New Home
If anyone had ever told me that a changeling might be accepted into pony society as a friend and an equal, I would have thought they’d meant a changeling disguised as a pony. But an undisguised changeling welcomed by ponies, and at that, by none other than the very alicorn princess whose wedding had nearly been ruined by the invading swarm and the Queen who had imprisoned her and stolen her husband-to-be? And that the said alicorn’s sister-in-law would be the first pony to offer a hoof of friendship to a changeling in his true form? Such a thing was unheard of; if anyone had ever told me it would happen, I would have laughed in their face!
But that laughter would have been a mere façade intended to conceal my true feelings, ones I knew would have gotten me in trouble if I revealed them too openly… ones that had in the past gotten me in trouble more times than I cared to count because I’d dared to reveal them too openly. Outwardly, I would have laughed and ridiculed the aforementioned situation; inwardly, I would have been jealous of that changeling who had somehow, miraculously, managed to befriend ponies and have himself accepted among them! I would have longed to find out how that lucky changeling had done it, I would have done everything I could to seek him out and get him to reveal the secret of his approach to me so I could attempt it too! All my life I’d wanted a friend, and all my life I’d suffered because of it; the rest of my kind had no patience for those who wanted to share love and friendship. In their eyes, those things were merely food to be taken by force from other creatures; no changeling warrior worthy of his carapace would waste time on such folly pursuits!
No changeling but me. But then again, I wasn’t a warrior, not in the least; I was a wimp, an anomaly, a disgrace of my kind and a freak of nature that needed to be wiped from existence, even more so after I’d escaped from the hive, having come to the realization that there was no future for me there, only pain and suffering! I’d had no guarantee that wherever I ended up would treat me any better, but it had been worth a try, so I’d run off regardless of what might happen. Had it been better away from the hive? Hardly, for the most part. There had been occasional bright moments, yes, but mostly I’d just experienced different flavors of misery… so much that, by the end, I’d nearly given up hope of finding what I’d been looking for so desperately!
So if anyone had told me that I was going to be that changeling who would befriend two alicorn princesses of Equestria and their dragon assistant, and that one of them would grant me permission to take up residence in her own land and become her subject, I wouldn’t have believed them! It would have been a dream come true, but I wouldn’t have thought it possible to achieve such an ambitious friendship despite my best hopes!
But that was how things had turned out, and once the paperwork was completed - whatever that meant - I would officially become a citizen of the Crystal Empire, and free to do whatever ponies were allowed to do and befriend as many of them as I wanted to befriend.
A dream come true at last! I couldn’t wait to make it official!
Of course, things weren’t quite so simple. Princess Cadance may have accepted me as a friendly soul and her subject, but Prince Shining Armor still had his misgivings about me, despite Spike’s and mine best efforts to convince him otherwise; not only was it his duty as Captain of the Royal Guard to take claims of a member of a hostile species with a grain of caution, but he had every right to suspect my motives after what my now-former Queen had done to him on his wedding day! I wanted to convince him about my good intentions, but admittedly, getting him to instantly believe my every word would have been too good to be true.
Oh well, I would just have to prove myself to him, then. Hopefully it wouldn’t turn out to be impossible! His willingness to trust his wife’s decisions about me had been a good sign, though, so maybe it wouldn’t take the rest of my life to get there!
And in the meantime, I hoped the friendships with Princess Cadance and Sunburst would balance out his animosity and suspicion. Spike, Starlight, and Princess Twilight weren’t going to stay here forever, but they had already assured me that they wouldn’t forget about me, either, and had promised to write regularly.
“‘Write regularly?’ What does that mean?” I asked Spike once we were out of the ponies’ earshot upon being given permission to leave the throne room.
“It means they’ll send letters to you,” he replied cheerfully.
“Oh.” I pondered this. “How does that work?”
“You don’t have letters in the hive?”
“There are written military reports, but I’m guessing this is different.”
“Okay… say you want to tell your friend who lives in another town about something. You take a piece of paper or parchment and write your thing, and when you’re done, you put the paper in an envelope, write your friend’s address on the envelope so the mailpony would know where to deliver the letter, stick a stamp on it, and throw it in a mailbox or take it to the post office.”
“Are there any restrictions on what I’m allowed to write, or how long the letter is allowed to be?”
“No, you write whatever you want, in as many or as few words as you need. And it isn’t supposed to be all stuck-up and formal like I’m guessing a military report or other kinds of official correspondence would be. You just write in your own words, the same like you’re doing now talking to me!”
“Just like that? Wouldn’t the mailponies disapprove of casual language or misunderstand things from time to time?”
He stared at me blankly.
“Wha- oh no, the mailponies don’t read your letters, silly!” he chuckled. “That would be a breach of privacy! They just deliver them!”
“Wow... So I can write anything I want without being randomly called to explain myself?”
“As long as whoever you’re writing to knows or can figure out what it’s about, yeah!”
This was amazing! I suddenly wanted to write a letter to Pharynx and tell him that I’d found a friendly place to live and was doing fine… but how would the mailpony deliver my letter to the hive without getting captured in the process? And wouldn’t the other changelings fail to see the importance of privacy, as Spike had called it, and read the letter themselves? And even if it did manage to reach Pharynx untampered with, what promise did I have that he wouldn’t report everything to Chrysalis?
Oh no. If Chrysalis found out where I was…
Reluctantly, I dropped the idea of writing to Pharynx. Just because I’d momentarily imagined him to be worried about me didn’t mean that he really was! In fact, he’d more likely be relieved at no longer having to protect me all the time! Better to leave things be, let him live his own life, and embrace my new life here!
“Why so glum all of a sudden?” Spike nudged me.
“Nothing… just thinking about… things.” I shrugged. “Does the Crystal Empire have a post office?”
“Every city does! The one in Crystal Empire is on the corner of Aquamarine and Amethyst Street.”
“Okay. Uh, where are Aquamarine and Amethyst Streets?” I asked sheepishly. “I’m sorry, I’m such an idiot right now!”
“Why, because you don’t know the city layout? Pffssh! You’re new here, and nopony expects you to know everything right away!”
“But I’ve been here ever since Flurry Heart was born…”
“You’ve been hiding in a cave ever since Flurry Heart was born! That’s like not having been here at all, and that short walk we had earlier today wouldn’t have taught you much about the city, even if I had known that you needed a tour!”
“If you say so…”
“Hey, why don’t I show you around now? You probably won’t learn everything right away, but at least it will give you an idea of where to look for things!”
“Sure!” I pranced excitedly. “Oh, thank you, Spike! Thank you!”
“Don’t mention it,” he winked. “That’s what friends are for!”
By now we’d reached one of the exits to the outside, and I stopped briefly and unleashed a burst of my magic.
Spike raised an eyebrow. “Crystal Hoof?”
“Princess Cadance hasn’t yet announced to the crystal ponies that a changeling will be living among them. I don’t want to cause a mass panic by looking like myself before they know to expect it!”
“Yeah, good idea. I haven’t thought of that!”
He opened the door and we stepped out into the street.
Several hours later, my head was spinning with all the new information from Spike’s tour around the city. So many street names, so many shops and public gathering spots, and so many ponies to meet and befriend everywhere! Spike had been right; I couldn’t hope to remember it all right away! I intended to try anyway; he’d tried so hard to familiarize me with my new home, and I didn’t want to disappoint him by letting that effort go to waste!
Home. How strange it felt to call a place that after such a long time on the run! But a good kind of strange! Would it live up to that word’s meaning and to my hopes and expectations? For the first time in forever, I felt confident that it just might!
Please, if I’m dreaming, don’t wake me…
“Okay, now that we’re back,” Spike spoke to me as we sat down on a couch in one of the castle’s hallways, “what do you think about the city?”
“It’s… big… and has more things of interest that I expected,” I replied. “And it’s beautiful! And there’s so much love everywhere in it, I can’t imagine ever going hungry again!” Then, pulling myself together, I added, “Do you really think the crystal ponies wouldn’t mind me feeding on it?”
“Hey, that’s entirely up to you, but I’m sure they’ll like you! Just, you know, try not to hiss… it’s kind of scary and they’re prone to freaking out for the smallest of reasons.”
Kind of like me. “I’ll make sure to remember that,” I assured him.
“Oh, there you are!” Princess Twilight came around a corner and joined us; my old reflexes kicked in as soon as I saw her, and I sprang from the couch to the shiny floor and bowed deeply. “I was wondering- oh, Thorax, you don’t have to do that! Please get up!”
I did, though half-expecting to find that her wish had been a test of my submissiveness. Would I get blasted now? I closed my eyes and braced myself for whatever was coming.
Nothing happened to me, though, and her aura of love hadn’t turned menacingly dark, so I opened my eyes again. The Princess simply turned to Spike and continued, “Where did you guys disappear to? I couldn’t find you anywhere in the castle!”
“No worries, Twi, I was just showing Thorax the city!”
“Oh. Wait, didn’t you do that earlier today? Before all that… erm, ruckus… in the throne room?”
“Hardly. Between the crystal ponies demanding stories and you teleporting us away, there just wasn’t a chance!”
“You’re right. So, Thorax, how do you like the city?”
“I love it! It’s so much better than anything I’ve ever seen before, I can’t even compare it!”
“Has Spike been a good tour guide?”
“Yes, Your Highness, he’s shown me a great deal!”
She winced slightly.
“You don’t have to call me that, you know! Just Twilight is fine!”
I smiled sheepishly and nodded. “I’ll try, Your Hig- uh, Twilight.”
“So, I was wondering… now that you’re here, would you mind answering a few questions? Don’t worry, you’re not in trouble! I was just thinking, you’re the first changeling I’ve gotten to know, and I’d like to know more about you, both you individually and changelings as a species, and because not much is known about your kind beside what little was observed during the invasion of Canterlot and glimpsed from changelings discovered sporadically and what studying the few deceased changelings available to us was able to reveal, and now that ponies have a non-hostile changeling among them, this is a perfect opportunity to gauge your abilities such as memory and learning-”
“Oh no…” Spike groaned and buried his face in his claws. “Here we go again…”
“-so,” Twilight continued excitedly, oblivious to Spike’s response and my sudden caution about her eagerness, “where is the Crystal Empire Library?”
“Huh?” Had I missed part of the speech?
“Oh come on,” she threw up her hooves, “don’t tell me Spike didn’t show you where the library is!”
“Well, he did, it’s, um…” I thought about it and pointed my hoof in a direction I thought might be correct. “That way? In the Opal Street?”
“Excellent! And the post office?”
“Um… there,” I pointed in a slightly different direction. “Corner of Aquamarine and Amethyst Streets… but why-”
“Crystal Museum?”
“Quartz Street?” I pointed again. “What does this-”
“Twilight…” Spike interjected.
“Sunburst’s house?”
“Granite Street, wha-”
“Twilight!”
“The hospital?”
“Corner of Jade and Ruby-”
“TWIIIIILLLIIIIIIIIIIGHT!”
“Yes, Spike?”
“Give Thorax a break! I know you’re perpetually hungry for test subjects for everything, but come on, he doesn’t have to be one on his first day here! I’m sure you’ll have plenty of time for that later!”
Test subject? That didn’t sound good... I cast a worried glance at Spike.
“Don’t worry about it, bud,” he assured me. “Twi here just likes to know everything about everything and doesn’t know when to stop. She has no foul intentions! She’s just naturally over-curious!”
“Ooookay,” I said.
“Well then, I’ll leave you alone now,” Twilight said. “Just one more thing: have you two made any plans for tomorrow?”
“No, not really,” Spike and I said in near-unison.
“Great! Thanks!” She turned to leave, then glanced back and said, “Oh, and which building is in Peridot-”
Spike crossed his arms and huffed loudly, interrupting her.
“Right. Sorry!”
Spike and I spent some more time on the couch, him telling me more about Twilight and her scholarly pursuits, focusing mostly on her tendency to investigate and experiment and have things backfire in the most glorious ways imaginable. I listened eagerly. If only a fraction of it was true, no wonder that she’d submitted me to an interrogation the first chance she got! And by the sound of it, I’d gotten off easily!
Some time into the storytelling, Spike let out a yawn.
“Sorry!” he apologized. “I must be more tired than I realized!”
“Well, it has been quite a day!”
Just then, Princess Cadance arrived. I bowed again.
“Hello, Thorax, and do get up,” she said with a warm smile. “You don’t have to bow all the time, you know. Anyway, I was wondering if you wouldn’t mind spending the night in Spike’s room just this once? I’ve assigned you an unoccupied room in the castle, but we haven’t had the time to fully prepare it yet. Do changelings have any special preferences?”
I looked questions at Spike and he nodded.
“Whatever you have is fine, Princess,” I told her.
“And there’s plenty of space for you in my room!” Spike added. “Remember how I’m a celebrity here? That means I get to use the biggest guest room in the castle whenever I come for a visit!”
“Thanks,” I smiled. “To both of you!”
“Well then, I’ll leave you to settle in. Good night!”
“Good night, Princess!”
When she was gone, Spike stifled another yawn.
“Why don’t we turn in for the night?” he suggested.
I agreed and he led me to his room. It was indeed big, much bigger than I’d expected! And every surface looked clean and comfortable, too!
I curled up in an empty corner and closed my eyes.
“Oh no Thorax, you’re not gonna sleep there!” I heard Spike complain and opened my eyes.
“Why? Is this your spot? Sorry, I-”
“No, it’s- why would it- what were you- Why do you want to sleep on the floor?”
“Where else am I supposed to sleep?”
“In the bed, or on the couch, or some other such thing! Don’t you know what a bed is?”
“Yeah, but aren’t beds reserved for royalty and other distinguished individuals?”
He stared at me incredulously.
“Of course not! Everypony sleeps in a bed, or sometimes a couch if a bed is unavailable!” Then, as if a realization hit him, “You’ve never slept in a bed before, have you?”
“No, lowly drones like me would be punished for even daring to think of a possibility of sleeping anywhere other than the floor… unless they’re on a mission that requires sleeping in a bed for the sake of maintaining disguise credibility, I suppose. But in the hive, if anyling has something that resembles a bed, it would be Chrysalis and noling else.” Now that I thought about it, would Pharynx have a bed too if he weren’t tainted by having me for a brother? Or had he been offered one and refused?
“In that case, may I have the honor of presenting to you the first bed you’ll ever sleep in!” He motioned to the large bed in the middle of the room and gave a theatrical bow.
“Oh, Spike, I couldn’t! This is your bed; I couldn’t possibly take it from you!”
“Don’t worry about it, I normally sleep in a basket, and anyway, this bed is too big for me! I can spend one night on the couch!”
“I don’t know, Spike…”
“Thorax.” He fixed a stern glare on me. “Either you’ll get in that bed willingly, or I’ll tie you up and throw you in it!”
“Fine, if you insist…” I got in the bed, still unsure if this was a good idea. “Hey, this is soft!”
“Why else do you think ponies use them?” he chuckled, then grabbed himself a blanket and threw it over the couch. “Well then, now that that’s settled, good night!”
“Good night, Spike!”
“And if I find you on the floor in the morning, you’ll be in for it!”
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Aww, this is a perfect first chapter! I can't wait to see where this goes! I like how Thorax still has Pharynx in his thoughts even if he's unsure if Pharynx is happy he left or not
Welcome back
Looking forward for your future updates 
Aww thats sweet thats how he felt Hopefully the crystal ponies will Accept him
10398287
Thanks!
10398335
the updates will be less frequent than you're used to, but barring any unforeseen complications, there won't be too long a wait between chapters
Thanks
10398405
No problem! Can't wait to see more!
So far this was a pretty good start I've always wonder has he been doing ever since that episode How to adjust his new home It's cool to see that again Can't wait to see How that gos 😊
Well this is a nice first chapter! Faved and tracked before I even read it. That's how much I enjoyed the other 3 stories.
10399901
Wow, thanks
this is a really good start to whet looks to be a good story.
The smile that’s spreading on my face right now is unbelievable. The way you’re writing the dynamic between the two is adorable.
So apparently Twilight didn't bother to get to know the changeling that attended Cranky and Mathilda's wedding.