//------------------------------// // Chapter 2 // Story: Ashley's New Life // by LostUmbrella //------------------------------// "Ouch! What are you doing?" asked the gray 'unicorn' turning her head to fix her gaze on Lyra's eyes. "Sorry, I didn't mean to hurt you," replied the other with a sheepish smile scratching the back of her head with a forehoof "It was just a bit of anesthetic to treat the wounds on your back." "I guess that a little anesthetic could be nice," said 'Ashen Sky' relaxing visibly. "Now, while we wait for it to take effect, why don't you tell me how did you get such nasty wounds?" asked the green unicorn sitting on the other couch. "Uhm Lyra, what are you doing?" asked the changeling noticing her friend weird sitting posture. "That? It's just how humans usually sit. I find it pretty relaxing," explained the musician waving a dismissive hoof. "Lyra, you're not annoying our guest with your strange legends and conspiratorial theories, right?" asked Bon-Bon from the kitchen in a stern tone. "Uh, no of course..." gulped the unicorn, before addressing 'Ashen Sky' "I suppose you already met my marefriend, right?" "Yes, she's a nice pony," answered the other with a smile. "Ehm, Lyra, may I ask a question?" "Sure, unless it is about me and Bon-Bon making sweets, if you know what I mean," answered the green mare chuckling. Ashley's face reddened a bit: even if in her week long life she had her fair share of experiences, love affairs were still an unknown to the young changeling. "Of course no! I wanted to ask: if I wasn't a unicorn, would you still help me?" At those words, Lyra jumped on her two rear hooves, pointed one of the fore ones to her friend and shouted: "I knew it: you're an alicorn whose wings have been torn away!" The suspected alicorn gave her a blank stare. "Uh, sorry, go on..." said Lyra smiling sheepishly and going back to sitting. "Is it normal that I'm feeling that much sleepy?" asked Ashley yawning. "Uh-oh!" said the other eyeing the anesthetic after having dug it out of the kit "I might have used a teensy bit too much... " As her drowsy brain processed her info, Ashley found herself fighting the urge to strangle her first friend. "Before I black out," she started to say putting a hoof on Lyra's left shoulder "I won't harm anypony." "What does that mean?" asked the very confused unicorn while her friend forelimb fell from her shoulder. A second later, she screamed at the top of her lungs as 'Ashen Sky's' body got engulfed in bright green flames. Bon-Bon almost didn't have the time to move after hearing Lyra's scream, that she found a ball of mint green fur trying to hide behind her. "Lyra? What's up?" she asked after turning to face the trembling unicorn. "C-C-C-Changeling!" "Again this story?" sighed the backer hugging her marefriend "Last time it was Carrot Top saying she was at the wedding, what did Ashen Sky say to frighten you?" "Couch" was the only answer she got. "All right, I'll go and ask her," said Bon-Bon slowly rising "Be right back." She understood her marefriend's fear, after all being abducted and mind controlled by those creatures must have taken its toll on her, but she found that randomly accusing other ponies was a bit extreme reaction. She reached the living room and froze: on her couch, where she expected to find a gray unicorn, lied instead a much bigger, pony-shaped creature encased in a glossy black shell covered in cracks and white bandages drenched in a green fluid, with slender limbs full of holes, like her contorted horn and her dark gray mane and tail; but the most disturbing thing of the complexion weren't the visibly torn wings, but the fact that tears were rolling down her muzzle even while sleeping. As if she had just received a good stare from a cockatrice (or from Fluttershy, who is even worse if you asked the right cockatrice), Bon-Bon stood in the doorway to the kitchen, processing what she was seeing. "Lyra, go fetch the guards," calmly said the cream colored mare. "No..." murmured the unicorn with a sniff. "What?" asked an extremely surprised Bon-Bon entering the kitchen, where her marefriend was still hiding. "She can replace you while I'm out and turn you in her with some spell..." explained the unicorn in a serious tone. "Oh Lyra," said the other hugging her "You don't need to worry, I'll be fine. Now go." Lyra smiled a bit and nodded, but froze as a raspy, double toned but not completely unfamiliar voice muttered: "No, please don't." The two mares found themselves paralyzed where they were as the first shaky black hoof clicked on the white tiles of the kitchen. Ashley made her way in the room painfully slowly as she fought back the effect of the sedative. She turned to the two colorful stains she saw with her vision made blurry by her tears, and fell on the floor. "I won't harm you, nor anypony else..." she said, her breath made heavy by fatigue and broken by sobs. "Lies! She told me what you did at the wedding!" shouted Bon-Bon placing herself between Lyra and the changeling. Ashley only stared at them, too tired to keep on fighting the anesthetic, too stubborn to let go. She intertwined her gaze with the scared unicorn. "She's not lying," declared Lyra after a moment, surprising both the changeling and the pony. "What are you saying? She tricked you to get in our house, who knows what else she had planned!" claimed Bon-Bon pointing an accusatory hoof towards the pitiful looking creature. "And I am the one who makes up crazy theories, uh?" asked her marefriend with a smirk. "Then why is she here?" retorted the backer. "Maybe I should answer this one." The injured changeling was forcing herself to stand, shaking under her own weight. "I am queen Ashley, well, ex-queen I should say," she confessed "I was born around a week ago as a substitute to my sister, queen Chrysalis, and a few hours after that I was planning an attack to Crystal City." "See? She's evil!" snarled the cream colored mare. "I won't deny that what I did isn't right, but I had my reason: without the love of the crystal heart my children would have died in a pair of months," explained the queen before resuming her story, telling the duo how the attack ended with her being defeated by Chrysalis, and her decision to live a different kind of life. "You know, it's hard to believe something like this," declared Bon-Bon shaking her head as the changeling finished her tale "Yet it sounds more plausible than Lyra's theories on humans." "Hey! They exist, someplace far away, I'm sure of it!" "Like the seaponies right?" asked the cream colored mare with a playful smirk. "You saw the photo I took in our bathtub! It was there!" replied the unicorn slightly offended. "No, I saw a photo of you in a bubble bath and your wet hoofprints in our hallway," said her marefriend blowing her a raspberry. "I already -" started explaining Lyra before a loud thud announced that her guest had fallen again to the ground, defeated by the anesthetic.