Little Lyra and You

Chapter Two: Living with Lyra

One week Later

The cold rain falls in sheets as you walk up the steps to your apartment. At this point your hoodie is soaked and isn’t doing much but keep you cold. To put it simply, you were miserable. As you reach the final landing and walk up to your apartment  door, the rain starts coming down harder and the lighting begins. You unlock the door and hurry inside.

As you close the door behind you, you hear a frantic clicking on the tile floor. You begin walking towards the noise, kicking your shoes off in the process. As the clicking grows louder, you walk into the kitchen and flip the light on.

In the center of the kitchen, Lyra was running around in circles and appeared to be freaked out of her mind. But at the sight of you, she stopped running in circles and towards you. you kneel down and open up your hand which she runs into. She wraps her hooves around your thumb and holds on as if her life depended on it.

“Hey, what’s wrong?” you ask her as you stand back up. She points her hoof towards the window on the far side of the living room. “What, the thunder?” You ask. She nods her head frantically in response as another strike of lightning lights up the night sky. She scurries down your wrist and crawls under the cuff of your hoody and into your sleeve.

“Don’t worry, it’s just a little storm. It’ll pass soon.” You sooth, stroking her back through your hoody. Since you realize she’s not coming out of your sleeve on her own, you walk over to the fridge and extract a small thing cookie dough. you tear open the package and get a little of it on you finger. You hold your finger just an inch away from the cuff of your sleeve and wait a moment. And sure enough, after a moment of waving your finger next to your cuff, she pokes her head out. Her nose pointed up as she collected the scent.

She pulls herself out of your sleeve, all fear forgotten, and starts making her way towards your finger. As she approaches your finger, you pull it just out of her reach. She growls at the finger and lowers herself to the ground. Just like a coiled spring, she leaps for your finger but misses slightly and goes over the edge of your hand. She lets out a surprised squeak as she falls. But rather than landing on the hard tile, she land in a soft pile of clothes that were lying on the floor. She had been so caught up in going after your finger that she hadn’t noticed you’d been moving.

she pokes her head up out of the mound of clothes with a sock on the end of her horn. You can’t help but laugh at her half surprised and half depressed look. Her horn glows under the sock and she picks up a pair of boxers and flings them at you. You didn’t notice the pair of underwear through your laughter and it hits you square in the face.

Now it was Lyra’s turn to laugh. She fell over on her back and into the clothes again. Even though you couldn’t see her, you could still hear the muffled squeals of her laughter. You can’t help but laugh at yourself as well as you threw the underwear back on the top of the pile. But as you do so, Lyra rockets out of the top of the pile and wraps her hooves around your finger and licks off the cookie dough that was on the end.

After she licks the last of the dough off your finger, she turns her head and gives you a look that just screamed “I win.” She climbs up onto your hand and scuttles up your arm until she’s resting on your shoulder. You chuckle slightly as she tickles your ear with her tail.

“You’re a strange little pony Lyra.” You say. In response she blows into your ear making you flinch. You straighten your arm and she hops off and lands on the armrest of your recliner. You pick up the Xbox remote and pop in a copy of ‘Battlefield 3’.

Lyra had seemed fascinated at first by the game and had been acting as your spotter for when you played, and it had really helped. She had a knack for finding the little bastards hiding in bushes. You slip on your headset and Lyra makes herself cozy as the match loads up.

As you pop the head off the last enemy player, ending the match you set down the remote. Suddenly, a six year old’s voice crackles over the mic. “Oh my god, you’re such a fucking cheater. You faggot, go burn in hell.” The kid’s voice says over the microphone along with other strings of profanity that you didn’t even know what meant when you were his age.

“I’ll see ya there mate.” You say to the little squeaker as you turn off the Xbox. You make your hand into a fist and Lyra touches it with her hoof, which you had come to call a hoof bump. You set down the Xbox controller and pick up the TV remote and begin flipping through the channels.

You land on an episode of The Big Bang Theory causing Lyra to squeak in happiness. It had quickly become her favorite show in the week that she had been with you. even if she didn’t get most of the humor and you damn sure weren’t gonna explain it to her.

She quickly jumps onto your arm and scurries up to your shoulder before climbing up on top of your head. She made herself a little nest in your hair and cozied up. You can barely contain the “D’awww that was waiting just behind your lips,  but you allow yourself a smile before un pausing the show.

After a good hour of TV, you flick off the set and stand up. Lyra had dozed off about halfway through but woke back up with a start as you stood up. “Easy Lyra, just getting some grub.” You say feeling her body go rigid on top of your head. She relaxes and settles back down into your hair.

As you step into the kitchen, you pull out your phone and set it down on the counter and turned it onto the notes app. As you do so, Lyra hops off your head and onto the counter, her hooves making a soft clop noise as she lands and walks over to the phone.

“so, what do you want tonight?” You ask her. She immediately goes to work typing on the phone. She takes a step back for you to read the screen.

Cookies would be nice :) it read. You chuckle to yourself at the small smiley face. “Hmm, I don’t know.” You tease. as you say it, she brings out the puppy dog eyes that just melt your heart. “Hmm.” You say. Her eyes get even bigger to the point where you can see tears forming on the rims of her eyes. “Alright.” You say booping her nose with your finger. She jumps up into the air with excitement as you walk to the icebox and pull out a thing of cookie dough.

as you scoop out the last of the cookie dough and place it on the baking sheet, Lyra walks over and tries to get a taste of them early. She scoops off a bit of the cookie dough with her hoof and licks it. She scratches her chin as if she’s thinking for a moment before nodding. “Oh, so you’re a professional taste tester now?” You ask her. The smile grows on her face at the prospect of tasting all different kinds of cookies.

Just as you slide the cookie sheet into the oven and set the timer, a loud knock comes from your door. Immediately, Lyra jumps down from the counter and runs down the hall like you had taught her to if you had company. You slide off the oven mitt and walk to the door, speeding up your pace a bit as the person knocks again.