A New Day
The first few moments of a morning were always a pleasant thing for Twilight. Unburdened by the knowledge of what her day might bring or what might have transpired before, she was free to feel relaxed and content with her life. But then, as the sounds of chirping birds outside caused her mind to reboot itself back to proper form, her smile started to fade, and her eyes widened. Almost instantly, she sat up in bed, her head darting in all directions. All seemed peaceful, with no sign of anything out of place. Even Spike was in his usual spot, sleeping in his basket at the foot of her bed, with nothing suggesting that he'd been disturbed in he night. And she herself, after patting herself down, felt totally fine. No hint of any tiredness or illness. All in all, things were good. But naturally, that was what she'd wanted, though even so, she remained wary as she finally got herself out of her bed, looking down to her young charge and, with the image of his smiling and sleeping face, breathed a sigh as she started to ease up a touch. Walking over to the door of her room, she took a deep breath as she held onto the knob. "Alright...here we go."
Opening her door, she cautiously took step after step as she made her way downstairs. Throughout her careful move down she was looking all over, keeping an eye out for her new guest, and only once she was in full view of the downstairs chamber did she finally notice him. Thorax, sitting quietly at the front door, staring at it intently and standing almost as still as a statue. It was an odd thing, to be sure, but before Twilight could speak up to ask him what he was doing, her hoof on the floor as she finally descended the stairs caused a slight creak, gaining his attention. He turned, looking to her and giving a bow of his head. "My Queen."
Twilight, rolling her eyes at what she now knew was a title she was going to need to get used to, took a few steps closer to him. "Good morning, Thorax. Sleep well?"
Thorax shook his head. "No. I did not. We Changelings do not sleep."
That information caught the young unicorn off-guard. "Wait...seriously?"
Thorax nodded to confirm his words. "We are...different from you ponies. Many of the things you regularly do are no concerns for us."
Looking to the side, Twilight tried to process that concept. "Huh...never sleeping. I'd get so much more studying done!" Then, shaking her head, she looked to him again. "Thoughts for later. On another note, why were you having a staring contest with my front door?"
Thorax gestured to it. "It's the only way in or out of the ground floor. Any threats would likely come in this way."
Staring at him for a moment, it took Twilight no time at all to put two and two together. "Were you...guarding me?"
"I'd be a poor drone if I didn't," Thorax replied.
Twilight gave herself a facehoof and sighed. "Thorax, I've already told you, you're not a drone!" Then, after pausing to think on her own words, she continued. "I mean, you are a drone, but...I don't want you to think of yourself as just some mindless automaton that's here to serve me."
"...But that is what I am," the Changeling insisted.
Again, Twilight sighed. "Okay, this'll be harder than I thought," she muttered to herself. Moving closer to him, she spoke in a softer tone. "Look, I appreciate the gesture, but you don't need to worry about protecting me. Ponyville is probably the safest place in all of Equestria."
Thorax, for the first time since Twilight had met him, showed some hint of emotion after those words, in this case the narrowing of his eyes to show disapproval. "Everywhere is the 'safest place'...until it isn't."
Twilight, stifling the urge to look amused by his unexpectedly dour view on the matter, cleared her throat. "Well, that's certainly a cynical perspective."
Thorax turned from her, looking again to her door. "I suppose it's simply what we're used to. For much of our history, we Changelings lived in the lands beyond Equestria's borders. Those distant places were often...harsh."
Twilight could feel the untold story of difficult and unhappy lives behind his words, but before she could ask about it, her ears picked up the creaking of her stairs, and before long her lifelong companion Spike was happily making his way down to her. "Morning, Twilight!"
His dearest friend smiled down to him once he was beside her. "And to you, Spike."
Spike, finally noticing Thorax, waved to him somewhat nervously. "And, er...good morning to you too, Thorax." The drone glanced back, never saying anything but giving a nod of acknowledgement, prompting Spike to again look to Twilight. "So...breakfast?"
Nodding to him, the two made their way over to the table at the centre of the chamber, only occasionally looking to the library's latest resident as they busied themselves with the normal routine of getting their first meal. Twilight, for her part, ignited her horn and levitated a bowl to her before bringing out an open box of what was soon revealed to be oats, which were promptly poured into the aforementioned crockery. As for Spike, he too had a bowl, but this one was filled with shining gemstones, which naturally led to a good deal of salivation for the little dragon. Only a few moments passed before the two smiled to one another and began to get down to their food. But, after only a single bite, courtesy and politeness began to become dominant in Twilight's mind, and she again regarded Thorax. "Oh! How rude of me! Thorax, would you like to join us?"
He faced her, shaking his head slightly. "Thank you for the offer, my Queen, but my kind don't eat."
Spike, with one of his cheeks clearly filled with half-chewed gems, looked to him with incredulity. "Um...don't you guys eat love though?"
Twilight, briefly concerned that her number one assistant had said something offensive, shot him a look, leading both both a degree of embarrassment and a quick shrug from Spike. As for Thorax, he was, thankfully, unconcerned with the remark, and simply shook his head again. "It's not really 'eating' in the sense that you understand it. Love can be drained from the prey into a form of magical energy, which is absorbed into the Changelings. It's like..." He strained his face here, trying to come up with some sort of metaphor to explain things. "It's like how a flower might absorb sunlight to keep itself going. It has no organ like a stomach to take it in, but an alternate system in its biology. The same is true of us."
Twilight, ever the scientist, was leaning forward, clearly intrigued by the explanation, to the point where she again used her magic to bring over a notepad, onto which she began to scribble furiously. "Fascinating!"
Spike, on his side of things, just blinked. "You...don't have a stomach?"
"No," Thorax replied flatly.
"Are there...any other organs you don't have?" the little dragon asked, somewhat gripped by morbid curiosity.
Thorax's face was as difficult to read as ever. "Name an organ ponies have and there's a good chance it's absent from me."
Spike, despite his best efforts not to, shuddered at the prospect of just what the insides of this guy looked like, while Twilight, who was far less concerned about it, looked to her aide with a calmer air about her. "Having no stomach certainly explains why Chrysalis wasn't all that fond of Applejack's cooking before the wedding."
Her draconic friend looked to her with surprise that that's what she was focusing on right now, before again starting to feel that earlier curiosity. "So..." He glanced in Thorax's direction again. "If you were to have some of our breakfast...what would happen?"
Thorax's eyes drifted over to the bowls on the table. "In the case of your breakfast, I'd likely chip my fangs on it."
Spike looked over to his gems, then chuckled with some embarrassment. "Hehe, oh, right."
"As for Twilight's...I imagine it would simply pass through me, undigested. Either that or it'd just linger in my body somewhere for the rest of my life."
"Probably best not to test that point then," Twilight concluded.
"Agreed," Thorax replied drily.
Spike, who'd been quietly looking to Thorax for a good few moments, hopped out of his chair and started to walk over to him. "What if...you changed to look like one of us?" Seeing the blank look he got from the Changeling, and confusion from Twilight, he explained. "I mean, if a Changeling can't eat like we can, why not change into one of us to do so?"
As had happened several times this morning, Thorax shook his head. "It wouldn't change anything, as odd as that may sound. Our shapeshifting is purely surface level. Enough to fool others into thinking we're something we're not. Appearance, the sound of our voices, even smell in the case of some of the more talented shapeshifters among us. But what's inside would remain as it is."
Twilight, of course, was continuing to write all of this down. "I could probably make a whole book about the things I'm learning about you."
Thorax nodded. "Indeed. And I'm sure your earlier tests would likely help with that also."
Twilight coughed to indicate her embarrassment. "Yes, well...I wish I could say that was the case, but..."
Spike, burying his face in his hands, groaned somewhat. "Oh no. Tell me you didn't go full Twilight and hook him up to all that weird stuff in the basement?"
Twilight couldn't look him in the eye, instead keeping her gaze on her notes. "I...yeah, I did." Only now did she look a him. "Can you blame me?! A complete unknown walks in and offers himself to us and you think I'm not going to treat the chance like the biggest research opportunity of my life?!"
Looking up to her, Spike shook his head. "After the Pinkie Sense incident? Yeah, I kinda did."
Twilight blushed before turning away from him. "Look, the bottom line is that it didn't do me any good. All my instruments just got...nothing. It's like they weren't hooked up to him at all."
Another nod from Thorax. "It is part of our nature. We'd be poor infiltrators if tools such as those could take readings from us. Our abilities shield us, even when not in use." Then, he gestured to his host. "Only magic can counter it, as you yourself found out during our fight at Canterlot."
Setting her notes aside on the table, Twilight looked him over. "So...anything I learn from you will have to be either through observation or your explanations."
"Correct," Thorax answered, as sterile in his tone as ever.
But, contrary to the disappointment Spike expected his friend to display, Twilight instead clapped her hooves together happily. "Excellent! Some proper, old-fashioned discovery!"
Spike looked to her, clearly amused, then faced Thorax. "Better prepare yourself, buddy. You might be in for a rough ride with all of her questions."
However, Thorax seemed unfazed by the prospect. "From the moment I was hatched I spent my life as either a digger of tunnels or as canon-fodder. It's not anything I can't handle."
It was a response that wiped the smile from Spike's face. "Gee, way to bring down he mood, Thorax." Then, slowly, and after waiting for Thorax to again resume his vigil of watching the front door like a hawk, Spike gestured for Twilight to come closer. Once she'd done so, the drake again glanced to Thorax, albeit briefly, before keeping his voice to a whisper. "I know he can't have any of our food, but he'll need something eventually. What do we do when his, you know, 'love supply' runs out and he needs more?"
Slowly, Twilight sighed. "A bridge we'll cross when we come to it, Spike."
Well, definitely back into my writing now, and I figured I'd start by getting back to one of my golden oldies 
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Can't say I expected this to update! Definitely a welcome surprise, however!
I wonder if the next chapter will come out soon or not.
Yeah but that's still kind of strange
Yeah that's sometimes you cannot explain even the most unexpected one
Oh wow I wasn't expecting this update from you but it's cool to hear from you anyway so Twilight have woken up kind of forgotten that thorax was there and basically he was up all night guarding the door which Twilight told him he didn't have to but he insisted and he explained how the changelings are which pretty interesting I had to say well I hope that thorax will eventually will chill out but with a little help on Twilight and the others I'm sure he'll have something in his life well I guess we'll find out next time oh and by the way Happy New Year
A new chapter? A surprise to be sure, but a welcome one.
...how? That's an important biological need that I can't think of any organism (on the same level of complexity as a changeling at least) can really do without...and also live for any meaningful amount of time.
Hmm...I suppose magic can make up the difference somehow...
*thinks about all of the monster attacks, villain attacks, CMC crusades, and those times parasprites and Spike's greed growth nearly leveled the town*
Yyyyyeeaaaaahhhh, as much as I'd like to agree with you there, Twi...might actually have to dispute you on that claim just a little.
Well, that does imply there's still something connecting point A with point B that at least serves as a placeholder for a digestive tract, even if it serves no real function as one, at least in any sense we'd understand.
Does make one wonder the evolutionary route taken for changelings to get that though, since my gut instinct would think that suggests some evolutionary ancestor to changelings did indeed have a conventional digestive tract, but later evolved out of needing it and it's now either something else entirely, or just a vestigial leftover at best.
...and I am probably thinking entirely too hard about it, but overthinking it is fun for me!
I expect they can still eat food (as in putting it into the mouth and swallow), but don't gain anything from it.
Otherwise a disguise won't hold long if a certain "pony" never eats.
I don't think the other hives would be particular happy about that...
If you spread too much information about Changelings they might consider to intervene.
Maybe a hug by Fluttershy of or Princess of Love (sometimes called Princess of Food among 'lings).
Good chapter!
I enjoyed reading it.
Made an account just to start following this story
Update! Yay!
Could we, perhaps, possibly expect more to come?
Fate: OK, Twiggles, you've tempted me for the last time!
Ponyville? Safest place in all of Equestria???
WHEEZE
Good joke, Twilight! Ponyville is many things, but it's not exactly a "safe" place, let alone the safest.
Interesting take you got here
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