//------------------------------// // 3- Hayfries // Story: A changed changeling // by GermanBrony //------------------------------// It felt like I was laying on a fluffy cloud when I slowly regained my consciousness.I kept my eyes closed and just enjoyed the soft and cottony feeling all over my body.I was laying on my back, my legs sprawled and my my left cheek snuggled into the warm and soft mattress.This was a celestial alternation to the hard stone floor I was used to. A few minutes passed and I was about to fall asleep again when I could hear that a nearby door was opening.After the amount of hoofsteps I could estimate that there were two ponies entering the room.I kept my eyes closed and pretended to be asleep. The door closed with a creak and the two ponies were walking to the right side of the bed. "See, I told you we won't need any narcotics, he's still passed out.You owe me 5 bucks." a virile sounding voice said to his attendant, his words beaming with pride. I could hear some angry tooth grinding from the other pony."Oh wow, the first time you were actually right about something! Don't get used to it, that's the first and last time" a mare hissed at him.I had to strain not to smile or chuckle. A couple of minutes passed without a word.They both were walking through the room and from time to time I could hear one of them writing something or rummaging in a drawer.When I was sure that they both were busy I risked to sneak a peek at the room. Everything looked like a normal hospital room, white walls and a white floor, some shelves with medical stuff, a sink, some posters with the anatomy of ponies and similar things.The only strange thing was that the windows were made out of colorful mosaics, but I didn't really looked up what they were showing. In the right corner in front of me was a metal desk with a stack of papers on it.A blue unicorn mare in a medical scrubs with a short silver and white stripped mane was sitting right behind the desk, looking at some folders while levitating a feather and writing something down.I couldn't see the stallion, but I didn't wanted to risk to get caught so I closed my eyes again and laid still. Another couple of minutes passed until the stallion broke the silence."I got everything I need for now.Let's go to the cafeteria!They got hayfries today.You pay!" he said cheerfully. The mare sighed."Fine, let's go to lunch, but I still think we should narcotize the changeling.It's creepy..." "No time, HAYFRIES! C'mon! " the stallion grizzled impatiently. After the door was closed and I could be sure that I was alone, I sat up and scratched my nose and sighed in relief. Always itching when you can't scratch it. As I started to scratch the underside of my muzzle I had to stop in astonishment.Two fangs! I touched them carefully to be sure, I even used my tongue, but there was no doubt, somehow my broken fang has restored.In the same moment I also ascertained beyond doubt that my rips stopped hurting when I move.'Sweeeeet' I stretched myself and licked over my muzzle while yawning.I looked around and my glimpse stopped at the desk with the papers the mare were working with.I jumped out from the bed and trotted over to it and sat down on the chair behind the desk. I randomly picked a folder and opened it.Some numbers and data, I threw the folder behind me and picked the next one.Same thing, away with it.It took like ten minutes before I finally could find something which looked like some understandable information. The folder was marked with an ANATOMY written in big red letters on the front page.I opened it and a few photos landed on the desk.I looked at them and my stomach immediately turned upside down.On the photos where pictures of a black pony with a sliced torso laying on a metal desk.Some unicorns in bloody surgical gowns were standing around the desk, on each picture with other sharp looking instruments levitating in the air beside them or doing something with them in the organs of the poor bastard. I wanted to look away, but I couldn't. There was something on this pony which seemed familiar to me.I held the photo in front of my eyes, trying to ignore the organs and the blood.I quickly rumpled the photo and threw it in the bin under the desk when I saw that the black pony had familiar little holes in his legs and a black mane on the back of his neck. A cold shiver ran down my spine by the imagination of me laying on this cold metallic operating table with an open cut in my chest, bleeding like hell while some crazy scientists are routing in my organs.I threw the folder on the mountain of paper behind me and stood up from the chair, walking toward the door the two ponies used.'Just get out of here before they come back!' In the same moment I wanted to turn the doorknob around I could hear the hoofsteps of two ponies again.I quickly pressed myself against the wall beside the door so that I would be behind it and out of sight. "Stop annoying me with your bucking hayfries or I won't pay for nothing! Just stay there and wait" the blue mare said while entering the room.I hold my breath and pressed myself harder against the wall so I won't come in contact with the door.She closed the door with a kick of her left hindleg and sighed in annoyance. I stood right behind her, trying not to attract her attention.Her blue fur was darker than I thought and her short silver and white stripped mane and tail looked wild, but no messy.My view wandered from her head down to the rest of her body.She was still wearing that white doctor coat so I couldn't see her cutie mark, but I bet it has something to do with medicine. I blushed a bit when I noticed that I was starring at her flank, but thanks Celestia the mare didn't became aware of it.She started to walk and I followed her silently with three hoofs distance between us.I don't wanted to hurt her, just stay out of her field of vision. We walked over to the desk when she suddenly stopped.I could barely avert a collision with her flank'...too bad'. "What in Celestia's name..."she said in confusion while starring at the jumbled mountain of folders on the floor.She quickly turned her head to the bed and her whole body looked deeply shocked when she discovered that it was empty. "Where...but...whu..."she stumbled while stepping over to it and throwing the blanket on the ground searching me.I just stood there and watched her with a smile while she disassembled the whole bed. When she levitated the pillow in the air to look under it I just had do chuckle.She froze in the movement and quickly turned her head around and starred at me with wide open eyes full of shock and fear.My smile turned upside down and I gulped. I just stood there starring into her eyes and she did the same with mine.I was getting nervous, so I did what I always do when I'm nervous: Darting my black forked tongue out and in while hissing. She may misinterpreted my behavior because she let out a stifled shriek and her eyes rolled up into their orbits after she saw my tongue touching one of my fang. I admit, I kinda look scary sometimes, but not so scary that you have to pass out immediately! *sigh* Anyway, she passed out and felt backwards on the bed before I could say something, so I trotted over to her and poked her into the side to look if she's just acting or really unconscious.She was not acting. I just stood beside her because I just didn't knew what to do when I could hear a knocking on the door and a familiar voice yelling through it "Are you coming or do I have to help you?" I quickly looked around the room in panic, searching for a solution.If he would come in he would see me besides his unconscious friend, and even the friendliest and unprejudiced pony in Equestria would suppose that I have done something to her. I finally got an idea when I saw the reflection of myself in a small mirror above the sink.I quickly disrobed her, slipped into her white doctors coat and I hid her body under the blanket I picked up from the floor.I hated myself for even trying what I was about to do, but I closed my eyes and concentrated my magic on the one thing I was really good in. It took me a few seconds and I was kinda surprised when I really could feel the well known cold and disgusting feeling starting from from my horn and spreading all over and through my body.I hated myself so much for doing it, but I didn't wanted to get back into the dungeons, so you could say I had no real choice, but it still just made me fell horrible. I opened my eyes and looked down on my now "normal" blue forelegs.I quickly checked if everything was alright and discovered that I got no cutie mark.I totally forgot to peek at her flank to see how it looks like, but I had no time to change once more.Luckily, the coat I had was big enough to hide the blank flank. The door opened and a white unicorn stallion with an electrified looking short blue mane and two crossed syringes as his cutie mark came in."Found your bits already?I can't understand how you could loose them.I always keep them in the pocket of my coat. Hmm. where could they be? This reminds me of a story ma grandpa told me when I was a foal, pretty funny.You have a grandpa? Silly question, everpony has a grandpa...Oh look there they are!" he blustered out and walked to the desk,picking up a small green bag of bits with his mouth."Whaf woulf you juf do wifhou me?" he burred to me, smiling with closed eyes. I just starred at him with a neutral face.Five seconds and I was already annoyed from him. "Let's go.I'm hungry!" he grizzled eagerly while tripping from hoof to hoof, but I was still too busy with handling the volley of words he shot at me, so I just stood there and starred into the big nothing. He sighed, rolled his eyes and walked behind me starting to push me through the door into a bright and gigantic corridor full with doctors and nurses which were talking to each other or rushing in different directions and vanishing in one of the many doors.The size and the acoustic level made me speechless.The space between floor and ceiling was immensely high and the length of the corridor seemed endless in both ways.The floor and the walls both were made out of solid white marble, so clean and polished that I could see the reflection of my changed shape in it. "What are you looking at?" the nag asked with a tilted head and a quaint look on his face. "Ehm...nothing, just the...floor?" I answered with the mare's voice. He seemed satisfied, continued chattering about hayfries and started to walk into the right direction.I tried to ignore what he said and just followed him.I really had no clue where to go but I planned to use the next opportunity to flee before they could discover my absence, so following him just seemed like a good idea for the moment. We passed a lot of doors and ponies, and while I walked besides him I used the time to admire the architecture of the building. I've never seen something like this before. The stallion stopped in front of a big double door and grinned at me."Finally! Let's hurry up before they are out of hayfries!" Did I ever mentioned that I hate the word hayfries?! He opened the door and a jumble of voices and laughter, as well as smoke, fumes and the odours of cider, juice, fried potatoes and other food affronted me.We entered the huge cafeteria without being noticed and he leaded me to an empty dining table in the middle of the hall. "Alrighty then, I go for some hayfries. You want the usual I guess?" he asked me while I sat down.I simply nodded and he grabbed the bag of bits from the pocket of my coat and vanished into the huge crowd of ponies.Actually he loosed the bet and to use the money of somepony else was not nice, but I was sitting there in the shape of his friend so I really couldn't say shit to that guy. I started to look around the room for an opportunity to get out of here, but the cafeteria was too big and my position was to crowded to really see something.I looked to the tables around mine and quickly ducked when I saw that they were full with ponies in golden armors talking to each other or polishing their sharp looking swords.One of them used a dagger as a toothpick.Crazy. I starred down on the table and inspected my hooves when white stallion returned with two tablets levitating over his head.He placed them on the table and sat down.His one was full with his loved fries and a bowl full with a red dip.On my tablet was a plate of...Ugh... "Broccoli..." I moaned.Of every possible meal it could have been, it is broccoli. I am able to eat a lot of the normal pony food because they often contain a different form of love, but broccoli is one of the few foodstuffs you just cannot cook with love, no matter how hard you try. "Whaf ik fe froflem? Fould I fo and fef you more?" the stallion asked through the hayfries in his mouth.I quickly shook my head and gave him a bad fake-smile. "No no, everything is fine.I was just...amazed...by the broccoli..." I answered. He smiled at me with full cheeks and continued inhaling hayfries.I admit, he is annoying but somehow adorable too...but just somehow. "Don't you want to eat that?" he suddenly asked after swallowing, interrupting me from watching how the guard on the next table performs his dental care. "You want it?" I shoved the plate to him.He shoved it back. "No...are you not feeling good today? You seem different, normally the plate would be empty by now but you didn't even touched it.Shall I escort you to the chief resident so he can have a look at you?" "NOO!" I shrieked and jumped to my hooves.He starred at me in confusion and I could feel the prying eyes of the guards besides us on me.I took place on my seat again and talked a bit quieter."No I'm fine.I still love broccoli, look." I quickly took a small floret of broccoli, swaddled my black forked tongue around it and threw it into my mouth, chewing and swallowing it demonstratively.His eyes widened in horror and a small squeak left his open mouth. I could hear some gasping from around the desk and then suddenly a mare screaming "C-C-CHANGELING!" Chairs were suspended and the guards from the nearby tables grabbed their weapons. "Oh buck..."