Sharing Stories
The night came and went in a strange blur for Twilight. She was still hungry, and the lingering symptoms of Stomach Rot were doing her no favors. But in spite of this, she was able to feel happy, or at least more at peace then she had been so far. She was able to sleep that night, and relatively well, too.
Of course, the following morning saw the resurgence of her symptoms and her hunger. Luckily, due entirely to Thorax’s generous aid and instruction, she had a solution for at least one of those problems.
Soon, she was leaning back against the wall of the cave, using the various fabrics of her makeshift bedroll as a sort of pillow to keep herself from developing a backache. In her magic was a bowl of Thorax’s tea, the heated contents letting off faint, gently twisting plumes of steam. She took a sip, cringing at the still undesirable taste, but nevertheless letting out a relieved sigh a few minutes later as the stuff went to work, quelling her symptoms enough that she could function.
There was, however, a downside to her morning. With the sun being up and with her health still being questionable at best, she wasn’t going to be leaving her cave anytime soon. As such, she had nothing but time and nothing to pass it with save for her own thoughts.
Thankfully, she had much on her mind this morning to keep her occupied.
Specifically, Thorax, that strange new friend she had made in this most unlikely of places. She owed him her life, really. Without his timely intervention, she didn’t doubt that she would have died from the disease at this point, given his earlier mentioning of it being fatal if untreated. More than that, the changeling had brought her food. Not much, but enough to keep her from starving.
And then, of course, there was the conversation they had had. Thorax had been keen to poke and prod at her for any scrap of information she was willing to divulge, and had listened with the same sort of wonderment that a foal learning how the sun and moon move for the very first time had—or of an explorer finding an ancient valley that hadn’t been seen by pony eyes in thousands of years.
He was so curious about her, in fact, that Twilight had barely gotten a chance to ask him any questions of her own. There were so many things she wanted to know about him and his race! She knew they could shapeshift, now, and that they had magic not dissimilar to that of ponies, but beyond that, she was in the dark.
“I will just have to fix that when next he comes around!” she decided with a smile before downing the remainder of her tea.
As if on cue, the sound of buzzing wings reached Twilight’s ears, followed shortly by a cheerful voice calling out. “Hey! I’m back! You in there, Twilight?”
With her smile evolving into a grin, Twilight rose up to her hooves and cantered around the bend to meet her visitor. Sure enough, there was Thorax, approaching her with a large grin and shining eyes.
“Thorax, you came back!” she greeted, bounding up to meet him. “And so soon, too!”
Thorax chuckled, though he did flinch back a bit from her sudden proximity. “Well, yeah. You’re still dealing with Stomach Rot, aren’t you? I gotta come in and make sure it’s not getting any worse,” he said before pulling off his resin saddlebags with his magic. “Plus, you’re really fun to talk to, and I wanna get to know you better!”
Twilight’s eyes widened, her grin fading away and being replaced with a small ‘o’ as she beheld the contents of the bags. “Food. You brought me more food?” she asked quietly.
“Yeah, I figured I might as well,” Thorax replied with a small smile and nod.
Twilight licked her lips before reaching out with her magic and taking out the assortment of plant matter that Thorax had brought with him. More of the same of what he had brought last time, but that was fine. Familiarity bred comfort, and Twilight had been in need of some comfort food ever since getting stranded out here.
With her smile returning, she met Thorax’s gaze. “Thank you so much… would you like to come and sit down? We can pick up where we left off last time.”
The bug’s wings buzzed briefly on his back, his smile growing. “I’d love to!”
Restraining a giggle at the endearing display, Twilight turned and led Thorax back for the campfire. With a deft flourish of her magic, she took the fabrics for her bedroll and set them down into a collection of loose seating mats. She settled down on hers before digging into her food. She made it a point to eat at a slower pace this time, as compared to the last time he had brought her a meal. She had manners, after all, and if she was going to befriend this changeling, she was going to use them!
After a few bites to quiet down the grumbles of her stomach, she affixed Thorax with a thoughtful look. He was looking down at the fabric beneath him with a raised eyebrow and a quirk in his lips. He poked at it idly with a hoof as if it were a particularly gnarly scab before looking back at her. Then, with stiff motions, he settled down onto his belly, mimicking Twilight’s posture.
Twilight’s smile weakened a little. She was quick to cast aside her dismay at seeing his seeming lack of familiarity with blankets and pointed a curious hoof at him. “Okay, so, last time we met, you asked me most of the questions, wanting to learn all about Equestria and ponies. This time it’s my turn to ask you some questions. Sound fair?”
Thorax was snapped out of his uneasy examination of the blanket and offered up a nod. “Oh! Uh, sure!”
Twilight was quiet for a second before nodding to herself and taking a deep breath. There were a lot of things about him she wanted to know, but she had to go about this the right way. “Focus, Twilight!”
She let out her breath and smiled. “Well, my first question is about your magic. I’ve noticed that you have a horn, and I’ve seen you moving things around with levitation before. What is the extent of changeling magic? Do you know?” she asked, immediately clamping her mouth shut afterward to keep herself from spewing out a dozen more questions before the first one could even be answered.
Thorax hummed for a second, tapping his chin. “Hmmm. Well, I don’t really know, frankly. When it comes to magic, I’m honestly one of the worst in the hive. I know we have a wide range of spells that we can use, and there are a few that all drones are expected to know.”
“Like your ability to shapeshift?”
“Well, no, actually,” Thorax said with a shake of his head. “That’s not really a spell. It’s… it’s more like an instinct or a muscle. It’s based on magic, yes, but all changelings can do it, regardless of their skill with other forms of magic.”
“Fascinating,” Twilight said, wishing she had some way of taking notes. “Is there any limit on what you can turn into? I mean, I saw you turn into a giant woodpecker, after all.”
Thorax shrugged. “Beats me. Shapeshifting does require magic, though. The more complicated our disguises get, the more energy they take up. Turning into something smaller or larger than our main bodies also takes up more energy. I could probably turn into a mouse and stay like that for a few hours, or I could turn into a pony and stay like that for literal weeks, as long as I could stay fed.”
“Because your body is so similar in shape, size, and complexity to that of a pony?” Twilight pointed out, her eyes briefly wandering over Thorax’s chitinous form.
“Uh-huh,” he acknowledged with a nod.
Twilight grinned, clapping her hooves together in front of her face. “Oh, wow, this is so fascinating! I wish I had a notebook! I could go so in-depth if I did!” she said energetically, allowing her scholarly excitement to show through.
Thorax’s soft smile returned. “You’re pretty excitable, aren’t you?” he noted after a moment.
“I am literally pioneering all of Equestria’s knowledge into a new species!” Twilight declared, thrusting her hooves into the air. “How can I not be excited?! This is one of the reasons I even came to the badlands! To learn things!”
Thorax’s smile was replaced quickly with a small frown, his ears lowering. His eyes flicked back for the entrance to the cave before he lowered his head and voice. “Hey, uh, I’m real glad that you’re excited about this, but… can you not tell anypony else about us?” he asked.
Twilight’s excitement stalled, her smile fading away. “Huh? Why? What’s wrong?”
Thorax shifted uncomfortably on his haunches. “...We, changelings, are a very isolated and secretive group. Queen Chrysalis values and prioritizes those things above all else, just before making sure the hive is fed. If word were to get out that we exist at all, and if it could ever be traced back to me…”
Twilight’s eyes widened when Thorax shuddered, his eyes screwing shut. “I’d probably be executed. So please, just… you can ask me whatever you want, but it has to stay between us, alright?”
“Executed?!” Twilight choked out, her ears folding back in shock and horror. “But that’s so harsh! Not to mention immoral and unethical! Why is that the punishment for letting other creatures know you exist?!”
Thorax sighed. “...A few centuries ago, at the start of Chrysalis’ reign, it’s said that she reached out to another race in the hopes of establishing peaceful relations. But when contact was made, we were shunned and vilified as monsters. The creatures the queen reached out to lashed out at us and almost destroyed us. In the end, she was forced to subdue the whole lot of them just to protect her subjects. Since then, Queen Chrysalis has decided that we must be a secret, only ever to show our faces to the world if left with absolutely no other choice.”
Twilight’s ears lowered, her eyes wandering as she took this new information in. If the story was true, then there was at least some justification for wanting to stay isolated. She couldn’t blame the changelings for that, not really. “But… execution? It just seems so extreme…” she pointed out in a more measured voice.
Thorax nodded. “The law is the law, and it’s basically suicide to break it. We only have the hive for support out here in the Badlands. If something goes wrong inside, every changeling will suffer for it. Extreme punishments are the only way to maintain order and ensure that the hive prospers.”
Twilight was quiet for several seconds, her prior jovial mood all but squashed under the weight of this new information. Thorax’s earlier awe and wonder when hearing about Equestria was making more and more sense by the minute. To him, it no doubt came off as alien and borderline mythical that a place as idyllic as Equestria was even conceivable, much less that it had survived for a thousand years.
Twilight then took a deep breath before quickly moving on to a new subject, hoping to lighten the mood back up. “W-well, uh… a-anyways, uh, next question,” she stumbled out. She cleared her throat to steady her voice and tried again. “Ahem! You told me when we met that you eat, uh, ‘love.’ Do you think you could tell me a little more about that?”
Thorax was quiet for a second before nodding. “Well, we use ‘love’ as a sort of umbrella term. And we don’t actually eat the emotions, either, that’s not how it works. Uh… how do I explain… uh...Okay, have you ever had magic surges caused by heightened emotions before? Like, you were really scared or really angry?”
Twilight nodded, recalling the incidents ranging from her confrontation against Nightmare Moon to her panicked teleports when being crowded in the streets of Ponyville, to her efforts to subdue and remove a rampaging Ursa Minor from Ponyville. “Yes, a few times. Why?”
Thorax pointed at her. “It’s because strong emotions generate power. Kinda like adrenaline, you know? And we changelings eat the power generated by positive social emotions. So, you know, love, compassion, sympathy, joy, even lust is a go-to for some drones.”
Twilight blinked, trying not to think about that last point. Nevertheless, the gears in her head were turning again, and her scholarly interest helped raise her back up out of her earlier funk. “Wow… that’s incredible! But, what about negative emotions?” she asked curiously, raising an eyebrow. “Like anger or fear or hatred?”
“Those give us indigestion, by and large,” Thorax replied, visibly cringing. His forked tongue snaked out to subtly hiss at the air. “Uegh. It can even poison us if it gets too bad…”
“Oh… I guess that makes sense,” Twilight noted thoughtfully before looking down at her food. Her stomach grumbled in protest, and she was quick to wolf down some more of Thorax’s gift. After a few seconds, she lifted her eyes to look at Thorax again. “I’d love to know more of the details, but I get the impression you’re not exactly an expert on these things, are you?”
Thorax shook his head. “Not really, no.”
“Well… what is it you do at the hive, then?” Twilight asked, deciding to turn her line of questions to the culture and society of the changelings rather than their physiology and biology. “I would assume you have designated castes and roles, like an ant colony or beehive? Warriors, gatherers, that kind of thing?”
“Er, kinda?” Thorax replied with his brow furrowing. “It’s a little more complicated than that. All drones have the same body types, so really, our roles are designated by our individual skillsets rather than anything determined at birth. I mean, I’m a part of patrol, like my brother and all of the fast drones. Although, I’m only in it because my brother decided to make me…”
Twilight raised an eyebrow. “He made you join patrol?” she asked.
Thorax sighed and nodded his head. “Yeah. I dunno why. I hate fighting or being violent, but that’s one of the main objectives of going out on patrol. If we see a threat, we’re supposed to eliminate it. If we find intruders, we’re supposed to detain them and bring them before the queen to face her judgment. But no matter how much I keep telling him that I hate this job, he won’t budge on the matter.”
A lump formed in Twilight’s throat. Intruders were to be brought before the queen? Did that include her? It was an unsettling thought, to be sure, especially considering what she now knew about her. Chrysalis sounded like a ruthless ruler, and Twilight had no desire to see her face to face as a captured prisoner. As an ambassador, maybe.
Thorax’s ears perked up, his eyes widening. “O-oh! Don’t worry, I’m not turning you in!” he quickly assured her as if he had read her mind. “You’re too nice!”
Twilight blinked and leaned back in surprise. “What… how did you know what I was thinking?” she asked. Could changelings read minds, too?
Thorax chuckled sheepishly. “O-oh, sorry. I just saw all the anxiety suddenly coming off of you when I mentioned detaining prisoners and, uh, well, I put two and two together.”
“That… makes a lot more sense than what I was thinking,” Twilight said, letting off a quiet sigh of relief. “I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. Kinda hard to eat something you can’t see, huh?”
Thorax nodded. “Uh-huh. Emotions have all sorts of colors, you know. Anxiety is this kind of muted shade of purple, and fear is really dark purple,” he explained. “While love is this really pretty shade of pink, and excitement is a vivid yellow.”
“Heh. I’m gonna have to come up with a color wheel one of these days to keep track,” Twilight said jokingly.
Thorax’s face lit up, and Twilight could only guess he was seeing her mirth radiating off of her right now. It felt a little odd knowing that he could always tell exactly how she was feeling. That kind of empathy was unprecedented, and it gave him a pretty intense advantage over her, socially.
Now that she thought about it…?
“So, what colors am I right now?” she asked, sitting upright.
Thorax blinked in surprise. “Huh? Oh, uh…” he leaned forward, narrowing his eyes as he considered her. “Well… there’s still a little purple in there… plenty of yellow, a little bit of this ugly mossy green color, I think that’s because you’re still dealing with Stomach Rot. Let’s see here... oh. There’s some dark blue in there, too.”
Twilight’s smile faltered. The way Thorax’s voice had turned solemn at the mentioning of dark blue set her a little on edge. “Er… and what does dark blue mean?” she asked carefully.
Thorax hummed. “Well… it usually means sadness,” he explained quietly, his voice becoming far more timid as if he were afraid of upsetting her. “I… I know it’s not any of my business, but… is there something making you sad?”
Twilight paused for a second before looking down at her hooves, her ears lowering. “...Yeah, there is,” she admitted after a moment with a quiet sigh. “My friends. I miss them… and I imagine they’re probably missing me, too.”
“Your friends?” Thorax ventured carefully. “So… you mean you’re lonely?”
Twilight nodded. “Yes… They’re all back in Ponyville. I don’t know if they’ve been told what’s happened to me yet. I don’t think they have, seeing as I haven’t heard from Spike, yet…” she said, her mind slowly wandering back towards those mares and one dragon she cared so deeply for.
Thorax shifted back a little bit, his ears drooping. “Oh… uh… I’m sorry, I won’t ask anymore,” he said apologetically. “I don’t wanna make you any more upset.”
Twilight smiled, however weakly, and dismissed his apology with a sad shake of her head. “No, it’s fine…”
“No, it’s not,” Thorax countered, much to her surprise. Confused, she looked up to see him looking at something just above her. He grimaced. “Just thinking about them’s making you fill this whole cave with dark blue… you’re really missing them.”
Twilight blinked, having forgotten for a moment that negative emotions were not as appetizing as their positive counterparts. Quickly taking in a deep breath, she did her best to at least soothe her feelings and think happy thoughts. She had no intention of bottling it all up, but if only for the sake of her new friend, she could keep her sorrows under the lid for now. She could vent when he wasn’t here.
She shook her head after a second before meeting his gaze again. “Right, I’m sorry. I’ll wait until you aren’t here,” she said apologetically. “But right now, I have a few other questions for you, if you don’t mind.”
Thorax was quiet for a second before smiling and nodding. “I don’t mind at all. I have an hour or two before I have to go back, so we can talk as much as you’d like.”
Twilight smiled at that, allowing her heart to warm up a little in response to his understanding. “Thank you. Now, for my next question…”
The two fell into a steady back and forth after that, asking one another questions about their homes, their lives, their cultures. Twilight found herself becoming increasingly fascinated, in a morbid sort of way, by Thorax’s depictions of the hive. It was a truly harsh place where slacking was all but unheard of, because every drone had no choice but to pull their own weight or be left behind. It was brutal and intense, but for the drones of the hive, it worked, and it had served them well for centuries. Whatever moral objections Twilight had with this Queen Chrysalis’ methods of law enforcement, she could not deny that their system worked.
But as she sat there, chatting with this strangely friendly drone, she couldn’t help but wonder if it was so impossible for them to change their ways. If a drone like Thorax, timid, shy, sweet, and socially awkward, was able to survive and make his way, then what was preventing the others from doing the same?
Ultimately, Twilight chose not to voice these thoughts. It was not her place to try and change the way of life of an entirely new culture, especially when he still knew so little about it. So for now, she contented herself with listening to Thorax, getting to know him, and learning more about his people.
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I do wonder how long Thorax is going to be able to keep this up.
I hope Thorax and Twilight gets to bond more as the story progresses ^_^
Two adorokables should be protected at all cost lol
Nice work
I am loving this more and more. So many questions as to where this can go.
Shouldn't this be "on"?
Heh. It's really interesting to see the reaction of ponies to dark and heavy topics like this.
I don't know just how much of this is true, but at this point, this is probably being spun into propaganda to keep the drones in line.
Take notes, everyone: THIS is the proper response to something new.
10051659 OHHHH!!! So you're JUDGING other people's knee-jerk reactions? Making MORAL decisions about SOMEONE ELSE'S choices?!
HOW DARE YOUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!
...and of course ensures a certain someone stays large and in charge of said hive for however she wants, without dispute. That being a thing is usually always close by when it comes to ol' Chryssi.
Another awesome chapter. 👍
Everyone is here, Batman, Superman, S-Shrek, a car? Oooohhh noooo
10325071
De-uhh,,, whut??
Trust me she's very something else even near to the Future she was going to attack Canterlot not always add kidnapping your future sister-in-law and making shining armor into a lovesick for her use
Well in the future in season 6 things will change in the better way
It is pretty sweet Both of them talked about they're home and how they do and everything here even though thorex story is kind of sad to be honest with you and I'm sure they will find a way to share the love instead of stealing
Hmm... If Thorax starts feeding on Twi, actively or passively, the others will probably notice. Something to keep in mind I suppose.