life changes

Chapter One: Origins

Status: newborn

It was 8 A.M when the mother returned to the hospital to pick up her newborn colt. She had an uncertainty as she stepped into the hospital, but her fears where soon put to rest as the receptionist greeted her with a smile.

“Good morning ma’am, how can I help you this fine morning?” said the receptionist pony as she picked up her checklist, and waited for an answer.

“I’m here to pick up my son, his name is shining aura” the mother started to smile as she thought she would soon see her son again. The receptionist pony looked over her checklist once more, and grabbed a form and handed it to the mother.

“We found some genetic faults in your son ma’am; we reported it to celestia because it was a rather rare gene and we asked what we should do, she later told us to just have you sign this and you and your son can be on your way” the mother seemed a tad more alert on the genetic fault comment, but she was relived that she could take aura home without any problems. With once swift move she had singed the form.

After arriving in the nursery, auras mother searched the cradles (with the assistance of a doctor, of course). Once she found Aura’s spot she picked up her son and got a good look at him for the first time. Aura’s fur color was a dark blue, and his mane was a royal shade of purple. Aura’s mother nearly jumped for joy when she found that aura had wings, and wasn’t as limited as her, being an earth pony.

“So are you ready to leave ma’am.” The doctor spoke with a small haste in his voice, like he had better things to do.

“Y-yeah, thank you.” Aura’s mother left with her son sleeping on her back, and a smile on her face.

Status: first day of school

“So are you sure you’re ready aura” Aura’s mother said, making sure he had all his school supplies.

“Yes mom…” Aura had been pestered with his mothers concern for days on end, and he was getting somewhat annoyed with it. After a quick goodbye, aura walked into the large building, excited for the fun he was certain to have with the many other foals.

After getting into his first class, the teacher introduced herself, and aura was put beside a young filly. The first thing aura noticed was the way she was sitting. Instead of the normal way to sit, with your hooves under your flank, her legs stretched out far fin front of her front hooves, and she seemed to be putting most of her weight on her back. The pony beside aura was a mint green, and had hair that looked the same. The unicorn didn’t quite notice aura beside her, because she was rather occupied at the moment.

“Hey freak, sit properly!”

“What’s up with the way she’s sitting?”

“I’ve heard that the freak is obsessed with things that don’t even exist!”

Insults where flying form everywhere; the teacher was out of the room, so she couldn’t stop the kids from degrading this poor girl. Aura felt much pity, but before he could say anything to help her, his head started to feel like it was vibrating, and it was painful. In a hopeless attempt to dull the main, aura gripped his shaking cranium. After a few seconds of pain, a deep but quiet voice from nowhere spoke ‘keep the girl, she will make you stronger’. As soon as it started, the pain subsided, and then came the insults

“Hey guys look! He just put his hooves on his head like he’s insane.”

“Joy! We have another freak!

“Those two desks are the freaky corner”

“I bet he hears crazy voices to kill ponies”

“Hey crazy, kill the freak beside you”

After a few minutes of constant insults, the teacher came back and the class went silent. Aura was near tears, and somehow, he knew that the girl beside him was in silent tears. Introductions came after; aura found that the girl beside him was named ‘Lyra Heartstrings’.

The school day was long, during recess the insulters came back. However during lunch, when everypony was eating, Aura snuck outside to eat lunch, and saw Lyra sitting in her unique fashion under a tree. Aura remembered the words that spoke in his head. ‘Keep the girl…that voice was the only thing on my side there…’ aura thought to himself, and walked over to Lyra.

“Hey…Lyra…” aura started towards the young girl, who seamed surprised that someone was using her real name instead of ‘freak’, though she never looked at Aura. “Are you okay?” aura continued to ask questions. Lyra looked to the ground.

“Are you here to laugh at me too?” Lyra was sobbing; her voice shook as she attempted to speak clearly. Aura slowly walked up to her, and Lyra realised who he was.

“Why would I laugh when I’m also the one being laughed at.” Aura smiled softly. Suddenly Lyra hugged aura, crying into his shoulder.

“School is nothing like daddy said it would be.” Lyra cried

“My mom never mentioned anything about pones who just try to make you feel bad.” Aura replied

“I thought I would make great friends”

“Me too…”

“You seem really nice aura…would you be my friend”

“Yeah…I’ll be your friend”

The rest of the day didn’t seem so bad, with Lyra by his side; the teasing of the kids was much more bearable. He knew that their harsh words where untrue, because Lyra assured him that the other ponies never knew what they where saying.

That afternoon, aura seemed to be stronger then he was in the morning.

Status: second grade

Although the teasing of the other foals became more and more discreet, they continued nevertheless. Despite this, Lyra continued to sit the way she always did, and continued to study mythology, and Aura occasionally still had the strange voice ring in his head every now and again, giving him helpful advice despite the pain seeming to show that his mind was trying to force it out. Lyra of course knew about the voice, she got curious one time, so Aura explained it. Aura even told her of the original message, but added the fact that he still would have approached her that day.

Today however was a new day. After finishing school, Aura and Lyra headed to the ice cream parlour, where a friend of Lyra’s mother worked.

“Here you go guys!” exclaimed the snow white pony wearing a scarf, as she handed both foals vanilla ice cream

“Thank you Minty Sherbet!” both Aura and Lyra shouted as they ran out of the store.

“So what shall we do today?!” Lyra said with excitement

“Well, we could head to the park or something” replied aura, with equal amount of excitement

“Hey I know! I’ve been practicing my magic! Maybe we could show each other how good we are with our things!”

“Our things?”

“You know! My magic, and your flying skill!”

“Ohh! Okay!” aura finished, ever since he became friends with Lyra, he had gotten stronger mentally, it took a lot to upset him now, strangely though his wings seemed to have more feathers then the other pegasai, he blamed the strong mentality for that. It had its backlash though, he was now called psycho and gryphon mutt, both he and Lyra knew that the others where just jealous. But before he could take of and start flying, it happened again. His head started to vibrate, and the pain made him trip running, smearing ice cream on his chest. After a few seconds of pain, the voice came back

“Find a way to make your bond with the girl stronger, you shall be better for it…” The pain subsided, and Lyra came over knowing what had happened.

“Did you get the voice again?!” Lyra said with a positive look on her face, knowing something good was about to come. Aura nodded, and spoke what he had heard

“Find a way to make your bond with the girl stronger, you shall be better for it…” aura repeated, then he looked at his leg, white flowing down it, and sighed irritably.

“Make your bond stronger eh?” Lyra said thoughtfully. “That ice cream on your leg gives me an idea! Come with me!” Lyra grabbed Aura’s hoof and ran of with him in the direction of her house.

“So here is what we’re going to do” Lyra started to explain. “My mom bought some white hair dye earlier this week, and she said she wouldn’t mind if I used some for myself. So here is what we are going to do” Lyra grabbed the bottle of dye and made a line on her hair, she then took the bottle and made a line in Aura’s hair.

After about thirty minutes, both foals found that the white streak worked its way into their hair quite nicely, and it looked great in their hair. Lyra’s streak ended up looking much thinner than aura’s, as it took up about an eighth of her hair compared to the third of aura’s hair it covered. They didn’t care at all though, they had made their friendship more noticeable, and that was all that mattered.

That night, Aura was much more courageous then he was in the morning, and became stronger for it, just like the voice said.

Status: sixth grade

Sixth grade was the time that ponies seem to find themselves, understand what they are good at, and start to go after the dream of being successful doing what you love. And where finding yourself became important…that meant cutie marks. Flank fever caught the 6th graders like wild fire, if you didn’t have a cutie mark, then you where un-cool until you got yours.

Half the class had already gotten their marks, including Lyra. She had gotten hers in band class, one day she was reaching to pick her instrument; she was originally going for a basic trumpet, because aura got that too. However, a loud explosion caused her to stumble, and fall on the floor. Lyra should have been listening to the students crying out about some sort of ‘rainboom’, but what truly had her attention was the instrument lying on the floor, a golden lyre. Something about the rainbow colour flowing into the closet made the lyre look priceless. Needless to say, that was the instrument she chose.

Something about the lyre had just captivated her, although the band was playing some random beginners song, Lyra had skipped ahead to the major orchestra songs, and was playing them fluently. Once the band had stopped a song, but Lyra continued to play an improvised melody, for the remaining few minutes, the class (teacher included) just listed to the beautiful notes that came as Lyra, oblivious to the captivated crowd, continued endlessly to make music. Once her solo ended, Lyra looked around, dumbfounded as everypony stared at her. Aura was the first to applaud, then the teacher, and then the rest of the class. It was the first time that the majority of people around Lyra supported her instead of trying to antagonize her. In one cocky moment, she took a swift bow as her cutie mark appeared as the lyre she was just playing.

“THAT WAS AMAZING!” screamed a fiery headed pegasus. At about grade 4, other ponies became more accepting of Aura’s and Lyra’s differences and interests (minus the more stuck up ones, like moneybags or golden fork). If you where to see Aura and Lyra together, chances are you would see two other ponies named Backfire and Bon-Bon. Backfire was the fiery headed pegasus screaming his head off, he had a grey coat and a mane with a mix of neon red and yellow. His cutie mark was a piece of copper on fire, as he was good with pyrotechnics and put on quite the talent show the previous week. despite having the fire department come shortly after his act, he won with perfect scores. Bon-Bon was the living essence of candy; her mane was a very pleasant blue and pink, and her coat was the colour of vanilla ice cream. No pony really knew how she got her cutie mark, as she was a new student who ironically arrived on the day of the talent show.

Although he was incredibly happy for Lyra, Aura couldn’t help but feel jealous. Nearly half of the sixth grade had their marks already, including his best friend. And it also didn’t help that he had heard rumours that being the last ‘blank flank’ in a class wasn’t exactly pleasant

Later in the day, Aura spoke his mind to Lyra, and he got the same speech that everypony gives to everypony else.

“A cutie mark is something you must find on your own, I know its cliché of me to say this, but it’s true. In fact, I’d be willing to bet that you will stumble upon yours by complete accident like me!” Lyra reassured Aura, she was always good at that.

…

A week had passed since Lyra had gotten her cutie mark. It was lunch, and as usual, Moneybags and Golden Fork where treating Aura and Lyra like they usually did.

“freak and psycho sitting in a tree, K.I.S.S.I.N.G. first comes love, then comes marriage, then comes a monster in a baby carriage” the two colts, thinking they where hilarious, doubled over in laughter. Aura and Lyra where sitting with their backs turned to the two colts insulting them, although Lyra seemed to be getting more upset then she did with their normal jokes this time. A familiar pain went through Aura’s mind, as he gripped his skull waiting for the oncoming message. Before it could be delivered though, he heard the next wave of insults

“Oh, look Golden Fork; Aura’s getting a wave of insanity” Moneybags started

“Oh boy, Do you think that he has ever killed somepony because a voice in his head said so?” Fork added

“oh totally”

“who do you his next victim is”

“five bits that it’s the freak he sits beside all the time”

“nah, he couldn’t ever do that, he loves her!” the two colts then started to roll on the floor laughing.

“its time you show that you aren’t to be taken lightly. they want a battle of mentality, then give them all that you have…” as usual the pain subsided after the message, but Aura didn’t feel right. The voice this time was incredibly shrill, and seemed to want Aura to hurt someone else for his benefit instead of doing something that would benefit most ponies. However, Aura’s thought process was cut short by none other then Lyra.

“whatever the voice said, do it!” Lyra whispered with anger. Aura then cut all contemplation short, marched up to Moneybags and Fork, preparing to sound like them as best as he could.

“ha-ha, oh is it not great how because I am rich, I know that I am truly better then everyone here” said Aura in his best Moneybags impression

“oh I do believe you are right money, for I can also be better then everyone in this dump of a school, because I am loaded with cash” spoke Aura in a voice like Fork’s. what happened next was rather unexpected by all four ponies in the area. All the other sixth graders walked over and started to shout

“what did Moneybags say?!”

“Fork too; you guys have a lot of nerve thinking you’re better than us!”

“GET THEM!”

Moneybags and Fork ran off, with thirty ponies chasing after them in rage. Lyra quickly pulled Aura over to the wall and started to ask questions

“How did you do that?!” Lyra exclaimed, looking satisfied, likely being that the two ponies she hates the most just got chased off.

“do what? I don’t even have a clue what just happened!” Aura replied

“Dude! You just sounded exactly like Moneybags”

“I don’t think it was that good”

“You got the entire class to think moneybags said that! It was perfect!”

“you think so?”

“try my voice this time, and listen to yourself this time!”

“Uh okay…I don’t see how this will prove anything though” Both Aura and Lyra where surprised to find that Aura sounded like a one hundred percent voice match to Lyra

“THAT’S SO COOL! Dude, you should try voice acting for a radio show!” Lyra said with excitement.

“I don’t think so Lyra…” Aura replied with some scepticism, he just didn’t feel like an actor. But that reminded him of how he didn’t quite know what he was good at, which meant no cutie mark.

That night Aura dreamt that he was going on a journey with multiple strange monsters he carried around in a red and white ball. But the strangest part of the dream wasn’t its farfetched concept, the thing he found near the end. After walking for a few minutes, a strange pony-like creature made of smoke and glowing green eyes stood in front of him, and talked to him in the shrill voice he had heard in his head earlier.

“You want this petty thing that other ponies call a cutie mark, despite the fact that it is useless? Fine, so be it. The mark of your true form shall be the small sphere in your hooves, after this, don’t expect the help I have given you today for a while foal!”

Aura woke up in a cold sweat the next morning. Feeling that something was off, Aura flew to the closest mirror and examined his flank. It was true; the same red and white capsule that was in his dream was now his cutie mark. Although he was somewhat scared, Aura was overjoyed that he was no longer a blank flank.  When his mother found out, she cried tears of joy, as if she never expected Aura to get a mark

Status: tenth grade

The voice stayed true to its promise, for years it never came. In a way, Aura was happy of this. He never really trusted the voice for the last two times it came. Something about the shrillness of it didn’t go with him as the deeper, more fatherly one. Though good things still came out of the shrill voice, like his cutie mark, and both Moneybags and Golden Fork had moved away due to everypony in the school wanting to tear them apart.

As it was tenth grade, everypony was starting to get into relationships, Aura and Lyra not included though. Although Aura was starting to see something more in Lyra, he could never get the full courage to ask her out. The most he ever got was on the occasional time they would flirt (though Aura got the feeling that Lyra thought it was just a friendly joke). Aura had noticed though that Lyra never dated another stallion, so he kept his hopes up that she was in the same predicament as he was.

The current class was chemistry, and all the tenth graders where doing a lab. Aura got pared with Lyra and Backfire, as nopony else trusted him near the burners (for good reason. Aura was in fact, somewhat reluctant to be partners with backfire also).

“Why can’t I use the burner?!” wined Backfire, watching in awe as Aura lit the gas coming from the small tube, and stared at the intoxicating blue flame as Aura gathered some cooking supplies.

“Backfire, I would think it would be rather obvious on why I’m not letting you use the burner, do I have to remind you about the time you thought it was a good idea to see a cow do a blue angel.” Lyra chuckled at the memory that Aura brought up. Backfire sighed, but then got a stealthier and certainly more exciting idea. When neither Aura nor Lyra was looking, backfire swapped the current beaker with one that contained an experiment of his own, a mixture of iron and sulphur. Aura came back with some equipment, including a small piece of metal that was to be heated, and poked at the original mixture.  When the teacher spoke, Aura heated the metal rod, Lyra stood by, magic ready in case of emergency, and backfire was forced to stand back three meters. When most of the class had poked the original mix, an alloy was supposed to be made, but when Aura poked his mix, what backfire saw happened incredibly fast.

The mixture exploded in a flash of colour, and sent sparks everywhere. The class cheered, but something horrible followed milliseconds. The pieces where just chance, Aura had a woodshop class the last period, so there was some wood dust in his fur (which was flammable in itself), and he also made the mistake of not tightening his goggles correctly, and a spark had flew in, igniting his general eye area on fire.

A bloodcurdling scream was heard as Aura fell back in panic, pressing on his goggles trying to cut the oxygen from getting inside. Lyra also panicked and instead of using a telekinetic spell to bring something like a fire extinguisher, or some water, Lyra placed a barrier spell around Aura’s eyes to prevent the flame from spreading, and screamed for help. Bon-Bon, who was working from across the room, grabbed the nearest fire extinguisher, pulled off Aura’s goggles, and doused the fire. The last thing Aura saw was a shocked looking Backfire, and then passed out.

When Aura next woke, he was in a hospital room. He looked around in a state of confusion. His face seemed fine, so he assumed that the doctors had worked some healing magic. The next thing Aura noticed was that he heard voices coming from outside. Walking to the door, he listened.

“…I think it’s clear why we brought the princess here ma’am.”

‘The princess!’ Aura thought with a surprised look on his face. ‘Seems a tad extreme for a burn!’  Aura recognised the voice as his teacher

“I have spoken to Shining’s father, he is aware of the situation, and will make sure nopony in his area will be alerted to what had happened.” The voice of celestia was a shock to Aura, but not as much as a shock of what the current topic of the conversation was.

“I still don’t see how something like that happened in our school!’ said the teacher, Aura assumed it was about the burn, but what followed made him think otherwise

“Aura is NOT a thing!” this voice belonged to his mother. “And a contract I singed with the princess here says that he will be treated equally to other ponies in government buildings, including schools.”

“She is right; Aura will not be treated unfairly now that the school has looked into his files. I must be taking my leave, I do have a monarchy to run, however, I wish to have a more frequent updates on Aura please.” With that last saying from the princess, Aura could hear the softening sound of hooves as the princess left the building. Shortly after, Aura was discharged from the hospital and sent home. That conversation he had heard in the hospital sparked his curiosity about his father, aside from a letter that he would get from him every now and again (usually on his birthday or holidays.) he never heard from or of his father. Whenever Aura had tried to ask about his father to his mother, she would get somewhat emotional, and demand they not talk about him, though his mother always insisted that he had his father’s eyes.

That day Backfire was expelled from school, but all was not lost. Backfire and Aura quickly made up (though Aura was obviously quite pissed at Backfire for setting him ablaze), and backfire gained a well paying carrier with pyrotechnics, and invented the mixture that gave the Wonderbolts their storm cloud trail. Bon-Bon got a school award for her quick thinking, and was given a contract to appear in a school safety PSA.

The teacher never mentioned the conversation at the hospital to anypony.

Status: grade 12 prom night

This was it, it was that day that Aura had been waiting for/dreading. It was prom night, and Aura had finally gathered the courage to do it. The voice had also returned, not as the shrill voice, but the deeper voice that seemed to be focused on everypony’s best interests instead of just benefiting Aura, which helped build his courage.

“Go to the girl and show your love.” it said earlier that day, and that was exactly what Aura was going to do. He was going to ask Lyra to the prom.

…

Between the two years that had passed, Lyra had gained a ton of popularity as she joined the cheerleading squad with Bon-Bon. And although Aura and Lyra didn’t hang out as often as they did, due to the fact that Lyra had become popular as Aura stayed just average, the white streak never left the two ponies mane, and was always re-applied when it started to fade.

Moneybags had also ended up transferring to their school during the final year, and even joined the football team as a quarterback. He treated Aura the same, but likely because of her new spot on the team, he would always flirt whenever he could with Lyra. Lyra of course not being stupid, would reject moneybags as soon as he tried, unlike when Aura attempted to flirt, she treated it like playful banter. Aura hated it when Moneybags flirted with Lyra, successful or not, and Moneybags hated it when Aura got a reply when he flirted with Lyra. The two where constantly at each other’s throats, near the end of the year though, Moneybags took it too far.

“You WILL go to the prom with me or I will make the school remember you for who you really are freak” Moneybags had cornered Lyra after the school day; Aura was on the schools roof, watching as the stallion shouted at Lyra as she cried. That was the first time on over six years that his head started to vibrate again. As mentioned before, it was the original deep voice that he truly knew he could trust.

“You know this isn’t right, stop him!” those where the final words Aura needed to here before he jumped off the roof, and flew as quick as he could in between the two ponies.

“Leave her alone, or I will make the school remember you for who you really are!” Aura spoke the last part in Moneybags’s voice.

“You don’t have the balls to psycho!” Moneybags retorted

“Try me!” Aura had a new courage in his eyes. For once, it was moneybags who was afraid. Being the coward that he truly was, moneybags ran off, cursing Aura’s name. Without warning, Lyra hugged Aura and held him tight. She thanked him over and over, tears still running down her face. That was the moment that Aura knew that he needed to ask her to prom, but he needed to present it just right.

…

After the voice had told him to show his love, there was no stopping Aura. He wanted everything to go right. Lyra was announced as a prom queen nominee, along with Bon-Bon, and another pony that was named as a female mystery competitor, under the request of one of the king nominees. As for the male competitors, moneybags was in there, along with the captain of the soccer team, big Macintosh, and the male mystery competitor. Moneybags was campaigning with the female mystery competitor, and Lyra was campaigning wit the mystery male. At first that lowered Aura’s hopes, but then he realized that the posters went up a week ago and Moneybags was violently flirting two days before the prom. So Aura started to obsessively prepare for the prom.

Aura showed up at Lyra’s doorstep in his best formal wear. He was carrying Lyra’s favourite flower (white roses) in a small bouquet. As he nervously approached Lyra’s doorstep, he was starting to have second thoughts, but something in Aura’s mind told him that he had to do this. With a quick gulp, he ran on Lyra’s doorbell.

Lyra opened the door, first seeming somewhat intoxicated, then surprised. She was speechless on the spectacle that stood in front of her in the form of her best friend in formal wear. Then, a look of sadness came over her face as she started to speak.

“Oh celestia Aura…I was hoping you wouldn’t do this” Lyra looked down as she talked, like she was feeling incredibly guilty. “Aura, if you’re going to ask me to prom, I can truly say that there is no other stallion that I would take but you…” Aura’s hopes where starting to grow, but something wasn’t just sitting right, like there was a bit of tension in the air, and something was about to come. “But unfortunately…” Lyra was seemingly hesitating “I uh…it’s like…” she sighed “I’m not quite taking a stallion to the prom…” Lyra’s words where getting slow and spaced out, like the topic was awkward for her “I’m uh…taking Bon-Bon.” It took a few seconds for the realisation to come to Aura, but when it came, it came fast. The reason why Lyra never had a colt friend, the reason why Lyra took all of Aura’s flirting as playful banter, even the reason why Lyra and Bon-Bon joined all the same activities together.

“You’re…” Aura tried to blurt out.

“Yeah…I’m a lesbian…and I’m in a lesbian relationship with Bon-Bon, we have been going for about a year now, and we’re going to publicly show our relationship for the first time at the prom” Lyra regrettably admitted. “If you want to just not be around me because of a religion or some shit, then I don’t blame you. I wanted to tell you ever since I found out in grade nine, and you started to flirt with me, but all I could do was just go with it and hope that nothing would have happened with it. But because of my lies, look where we are now.” Tears where running down Lyra’s face, Aura couldn’t stand to see her upset like this, so he sighed and began to speak his mind

“Although I can’t say that I’m not disappointed, if it makes you happy to be with Bon-Bon, then I’m happy.” Lyra looked back up at Aura, who handed her the flowers that he had. “I still want you to have these” Lyra then grabbed Aura and hugged him. With a strong embrace and a thank you, Aura was invited into Lyra’s house, where they waited for Bon-Bon, and later went to the prom.

The prom itself was great, all the most popular songs (of the current time) where being played, and there where free drinks and snacks galore. The moment that everypony was waiting for had soon arrived, crowning for prom king and queen.

“It is my pleasure to announce the winners of this year’s prom race” the principal of the school was standing at the center stage, with a smile on his face, and two envelopes in his hand. “Let’s start with the queen shall we! Third place winner is…the mystery contestant, Golden Spork!” when the crowd had heard the name of the mystery woman, they quickly realised who he was. The spotlight shined over Golden Fork, who was dressed in a really bad mare costume. Golden Fork laughed really nervously, and dashed out the door faster then anypony had seen him before.

“That was odd…” the principal said, with a look of confusion on his face. “Anyways…the winner of prom queen for this year by a landslide is…Miss. Lyra heartstrings!” the gym burst into cheering, and although she did a good job hiding it, Lyra was freaking out. She had just earned the title of prom queen, as she stepped up to the stage, she shook the principal’s hoof, and sat in the queen’s chair.

“And now for our king…” the principal used his magic to open the second envelope. “In third place, is the one…the only…Big Macintosh!” there was some mild applause, and a loud ‘Eeyup’ was heard coming form the back of the room. “And the winner, of this year’s prom king, in one of our closest competitions yet! By thirty votes we have… Our mystery king, Sir. Shining Aura! I hope you picked who you wanted!” The room erupted into applause, and Lyra started bouncing around the stage, saying something in the way of ‘ohmygosh’ over and over. Aura turned to Backfire (who he managed to smuggle into the school) and they stated their thoughts

“What?!” said Aura.

“What?!” replied Backfire

“What?!”

“What?!”

“What?!”

“J-just get up there already dude” Backfire finally said as he shoved Aura in front of him. Aura worked his way through the dense crowd as quick as he could, and went up on the stage. Aura shook the principal’s hoof, and sat in the king’s chair.

“What?!” Aura said to Lyra, as if his brain was a broken record. Lyra just laughed.

“I’ll explain on the floor, during the king/queen dance.” She stated, with a look of amusement. The principal said a speech about how proud of the 12th grade he was, and that he knew how successful everypony was going to be (the normal speech material for principals). Then the final dance played, and the king and queen started their ceremonial dance.

“What?!” Aura was still baffled with what had just happened, so Lyra just laughed and started to explain.

“You see…I had been planning to take Bon-Bon to the prom for a while, but the prom queen thing ended up making me compromise. I couldn’t get Bon-Bon in the king race, for obvious reasons, and I said there is no other was no other stallion that I would take to prom than you. So when the school let me pick this years mystery king, you where my choice.” Aura was baffled that all this had happened behind his back, but he was pleasantly surprised. Shortly however the prom ended a tad early, due to part of the stage catching fire (guess who), and the ponies all went home (albeit somewhat disappointed).

That night, as Aura was getting ready for bed, his head started to vibrate. Aura knew that the voice was coming because of the familiar pain, but what he wasn’t expecting was the voice that spoke.

“What are you doing?! Make the girl love you!” it was the shrill voice again, and it was trying to benefit Aura at the expense of others. If it where about anypony else, Aura would cope with this voice, maybe even listen to it. But it was trying to use his best friend as a stepping stone, so before the pain could subside, in an insane burst of courage, Aura spoke back.

“If she’s happy what am I to stop her? And why should I listen to you?!” if you could hear Aura’s voice, you could tell he was very angry. Aura was half expecting the voice to leave like it normally did, unfortunately it stayed. What it said truly scared him.

“If you don’t do what I say, I shall make sure you two suffer!” Aura couldn’t think of anything to say, the voice was threatening him. But then he realised, it was just a voice.

“You are a voice inside of my head! You can’t ever do anything to me or my friends because you don’t exist” Aura said this truly believing that it was true.

“…we shall see…” with that the voice vanished, and Aura’s pain subsided.

For the next few weeks, Aura kept his guard up. Something about the way the voice had left just disturbed him. However, after about a month or so of making sure nothing bad happened to Lyra, Aura eventually concluded that the voice was no harm, and continued on with his life.

Status: three years post graduation:

“Did you see the headlines?” Aura said to Lyra, who was making dinner. “It says that princess Cadence is going to get married in a few weeks.”

After graduation, Aura ended up becoming a roommate with Lyra and Bon-Bon. Because the house was being split with three ponies, they where able to get a rather nice house in ponyville, and they shared the bills amongst the three of them. Lyra ended up becoming part of an orchestra, with her instrument of course being a lyre. Bon-Bon got hired as a baker at sugarcube corner, and usually baked some of the sweeter foods with her co-worker pinke pie. Aura was actually requested by celestia to become a guard (which Aura found suspicious, as he still remembered the conversation at the hospital.). He was currently training in a collage at canterlot; he loved it, so much so that he even got into the habit of wearing his standard issue trainee bracers (eight golden anklets with some crystals in the front, nothing truly special about them, but it was college uniform) almost all the time (only taking them off for sleep and whenever hew was in formal wear).  As for the house, it was average size, and had three bedrooms. The master bedroom belonged to both Lyra and Bon-bon, as they were in a relationship; the normal bedroom belonged to Aura, and the guest bedroom belonged to Backfire (he got a job doing the pyrotechnics at the Manehattan sports centre, and would sometimes visit the three ponies, so they just declared the guest bedroom to backfire. Even to the point letting him paint it a bright red and hanging up posters in it).

“Really now? Huh, never thought I would live to see a royal wedding.” Lyra replied, with intrigue in her voice. Just then the doorbell rang, Bon-Bon, who was reading a book on the couch, got up and answered the door.

“Letter for a miss. Lyra heartstrings” said the mail mare, which everypony knew as Derpy Hooves.

“Thanks Derpy!” Bon-Bon grabbed the letter, and handed it to Lyra. The mint green pony pulled out the letter from the envelope and started to read aloud

“Dear Lyra heartstrings.

“You have been selected by random to obtain the fantastic honour of being a bridesmaid at my wedding. You may bring one partner with you to come celebrate this great event. We hope to see you soon.

“Princess Cadence.”

Lyra looked up at Aura and Bon-Bon in awe, and excitement. Many ‘ohmygoshes’ where heard from the unicorn. But then she realised that she could only take one other pony. Of course Aura wanted to go, but he figured that relationship came before friendship.

“You go with Bon-Bon! I see enough of canterlot when I head to collage.” Right after Aura said those words, he got one of Lyra’s tackle hugs followed with a swarm of the word ‘thank you’.

…

Two weeks had passed since Lyra got her summons, and Aura and Backfire arrived with Lyra and Bon-Bon to see the two ponies off.

“Bye guys! And Aura, don’t let backfire burn the house down when we’re gone!” Lyra called from the train window. Aura laughed at the comment, and replied just as the train started to move.

“Don’t worry; all fire will be kept away from him. Have fun!” Aura turned to backfire when the train had left. “You better not burn the house down dude”

“No promises”

(A/N: WOW over 6K words, hope you guys enjoy. All OC’s belong to their respective owners. Constructive criticism is welcome)