Part IV, Chapter 3 - Train Ride to Equestria
It was approaching the time that would normally be Thorax's lunch break, at least if he were working in the Crystal Palace. The changeling, disguised as Crystal Hoof, was sitting on a train bound for Equestria. It would be a landmark moment of sorts for him, and for changelings in general: his visit was the first officially sanctioned visit for the secretive race, meaning that the princesses granted Thorax permission to come to Equestria.
As for Thorax himself, he was sitting on the train looking out the window at the scenery. For the most part, it was somewhat bland: snowy plains that stretched on to the mountains of the frozen north. The rail line going to and coming from the empire was new, and wards embedded into the ties that held the track in place helped to keep the route clear of snow as well as dampen the worst effects of the powerful snowstorms that took place outside the empire. Still, the engine was equipped with a plow in case there was a need to push their way through the worst of a storm, as well as a week of extra rations should they become stuck for any extended amount of time.
His main reason for looking out the window was to distract himself from his nervous thoughts. In his time since the conclusion of the trial against him, he'd come to have more acceptance from ponies here than he could have ever expected. He had real friends, and the princess was ensuring his safety by taking him as her ward and also offering her friendship.
Going to Equestria, however, was re-entering familiar, yet also unknown territory.
As he understood it, the royal guards would be made aware of him beforehoof, so there were definitely ponies that were going to be aware of what he was. The unknown was going to be how those guards would react to him.
Would they be more open-minded to the idea of a changeling wanting to live with ponies on peaceful terms? Were there some that would not and only act professionally at best? Or were there ponies that would simply attack him on sight, regardless of the consequences?
Looking away from the window and wanting a new distraction from his more negative thoughts, Thorax took a look at some of the ponies around him.
As he saw them, he noticed that none of them were crystal ponies. It struck him as being a little weird. Despite the return of the Crystal Empire, the ponies who lived there didn't seem too curious about the greater world beyond the influence of the Crystal Heart's magic. Perhaps they were simply too nervous to venture away from the protection of the Crystal Heart; King Sombra did enslave them when it disappeared, after all.
He was shaken from his thoughts by a tapping on his withers. Looking up, he saw a mare standing in front of him. "May I sit here?" she asked him, gesturing to the empty seat across from him.
"Um, sure" he replied, making a gesture to the seat as well.
"Thank you" she said to him as she took her seat on the empty bench. "I hate to travel by myself all the way up here. It gets dreadfully boring!"
"You travel up to the empire?" Thorax asked.
She nodded. "I did some genealogy and discovered that my family on my mother's side had ancestors that lived up here before it disappeared the first time. When it came back, I looked up names in the most recent census and found some names on the register, so I decided to come up and rediscover old ties."
"That's interesting" Thorax comments.
"Yeah," the mare agrees, "but like I said, the train ride where all you have to look at is snow gets really boring."
"It does" Thorax responded. "I have some books with me, but I'm gonna be traveling for quite some time, so I don't want to read through them all and end up with nothing to do."
The mare nodded in agreement. "I know what you mean. I have a book in my bag as well. I can't really read it right now because..."
She trails off and makes some kind of gesture that Thorax doesn't quite understand. "You can't read it now because?"
She looks left and right before leaning in and informing him "It's a steamy romance book."
Thorax blinked for a moment as he processed the information. He'd heard of those kinds of books. They were supposedly good at drumming up love in a pony that was interested in them, at least according to infiltrators he'd overheard in the hive. His disguise blushed as he realized what she was talking about.
"Yes, well," Thorax says after he clears his throat, "I can understand why you don't want to be reading that sort of book with other ponies around."
The mare holds her look for a moment before a smile cracks it and she begins laughing.
"I don't read romance books, you silly colt!" she says as she gives him a soft punch in his foreleg.
Thorax looks at her with confusion for a moment before he realizes her small prank on him. “Real funny” he says dryly.
“Oh, get off it ya big foal” she chides him. “I'm actually an author."
Her comment had taken Thorax by surprise. "Really? Anything I may have read?"
"No" she tells him. "I haven't gotten anything published yet."
Thorax looks at her with a frown.
"I moved up here to meet some of my ancestors," she continues, "but I was also looking for inspiration for writing. I did write a few manuscripts while coming up here during my trips, but nopony seems to want to publish them. I tried one of the publishers up here and they told me to wait to hear from them."
Thorax smiled at her. "Well, I hope they publish your story."
"Me too" she answered back. "What's your name?"
Thorax paused for a moment before he answered to make sure he told her the right name. "I'm Crystal Hoof."
The mare smiled. "I'm Fidget."
Thorax smiled back as the conversation between the two died down for a few minutes. Soon enough, the mare got curious again. "Where are you heading?"
"Well," Thorax answered, "I'm actually taking a tour of Equestria right now. I'm not sure where I'll get off the train first, but it certainly won't be my last stop."
Fidget smiles. "I've wanted to see all of Equestria too. There's a lot of it to see, and I can't imagine you can see all of it in a week's time."
"Well, I'm gonna be gone longer than a week" Thorax tells her. "I want to fit as much as I can in before I come back to the Crystal Empire. I really want to have some stories to tell my friends!"
Fidget smiles as silence falls between them again. This time, however, it last unitl the dining car announces that it will begin serving afternoon tea and biscuits.
Upon hearing this, Fidget looks at Thorax with a smile. "Care to join me for some tea?" she asks.
Thorax smiles back at her. "That sounds like a wonderful idea."
The dining car wash even more luxurious than what Thorax had seen of the train so far. There were benches similar to the ones he had been sitting on, except these had more cushion to them, as well as a table sitting between the two benches facing one another. On the tables were a salt shaker, pepper shaker, a tall jar with what appeared to be sugar, a rectangular dish that he remembered was for holding a stick of butter, a napkin dispenser, and a set of tea cups resting upside down on matching saucers.
Fidger walked ahead and picked out a seat. As she did, her tail would sway from one side to the other, and if Thorax wasn't careful with his eyes, he would probably get an eyeful of something it would be rude to see without the mare's say so. Once she was seated, he sat opposite of her.
"So," Fidget continues their earlier conversation, "you're a crystal pony?"
"Uh, yeah" Thorax answered her question. Inside, he winced a little bit. He really wasn't a fan of lying, but with what Princess Cadance had told him of the recent events involving changelings in Equestria, it was a necessary evil. He wanted to make friends with ponies, not be run out of the kingdom on a rail, so he'd have to go with a cover story and disguise until things improved.
"What was it like before it all disappeared?"
Her question caught him off guard a little bit. Sunburst had taught him some about the Crystal Empire before it disappeared, but he only knew so much, and Thorax had never talked about the empire before it came back with any of the real crystal ponies that actually would've been around when it disappeared to begin with.
"It... was good" he finally replied, sounding a little forlorn. "At least, until Sombra usurped Princess Amore."
"Was she a good ruler?"
"Everypony loved her," came Thorax's response, "and she loved all of us."
He attempted to make the story sound like a bad memory so Fidget would be dissuaded from continuing the conversation. It worked, as Fidget now looked a bit uneasy. "Sounds like I'm making you relive some bad memories."
Thorax shakes his head. "You're not. It's just... well, in the past. There's nothing anypony can do to change it, unless they have a time travel spell, but I don't even know if one exists."
The last sentence wasn't exactly a lie; Starlight had told him about Starswirl's spell, and nopony knew if there was another copy of it somewhere.
"Yeah, I guess so" Fidget responds. Their conversation tails off for a few minutes. Thorax takes the time to try and get a gauge on Fidget's emotions. He feels... nervousness?
"Crystal," she says after a moment, "I gotta be honest with you. I think you're... really cute."
"Oh?" It's the only reply Thorax can think to give her.
"Yeah. In fact..."
Fidget leaves her seat and moves over beside him. Sitting down, she looks him in the eyes.
"I wouldn't mind if we spent more time together after we got to Equestria."
Thorax keeps his composure, but in his brain, alarm bells are going off. Fidget has taken a fancy to him, and he can already feel affections being directed towards him.
"I... Uhh..."
The disguised changeling can't put words together in response to her advance. Sure, she wasn't trying to jump into bed with him, but that possibility was all too real; he could sense lust building in her alongside the affection.
"Could you... excuse me for a second?" Thorax asked, needing a moment to clear his head away from the mare.
Unfortunately, he could feel a bit of hurt in her. "Okay" she said as she slid out to let him stand up. Quickly, Thorax stepped out and headed to the bathroom towards the rear of the train car.
Inside the bathroom, Thorax locked the door and dropped his disguise. "What am I gonna do?" he kept repeating to himself over and over again.
He could see getting to know Fidget as a pony, even becoming friends. That was not what was on her mind right now. She was thinking about him as a special somepony, which wasn't exactly good for Thorax.
If he was a different kind of changeling, a normal one by hive standards, this would've been the perfect opportunity. It was quite literally like dinner serving itself as far as the hive was concerned. He began to imagine how much love the mare could provide him and how sweet it would be.
Thorax gave himself a hard slap across the face. "Pull yourself together!" he berated himself. "You left the hive so you wouldn't have to do that anymore! She didn't give you permission to feed AND she doesn't even know you are a changeling!" Seeing himself in the mirror, he scrunched up his face and turned back into Crystal Hoof.
"I just have to tell her that I'm not interested in a relationship right now, or even a tryst" Thorax finally decided. He didn't want to hurt her, but it would be better to be up front with her now than leading her on and being tempted into feeding off her later.
Leaving the bathroom and walking back into the dining car, Thorax saw Fidget sitting at the booth they'd taken, her cup of tea having a spoon swirling around inside it. Letting out a breath, he approached her.
Fidget took notice of him as he approached. "Are you okay now?" she asked him.
"I am" he told her as he resumed his seat.
Once seated, Thorax tried to put the words together to tell Fidget that he wasn't interested in her offer. Fidget, however, spoke up first.
"I'm sorry, Crystal."
Her words to Thorax by surprise. He hadn't expected that, but maybe she was actually remorseful before he went to the bathroom and not actually hurt.
"Most of the stallions I've tried to start relationships with find me a bit too forward. I've tried to be conscious of that and dial it back, but I'm still not very good at it."
"It's not your fault" Thorax says to her. "I'll admit that your being forward caught me off guard, but it's honestly not that off-putting."
Fidget looked at him with confusion.
"I..." Thorax hesitates before speaking. "Well, part of the reason I'm on this trip is to figure myself out and where I fit in with the bigger picture. With all I plan to do, I'm not sure I could find room for a relationship right now."
Nodding in understanding but still radiating disappointment, Fidget nods in understanding. "Okay, I get that. You need to work on yourself before you work on you and somepony else together."
"Yeah" Thorax replied. It was the actual truth. Part of the reason Thorax was making this journey was to figure out what kind of creature he was and where he fit in the world. He was going to see and enjoy Equestria, for sure, but he was gonna figure who he wanted Thorax the changeling to actually be.
Fidget and Thorax finished their tea in silence. The mare then bid good night to Thorax and headed for her sleeping car. Thorax didn't have one reserved, so he opted to go back to the bench he was sitting on earlier and lay down across it. As he returned to the car, he took note of some other ponies doing the same thing. Apparently, it was a luxury to have a private sleeping quarters on a train.
Thorax was woken up by the train car jostling slightly, the locomotive likely hitting a small section of track that had started to dip down or come up. Realizing where he was, he panicked a little as he was unsure if he was still disguised. A quick look at his hooves confirmed that his appearance hadn't slipped, giving Thorax some relief.
The relief was soon replaced with some hunger pangs, which caused Thorax to reach for the case with the vials of potion that Twilight and Zecora concocted. From what Cadance had told him, there was a variety of different potion mixtures, and Twilight provided a notebook for Thorax to record his thoughts on that particular mixture. All he had to do was write down the number on the vial and a few of his likes and dislikes about that particular mixture.
Taking it slowly, as advised by both Twilight and Zecora, Thorax nourished his body. Already he could taste the love in the mixture, as well as some ingredients that seemed to attempt to increase the quantity of love.
Unfortunately, this one missed that mark, but he did find the overall potion enjoyable.
Re-corking the now empty vial and replacing it, Thorax jotted down the number and his thoughts on it, then replaced the notebook and closed the case. With his hunger sated for the next few hours, Thorax elected to go to the dining car and try another kind of tea.
When he got there, a familiar face greeted him.
"Hello" greeted Fidget, looking uneasy as she sat in a booth sipping at a cup of breakfast tea and picking at some eggs and toast.
"Hi" Thorax responded, feeling a bit uncomfortable because of the mare's discomfort. He knew the feeling right away: shame.
"Can we talk?" she asked him, adding a quiet "Please?" at the end.
Thorax mulled the thought over in his mind and nodded. "Okay" he said to her as he took the opposite bench in the booth.
Fidget took a moment to collect her thoughts before she spoke again.
"I'm sorry about last night" she said to Thorax. "I'm not normally like that, but I broke up with a colt not too long ago. It was harder for me than I thought it was going to be, but I made the mistake every mare makes."
"Mistake every mare makes?" Thorax parroted with a bit of confusion.
Fidget nodded. "Yeah. You see... he was my first."
Thorax chuckled. "Well, all first relationships are rocky and don't always last. I'm sure-"
"That wasn't my first relationship" Fidget interrupts.
"It wasn't?" Thorax said with confusion. "Then why did you saw it was?"
"You misunderstood me" Fidget corrected Thorax. "When I said that colt was my first, I meant he was my first... intimate partner."
Thorax didn't understand for a few seconds, then it hit him what she had meant.
This mystery colt had deflowered her. Her very first experiences with physical intimacy were with this colt, and Thorax understood how those relations could leave an impact on a mare.
Feeling her emotions again, Thorax dared to take a guess.
"He's the one who wanted to break it off, wasn't he?"
Fidget didn't say anything for a few moments, but eventually nodded, then rubbed her face and began sniffling.
"I'm sorry" Thorax said to her. "I didn't mean to cause you bad memories."
Fidget wipes her eyes and looks up at Thorax with a smile.
"It's okay" she replies. "Honestly, I sorta knew it was coming. I just thought I'd be able to handle the break up better. Guess I didn't, huh?"
Thorax didn't say anything for a moment, unsure of what he should say. Eventually the words did come to him.
"Everypony reacts differently to different things" he finally says to her. "I don't think there's really a bad way to react when it comes to love, except for if you do something to deliberately hurt the other pony."
Fidget nods in agreement at that remark. There's silence between them for a minute before Thorax decides to ask her something.
"What would you say to us just being friends for right now?"
Fidget looks at him for a moment, thinking about what he just said to her. Thorax elaborates.
"I know I said I wasn't looking for a relationship right now, but I'm never opposed to having a friend. I know we're eventually gonna go separate ways, but we could still keep in touch as pen pals. Does that sound okay?"
Fidget thought about what Thorax proposed to her and smiled. "That sounds nice, Crystal."
Fidget reaches into some saddle bags she had seated beside her and produces a piece of paper and a pencil. She quickly jots down something and gives it to Thorax.
"I kind of go all around," she explains, "but this is where I always come back to, so this would be the best place to send letters to. I can get your address from the return label."
Thorax looks over the paper to see a mailing address for Fillydelphia. He looks back up at her and smiles.
"Thank you" he says before standing up and moving towards her, then embracing her in a hug. Fidget returns it, and a small amount of love seeps into Thorax as they hug one another.
After some "breakfast" with Fidget, Thorax returns to his seat and watches the scenery outside. The barren fields of snow have now given way to a coniferous forest, the tree tops covered in white to reflect the winter season.
Seeing this, Thorax went into his case and retrieved one of the scarves and hats that had been given to him for the cold weather. The ones he chose were a blue hat that matched his mane, and a scarf that was striped in blues similar to his coat and mane color, with the tail ends decorated in his disguise's cutie mark. The detail was incredible, but it was the level of quality expected from the clothier that made it - Rarity.
Thorax had celebrated Hearth's Warming for the first time ever not long ago. He had to confess that he enjoyed the holiday immensely, and not just because everypony was exuding so much love it was comparable to a banquet table he was invited to feast from. Learning about the origin of the holiday, singing carols with other ponies, getting gifts from his friends and the princess, and watching the annual play that reenacted the moment where the ponies discovered their friendship created a flame that drove back the windigos and helped Equestria become what it is today.
The hats and scarves had been a gift from Rarity to Thorax, believing the changeling would be in need of such things. They were much appreciated, and he found them very useful on the colder days.
Of course, spring was not far off, and the weather would soon eliminate the need for such articles until the next winter. For now, they would do serve their purpose well.
Once dressed appropriately, Thorax sat back down and looked out the window again. He noticed there were now some farms around and he assumed that the first stop on his journey was approaching.
His thoughts were confirmed when the conductor appeared and began walking down the aisle.
"Now entering Equestria! Crystal ponies must depart at the first stop to go through customs check!"
Thorax heard what the conductor had called out and grabbed his luggage and saddle bags. After making sure that he had everything, including his passports and letter, Thorax looked out a window to see a fairly large city they were now approaching.
The conductor called out again, informing Thorax of the identity of the starting point of his journey.
"First stop - Detrot!"
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And a happy New Year to you, too.
Bag
wow.. really leave him in a town with dubious characters?
11463616
He wanted to experience Equestria like a pony, so he's getting what he asked for.
11463642
and that start at town of dubious territory huh? Good luck our lil buggy friend.
Happy New Year! And a great chapter, Fidget seems like a nice pony
These are legitimate questions. And admittedly, I have been pondering them ever since the idea of this trip first came up, because nothing would spoil it all for Thorax faster than some jerk of a guard deciding to take the law into their own hooves towards him, or otherwise just not be very friendly with him. But we'll see. Best case, the initial reactions of the Crystal Empire towards Thorax will not be the norm as much moving forward and beyond it, but more likely we'll probably get something that's more...in-between.
Heh, mostly unrelated, but that kinda reminds me of a fan comic I'd read once where Thorax (in disguise and incidentally also riding the train) initially introduces himself as Crystal Hoof to another pony he's met, but later, in the heat of the conversation, accidentally forgets he did this and introduces himself again as Thorax without thinking, to the pony's befuddlement.
...oh heck, since I've gone to all the trouble of bringing it up now, I might as well share with the rest of the class: Link
*Brass Polish abruptly looks up from what she's doing* "I sense a disturbance in the force..."
More seriously though, glad Thorax was able to work things out with Fidget enough for them to at least be friends for now. She seems like a nice enough mare, and she sounded like she needed the friend about as much as Thorax does.