Fitting In Is Hard To Do

by origami

Part I, Chapter 10 - The Princess and The Changeling

Thorax continued sitting up for a few more minutes, thinking over the dream he just had. He would've dismissed it as being nothing more than a very strange dream, but there were too many variables to consider.

Firstly, he'd never seen Princess Luna before, and had heard only vague descriptions, so he had no idea if his mind had constructed an exact and accurate copy of her. Second was the tea. He'd never had tea in his life, and the taste was nothing like anything he'd ever tried. But the most damning part of it all was the love she shared at the end. Thorax could still feel it inside him, and he knew that there was no way he could make his own love. He could only conclude that he had indeed been visited by the Lunar Princess in his dreams, but was that even possible?

A shuffling beside him caught his attention. He looked over and saw Princess Twilight Sparkle rousing from her sleep. She sat up and let out a yawn and proceeded to rub her eyes. Once she was more awake, she looked around and saw Thorax staring at her. She smiled to him and then asked him a question that caught him completely off guard. "So, did you have a good conversation with Princess Luna?"

"H-How did you know that?!" he asked her with a shocked expression.

"She told me" Twilight answered, and then shifted around so she was facing him completely. "Princess Luna has the ability to enter the dreams of sleeping ponies and interact with them. Most of the time, it's so she can help them with nightmares they're having. She used to do it long ago before her banishment, but she started doing it again since her return from being possessed by Nightmare Moon."

"We've heard of Nightmare Moon before", Thorax admitted,"But we had been told that Celestia usurped Princess Luna's power and disposed of her."

"By disposed you mean...?" Twilight asked with an uneasy look on her face. Thorax nodded.

"Well, Princess Luna is most definitely alive", Twilight responded,"The truth is that a long time ago, about a thousand years, Princess Celestia and Luna ruled over Equestria together. Princess Celestia would raise the sun for the farmers to grow their crops and the other ponies to enjoy a day of light and warmth. Princess Luna, on the other hoof, would bring up the moon and ward off the creatures of darkness from ravaging the land."

"After a while of doing this, Princess Luna became dissatisfied with the fact that no ponies would appreciate her work at night, and grew jealous of the adoration Celestia got for her day. Eventually, her jealousy attracted a creature of darkness called the Nightmare, and the creature made a deal with her that he would help her convince the ponies to appreciate her night."

"Once the princess agreed, the Nightmare took her over. It turned her into a monstrous form that sought only one purpose: To cast Equestria into eternal night."

"Princess Celestia came to realize that her sister was suffering and tried to help her, but the realization came too late, and the princess was forced to use the Elements of Harmony to try and save her sister."

"Unfortunately, the Elements had other plans. When their magic hit Luna, it sent her all the way to the moon, and cast it into a glow rivaling the sun's own. When it finally quelled, the moon was adorned with a unicorn's head in dark stones, creating the mark we knew as 'The Mare in the Moon'."

"Celestia was saddened by this turn of events, but was given a prophecy: After a thousand years, the stars would come to Luna's aid and free her and Nightmare Moon from her prison, and she would return. Of course, she did, and my friends and I became the new element bearers and stopped her, but also healed Luna, who now rules with her sister again."

Thorax looked at her in awe after hearing her story. "You really saved the princess from the control of a monster?" he asked.

Twilight nodded. "Yep, and Princess Celestia then set me on the path to becoming the pony I am today." She adjusted in her spot for more comfort before telling her story.

"You see, when I was a filly, I lived in Canterlot with my parents and brother. I was so obsessed with learning about magic, I didn't have any friends. When the day came and I took the test to be admitted to Celestia's School for Gifted Unicorns, I was practically a shut in."

"When I took the test, I was given what amounted to an impossible task: Hatch a dragon's egg. I did every trick I could think of to hatch it, but nothing worked. I was about to give up and start crying, thinking I was going to fail and not get to study at the most prestigious magic school in all of Equestria, but I looked up at the window to the sky outside and seen something impossible happening before my eyes."

"What was it?" Thorax asked her.

"It was a sonic rainboom", Twilight answered,"It's something that can only happen when a pegasus pony goes faster than the speed of sound. The magic energy coming off of their body combines with the moisture cone created by the breaking of the sound barrier and results in a rainbow colored shockwave in the air."

"When I saw something I always knew to be impossible, I knew I had to try again. So, I dumped every last ounce of energy I had left into a spell to try and hatch that egg, and suddenly, something happened."

"What?" asked Thorax.

"A mess of different spells happening simultaneously. Of note, I turned my parents into a set of house plants. But the biggest one was the egg, which not only hatched, but caused the baby dragon inside the grow to adulthood."

"Wow", Thorax said with surprise,"You actually managed to hatch the egg?"

"Mhm", answered Twilight,"It was at that moment that I got my cutie mark. I'd spent every moment studying all I could about magic, that I found my special talent during the test. When Celestia saw my mark, she was both surprised and happy for me. That's when Celestia told me something that caught me completely off guard: She told me I shouldn't have been able to hatch the egg."

"But, you said you did?" Thorax said confused.

"I wasn't supposed to be able to", Twilight clarified,"Princess Celestia gave me that test to see one very important thing: how I handled failing. Hatching the dragon's egg was supposed to be impossible for a foal. She wanted to see how I would react when I couldn't do it."

"But, I did it, even after all my failures. It told her that not only was I worthy of attending her school, but that I was also going to become a very powerful magic user. So, she decided that I was to become her personal protege, and from that day forward, I almost exclusively lived at the castle with her."

"Didn't your parents object to that?", Thorax asked,"I would think most pony parents would want their kids to stay with them."

"They weren't too thrilled to find that out", Twilight admitted,"but I promised to come home and see them everyday after my lessons. My brother had far more concerns, mostly that I would become a shut in in the castle library, and never leave for anything but my lessons and seeing my parents."

"Once I was living in the castle full time, I devoted myself entirely to studying magic, and I made almost no spare time for things like friends. Of course, Celestia saw this and insisted that I make an effort to have some, so I kept a few. Minuette, Moondancer, Lemon Hearts and Twinkle Shine."

"We never interacted very much, but it kept Celestia from pressing me too much about the subject. After a few years, I learned about the mare in the moon legend and I insisted that something needed to be done to prepare for her return, but Celestia dismissed my concerns saying that such a thing was not to be worried about. In fact, she then insisted that I travel to the location of the next Summer Sun Celebration to help the ponies prepare for it. That place was Ponyville."

"Where you met the other element bearers" Thorax inferred.

Twilight nodded in confirmation. "They were all working hard to get everything ready. Well, except for Rainbow Dash. She was slacking off, but her intense speed allowed her to get the weather in Ponyville clear, in ten seconds flat as she claimed."

"All of the others worked hard to get their own tasks completed. Applejack and her family prepared a whole bunch of food, Rarity was making costumes for a play at town hall, and Fluttershy was preparing a choir of songbirds to sing in front of Princess Celestia. Pinkie Pie was setting up festivities, and she even found the time to throw a party for me arriving in Ponyville too."

"I wasn't the most polite pony to them initially, but I was more concerned with Nightmare Moon returning, which became reality when she appeared during the ceremony in Celestia's place. She'd already locked Celestia away and was setting about creating her eternal night. I immediately went to the town library to find out what I could about a method of stopping her, specifically for a book on the elements of harmony."

"The five ponies who would become my friends confronted me and I explained how I knew what was going on and what needed to be done. They all insisted on following me into the Everfree Forest and to the old Castle of the Twin Sisters, Celestia and Luna's first palace."

"We had many hardships on the way there, but each one revealed to me that each was showing an attribute of the elements. Once we reached the castle and found the actual elements, Nightmare Moon revealed herself and destroyed the original elements."

"She destroyed them?", Thorax asked,"But then, how did you use them to stop her?"

"Like I said, Thorax, I realized that each of them represented an attribute of the elements. In fact, I understood then and there that ALL of us were the elements, just in a living form. When I realized that, new elements were created, and with their combined power, we purged the nightmare from Luna and freed her from its control."

"Shortly after that, Celestia appeared and congratulated us on defeating her, and then revealed to us that it was her plan all along for me to defeat nightmare. I just needed to realize the most important part needed for the elements to work: Friendship."

"Celestia decreed that from that day forward, I was to become the town's librarian and stay in Ponyville to learn all I could about friendship, as well as report back to her the things I learned. She even encouraged my five new friends to write with what they learned as well."

"Wow", Thorax said in amazement,"That's quite a story to tell. But, that dragon egg you hatched. That was Spike, wasn't it?"

"Yep", came the voice of the scaly drake himself,"Twilight hatched me from the egg and I've been by her side ever since."

"That's amazing!" Thorax said.

"Do you have a story to tell, Thorax?" Twilight asked.

"Not much of one, really" Thorax answered.

"Let's hear it anyway" Spike said, encouraging Thorax to share.

"Well", Thorax began,"I knew when I was hatched as a larva that I was different from all the other changelings. They were all born hissing and squirming around trying to bite at one another, but I never did any of that. When I was growing up, I tended to play around with some of the pony things infiltrators brought back on missions. I found figurines and would play with them, trying to imagine what ponies were actually like, when they weren't wrapped up in cocoons."

Twilight and Spike got uneasy looks when he talked about ponies in cocoons. Thorax continued his story.

"I was always bullied in the hive by other nymphs that saw me as a weakling. They'd hit me and call me mean names. I tried ignoring it for a while, and even once tried to stand up for myself, but I never could. After a while, it got to me."

"But there was always one good thing I could count on in the hive: My clutchmate Pharynx. You could probably call him an older brother, if only by like five minutes. He would actually chase the bullies bothering me away, but then he also bullied me too."

"That's awful!", Twilight responded,"How could your brother do that to you?!"

"Honestly, I think he thought he was making me tougher", Thorax answered,"He always excelled in all the things that changelings could do, like his shapeshifting. His favorite form to take was a spider monster that could make even the bravest nymph run away in terror. But because I was his brother, that always tended to hold him back, which I think made him resent me after that."

"Your brother doesn't sound like the greatest guy" Spike said.

"He's not that bad", Thorax defended,"One time I got beaten up so badly by the other nymphs, he shared some love he'd gotten with me so I could heal faster."

"Wait!", Twilight said while holding a hoof up,"Pharynx shared love with you? I thought you said changelings couldn't do that?"

"It's not a question of ability to share love more than a desire to", Thorax answered,"Changelings are so hungry all the time that the idea of sharing even a little bit sounds like suicide."

"But your brother did it for you" Twilight pointed out.

"And I'm very grateful to him for that", Thorax responded,"but he only did it that one time and he never did it again after that. In all honesty, it did something to him after that. He didn't seem as close to me as before."

"Anyways, I grew up into an adult drone and I was put through the paces to see where I would be placed in the hive. I failed every test miserably and disappointed all the instructors testing me and my brother. At the end of it, they assigned me to be a scrubber, or what you'd call a janitor. It was supposed to humiliate me, but I didn't care; Being anything else meant that I would have to be mean, and I could never get myself to act in such a way."

"So they made you a janitor?", Spike responded,"That doesn't sound too bad."

"Honestly, it was", Thorax countered,"Often times, drones with defects are placed there, like ones born without wings or ones that can't control their magic enough to transform correctly. I guess they saw my unwillingness to be mean as a defect."

"Well, I can tell you it isn't", Twilight told him,"Sometimes, you're at your strongest when you're the most compassionate. Please, continue."

"Thank you", Thorax continued,"Anyways, I was a janitor for a few years until somewhat recently. I don't think I have to tell you what changed that."

"Canterlot" Twilight said.

Thorax nodded. "We were told that every changeling in the hive would be necessary for the plan the queen had created. I tried to stay out of it by requesting I be placed in the hatchery to watch over the nymphs. I was denied and forced to run drills, which I was very poor at doing. This time around, the instructors kept at it until I did them correctly at least once. After that, I was told to resume my duties and study the materials that were given to me until they day we were to move out."

"You wouldn't happen to have those materials still?" Twilight asked hopefully.

"No", Thorax answered,"Everyling was told to take nothing, and that our magic was all that was necessary. Well, except for the Praetorians, or the royal guard as you would call them. They brought armor and spears."

"When we got to the outskirts of the city, we were told to remain in hiding until a signal was given. Once that happened, we were ordered to attack the shield over the city and begin collect ponies. Once the shield broke, all my hivemates swarmed in to attack, except me. I elected to hang back and try to go unnoticed. It was after a minute or so that I saw you and your friends, and you changed my life for what I hope to be the better."

"That's when you saw us heading to the vault to collect the elements of harmony" Twilight inferred.

Thorax nodded. "You were surrounded on all sides and fought until you couldn't anymore. I saw you all working together, and it sparked something inside me. A desire to have what you all did. I knew then and there that I couldn't abide by Queen Chrysalis' ways any longer."

"Not long afterwards, that huge blast of love threw us from Canterlot, and I landed in some random forest not too far away. I got lucky; I found a few hivemates that didn't fare so well, and I had to report their losses when I got back to the hive a few days later. I didn't stay in the hive for very long after that."

"I initially tried to make friends with other changelings in the hive, but I pretty much got the same treatment as before, perhaps even a little worse. I knew after a while that trying to make friends in the hive was a fool's errand, and decided I had to leave and find someplace else to have better odds. That's when I came to realize I had to return to Equestria, even after what happened in Canterlot and the horrible reputation changelings now had because of it. It was my only chance."

"So you returned to Equestria, even though you knew your chances of success were so low?" Twilight asked. Thorax gave a simple nod. "That was incredibly brave of you", she remarked,"Most ponies I know wouldn't even think to try something like that."

"Like I said, it was my only chance", Thorax responded,"I spent a lot of time traveling across Equestria, trying to find somepony to make friends with. Every time, however, something always happened that threatened to reveal my true form and I was forced to leave. One time, I was very nearly found out."

"You were almost found out?" Twilight asked.

"Yeah", replied Thorax,"I was working a day job in Manehattan and had used some of the bits to stay in a hotel for a few days. I was cleaning myself in the shower when the housekeepers walked in on me. I had been using an earth pony disguise when I checked in, but I was out of it when I was in the bathroom."

"Fortunately, I was in the shower stall with the curtain drawn, so I was obscured, but they could still tell it wasn't the stallion who checked in. They asked me who I was, so I had to think quick and pretend I was my disguise's marefriend." Thorax accented the end of the sentence by adopting a feminine voice.

Twilight was shocked for a second before she remembered changelings could also change their voice. "I'd say that was a close call", she remarked.

"That was the closest one", Thorax responded,"After that, I had to check out and go to another hotel for the rest of my time there before I moved on. That was about two months ago."

"Did you ever end up in Ponyville during your trip?" Spike asked.

"I did, but I didn't stay for very long", Thorax answered,"A crazy pink mare rushed me and said something about a party, but I left very quickly. I didn't want to take any chances being in a big crowd of ponies and being overwhelmed by love energy and lose my disguise."

Twilight went wide eyed. "So that was YOU that left in a rush after Pinkie said hello!"

Thorax looked confused for a second before his mind filled in the blank, then adopted a shocked look. "You mean that the crazy pink mare was Pinkie Pie, the element of laughter?"

Twilight nodded. "She was upset for the rest of the day because of that. Fortunately, there was another new arrival so she just threw the party for them, but she was sad she never got to throw one for you."

"Well, I'm sorry I upset her", Thorax replied,"but I hope she can understand why someday. That is, when she learns about me and what I am."

"I'm sure she will" Twilight reassured. A knock them came from the door, waking everyone else in the room up. The guard standing at the door opened it and was greeted by a crystal guard.

"I'm your replacement", he told the thestral guard, then turned to Twilight and said,"Princess Cadance would like you and the others to have breakfast with her. The changeling is to stay here under guard. Captain Shining Armor's orders."

Twilight wanted to object, but elected not to. In her gut, she felt that she was going to be scolded by her brother for her treatment of the guard yesterday. "We'll be back after breakfast", she told him,"You can read one of the books in my saddlebags if you get bored." She rose to her hooves and walked towards the door. Before she walked out, she turned back to Thorax.

"Oh, one last thing" she said to him.

"What's that?" he asked.

Twilight gave a smile and answered "You still owe Pinkie Pie her party."

Author's Note:

Fun fact about this chapter - I didn't write a draft for it! I got the idea for this after reading comments mentioning the lack of interaction between Twilight and Thorax in the show, so here I have them in a bonding moment of sharing stories.

Comments

[theOwtcast]

Ooh, I wonder how Pinkie's party will go! hopefully with plenty of hugs for our favorite cinnabug?

[SpikeSmolder fan]

Awww loved the info we got regarding Thorax's tour of Equestria before ending at the Crystal Empire, here's hoping Pinkie gets to throw cool bug that party!

[Scyphi]

A nice chapter, though I don't know if we needed Twilight's recap of her history in quite that much detail, seeing we the readers already ought to know at least the basics there.

[origami]

10782866
True, but Thorax didn't, so exposition for the benefit of a main character.

[Scyphi]

10782912
Which I understand, but the audience viewpoint still applies, because if it gets too "recappy" for the reader, it then becomes less "story" and more "info dump" for something they already know, and then it breaks immersion and becomes boring. And if the reader becomes bored...the less likely they are to keep reading.

The trick is to try and find that "sweet spot" between recapping enough for the benefit of the in-story cast, without becoming play-by-play, or at least as close to that as you can get. It's admittedly a difficult thing to accomplish sometimes, and every author has that point where it's hard to figure out the right balance, regardless of skill or experience...but I've found that the best approach is to just stick to the barest minimum details that are required for telling the story. If it's not actually very relevant to the story now or later on in the tale, or isn't "need-to-know" for the characters involved, then more than likely it can be safely omitted entirely, or at least blurred over.

An example: I don't think Thorax actually needed to know every specific task the Mane 6 were doing for the Summer Sun Festival, at least not for these purposes.

[Melody Song]

Ooh, nice job! I like how Twilight is being ever the egghead and asking a bunch of questions. She and Thorax play off each other well. Poor buggo though, he doesn't even get a little love because the guard's going to be the only one there

[Starlight Glimmer1]

Twilight wanted to object, but elected not to. In her gut, she felt that she was going to be scolded by her brother for her treatment of the guard yesterday.

You did nothing wrong, Twilight.

10782866
I agree. Honestly I skipped over most of Twilight’s story.

[origami]

10783822
I do agree with his point of view regarding the amount of exposition, but I still stand by writing it that way. To me, it fits with Twilight's character. She can be just as overeager of a teacher as she can be an overeager student.

[intherainbowfactory]

Bro writing a whole essay Les Miserables style💀💀💀