For science - Book three

by Znegil

6 Home again

At last, we arrived in Ponyville and left the train. The news about Chrysalis must have reached the ponies here as well, but there were a lot of nervous looks and many ponies tried to keep their distance to us. Our ways separated after a few minutes and we waved the others goodbye.

We had nearly reached the library when the changeling princess got tackled by a pink blur.

Despite being much smaller than her, Pinkie had her in a bear-hug and it looked like she was squeezing every bit of air out of her.

“My Pinkie sense was right, somepony new is here.”, she announced.

Just as I wanted to stop her to prevent Chrysalis from suffocating, she let go of her with a puzzled look on her face.

“That's strange… You feel familiar, like I have hugged you before…”, she rambled.

Chrysalis needed a few more breaths before she was able to respond. “Do you remember the unicorn mare ‘Abstrudo Turquoisewings’?”

Pinkie’s looked at her in surprise. “Abstrudo? You have been Abstrudo?” Her mood dropped a bit. “You never wanted to play with me.”

“Maybe because I was spying here to gather information? You made it a lot harder to do when you always randomly popped out of nowhere and asked me to play with you.”

Pinkie looked blurry-eyed for a moment.

“Wait, does that mean you had been without permission in Twilight's bedroom that one night?”, the pink pony asked.

“What???”, Twilight asked surprised, but was ignored.

“Well of course! You startled me so much I nearly had screamed. I was sure my cover was blown until you whispered if I wanted to play hide and seek.”

There was a short silence until Pinkie spoke up again. “Do you want to play hide and seek now?”

“No, I don't!”, Chrysalis shouted.

I laid my hand on Pinkie’s back to get her attention, she gave me a sad look.

“You should give her some time to get accustomed to her new situation, I'm sure she will play with you someday in the future.”, I told her.

That lightened the party pony’s mood a bit, while Chrysalis looked at me as if I had suggested to ban her to the moon.

“In a way, she is new in town.”, I continued. “What would you suggest to introduce her to everypony.”

I got the expected reaction from Pinkie, her eyes lit up and a big grin formed on her face. “A Party?!”, she asked eagerly.
“That sounds like a great idea, can you organize one for tomorrow?”, I asked while petting her head.

Her head moved so fast up and down it looked like a blur and a second later, just a pink dusk cloud was left in front of me, slowly dissolving while smelling like cotton candy.

“What did you do in my bedroom at night?”, Twilight asked as we walked into the library.

“Gathering information.”, was the reply featuring a big grin.

Twilight opened her mouth several times to say something, but it seemed she was unsure what to ask… or maybe afraid of the answer she would receive.

“I'm going upstairs and unpack our stuff.”, she said instead and walked up to our room.

“You really should be more open to her, we are all here to help with the changeling situation.”, I scolded our guest.

Her ears dropped to the side and she sighed. “I know, but it isn't so easy.”

“Why not?”, I asked. “You have been pretty open to me.”

She sat down on the living room couch and looked at the ceiling. “That's because you're not a pony. For many many decades, I only learned and knew to ‘never trust a pony and never give away any information about our race’. It's not easy to overcome this.”

'Many many decades?', I thought. 'How old is she actually?'
I decided to shelve this question until we knew each other a bit better, I was afraid it could be rude to ask.

Chrysalis was browsing book titles in the library shelves.

“Okay, let's go upstairs so I can show you your room.”, I finally told her. “It's the same room I used when I arrived at this world.”

We moved up the stairs but I stopped midway. “About Twilight…”, I started.

“I will tell her I'm sorry and try to be more open to her.”, she interrupted me.

I gave her a warm smile. “Thanks.”

We continue our way and I showed her the room she would be staying. After a moment she decided to go to our room to speak to my marefriend while I waited, we both agreed it would make a better impression if she did this without me.

…

I had been at the market for some ingredients and now I was preparing dinner. Chrysalis was reading in the library while Twilight was working on a list of possible questions we could ask her tomorrow. We had decided to wait until the next day before we started with the changeling research… Well, I thought it would be a good idea to give our guests a moment to get accustomed to her new home and I was able to convince Twilight.

The door swung open and Spike came in. “Hey, you are finally back, I didn't… Wo… Woah!”

“Hey Spike, this is our new friend…”, I started.

“And research project!”, my marefriend shouted.

I sighed. “Hey Spike, meet our new friend and research project Chrysalis.”

Unsure the little dragon carefully closed the distance. “Welcome to Ponyville… you don't eat dragons, don't you?”

A big grin started to spread on the changeling’s face but I gave her a stern look and shook my head.

She rolled her eyes. “No, I don't get any nutrition from normal food, I can only feed on emotions.”

“But she can eat just for the enjoyment of the taste.”, I added. “I'm making curry tonight and she will try some as well.”

“I'm sure I would taste awful.”, Spike tried to convince Chrysalis.

Comments

[Znegil]

8505110
Learned something new today, thank you. I corrected it.

[Randomfastreader]

8505271
english is extremely weird!!

[Sidetrack]

She showed a big smile again. “I am 204 years, that is young for a changeling princess, I can get up to 1200 years.”

that's roughly 18 in human years. You never have a pony equivalent.