The Light Within Us

by theOwtcast

One Year Older

“Thorax?” Urtica interrupted our process of cross-referencing service records. “Sorry to bother you, but…”

“Yes?”

“Somepony wants to see you.”

“Really? Sure, uh, I’m coming.”

The visitor was waiting at the entrance to the archive.

“Greetings, Your Highness,” she said. “I apologize for any interruptions I may have caused-”

“No problem, Mercury! Gosh, I haven’t seen you in ages! You know there’s no need to call me Your Hi-”

“Who let you in the archive?” Pharynx interjected, growling at the royal messenger. “This is off-limits-”

“Thank you, Pharynx,” I interrupted him, “but I already told you on several occasions that it isn’t off-limits anymore. We don’t want to be rude to our guests!”

“It’s alright, I’m not going to stay long anyway,” Mercury said. “I just came to deliver a message.”

“Oh?”

She gave me a scroll. Unsurprisingly, the message was sealed with Cadance’s stamp and written in her hornwriting. This was unusual; save for a few official letters at the beginning of my reign, we didn’t behave with such formalities towards each other, and as Sunburst and I were already exchanging letters through regular mail, she would usually attach her letter to those or simply ask Sunburst to tell me something. What had happened to make her abandon that practice?

But when I read the letter, my worries evaporated in favor of thrill and eager anticipation.

“Of course!” I exclaimed. “Tell Cadance and Shining we wouldn’t miss Flurry’s birthday party for anything!”

---

“I am not going!”

“Why?”

“Are you trying to kill me with sugar-infused boredom?”

“Aw come on, Pharynx, they invited you too!”

“You sure you read that right?”

“Believe it or not, some people do want to meet you.”

“They’ve met me at your coronation. Also when I breached their bedroom during that last invasion, but I don’t expect them to remember that.”

“...right. But what I meant is, they want to get to know you.”

“Haven’t you blabbered plenty enough about me to them already?”

“That’s not the same and you know it!”

“And you know we won’t like each other, so why are you still insisting?”

“From your standpoint, they’re our allies, and maintaining familiarity and good relations with them is important for reaping the benefits of that alliance. From my standpoint, other than what I just said, they gave me a home and plenty of love and the foundation on which I built my life as it is today. They were the closest thing I had to a family while I was away, Pharynx! I realized it once in a dream in which you came looking for me there and spent some time with all of us. It was a bit awkward, to tell the truth, but ever since, I’ve been kind of hoping that would actually happen one day in reality, no matter how unlikely it was at the time and no matter how far away from them we live now.”

“Your sappiness keeps surprising me,” he retorted.

“Pleeease?”

“What do you even expect me to do there?”

“Well, for starters, talking would be nice…”

“I have nothing to say to them.”

“Then listen. Maybe you’ll find some common ground!”

“Hmph. Doubt it.”

“Not even with Shining Armor? He’s a soldier too, I’m sure you-”

“Are you forgetting we used to spy on Royal Guards? There’s nothing he can tell me that I don’t already know!”

“How can you be so sure that you haven’t missed anything? Or that there won’t be some other thing any of them can share with you that you don’t even realize you’d care to know?”

“Eugh, next you’re gonna tell me that I’ll be having an intense discussion about love with Cadenza and asking for cooking tips-”

“I wasn’t thinking that specifically, but I wouldn’t mind-”

“Forget it! You’re insufferable!”

“You won’t even make an effort to strengthen our alliance?”

“I don’t need their alliance.”

“Not even if they help us track down Chrysalis?”

“What can they do? Are they gonna blast the whole world hoping to randomly run into her without having her realize what’s coming and doing something about it?”

“I don’t know what their tactics are or if they’re even making an active effort at the moment, but you never know when they might succeed, or how. You haven’t had much luck yourself, have you? The good thing about having allies is that they can help you achieve a mutual goal, sometimes even without needing to ask for help. And after two invasions, I bet they do want to find her!”

He huffed.

“Look, Pharynx, I know being polite is hard for you, but the world is becoming a better place and you’ll need to be able to set your gruffiness aside every once in a while. This is a chance for you to practice politeness and reining in your anger. If it gets too hard, I’ll try to find you a punching bag or something to relieve yourself on. There has to be one in the guards’ training area…”

“...ugh, fine… But I’m not making any promises!”

---

The Crystal Empire shone brighter than I remembered it. Unlike the last year’s blizzard and starved despair that had tormented me while venturing into the unknown, my arrival now was blessed with warm sun and the thrilling anticipation of seeing my friends again. The ripples of the Crystal Heart’s magic danced across the sky long before the city appeared on the horizon, and the aura of blissful love was just as powerful as when I’d first sensed it!

Only one thing soured the experience: not even the expectation of a glorious feast was enough to get Pharynx to stop grumbling.

“Come on, you’ll like it there!” I said to him for the thousandth time.

“I’ve been there before, in case you forgot,” he retorted. “The amount of cutesy-cuteness was unbearable and I have no reason to think they’ve toned it down any.”

“It can’t be that bad-”

“In fact, they’ve probably overdone it to the point that I’ll rip my own head off as soon as-”

“Pharynx!”

“What?”

“You do realize that attitude won’t make things any easier for you, right?”

“Ugh. Why did you drag me along, again?”

“I told you already-”

“Yeah yeah, friendship something something family blah blah alliance good for the hive, whatever. You haven’t shut up about it ever since what’s-her-name brought that invitation! What I mean is, weren’t they good enough for you? I have an army to train, in case you didn’t realize!”

I glanced at Blade and Feisty flying behind us.

“You know they joined us last-minute because they wanted to see their friends, and you know that Cadance and Shining want to meet my brother and not some random changeling impersonating my brother.”

“As if they’ll know the difference-”

“You also know that Grim and Psycho will be great substitute drill instructors.”

“I’d rather still do it myself,” he grumbled.

“Pharynx,” I sighed, “you know you can’t always have everything the way you want. You’re the one who insisted on teaching me that for years! Well, this is one such time, and you’re an adult and should therefore have at least a basic concept of good manners and self-control, so I suggest you start using it.”

He rolled his eyes.

“Okay, if it makes it any easier, just pretend you’re an infiltrator sent to impersonate someone polite, and scream at me after we get home. Please?”

“I don’t scream.”

“Okay, growl, hiss, turn into a maulwurf and throw rocks around. I don’t care. Just don’t make a scene here…”

He said nothing. I didn’t press the issue, as we were about to land. Blade and Feisty waved goodbye and flew in the direction of Garnet Street, where they’d claimed one of their friends lived. I waved back and touched down next to Spike’s statue with Pharynx in tow. I’d intended to check on the flower I’d planted next to the statue, but got distracted with all the garlands and streamers stretched between the street lights and the bouquets of colorful crystals lined up on the ground. Even the streets and houses seemed extra polished! And as if the scenery wasn’t enough, the crystal ponies were on the verge of exploding their auras into the Crystal Heart! Some of them were even gathered around the castle!

“Whoa,” I breathed. “Is this going to be a public celebration? I didn’t realize!”

“More like public chaos,” Pharynx grumbled. “Imagine the pandemonium if something scared them. I wouldn’t like to be the guy trying to instill order in that! Then again, it would be fun to watch…”

I facehoofed. Typical Pharynx… “Please don’t test that theory,” I moaned.

“Why not? It would be a great way to test our allies’ level of preparedness for an unpredictable situation and gauge their abilities to resolve it!”

“Let’s leave that for another time, shall we? There’s bound to be plenty of opportunities, and if you want to arrange something with Shining Armor, go right ahead… Now, let’s get to the castle. They’re probably expecting-”

A flash and a tingle of magic stopped us in our tracks and interrupted my sentence.

“Thorax! There you are!” Starlight exclaimed, having materialized in front of us. “We’ve been expecting you!”

She lit up her horn again and her magic popped around me, exchanging the open road for the castle’s dining room. Next to me, Pharynx was rolling his eyes, this time out of dizziness rather than his usual annoyance, until he regained enough senses to shake himself into focus.

“Warn me next time before you do that!” he hissed.

“Sorry… I teleport around so much that I forget it makes some people dizzy if they’re not used to it…”

“Don’t mind Pharynx, Starlight, he’s been acting out ever since we got the invitation and I don’t think there’s a chance of him calming down much until we’re back in the hive.”

“I figured as much. Twilight and I have been training in case you want a sparring session against a magic-wielding opponent, Pharynx, if you’re interested. Neither of us are a match to you in brute force, but we’ve got the thaums to make up for it!”

He grinned. “You’re on!”

“Not now,” I warned him as he assumed a battle stance. “You can’t be stressed out from socializing already, we’ve only just arrived! Speaking of Twilight, where is she?”

Starlight scrunched her face. “Uh… one moment.” She disappeared again and returned with the alicorn and her dragon assistant in magical tow. “Sorry, I didn’t realize she’d already gone!”

“We were waiting for you at the train station,” Twilight said. “When did you get here? And how?”

“Only a minute ago. We flew.”

“All the way from the hive?” Spike asked. “Isn’t that a pretty long distance?”

“We boarded a train in Appleloosa,” I explained, “but someling wouldn’t keep still and the other passengers were getting uncomfortable under his glaring and grumbled threats, so I dragged him out of the train car in some village near Detrot and we continued on our own.”

“They started it! What was I supposed to do, sit and wait until they finish plotting revenge?”

“What makes you think they wanted revenge? It’s not that long ago that we stopped being hostile; they probably just haven’t gotten used to us being in plain sight and acting normal!”

“Yeah, you keep telling yourself that,” he groaned. “We’ll see who’s laughing when-”

The door opened and our hosts stepped in, accompanied by Sunburst and the girls from Ponyville and, of course, the one-year-old filly, dressed in a cute little frock and flying around from one of her guests to another, babbling excitedly along the way.

“...here we go,” Pharynx muttered under his breath.

Flurry only needed a moment to notice me and even less to propel herself in my very specific direction, attaching herself to my chest in the closest thing to a hug that she could muster on someone of my size. I hugged her back.

“Hi there, birthday girl!” I cooed. “How long has it been that I haven’t seen you? You’ve grown so much!”

“Grown and grown out of the diapers,” Cadance added.

“Already? Congratulations!”

“Bet that’s a relief to the foalsitter,” Pharynx muttered.

Flurry blew a raspberry at him. Pharynx bared his teeth and started to growl in her face, so I quickly put a hoof over his snout and frowned at him to stop. Thankfully, he took the hint.

“...anyway,” I said in an attempt to break the awkward silence that had followed, “you’ve all met Pharynx, right? Please excuse his behavior… he’s, um… a little tired from the trip…”

“More like tired of it,” he corrected me.

“...at least you’re trying?” Starlight suggested.

“Don’t get ahead of yourself! The only reason why I allowed myself to get dragged here is to make Thorax shut up!”

“I don’t suppose you have any punching bags for him to let off some steam?” I asked Shining. Please say yes! This is going worse than I thought!

“Of course,” he said. “This way-”

It wasn’t meant to happen, at least not yet, as Celestia and Luna chose that particular moment to arrive, accompanied by a couple of unicorns I hadn’t met before. After a quick greeting, the four adult princesses struck up a conversation, joined by the other ponies. I took this chance to focus my attention solely on Flurry, and levitated her gift out of my saddlebag. She tore up the wrapping paper and squealed contently at her new toy: a wooden changeling with poseable parts that I’d personally carved and painted. Okay, Mystique had helped with the poseable parts, so it wasn’t entirely my work, but Flurry seemed to like it either way, as she was already trying to get everypony’s attention to it.

Pharynx was still scowling. I was wondering whether or not I should put Flurry down to play so I could try to cheer him up a little, as it could only make things worse, when Sunburst glanced through the window, then at the clock.

“Sorry to interrupt,” he said, “but there’s quite a crowd out there, and it’s about time.”

“Oh, right, of course!” Cadance exclaimed. “Thorax, Pharynx, we’re about to present Flurry to our subjects. Would you like to join us?”

I accepted readily and Pharynx grumbled something that may have been a ‘Do I have a choice?’ that everypony assumed was rhetorical, which it probably was, so we headed for one of the staircases to the ground level.

The ponies cheered as the Royal Family stepped out into the street and let Flurry fly freely among them, and I could swear the Crystal Heart’s magic got that much brighter instantly as she graced many of them with her immediate presence and was rewarded with many nuzzles and adoring cooes, to which she responded with blissful babbling and squealing. Occasionally she got a flower tucked into her mane or a toy offered to her, and the rest of us, watching from the sidelines, were left to wonder at how much love and adoration one filly could attract onto herself! Even after so much time in the Crystal Empire, I still hadn’t gotten used to an aura this rich, and it seemed to grow richer by the minute!

Eventually, Flurry decided she had nopony left to demand snuggles and treats from, and returned to her parents, her mane sagging with flowers. Cadance said a few words of thanks to everypony and the visitors from afar for coming to celebrate this joyous day, upon which the crowd cheered again and took their cue to go home, and we returned into the castle.

The dining table was already set when we got there, and Berry brought the meal soon after we took our seats. Pharynx had, surprisingly, calmed down in the meantime and was refraining from brazen comments for the time being. Had he taken a sip of love meant for Flurry while I wasn’t paying attention? Either way, he still wasn’t light-hearted and talkative like the rest of the group, and instead spent most of the time staring at the empty plate in front of him, only now and then glancing around as if on guard duty.

The conversation went on oblivious to his lack of participation. The ponies talked about everyday things: what they were doing recently, what their mutual friends were doing, what they would like to do in the near future, that kind of stuff. Some of the conversation revolved around Flurry and how she’d been doing recently. Cadance and Shining were proud to say that her babbling was starting to get a little more articulate and that they believed she would soon be able to speak somewhat clearly, which prompted a round of cheers and clapping for the little princess, who basked in the extra praise. I also figured out that the two unicorns were actually her grandparents, and they showered their little bundle of joy with unbridled affection, maybe even more than the happy parents!

Everypony’s mood skyrocketed when the cake arrived; Flurry herself got so excited that she nearly knocked the chocolatey treat off the table! Actually, she did knock it off the table, prompting a devastated gasp from Pinkie, but Starlight’s magic saved it at the last moment! Everypony breathed a sigh of relief, and Flurry earned a disapproving frown from Cadance, which caused her to whimper until granny and Luna took it upon themselves to cheer her up and Pinkie gave her a party hat and some balloons.

That did the trick. Twilight lit the candle and Flurry blew it out with gusto, then demanded a repeat or five, and duly got them. I caught Pharynx rolling his eyes at that at some point, but at least he wasn’t frowning as much anymore. Maybe he’d finally found something that amused him? I decided not to inquire, lest I break the spell.

I didn’t realize I was staring at my slice of cake until Sunburst prodded me.

“You’ve been awfully silent and aloof today,” he said. “Is something wrong?”

“...I have?”

“Well, duh,” Pinkie said. “I thought Pharynx was rubbing off on you, but now you’re the grumpier Grumpy Pants than him! What gives?!”

“Oh, I don’t know… must be nothing…”

Spike got out of his chair and approached me. “Thorax. You know you can tell us, right?”

I nodded.

“What’s been going on recently?”

“I’m not sure if a party is the right time to talk about it… I don’t want to kill the mood…”

“You kind of did that already,” Rainbow quipped.

“Rainbow!”

“What?”

“Cantcha ever hold yer tongue back? Come now, sugarcube, y’all tell us what’s troublin’ ya!”

Something in her eyes convinced me it would be alright more than words could. Was it because she’d been in the same boat?

“I, uh… found out the other day that my parents are dead.”

Everypony gasped. Fluttershy started crying and Pinkie hugged her.

“Why, whatever happened, darling?” Rarity asked.

“It’s nothing recent. I just found out about it now because I found their service records in the archive. We weren’t allowed to know who our parents are - or nymphs, for those who had any - while Chrysalis was in charge. It turns out that dad died of changeling pox when Pharynx and I were little, and mom was killed in Canterlot.”

“Did the blast do it?” Shining asked.

“No, the record said a Royal Guard did.”

“Does it say which guard it was?”

“It doesn’t,” Pharynx retorted. “It was a warzone, how were we supposed to keep track?”

“You were there too?”

“No, I stayed behind to oversee the hive in Chrysalis’ absence.”

“Oh, you meant ‘we’ in general. Right, heh…”

“I’m sorry for your loss,” Cadance said.

“It’s alright, Princess. Like I said, it didn’t happen recently, and I didn’t even know them.”

“But you’re still hurting!”

“I know it doesn’t make much sense-”

“Consarn it, Thorax, have y’all lost yer marbles? They were yer parents, for Pete’s sake! Just because y’all didn’t know ‘em ain’t mean it can’t hurt!”

“Applejack is right,” Cadance continued. “I don’t remember my own birth parents, but it still hurts to know that I’ll never see them again and that Flurry will never know them, even though I was adopted into the most loving and caring family I could have asked for. The pain dulls over time but it never fully goes away.”

“It did for me,” Pharynx shrugged.

“Then why did you jump at the chance to dig up the archive for their teammates to see if we could get them to tell us stories?”

“Only because it looked like you wouldn’t shut up otherwise!”

“Is that why you broke protocol in the old days and stole a peek in their records without authorization?”

“I found mother by accident!”

“But not dad! You said it yourself that you went looking for his record deliberately!”

“Whoa, hold on a minute,” Rainbow interjected. “Pharynx knew about your parents and didn’t tell you? And you’re okay with that?!”

I shrugged. “We’d have gotten punished for knowing. Things were much worse than they are now.”

“Makes sense that you took my behavior so easily,” Shining mused.

Pharynx’s ears perked up. “What behavior?” he hissed.

Uh-oh… “Pharynx…”

“I didn’t like the fact that a changeling turned up in the area and decided he wanted to live here so I took out my anger on him. Didn’t Thorax tell you?”

I tried to gesture at Shining to stop talking while there was still a chance he could, but Pharynx noticed and pressed my hoof down onto the tabletop. “Let him talk, Thorax,” he growled. “What did you do?”

“I-”

“Shining-”

“Shut up, Thorax. What did you do?!”

“I threw him in prison at first, and later I put him under constant surveillance and restricted his movement and his rights, and insulted and berated him every chance I could-”

“Shining-” I tried again, but Pharynx shoved a hoof in my mouth and stood up onto the table. “What else?”

“And one time, I interrogated him about the hive and pushed him into telling me about you, after which he felt so bad that he tried to impale himself on a halberd-”

Pharynx was at Shining’s throat before he could finish the sentence. “I’ll kill you!”

---

“I’m sorry for all of this,” I said to Cadance as we finally got to take a break, having barely managed to subdue Pharynx and to get him off Shining with the help of Twilight, Starlight, Celestia, and Luna.

“It’s… well, not alright, but understandable… There were times when I wanted to do it…” she admitted.

“I know, but that doesn’t excuse Pharynx!”

“Look who’s talking,” he protested. “The guy who used a torture spell to end the fight! Didn’t you say a while ago you’d never use it again?”

“You were about to rip Shining’s head off! It was the last resort!”

“He deserved it!”

“He also got punished already, and he realized his mistakes prior to getting punished! No need to kill him!”

“Whatever.”

“You also didn’t have to break his legs.”

“They’ll heal-”

“Or shout obscenities about his mother.”

“Tha mare ran off before we started, for crying out loud! And if she raised her son like that, then she deserves to be insulted!”

“You wouldn’t have said that a year ago…”

“Well I’m sorry if I’ve had it up to here with people treating my brother like garbage!”

“I’m not the one you should be apologizing to,” I scolded him.

“I’m not apologizing to that idiot!”

“Mr Pharynx,” Cadance interjected, “I understand your grievances, but my husband has seen the error of his ways and done everything in his power to make it up to Thorax, and I will not stand for you calling him an idiot!”

“See? You’re causing an international incident! Are you trying to spark a war?”

“You’d declare a war, right,” he snorted.

“I wouldn’t, but I wouldn’t be surprised if Cadance and Shining did after this.” I let out an exasperated sigh. “Look, Pharynx, I get that you find it hard to adjust to peacetime, but that peace is my life’s work and I almost died trying to achieve it. Can’t you at least make an effort?”

Just then, the dining room door opened, and Twilight pushed in the wheelchair with her bandaged-up brother sitting in it.

“I asked the others to wait outside,” she said. “Is anyone else hurt?”

“No, I think we’re fine. What did the doctors say?”

“I’ll live,” Shining groaned. “Hurts like all Tartarus and I won’t be doing any drills for a while, but doc doesn’t think there’ll be any permanent damage.”

Cadance started for the door. “I’ll see if we have some painkillers-”

“Already got them, and we stopped by at the pharmacy to get more. Still hurts…”

“...um, if it’s not a problem,” I said to him, “Pharynx has something to tell you.”

“Yeah? What?”

Pharynx said nothing at first so I fixed him a disapproving glare.

“...ugh, fine. Shining, I, uh, shouldn’t have beaten you up. I still hate you for what you did but, erm, I overreacted and, ugh, I’m sorry. Okay?”

“No problem,” Shining rasped. “I had it coming. The original punishment was way too soft. No worries, you’re good.”

Pharynx then turned to me. “Told you. Satisfied?”

“You forgot the rest of it.”

I got an eye roll in return. “Okay, and I shouldn’t have said that about Velvet, either.”

“Said what?”

“Oh! Mrs Velvet, I really don’t think we need to go into all of that-”

“I’m a tougher mare than I look, Your Highness. I won’t fall apart from a few angry words.”

“Still, it wouldn’t be right…”

“But I bet it wouldn’t be the first time,” she insisted. “My husband and I were in the Canterlot Castle when you guys invaded. We saw everything and fought back until we got overwhelmed and cocooned up, and after that day, no hostile behavior coming from a changeling can surprise me. I would have actually tried to help you subdue Pharynx if it weren’t for having to take Flurry to safety… of course, I didn’t expect my son to get incapacitated this badly… but that’s neither here nor there. I’m actually pleasantly surprised by what you’re trying to do, and your brother probably just needs more time, but I’m sure he’ll get there eventually! In fact, from what I’ve seen of him, he’s probably closer to where you want him to be than he started out from, despite what he did to Shining!”

“Uh, thanks?”

“And though I never knew your parents, I’m sure they would have seen the light within you and accepted your ways, even if it may have taken them a while. As a mother, I promise you they’d be proud of their son! Now, if I’m not mistaken, this is also an approximate anniversary of your arrival to the Crystal Empire. Shall we celebrate?”

Comments

[Usal]

I don't want to say it but Pharynx really would go to a court-martial over this, but he is still technically Heir apparent to the crown and prince of Changeling Empire, so he can walk it off, yay for nepotism!

[theOwtcast]

11752590
Technically, he has diplomatic immunity and Shining wouldn't want him court-martialed even if he didn't, but Thorax won't pretent it didn't happen and will try to do something about it.

[Screw]

Good to see that when it comes to boots on the ground, the changeling general will outdo a pony general. Or, prince on prince.

One must imagine Pharynx happy. In this case, I'm pretty sure he'll be happy that he is better than their best.

[Usal]

11752643
I meant it as Thorax can theoretically court martial him even if he is a prince, and put him under punishment which is more military like, considering there are second in command to Pharynx who can assume this position. Shining can't do anything about Pharynx but Thorax has a lot of power as an absolute monarch with 0 restrictions on his power besides own will to enforce his orders.

[theOwtcast]

11753365
Oh. Well, semi-nepotism, then, I guess? 🤔 Thorax won't go as far as court-martialing him, but it won't go ignored, either