You Are Cordially Invited...
Though everypony avoided mentioning Pharynx’s outburst afterwards, the remainder of our visit was strained and awkward. I couldn’t blame them. What to do when the rude guest was the brother of someone they had taken in and grown to love as their own and who had since become a leader in his own right? I was sure they wanted to avoid a war as much as I did, but it wasn’t easy, and were we not friends already and had Shining not felt his previous punishment to be too mild, I was sure they wouldn’t have been so considerate! Thanks a lot, Pharynx…
At least he’d calmed down somewhat after the fact.
I didn’t expect him to start rampaging again for the time being, but that was little comfort in the given situation. His calmness wasn’t even remorseful; I could sense in his aura that he was seething inwardly, and he just sat there, scowling and avoiding eye contact with everypony, making a point of ignoring whatever was left of the conversation. Didn’t he realize he was only making things worse? Didn’t he care, at least for the sake of those present who’d had nothing to do with the way Shining had treated me early on and had even opposed it?
I could take it, were it just about me. The adult ponies could take it, and probably Spike, too, even if they shouldn’t have to; they’d faced worse situations and I was sure they had the emotional capacity to push past it and reason enough to acknowledge that someone casually finding out about their brother’s suicide attempt could hardly be expected to take it lightly. But to ruin a filly’s birthday party for it? She just sat there in silent stupor, not having babbled even once since seeing her daddy bandaged up, and try as we might, there was nothing we could do to brighten her mood.
“This is pointless,” I said eventually. “I appreciate the effort you’re putting in restraining yourselves from throwing Pharynx and me out the window, but we’ve really overstayed our welcome. I’m sorry again-”
“Don’t blame yourself,” Shining said. “In hindsight, this was unavoidable and I should have seen it coming. Should have dealt with it before Flurry’s birthday or put it off until afterwards, though…”
“Anything else we should have dealt with already?” Pharynx barked.
“Uh, no, that’s the worst of it.”
“...we should go,” I said again, noticing Pharynx start gritting his teeth a little harder.
Apparently realizing that trying to get me to reconsider would be pointless, Cadance said, “At least let us walk you to the train station?”
“Yeah, sure,” I said half-heartedly, then patted the sulking Flurry. “I’m sorry for ruining your birthday…”
She squirmed and withdrew into herself again.
“What about Blade and Feisty?” Pharynx asked. “We’re leaving them here?”
“Oh, right! Mind if I go looking for them?”
“The last train is about to leave,” Sunburst said. “We have just about enough time to catch it. Not that I want you to go away-”
“It’s alright,” I assured him. “We’ll see each other again, hopefully without complications. Now let me see if I can get to Blade and Feisty in time…”
“On it!” Rainbow exclaimed. “I’ll find them in ten seconds flat!”
“They should be in Garnet-” I started, only to realize I was talking to her receding rainbow-colored trail. “...oh well…”
“Come on,” Pharynx urged.
Shining stayed behind to watch Flurry, being in no condition to walk across the city, and the rest of us trotted in silence to the train station. Rainbow and the two drones caught up about halfway there. Whether they’d caught onto the mood or been told what had happened, I didn’t know, but they kept their distance and refrained from starting a conversation, and I was in a way thankful for it, and yet, at the same time, wished they’d at least tried to snap us out of it. It was probably for the better that they hadn’t; I didn’t think there was much they could do unless they could turn back time and stop Pharynx from lashing out. Then again, Starlight had the magic to do that and hadn’t, so maybe it would have been a bad idea for a reason I couldn’t fathom?
It was a moot point. Livid or not, Pharynx shouldn’t have lost the grip on himself like that! He should have known better!
...then again, maybe I was to blame for not telling him about what Shining had done. But how could I have known Pharynx would find out today? How could I have known that he hadn’t found out already? What would I have done if he’d been told about it in the hive, which should by all standards have been a safe distance, and then dropped everything and stormed out of there with the intention of flying to the other end of the world to exact revenge? I doubted I could chase him that far without needing a break!
I had to discuss things with him… again… but I was too drained of everything right now, Pharynx was still pouting too much to be likely to listen, and there were ponies on the train. So we spent the whole ride in complete silence, all the way up to Appleloosa. At least I’d managed to catch a few hours’ nap by the time we reached the last stop. Had Pharynx? It would have done him good, though I doubted he’d have allowed himself to let his guard down around strangers in a foreign land.
I finally broke the silence as we were flying over the jungle.
“Have you cooled down a little?” I asked tentatively.
“I don’t need cooling down,” he retorted.
“Shining Armor would disagree-”
“He can disagree all he wants! And since you obviously couldn’t be bothered to listen, let me inform you that he wouldn’t disagree!”
“Because of what he said when he came back?”
“So you did listen, wow…”
“I bet he was just trying to be polite. No one likes to have their legs broken no matter what they did-”
“What was I supposed to do? Kiss his hooves and thank him for pushing you into suicide?”
“Of course not, but you could have just told him how you feel about it and left it at that!”
“And you knew I was going to explode about something! If it hadn’t been that, it would have been something else!”
“Because you don’t like how cute everything is and how gentle they are?”
“Yes! But no, you just had to drag me along and risk jeopardizing your precious diplomacy!”
“Is that why you did it? Because if you demonstrated how savage you can be, I’d stop bringing you along and ponies wouldn’t invite you to places and events?”
“I didn’t start out with that idea, but it would be a welcome side-effect, yes.”
“Then you’re going to be disappointed. You’re the leader of the hive’s defense forces and the king’s brother - a prince, if you will - and I have no intention of keeping you confined to the hive like I’m ashamed of you.”
He just stared at me, saying nothing, but something stirred in his aura.
“I’m not forbidding you to fight when it’s necessary,” I continued, “but you must accept that we’re no longer at war and start acting accordingly.”
“Hm.”
“If you need anger management lessons, I can arrange-”
“I can manage my anger just fine!”
“Then what was that thing in the Crystal Empire about?”
“Necessary revenge.”
“Call it revenge if you want, but it was neither necessary nor acceptable. Like I said, I’m not going to exclude you from the rest of the world to keep this kind of thing from happening in the future, so either teach yourself some self-control or I’ll find someone to help you do it.”
“And if I refuse?”
“I could give you an order or threaten to transfer you into the cleaning crew again or something, but I’m hoping you’re reasonable enough to see the benefits of that approach yourself. Or strategy, if you prefer to call it that.”
“Heh. Good thing I’m reasonable enough, then, because you’re no good at bellowing commands.”
“You’ll do it?” It sounded too good to be true! Hopefully he wasn’t plotting a way to avoid it without me finding out…
“...ugh. I’ll try, I guess. No promises, though.”
When we got close to the hive, Pharynx separated himself from the rest of us, changing course towards one of the training areas, and Blade followed after a moment. That left me alone with Feisty, and I decided this was as good a time as any to talk to her, maybe even better because I’d allowed the matter to go ignored for way too long and didn’t need to drag it out even further.
“You heard the conversation between Pharynx and me, didn’t you?” I asked.
“Yes. So what Rainbow Dash said is true, then? He really tried to kill Shining Armor?”
“I’m afraid so… And I don’t care how justified he thinks it was; I can’t have him killing people on a whim! Yes, okay, he said he’d try to control himself from now on, but he said it a couple of times before already, so I’m not inclined to believe him right away!”
“I’m guessing those earlier promises weren’t made after finding out someone had mistreated you into attempting to end your own life,” she said hesitantly.
“They weren’t,” I agreed. “I guess it’s easier to make that promise when you think you won’t be compelled to break it. I don’t think he’ll have such grievances with anyone else other than possibly Chrysalis, whom he’ll most likely have to fight either way if she tries to reclaim the throne, and I want to believe that he’ll take it more seriously this time, but he said ‘no promises’ and that’s worrying me.”
She nodded. “You mentioned anger management lessons to him. Shall I start out on that?”
“Do you have any experience?”
“Some, but I’m not exactly a professional. I could try…”
“Let’s keep it as a backup solution for now. I still want to give Pharynx a chance to get there on his own, and knowing him, I wouldn’t be surprised if he started sabotaging sessions out of spite, or pride, or whatever his reasons are. I’ll take a more active role in supervising and encouraging his progress, but if I don’t see any, I’m going to have to ask for help wherever I can find it. Can you do some research on the matter in the meantime? Either to prepare yourself for the task or to refer me to professionals if you don’t think you can handle it yourself, wherever in the world they may be?”
“Of course! How long will you give Pharynx?”
“I’m not sure. I don’t want to wait too long, but calling it a failure too quickly wouldn’t be a good thing, either. Would a week or two be too short an interval?”
“One week probably will, but you could gauge his progress after two weeks, I think. Depends on how motivated and determined he is. But keep in mind that he could feign progress to get you off his back. It’s been known to happen, and he is trained in deception. It might not even show in his aura that he’s lying to you.”
“I’ll try anyway. Thanks!”
The next day, I unexpectedly found Pharynx in the arts-and-crafts section, hunched over a piece of paper and levitating a pencil.
“Who are you and what have you done to Pharynx?” I said jokingly.
“Very funny,” he retorted in a way that would have dispelled all doubts about his true identity, had I seriously had any.
“What are you drawing?”
“Nothing. Go away.”
“Can’t I ask what my brother is up to?” I leaned in closer to the drawing but he threw his hooves over it and hissed in my face.
The rest of the arts-and-crafts group dropped what they were doing to glare at us.
Turning serious, I asked, “Didn’t you agree to work on that attitude?”
“...ugh, fine.” He rolled his eyes and uncovered the drawing.
“It’s a… schematic? You’re going to build something?”
“You know that dartboard you gave me?”
“Yes, what about it?”
“You said you made it with the intention of helping me redirect my anger. Well, it’s not enough. Not always, anyway. Last evening, I improvised a drawing of Shining Armor’s face and put it up for darting and the entire paper was obliterated within a couple of minutes, so now I’m working on designing a punching bag or training dummy or something sturdy enough not to fall apart so easily.”
“Don’t you already have a punching bag and training dummies?”
“What do you think happened to them this morning?”
I could only imagine… “But Pharynx, you’re supposed to be curbing your anger, not redirecting it-”
“I’m not an idealistic fool, Thorax. Unlike you, I realize there’s enough anger in me that it can’t just go away no matter how hard I try to quench it. Barring a miracle, the best I’ll ever be able to do is suppress it temporarily, but I will have to expel it sooner or later. I wouldn’t necessarily even need a dummy if you hadn’t forbidden me from throwing rocks and ripping up the plants, but now there’s enough drones scattered around planting those plants that I can’t throw rocks around without risking to squash someling. Punishing a dummy is safer for your subjects than letting me go berserk.”
“Well, if you think it’ll help you hold back from going berserk against anyone not posing an immediate threat to someone’s life…” The anger management exercises wouldn’t hurt, either; I’d have to ask Feisty if she’d made any progress yet. As much as Pharynx hated the idea and despite my doubts that they’d be anywhere near as effective on him as on an average pony or drone, it couldn’t hurt to try anyway, right?
“I know myself. That ought to do it if anything will.”
“If you say so… but do you think that eventually there may be a chance, however small, that you might get enough of a grip on your anger to no longer need to redirect it onto dummies?”
“Doubt it. Or if telling you what you want to hear to get you to go away and let me work on this, then yes, definitely, it’ll happen by tomorrow, why are you even asking?”
“You know me better than that!”
“Okay, I do, now will you get lost already and go do some royal duties or fawn over a butterfly or something? I’m trying to work here!”
A few days passed. I checked on Pharynx regularly; he was keeping himself under control for the time being, though it could simply be that he had nothing to challenge that control, and was still working on his rage-relief dummies. So far, he’d carved one out of a hunk of stone he’d dragged in from the wasteland, even if it was only of a rough equine shape when he declared it finished. Upon being questioned about the lack of finer details or even rough details, he insisted they didn’t matter, as they would get obliterated within the first couple of times he’d use the dummy for its intended purpose.
He was probably right.
He had, however, asked if I knew of any indestructible materials that the infiltrators of the old era had failed to learn of, or any indestructibility spells, or at least something expected to be more durable than the stone-turned-dummy he was just finishing. Was he concerned this too would be too weak to survive his onslaught? It sounded absurd, but if he really thought it necessary… I’d promised I’d write to the ponies and ask.
I was just about to do that when Psycho brought a pony to the throne room.
“Greetings, Your Highness,” the visitor said, bowing gracefully. “I have been sent from Canterlot to deliver a message.”
He opened his saddlebag and took out a scroll that bore the seal of Princess Celestia. Curious… Had something happened? Was this about Pharynx? Were we in trouble? They’d said it would be alright… but what if Shining had changed his mind? No, the correspondence about that would come from the Crystal Empire, I told myself. But would it? Maybe Canterlot was in charge of this kind of thing no matter where the mess-up had happened!
With knots in my stomach, I unwrapped the scroll.
Office of Princess Celestia, HRH/Office of Princess Luna, HRH
Castle of the Sun and the Moon
1200 Harmony Avenue, Canterlot, Equestria
To: King Thorax, HRH, of the Changelings
Re: Invitation
Hear ye, hear ye!
Her Royal Highness, Princess Celestia of Equestria, and Her Royal Highness, Princess Luna of Equestria, are pleased to announce the Grand Galloping Gala to be held in the magnificent city of Canterlot, on the 21st day of August, on the grounds of the Royal Palace and Gardens, beginning after sunset. You are cordially invited to honor this high-society formal celebration by your presence as the first-ever representative of the Changeling Kingdom. Included in the invitation are tickets for King Thorax plus one guest.
Princess Celestia
Princess Luna
P.S. We have no objection to Pharynx being your Gala companion, should you wish to bring him.
Sure enough, two golden tickets were attached to the scroll: one with my name, and one with a blank line, presumably to be filled in with the name of my companion.
“Whoa… this Gala sounds really big and important...” I mused.
“It’s the biggest high-society event in Equestria,” the courier said. “Being invited to it is considered a great honor.”
“In that case, I guess it would be rude to refuse, huh? Even though I’m not sure how to behave at high-society events… or whom to bring… Pharynx wouldn’t be very thrilled, and who knows if he’ll get his behavior under control by then…”
“I’m sure you can handle it, Your Highness,” the courier interjected. “In case you find yourself overwhelmed, Princess Celestia said to tell you your friends will be there.”
“Really?! All of them?”
“I know the Royal Family of the Crystal Empire is invited, and so are the Element Bearers and Spike. They get invited every year! I also heard rumors about Sunburst, Starlight Glimmer, and Trixie Lulamoon making their debut, and about Discord getting invited again despite having caused some mischief before. They are your friends, correct?”
“Yes.” So there was little point asking any of them to be my plus-one if they had their own tickets. Maybe one of my subjects would be interested, or maybe somepony from the Crystal Empire? I would prefer Pharynx, but whether or not that would be a good idea… “Um, do I have to decide who I’m bringing right now?”
“Most recurring guests already know who they’re going to bring by the time the invitations are sent, but not everypony, and it’s not a requirement. It’s enough to write their name on the ticket when you arrive so I’ll know whom to announce.”
“...announce?”
“Yes. I’ll be tasked with announcing the name of every guest as they enter the ballroom. It’s standard practice at formal events. Didn’t you know?”
“No, I’m new to this kind of stuff. No such occasions happened in the Crystal Empire while I lived there, I wasn’t an infiltrator that would be required to know such things, and Chrysalis certainly didn’t organize any formal balls!”
“Understandable. Shall I tell the Princesses to expect you, then?”
“Yes, I suppose. Though I’m not sure if I’ll even have a plus-one…”
“I’m sure you’ll find someone.” He bowed again and trotted off.
I went to find Pharynx. Sure enough, he was still in the arts-and-crafts area, only now, he was stitching something.
“Is that… a maulwurf hide?” I exclaimed.
“What do you think?”
“Where did you get it?”
He just glared at me.
“You… didn’t go kill a maulwurf for this… did you?”
“You’re feeling sorry for maulwurfs now? Don’t answer. I don’t wanna know. No, this isn’t a recent kill. I dug it up from the storage area. It belonged to the maulwurf that killed Succubus. I skinned him and kept the hide as a trophy, then forgot about it until now. I figured it should be sturdy enough for one of the rage-relief dummies.”
Oooookay… “Anyway, that’s not what I’m here about. Have you heard of the Grand Galloping Gala?”
“That posh thing in Canterlot? Yeah, what about it?”
“I just got invited to the upcoming one-”
“Have fun.”
“-and there was an extra ticket for me bring someone along.”
“So?”
“I was hoping you’d be interested…”
“Me?! Are you crazy? Especially after what happened in the Crystal Empire?”
“I’m sure you’ll manage to rein in your anger by then!” Definitely asking Feisty to help him get there...
“Even if I do, what makes you think Celestia won’t kick both of us off the cliff at the first sight of me? Not to mention that I’d rather get eaten by a pack of maulwurfs than go there?”
“She explicitly said it’s okay to bring you.” I showed him the scroll.
“Can’t you bring someling else?”
“I might find someone, but I was really hoping you’d want to come…”
He huffed and muttered something incoherent.
“Pleeease?”
A moment passed in which his annoyed glare countered my hopeful one, then he groaned and buried his face in the maulwurf hide. “Why is the universe punishing me at every step?”
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Hopefully he will be able to restrain himself from going after any of the Canterlot socialites who might think it fashionable to question the reformation of the changelings. The typical Canterlot elite would easily press any of Pharynx' buttons.
Pharynx is just fiesty adorable
Not to make this anything perverse, but maybe all of Pharynx's rage is because he's a "little blue"?
11775564
Chalk it up to my non-native englishness, but I'm not sure what that means
11775581
Pent up, feeling randy
Basically, he needs to partake of the procreative activities
11775615
Romance and procreative activities are no longer forbidden/heavily controlled and Pharynx knows it. If he feels the need, I'm sure he'll find someone to satisfy that need with
11775627
Given his abrasive personality, might be a bit challenging
11775770
People (and changelings) have all kinds of preferences. There could be drones who actually prefer a tough guy and wouldn't need much convincing to hook up with Pharynx. Theoretically speaking, the partner could even be the one to approach Pharynx, not the other way around.
11775789
I won't say it's impossible; just doesn't sound very likely
I honestly wouldn't be surprised if Harmony actually had specific interest in Pharynx for this.
I instantly had to think of this: