The Light Within Us

by theOwtcast

An Intriguing Offer

“Are you sure you need this many scrolls?”

“It doesn’t hurt to be prepared, Pharynx! The last time I was here, I ended up digging through shelves upon shelves of military reports!”

“I know how many there are,” he retorted. “I was in charge of them, in case you forgot. Even the ones that were centuries old, as you never knew which strategy Chrysalis wanted us to emulate or what little detail she wanted payback for from a great-grandson of the guy responsible for that detail, or whatever else was on her mind at any given moment.”

“Then this should be easy if you remember stuff from-”

“I don’t remember most of it, Thorax. A selection of the more notable, interesting, or recent stuff, yes, but the rest was a challenge to sift through, and I relegated the sifting to Urtica half the time because I had other things to handle. Like you said, there’s an insane amount of it, and Urtica said you’d barely scratched the surface by the time she found you.”

“Okay, then we need this many scrolls, so why are you acting like we don’t?”

“Because I have no intention on volunteering our entire classified history to someone who was our enemy until a few months ago and I don’t care if they’re our allies now! They’ll get a heavily redacted version and I’ll be damned if it turns out any more detailed than a list of creatures we’ve dealt with!”

“You do realize that probably lists every creature in existence, don’t you?” I said dryly.

“I’m pretty sure we never fought windigos,” he shrugged. “Or Grogar. The guy was defeated before our time if what I’ve been told is true.”

“Still, that doesn’t narrow the list down by much, don’t you think?”

“So what would you do? Dump the entire archive on them and let them have a field day with it?”

“Not necessarily. I was thinking more along the lines of chronology, you know, which war happened when, how long it lasted, who won, what strategies worked best, that kind of stuff, and probably something similar for the wild beasts. That should be basic enough… Of course, if you’re willing to share anything more than that, that’s fine…”

“I’m not giving away tactical information like free candy!”

“Fine, then, if the ponies get threatened by something we’ve dealt with, they can come to us and ask about the strategies-”

“Don’t push it!”

“They’re our allies! We can’t deny them this kind of information if they’re under attack!”

“If they’re under attack, then they don’t have time to stroll all the way over here for a tactical discussion over tea-”

“They could teleport! It only takes a few seconds! And there doesn’t have to be any tea involved!”

“Sure it doesn’t. I bet you already have an assortment of flavors stashed somewhere-”

We turned around a corner and almost tripped over someling lounging on the archive floor.

“-great, now we’re letting nymphs into restricted military sections…” he groaned.

“It’s not restricted anymore!” I reminded him. “Ocellus, what are you doing here?”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to cause trouble-”

“You’re not causing trouble! We just weren’t expecting to find you here!”

“Oh.” She calmed down somewhat, though her eyes were darting to Pharynx every couple of seconds. “It’s just… I like to read and… mom has been getting me books from Equestria… I think she has a friend there who sends them… but mail has been slow lately and I’ve already read everything I got and… and there’s not much else to read here so I thought… I’m sorry…”

“Can’t you re-read the books you got?” Pharynx asked.

“They’re from a library… we sent them back…”

“I see,” I mused. “But this is the military conquest section. Isn’t it a little too… depressing to read?”

“Um, yes, but I only just got here… I don’t know where anything is so I picked a shelf at random… okay, not really random, I was looking for a section that looked like I wouldn’t be disturbed there…”

“How did you get past Urtica?” Pharynx interjected.

She turned into a mouse.

“...of course.”

“But why not ask Urtica if she had something suitable for you to read?”

“I… I didn’t want to disturb her…”

“Pharynx, do we know of any light reading here for Ocellus?”

His flat stare said it all.

“...riiight… hm… I only have a few Daring Do books… Have you read those?”

“I have, they’re great!”

“Good enough for a re-read, maybe?”

Her wings fluttered. “Good enough for ten re-reads!”

“Then go ahead and grab one. They’re in my bedchamber, shouldn’t be too hard to find.”

“Really?! Oh, thank you thank you thank you thank you- Um, you really wouldn’t mind that I-”

“Not at all, help yourself!”

“Ok… okay…” She galloped off.

“So you’re letting any random nymph into your bedchamber now,” Pharynx stated. “I hope they know not to mess with mine in the process. Or with anything in yours that isn’t what they came for.”

“You worry too much, Pharynx. I’m sure Ocellus will be fine!”

“She probably will, but that won’t last if word gets out that she was allowed inside and other nymphs decide to see it as an invitation to follow suit. Or adults, eventually. There are still a few drones who disapprove of you and I’ll bet they’re steering clear of it because it was off-limits in Chrysalis’ time and it hasn’t occurred to them that might not be the case anymore. Don’t be surprised if things start getting suddenly broken or misplaced and the nights stop being quiet.”

“And I’m sure you already have a plan or five on how to deal with it in case it does happen. Now, shall we get started?”

“Last time I checked, they were in chronological order.” He approached a shelf and pulled out a stack of scrolls. “Let’s see… Winsonic Falls… Unicornia… Caracows… Saddle Horn Peaks… Griffith Isles… Arimaspi… Temple of Tehuti… eh, more or less chronological. Do you want everything or just stuff that isn’t ponies?”

“...I didn’t think of that,” I admitted. “Including everything would be more thorough, but the ponies probably have their own records of battles with us, and the point isn’t to teach them how to defend themselves from ponies, so maybe skipping those would be quicker?”

“That’ll still leave us with a lot of work. Most of our open combat with ponies took place in the early days of Equestria. The battles have been sporadic for centuries as we switched to infiltration and covert prey hunting in their lands, but the wars continued elsewhere and there probably isn’t a land we haven’t touched. Wild beasts are a whole other section.”

“That would probably be more useful to them, now that I think about it. They’ve already got a lot of allies, so how many hostile lands can there be?”

“You’d be surprised. Klugetown alone would make their skin crawl, and that’s just one dot on the map.”

“Yeah, what is it with Klugetown? Whenever it gets mentioned, it’s in an unfavorable context…”

“It’s a dump filled with crooks and smugglers from all over the world, and therefore the go-to place if you have some shady business to take care of. We actually used to get supplies from there, in disguise of course because half our sources either didn’t like changelings or they preferred to pretend they didn’t know where their merchandise was going. You’re better off not going there, which shouldn’t be too hard as I doubt they’ll ever be interested in establishing diplomatic relations. As for ponies…” He whistled. “We could spend a full week listing all the known schemes and tricks of those people for them and there’d still be a good amount that we’d miss. Maybe it is a good thing you brought all those scrolls!”

“So you’re thinking we should start with Klugetown?”

“Let’s follow the chronology of these scrolls now that you dragged me here. I don’t need the archive to- What do you want, Ocellus?”

I turned around to see her cowering behind a row of shelves.

“Sorry, I um…” she squeaked. “I don’t mean to disturb…”

“Then leave! We don’t have all day!”

She retreated even further.

“Don’t mind him,” I said gently, approaching her. “Are you having trouble finding the books?”

“No, I um, didn’t get there. I, uh… Princess Twilight is here and I ran into her and she asked where to find you and I ran off like a complete idiot and-”

“Whoa, slow down! Princess Twilight, here?”

“What’s so important all of a sudden that she couldn’t send a letter?” Pharynx interjected.

“Does it have to be important? Maybe she’s here casually!”

“Casual a few days after a siege of her country’s capital city? Seriously, Thorax?!”

I shrugged. “You said it yourself that saving the world is like a weekend hobby for them. Couldn’t they have gotten used to it to the point where it’s no longer stressful?”

“I meant fixing the damage! Though, that could have easily been relegated to the common folk, even the supervision duty.” He smirked. “Wouldn’t it take the prize if they just had another villain attack and she’s been forced to swallow her heroic pride and come begging us for assistance?”

I gasped. “Oh no… Ocellus, did you get the impression that something urgent was going on?”

“No, she seemed… happy? She was really nice but I didn’t expect to find her here and freaked out-”

I put a reassuring hoof on her shoulder. “It’s alright, you’ve never been around royalty and-”

“A-hem!” Pharynx scowled in my direction.

“...you’ve never been around foreign royalty and it’s normal to feel starstruck. You’ll grow out of it! Now, can you tell me where to find Twilight?”

“I think she was heading for the throne room. Before I ran off, that is.”

“Alright then, I’d better go talk to her. Pharynx, would you like Ocellus to assist-”

He grunted and waved us away.

“...oookay… Be back soon!”

Ocellus trotted off ahead of me, looking back gingerly every so often, and was soon out of sight. I continued to the throne room.

I found Twilight pacing lazily around the plateau and Spike sitting on one of the rocks, reading a comic book. Why hadn’t Ocellus mentioned him?! Had she been so taken aback by the arrival of an alicorn princess that she’d failed to notice anyone else?

“Ah, you’re here!” Twilight said right away, trotting over; Spike abandoned his comic book and ran up to join us. “Sorry for showing up unannounced. I hope you’re not busy?”

“No, things are pretty slow over here. Unlike in Equestria, by the sound of it. Did you really face two villains in the span of less than a month?”

“We… did… Wow, Spike, it’s really been less than a month! I never realized!”

“Of course you didn’t. You were so focused on setting up the Festival it’s a wonder you remembered to eat!”

“I wasn’t that bad!”

He fixed a glare at her.

“...okay, maybe a little,” she relented. “But it was meant to be big and important, and there was so much to take care of and coordinate, I couldn’t risk- Fine, that’s not why we’re here…”

“I don’t mind hearing about it!”

“Really, don’t go there,” Spike warned. “You get her going and we’ll be here forever! ...not that I mind getting to see you but I’d rather we do something interesting…”

“The Festival wasn’t interesting?”

“It was, in the end, but the preparations for it… a nightmare! Just running around to get the permits and other paperwork took forever, and we’d probably still be at it if the fact that a princess needed it hadn’t sped things up! You’d think somepony would have simplified bureaucracy at some point...”

“This is the simplified version! Didn’t you read File Folder’s Official Compendium of Official Office Practices?”

“That ginormous three-hundred-years old monstrosity of a book?” He gagged. “No thanks! I’m trying to maintain some level of sanity here!”

“I don’t know if I should be curious or afraid to ask…” I muttered.

“If you’d bothered,” Twilight continued, “you’d know perfectly well that- oh, okay, that’s not what we came here for, heh… Sorry, Thorax, I tend to get carried away sometimes when somepony disrespects a book in my presence…”

“In that case, I solemnly swear not to disrespect any books while you’re around!”

“And when she’s not around?” Spike quipped.

“Um… of course not! Why do you think I’d-”

“Relax, I’m just teasing!”

Twilight chuckled. “I know you wouldn’t, Thorax, which is part of the reason why I think you’d be interested to hear what I have in mind.”

“I’m listening!”

“You know about the Friendship Map in my castle, right? It shows the entire Equestria plus parts of surrounding lands such as Griffonstone and the Crystal Empire, or at least it used to. But a few days ago, after my friends and I returned to Ponyville after the Friendship Festival, we saw the map had in the meantime grown and now shows the entire Equus! So it occurred to me, if the whole world is in the reach of magic of friendship as seems to be the case, we’ll now have the duty and opportunity to spread that magic far and wide, wider than ever before, and I don’t want to wait for problems to arise for us to tackle them, and what promise do I have that the whole world won’t be too much to handle? I want to be proactive, do everything I can to keep friendship problems from even arising, and so I decided to open a School of Friendship!”

“Really?! That’s a wonderful idea! I already know it’s gonna be a success! If only something like that had existed earlier, maybe… Ahem, is there anything I can do to help?”

“Actually, there might be! I’ve gotten some advice from Celestia and the EEA’s provisional approval, my friends have agreed to be the teachers, and construction work on the school building and dormitories have already begun, so the only thing left are the students. The school may physically be in Equestria, but my vision is to make it open for all creatures, no matter which species they are or where they’re coming from.”

“Because all creatures need and deserve friendship, and what better way to bring it to them than through their own people brought together?”

“Exactly!”

“Ooh, it sounds beautiful… Can I attend?”

She chuckled again. “I think you already know enough about friendship to not need to attend. In fact, I’d offer you a teaching position if you weren’t already busy enough leading a country. I might still invite you as a guest teacher in some of the classes and maybe even ask you to be a substitute teacher if we need one and your duties permit, but what I really wanted right now is to ask you if any nymphs would be interested in enrolling.”

“Of course, I’m sure there’ll be plenty! You can have as many as you want!”

“Yeah, that’s kind of a problem,” Spike said.

“...how so? Didn’t you guys just say you wanted to spread friendship to as many creatures as possible?”

“We did!” Twilight said hurriedly. “Normally I’d never turn down a student, but since there are so many countries potentially involved, it’s… gotten complicated. You’re not the first leader I’m coming to with the idea. I hope you won’t mind that I left you for last; I only did it because I was sure you’d be reasonable and wanted to tackle the difficult ones first, and was met with a mixed response. The yaks were alright with it, and Queen Novo showed some interest in enrolling a few hippogriffs despite still not trusting me after the mess I made in Seaquestria, which I totally understand, and she’s on good terms with Celestia so that might have gone in my favor, but Ember only managed to find one dragon who didn’t threaten to burn Ponyville to the ground as revenge for getting roped into it, though she did promise to keep working on it, and Griffonstone doesn’t even have an official leader and the closest thing to a figure of authority they have picked the first young griffon that walked by and told me to get lost.”

“Ouch…”

“That in itself isn’t a problem. Okay, yes, it kind of is in the long run if I consistently fail to find students from certain parts of the world, but I can work on the strategy to deal with it as I go. The problem I’m concerned about actually came up while I was trying to convince Grandpa Gruff to enroll more than one griffon. He wasn’t the first one I asked, and I told him the leaders I’d visited before had offered more students and that I was sure at least some of the remaining lands would do the same, and somehow the conversation spun into him accusing me of playing favorites or something like that.”

“Of sucking up to people and meddling with things that don’t concern you and-” Spike added.

“Yes, Spike, and a bunch of other things that I wanted to ignore because Rainbow and Pinkie said he was like that when they met him during a friendship mission a while ago, but it cracked my confidence, which I hadn’t realized until the Abyssinians too accused me of favoritism at the mention of students being primarily from Equestria and the possibility of the number of students from other lands being higher than their one potential candidate, whom they withdrew by the end of my audience with them.”

“I don’t see how it’s favoritism if you accept every student who wants to learn,” I remarked.

“Me neither,” Spike agreed.

“I know, and it makes no sense to me either, but I guess it could be part of their culture to see it that way, and I may not have done a good enough job preparing to meet them if I didn’t know to anticipate it-”

“C’mon Twi, you’ve read every book in existence! You came as prepared as you could for someone who didn’t spend their life over there!”

“Spike is probably right,” I said. “Changelings know it best. One of the first things they taught us in basic infiltration is that no matter how well prepared you arrive at your assignment, there’s always something you won’t know, even after years in position, and that a good infiltrator knows how to work around those limitations. I’m pretty sure a version of that statement applies to your situation as well! You didn’t fail, you just came across a bump in the road and you’ll figure out how to get past it!”

“Yes, I’ve thought about it, and I’d consider accepting an equal number of students from each land if that would avoid favoritism accusations, but if I’m to set the limit by the count of students from the least-represented land, that doesn’t leave me with a lot of students since there’s just one student from Griffonstone, probably one student from Dragon Lands, and maybe one student from Abyssinia if I can convince them to change their minds.”

“Telling them to prove favoritism accusations right or wrong themselves by enrolling more students didn’t work, I take it?”

She shook her head. “That’s the first thing I tried.”

I pondered this. Could I find anyling who used to be deployed to Griffonstone or Abyssinia for an extended period and ask them for ideas on how to handle the situation?

“From what I know about griffons, they might agree if you paid them-”

“I suggested that and got turned down immediately,” Spike said. “It’s considered bribing, which in itself is illegal, plus Twi says it would go against everything the school is supposed to stand for.”

“Friendship should be its own reward, and expecting money or similar forms of compensation for being friends with someone only breeds fake friendships,” she added.

“Would it be that bad to ignore favoritism accusations and just accept whoever wants to attend?” I asked. “I mean, you’ll never please everyone anyway, and I really don’t see the logic behind the accusation! And who’s to say this will be a problem every year? For all you know, that one griffon could succeed where you haven’t and convince many other griffons to enroll the next year if he or she grows to like the school!”

“He could, yes,” Twilight mused. “But will he like the school enough to bother to try?”

“Good point,” Spike agreed. “I want to say that he will because you and the girls would be great teachers, but there’s more to school than attending classes. He could feel lonely if he turns out to be the only sole representative of a species, and depending on what he’s like, that could make all the difference!”

“But if he sees a lone changeling, a lone dragon, a lone yak, and so on, he might not feel as left out, and other creatures being the only ones of their kind there could make it easier for him to approach those creatures, and the same could go for any of those creatures! And since they’re in a pony city, they’ll expect to be surrounded by ponies and it shouldn’t be much of a problem!”

“Maybe that’s what they meant by ‘favoritism’...” Twilight mused. “It’s unrealistic to demand that all denizens of a city be kicked out of their homes or to order them to steer clear of the school for the sake of a few students, and about as unrealistic to build a school in the middle of nowhere, but if we put all the non-pony students in the same situation, at least during the first year… Thorax, would you be okay with me requesting that you only send one student this year? I won’t set limitations next year if this works!”

“Sure! I actually have someling in mind who I think would be a perfect fit for your school!”

“You do?” Twilight and Spike said in unison.

“Yes! She’s a bit shy and would have to overcome that, which I’m sure she will under your guidance, and she’s nice and well-mannered and loves books! Speaking of which, I don’t suppose you’ve brought along any books you won’t need right away? She finished reading everything her mom borrowed from the ponies and the next batch hasn’t arrived yet.”

Twilight gasped. “You don’t have books in the hive?!”

“Well, I have a few Daring Do ones I brought from the Crystal Empire, and I’m not saying that none of my subjects have obtained any since I took command and allowed them to pursue their interests, but we somehow haven’t yet established a library or anything of the sort-”

“Spike, add helping Thorax set up a library in the hive to the checklist!”

He did. “Do you have newspaper stands, comic book stands, that kind of stuff?”

“...no, but I guess we should…”

“Adding that too!” Scribble scribble. “Though, at this distance, I can’t promise the Equestrian newspapers to arrive on time…”

“That’s alright. A day or two shouldn’t make much of a difference! Except in emergencies, in which case I’m guessing you’ll contact us via communicators or teleport here?”

“Of course.”

“Speaking of emergencies, Pharynx and I have started listing enemies and wild beasts the changelings have fought over the centuries - the ones that could pose a threat to ponies, at least - and our tactics against them, if you ever need help defeating them. The Storm King business gave us the idea. Turns out Pharynx has had dealings with him some years ago, just after the hippogriffs went into hiding, and he was livid that you didn’t invite him to finish the job now! Not necessarily to have Pharynx kill him, just to incapacitate him until he’s no longer a threat…”

“We didn’t know,” Twilight said.

“I told you to stop by at the hive!”

“I know, Spike, but Thorax had a yak delegation to entertain! We couldn’t just barge in demanding his attention!”

“For the future, I can arrange that someling will always be available to see you if I can’t for any reason. I’m sure someling would have done it this time too, but I get it that you didn’t want to intrude. Will that be alright?”

“Of course! Now if you don’t mind, I’d like to revisit the other leaders to bring them up to speed on the school matters. We’ll come back one of these days about the library and the newspaper stand!”

“Uh-huh! See you then!”

They teleported away and I went looking for a certain nymph. I found her in one of the outer-wall gardens, engrossed in my book. Wait, she was already at chapter six?

“Hi, Ocellus,” I said, startling her a little, but she composed herself quickly. “I have two pieces of news for you. Actually, one piece of news and one offer. Would you like to hear them?”

“Uh… yes?”

“Twilight is going to help us set up a library right here in the hive. You’ll have more books to read any day now!”

“Really?” she squealed. “Ooh, thank you! I can’t wait! ...and the offer?”

“Twilight is opening a School of Friendship in Ponyville and asked if I knew of any changelings who would want to enroll, and you’re the first one I thought of. So, what do you say?”

The surge in her aura could have powered the Crystal Heart for a full century! “YES!”

Comments

[Screw]

It's great seeing Ocellus being lively.