Doubt is a sharp blade: Behold the Queen on her Board

 “Professor Praxis?” Pas knocked gently on the door frame, watching through the open door as the earthy brown, bespectacled unicorn slowly seemed to come aware that the voice calling him was not only in his head. 

 

The Professor slowly lifted his head from a pile of manuscripts, blinked once or twice and then calmly called. “Oh, Pas D’arms. Come in. If this is about your grade on the magic studies paper…”

 

“It’s not.” He shakes his head, trying to remember what the last paper he’d even turned in was. Everything he’s been studying lately has been combat magic and strategy. Had he missed one?  Nevermind, he couldn’t worry about that right now. “I wanted to…” he sucked in a breath, tapping at the floor with the tip of his hoof. 

 

Was this stupid? It felt stupid. What if they reported him to the Commander? Or the Princess? What if they kicked him out of the guard!?

 

Maybe if they did he deserved it for all these thoughts.

 

“I uh… I’m… worried, I guess? I’m not sure how to explain any of it. I just, um… Queen Vespa… the… the changelings.” He tapped the floor more, anxiously, trying to read Praxis’s face, but the other unicorn has already turned away and is quietly reorganizing scrolls and arranging his quills. He feels a flash of irritation, and then doubt. 

 

“Go on, I’m listening. You have concerns, D’arms?”

 

Pas grimaces, almost offering up a correction of ‘Just Paz please’, but thinks better of it. 

 

“I do, sir. I’m just… it’s hard to know how to explain it?” 

 

“Please do make the attempt, before you cause irreparable damage to my floor. The wood is very old and it would be quite tragic if it were to suffer its end at the hoof of a well intentioned juvenile with excessive energy to burn.” 

 

Praxis informed him, now using his horn to lift down and examine bottles and labels, occasionally using an inked quill to mark something on the label.

 

“Sorry, I… Sorry.”

 

He forced his hooves to the floor, though he felt like he might vibrate out of his own skin by doing so. 

 

“I just…” He scowled for a moment, then dug for the conviction that still had the words rattling in his brain all day. “They’re ly… I mean she’s not LYING to us unless it’s by NOT telling us something, but they aren’t telling us something, I think. There’s this… space in way they’re working that makes the … the shape of something but I don’t know what it is. They’ve been hiding all this time but now, now after the Blood Widow she comes out and now we’re public allies instead of secret allies but also now all these pon… all these changelings that were born here and have been living here… they have a week to go live someplace else? That’s… I mean that’s bad. I can’t imagine being them and how much it has to hurt but I guess I could see it as protecting them because some ponies are really angry about not knowing.”  He sways on his hooves, fighting the itch to be moving because somehow moving would make this feel much more clear.   “That’s not it though, because I mean it’s bad but I feel like it’s not something that makes sense unless there’s a thing I can’t see. I mean what does Vespa gain by pulling them out now? What do either of them gain? I just… it’s hurting so many people it doesn’t make sense just for a peace we already had unless there’s… the… the thing.” 

 

He waves a hoof wildly, gesturing in frustration. 

 

“It’s like playing chess when you can only see part of the pieces?” Praxis paused, now paging through a book of what looked like history with a wry hint of a smile. “You’ve seen some of the pawns revealed, and the Queen, but only because she’s made the tactical revelation to show herself. You can hear the knights, the castles, the bishops moving but you don’t have so much as the shadow they cast to tell which positions they’ve taken, am I right?”

 

“I… yes sir. Yes, that's exactly it.”  His ears droop, exhilaration and nerves washing over him all at once. “I want to follow orders but I didn’t sign up to hurt people. I mean… I understand sometimes things hurt more before they help, but this only feels like hurting and I don’t…”

 

He didn’t want to do that. 

 

Praxis nodded slowly, and he could imagine there was a hint of sympathy. Then again he could imagine hundreds of emotions on that face. Praxis is as easy to read as a river tumbled stone. “What should I do??”

 

“I am afraid, Squire D’arms, I do not have an easy answer for you. Such things do not have easy answers frequently, or rather they do. The easy answer would be to continue to be an obedient chess piece and move where you are commanded. Otherwise…” He nods his head and looks distracted, somewhere past Pas’ shoulder. “Well. I think you’ll find you know what the other paths are and how many of them are acceptable in time. But I congratulate you on your observation.”

 

 A quill floated across the room and tapped Pas on the muzzle, dripping ink. “Continue observing, it will be most informative.”