Lyra Heartstrings trotted into Sugarcube corner, using her magic to part the doors.

"Hello, Lyra dear," Mrs Cake greeted her kindly, "you must be here to pick up those special cupcakes you ordered. Let me go find them."

"Mrs Cake!" called a high-pitched voice from the back. "Somepony has a smelly bottom and needs changing!"

"Pinkie, I'm dealing with a customer here. Can't you take care of it yourself?"

"Oh, it's not ME silly," said Pinkie, bouncing through to the shop, "it's Pumpkin Cake."

Pinkie turned to Lyra to whisper, "I haven't had an accident in months."

"I didn't mean it was... I meant, can't you... oh never mind," said Mrs Cake resignedly. "I'll go and change the baby. Could you take care of Lyra for me? She's here to pick up her cupcakes."

Mrs Cake went to the back of the shop, leaving Pinkie to deal with the customer.

"You know, I decorated these cupcakes myself," said Pinkie joyfully. She hummed to herself while she rummaged around in the cake cupboard. "Cupcakes... cupcakes, cupcakes, cupcakes..." she sang.

"Oh here they are. Decorated with cute little humans! Such an unusual request!"

Lyra blushed. "I really like those new My Little Human comic books. I have all the toys. Sometimes I just like to cuddle my little stuffed Jane Smith in bed. Such funny names they have! Bon Bon's starting to get a bit jealous."

Pinkie said, "I don't really know much about those books. I always just enjoy making new unusual cupcakes, even if designs like this are a bit tricky."

Lyra continued, ignoring Pinkie, "Humans are just so cute! With their little faces, and their little feet, and their hands. Hands! Hands are so awesome!"

Pinkie interrupted, "And the hands were the hardest part. I kept trying and trying. In the end I had to ask Twilight how they looked, because, you know, she's the only one who's seen them, but Twilight's no good at icing, so I..."

"WHAT?!" shouted Lyra, "Princess Twilight has seen real humans?!"

"Of course, silly," said Pinkie, "anyway Twilight's no good at icing, so I needed to... Hey! Where did she go?" Pinkie looked around, but Lyra had disappeared, and taken her cupcakes with her.

"Some ponies!" signed Pinkie Pie, stashing away the bits that Lyra had left on the counter into the cash register.

* * *

Applejack collected the hoofful of apples that hadn't landed properly in her baskets when she'd bucked the tree.

She looked up to see a minty green unicorn. "Hi Lyra," she said, "I'm afraid it won't be apple cider season until next week."

"It's not that," said Lyra nervously, "it's just you know Princess Twilight better than anyone, and, well... you're so trustworthy, and I'm never sure how much of what Pinkie says is true, but..."

"If Pinkie's been telling you that Twilight has a crush on you, then it's not true," interrupted Applejack. "She's been telling everypony that. Twilight's just been mighty stressed out lately and Pinkie's got it into her head that she needs a special somepony."

"No, it's not that," said Lyra, "though come to think about it, she might have been dropping hints about that last week. But, no, what I wanted to ask was: has Princess Twilight really seen real humans?"

"Sure thing honey," answered Applejack, "it ain't no great secret. She's been to their world a couple of times. Never lets us come. I don't know what she's hiding there. Pinkie thinks she might have a special somepony, sorry... someBODY... on the other side. That Pinkie's always obsessing about other ponies' love lives. I know she just wants everypony to be happy, but... wait... where'd she go?"

Lyra had disappeared.

"Oh well, it's not like I had time to stand around talking. No, on an apple farm there's work to be done. No use standing around here gabbing. Not when there's trees to buck, apples to gather, seeds to plant, cider to make..."

* * *

Princess Twilight Sparkle had been at her desk, reading for hours. Her stomach started to rumble. She could ask Spike to make her some food. She knew he'd happily do whatever she asked, but she didn't like giving Spike any old job - he was supposed to be a research assistant.

Still, everything had been quiet in Equestria for a little too long. They were overdue a disaster, so Twilight was reading up on every foe that ponies of the past had ever faced. Right now, she was reading about Somnambula, a powerful evil wizardess of times long ago.

She heard a knock at the door. It was Spike. "Somepony here to see you," he announced, "I can tell her you're busy."

"No, that's OK Spike. I could do with a break to be honest," replied the purple pony princess, rubbing her eyes.

Lyra walked in, a cardboard box levitating behind her.

"Are you here to borrow another My Little Human book?" asked Twilight. While the Golden Oak Library was being re-built, she'd temporarily reserved part of her new castle for use as the town's library, and was still unofficially serving as librarian until Mayor Mare could find a pony to take over the post more permanently. "I think you've read them all. Can I interest you in the new A. K. Yearling book?"

"You've been holding out on me Princess Twilight," said Lyra accusingly.

"Have you been talking to Pinkie Pie? I'm sorry. I'll tell you what I've had to tell everypony else. You're a very nice mare, but I'm not looking for a special somepony right now. I have more than enough things on my plate without a relationship!"

"Humans!" accused Lyra. "You've been seeing real humans, and you never told me?!"

"Ah," said Twilight. She'd been rumbled. It was never a big secret that she'd been to the human world, but she'd avoided telling Lyra because she knew how obsessed that unicorn was about humans, even before the fourth generation reboot of the My Little Human franchise. Twilight blushed and explained, "I thought you knew."

"Tell me! Tell me all about them!" said Lyra, forgetting for a moment that she was addressing royalty, even though she knew that Twilight didn't like to be treated as better than anypony else anyway.

"What's in the box?" asked Twilight, trying to change subject, even though she knew it wouldn't be long before Lyra brought the topic back around to humans.

"Cupcakes," replied Lyra, "What are they like? Do they really have hands? Can they speak? What do they eat?"

"Cupcakes?" asked Twilight, her stomach rumbling again. "Well, I suppose we could talk about humans for a while if I can have a few cupcakes."

The two ponies sat together at a table.

"Humans have always been real," explained the book horse, "but their world exists on a different plane to Equestria. It's like a parallel universe. And there are a LOT of parallels.

"Long ago in Equestria's past, there were more chinks and gateways between our world and theirs. Several humans visited Equestria and played important roles in Equestria's early history. Most of these gateways have now been lost, hidden, or deliberately destroyed. I know of the whereabouts of only one: a mirror that Celestia used to keep, but has now passed on to me.

"I've used it to visit the human world a couple of times to prevent their world from being destroyed by ponies and creatures from our world that sought to do them harm.

"Their world is much like ours really. There are more stallions... I mean men in their world than there are in ours. The genders are pretty much equal in numbers, so you don't see a mare-dominated society like we have, and well, it's easier to find a coltfriend, so fillyfoolers are more of a minority.

"No offence!" said Twilight, catching herself.

"None taken," said Lyra, who had been listening intently.

"Apart from that, and apart from them having quite a different anatomy, it's not really all that different from over here," Twilight summed up, "Was there anything else in particular that you wanted to know?"

"Do they really have hands instead of hooves?" asked the minty green unicorn eagerly.

"Yes, they have hands. I can tell you, when I went to the human world, controlling my hands was one of the trickiest things I had to learn. Well, that and walking on two legs," replied the princess.

"WHAT?!" Lyra asked incredulously, "when you went to the humans' world you had hands?!"

"Errr... yeah," answered Twilight, "it's some kind of side effect of the portal. When ponies go through to the human world, they become humans. When other species go through, they go through different transformations. But all living things seem to be transformed in some way. I don't really have it all figured out yet, but I've theorized that there could exist other portals to the human world that don't have this transformative effect. But I can't confirm that until I find another portal, and their locations seem to have been lost to history. So I was reading all these history books, and kind of got sidetracked researching ancient Equestrian villains, but..."

Lyra was not interested in this tangent to the main conversation, so asked Twilight another question. "Are hands really soft and fluffy?"

"They're not really fluffy," replied Twilight, wondering where Lyra had picked up that headcanon, "but I guess they can kind of be soft, and gentle. But they can also be strong, maybe not as strong as hooves, but those fingers can grip things pretty tight. And they're capable of much more precise movements than hooves."

Lyra was excited by this description. She was secretly more than just a hu-mane-iac (the term that fans of My Little Human gave themselves). She was also a closet fapper (fap was the term hu-mane-iacs gave to sexual fan art and fan fiction). For Lyra, hands were the most sexually intriguing part of human anatomy.

Lyra looked around, ensuring the two ponies were alone in the room, before whispering, "Do they really use their hands to fap?"

"What's fap?!" asked Twilight, confused.

Lyra looked around again. Had Twilight had to answer her so loudly? She leaned into Twilight and explained in a hushed voice, "it's the human equivalent of clopping."

"It's... wait... WHAT?! Oh, Lyra!" exclaimed the alicorn, blushing. "I really wouldn't know anything about that," she answered, "I was only there for a week or so each time. And I was kind of too busy for... ... ... What IS wrong with you Lyra?!"

"I'm sorry," apologised the green mare, "I just HAD to ask though. Between you and me though, it would be the first thing I'd try."

"I... I really should get back to my work Lyra," said Twilight, no longer keen on continuing this conversation. "Maybe we could talk some more about humans another day?" Twilight mentally hoof-bumped herself for adding that "maybe". A maybe didn't constitute a promise, and given the direction their conversation had been headed, she wasn't sure she wanted to make any promises.

"OK," answered Lyra, "thanks for talking with me. I'll come back another day." She levitated another cupcake and deposited it on Twilight's desk. "Don't work yourself too hard, and remember to take breaks for food!"

Twilight looked at the cupcake and smiled at Lyra. That unicorn might be a bit weird and obsessive, but she was kindhearted and sweet.

Twilight continued her research, remembering to stop and munch on the cupcake a little while later. By the time Spike brought her supper, she was already exhausted.

"Hey Twilight," said the young dragon, "the Cutie Mark Crusaders have invited me over to their club house for a sleepover. Is it OK if I go?"

"Sure, Spike," answered the princess. The dragon skipped off happily, and Twilight picked at the hay fries before trotting off to her bedroom and going to sleep.

Twilight slept so soundly that she didn't hear the window sliding softly open. She didn't hear the pony clambering in. She didn't hear the soft sounds of careful hooves in her hallway, trotting from room to room, searching for something. She didn't hear Lyra powering on the portal to the human world and stepping through.

Author's Note

This is my first attempt at an ongoing (non-one-shot) story. I don't know how long it will take me to put out each chapter. Maybe one a month? Let's see...

If you think you like where this is going, please comment below. If I can see that people are into the idea, it just might encourage me to write faster.