that hurt?”
“No, no,” Thorax said, shaking his head amused. “I know, it looks like it should. Trust me, back when I was a nymph that hadn’t molted for the first time yet and was witness to another changeling molting for the first time, I was absolutely terrified that it would hurt. But no! It’s really more…” he looked thoughtful for a moment while rolling his shoulders, “…oddly refreshing.”
Spike slid off the window seat with a thump and approached his friend, getting a closer look. He made a faint grin and shrugged. “Well, at the very least, now you look healthy again,” he observed, motioning to his friend’s new layer of chitin, fresh and healed leaving no previous sign of the illness Thorax had recently been through.
“Well, it still needs to dry out a bit,” Thorax admitted, stopping to look himself over, running one of his holed hooves over his torso.
Spike blinked and poked one claw at the black plating lining the changeling’s shoulder. He knew Thorax’s chitin typically felt firm and resilient yet not altogether hard or inflexible. It was firmer than pony skin certainly, but in many ways it usually felt more like a thick hide, just glossier and smoother. But right now, however, it felt soft and malleable, like it hadn’t set fully yet. He was surprised it still needed to though after all the heat the display of molting had generated. “That’s normal?” he asked.
Thorax nodded with a grin. “Perfectly normal. Give it a half-hour, tops, and it’ll be as good as new.”
Spike grinned back then gazed at the ash that dusted the floor around Thorax, kicking at it idly with one foot. “Meanwhile, your old chitin has managed to get all over the place,” he quipped.
Thorax chuckled sheepishly. “Yeah, there usually is a small bit of clean-up afterwards,” he admitted.
Spike glanced up at him again. “Well, you know where the dustpan and broom is,” he said as he patted the changeling on the shoulder and turned back for his window seat bed.
“Right,” Thorax said with a disinclined nod, and turned to retrieve said cleaning items from where they were stored.
Nonetheless, as he settled down to go back to sleep, Spike couldn’t help but be pleased to note that the changeling still walked off with a notable spring in his step. Clearly, the molting had left Thorax feeling fully recovered again. And by that morning, Thorax still had that bounce, almost as if he had never been sick in the first place, and ready to go to work that morning like everything was normal.
Fly Leaf couldn’t help but be pleased by the sight of it herself as they opened the shop for the morning. “You look like you’re back to your old self, Thornton,” she noted while the disguised changeling finished readying the cash register for the upcoming day’s work.
“I feel back to my old self,” Thorax added proudly, pleased himself by this development himself.
“Well then, nice to have you back,” Fly said with a grin as she finished unlocking the front door and walked past the front desk.
“Good to be back, Miss Fly,” Thorax returned with a contented nod.
Spike watched the exchange from where he was doing some start-of-the-week bookkeeping in a ledger and grinned. “Back to normal, and back where you belong,” he murmured to himself, feeling his chest swell some with joy at the thought.
I thought having Thorax molt at some point would be interesting to explore, especially once I applied some creativity to it, and Thorax's recent illness helped give an excuse.
All in all a rather idle chapter today, but next chapter we'll be back to some more intriguing things. 
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That was a different take on Changeling molting. I like it, Thorax's molting process in this story is unique. I have not seen its likeness in any other fic. Keep up the good work.
Huh. I like that he scared Spike there for a second. Nice to see more on the changeling biology in this story, very interesting.
I can't wait for the next chapter. Also this chapter was interesting.
I hope no one traces the leftover chitin to that place...
I always assumed it would be a more bug-ponylike version of this
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Well, considering it all turned to ash...
8097242
Nah, having it pretty much blowing up instead is more fun.
How comfy Thorax must feel now.
8097251 Pictured: Spike the Dragon
I thought he was going to molt sorta normally and they would have this weird changeling skin to try and dispose of
It makes sense, since they need to stay hidden, to destroy the old chitin. The fire was a surprise though!
*with the voice of the engineer*
: "Now I've seen everything."
Question:
How big/heavy is their new safe?
Now that all of the duo's valuable possessions have been condensed into a convenient box marked, "Expensive: Please Steal," that can easily be carried by a baby dragon, nothing bad can possibly happen.
Curious - did you give Thorax his sparklier wings with this, or was that description just showing how much better he looked after the molt? Since the underlying cause, I think, is the same...
So that’s why Thorax was so I’ll...
.
Was bombastic used like this on purpose? That's too ironic.
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I honestly don't remember now. Probably not.