Chapters Lyra Heartstrings wasn’t entirely comfortable discussing metaphysical quandaries with three fillies.
But lately, she had been wondering what the meaning of her life was. And one day, while she was at the park contemplating that subject, Bulk Biceps had showed up out of nowhere and hoisted her into the air. When she asked him what was going on, he told her how the Cutie Mark Crusaders had helped him discover the true meaning behind his cutie mark. Lyra wasn’t sure how three ponies still in primary school could help her understand the purpose of her existence, but she also didn’t have any other ideas. Which was how she found herself in a small clubhouse in the middle of Sweet Apple Acres.
The Cutie Mark Crusaders had been only too eager to welcome her – they said that they didn’t get many walk-ins, and they thanked her for coming to them for help. Lyra didn’t want to hurt their feelings, so she chose not to tell them that her visit was more out of desperation than any expectation of results.
“So, you’re trying to figure out what your cutie mark means,” said Apple Bloom. “Just looking at it, I’d assume it means you’re good at playing the harp.”
“Lyre,” said Sweetie Belle.
“What’d you call me? She’s got a picture of a harp; it probably means she’s good at playing the harp.”
“No – L-Y-R-E. That’s a picture of a lyre.”
“What’s the difference?”
“A harp is bigger and has more strings. A lyre doesn’t have as many strings and can be held in one hoof.”
Scootaloo asked, “Are you saying she should try playing the lyre instead of the harp?”
“I know how to play the lyre,” Lyra interrupted. “And yes, I like to think that I’m pretty good at it.”
“If you already know your special talent is playing the lyre,” Apple Bloom asked, “then why’d you come to us?”
“Because I don’t know what to do with it. There isn’t a lot of demand for the lyre in bands or orchestras, and there haven’t been wandering minstrels since the Reneighsance. Why is my gift the ability to play an instrument that nopony cares about hearing?”
The Cutie Mark Crusaders looked thoughtful.
“Well, why not become a wandering minstrel?” asked Sweetie Belle. “Maybe you’re destined to bring it back.”
“Because ponies can read now – they get their stories from books. And if they want to hear music, they can listen to a record. They don’t need a minstrel to wander in and entertain them. Plus, I don’t have a great singing voice and I’m not a fan of walking that much. At best, I’d be a novelty act – and I don’t want my life to be nothing more than a novelty act.”
Sweetie Belle went back to thinking. Silence filled the clubhouse.
After about a minute, Lyra spoke. “Look, I understand if you can’t think of anything. I’ve been trying to figure this out for a while now, and—”
“No!” Apple Bloom said. “We’re the Cutie Mark Crusaders – this is what we were born to do! It’s just that some cutie mark problems take more time to figure out than others.” She took another moment to think. “What if you learned to play the harp, too? There’d be more demand for that.”
Sweetie Belle glared at Apple Bloom. “It isn’t a harp; it’s a lyre!”
“I know,” Apple Bloom said. “But they’re kind of alike, aren’t they?”
“You wouldn’t want me to tell your family to start growing pears just because they kind of taste like apples, would you?”
“Pears do not taste like apples!”
Once again, Lyra had to interrupt. “I’m sticking with the lyre. I’m good at it, and I really like playing it. I just wish other ponies liked it even half as much as I do.”
More silence. Eventually, Scootaloo spoke up. “Your full name is Lyra Heartstrings, right?”
“Yes.”
“Well, maybe it has something to do with that.”
“How is her name supposed to tell her what she’s supposed to do with her life?” asked Apple Bloom. “It’s not like when she was born, her mom and dad already knew what her special talent would be.”
“Maybe not, but there are a lot of ponies out there whose talents relate to their names. After all, I was named Scootaloo before anypony knew about my love of scootering. And Rainbow Dash got her name before she became the fastest flier in Equestria. There has to be some reason it happens as often as it does.”
“Well, it’s worth a try,” Apple Bloom replied. “Okay, so ‘Lyra’ obviously has to do with your ability to play the lyre.” She shot Sweetie Belle a look before Sweetie Belle could say anything. “‘Heartstrings…’ What could that mean?”
“I always assumed it was just a pun based on ‘Lyra,’” Lyra said.
“Can you make ponies fall in love?” asked Sweetie Belle. “Like with a magic spell or with a special song you play?”
“Not that I’m aware of,” Lyra said.
“What about the whole word?” asked Apple Bloom. “When you play the lyre, does it tug at ponies’ heartstrings?”
“Why would she want to make ponies feel sad?” asked Scootaloo.
“Sometimes it’s good to feel sad,” replied Sweetie Belle. “Like when I asked Rarity why she reads those stories that make her cry. What was the word she used…? ‘Catharsis.’ It means that even though you’re sad, because you’ve let those feelings out, it makes you feel better later on.”
The three looked at Lyra. Lyra considered the question.
“Well, I don’t think I’ve made anypony feel sad,” she said. “I don’t like to play that kind of music. But I don’t think heartstrings are just sad feelings – why can’t your heartstrings make you feel joy, too?” She reflected back. “When I got my cutie mark, I had just played a piece that made my grandma smile after she had been sad for a long time. I thought that I got it because that was the first time I played my lyre so well. But what if it was because I brought a sense of happiness back to her life?”
The Cutie Mark Crusaders looked at Lyra, smiles growing on their faces.
As Lyra thought about it, she liked the idea even more. “That’s what I want to do here in Equestria! I want to use my lyre to touch the hearts of other ponies! Thank you!” She scooped the three fillies into a hug, then bounded out of the clubhouse, leaping off of the entrance ramp and galloping back home.
“Good work, Crusaders,” said Apple Bloom.
“Should we be charging for this?” asked Scootaloo.
At home, Bon Bon was lying on the sofa, reading. Lyra burst in through the door, grinning from ear to ear.
Bon Bon sat up. She couldn’t help but smile back. “What are you so happy about?”
“I figured out the meaning of life!”
An incredulous look crossed Bon Bon’s face.
“Well, the meaning of my life, at least. You know how I’m good at playing the lyre?”
“Yes, of course.”
“My purpose in life is to use my lyre to bring joy to the hearts of ponies who need it!”
Bon Bon just looked at Lyra.
“I thought you’d be a little more excited for me,” Lyra said.
Bon Bon glanced down for a moment. “It’s just…” she said, looking back at Lyra, “you already play your lyre for other ponies. And they already enjoy it. So… don’t you already bring joy to ponies with your lyre?”
“No, but…” Lyra stammered. “This is different. I don’t want ponies to just like my playing. I’m supposed to use my lyre to actually make them feel something. To… to transform… to move them… in their hearts!”
Bon Bon felt bad asking, but she knew she had to. “…How?”
“I… I don’t know. We… didn’t figure that part out.” Lyra slumped down and sat on the floor. More quietly, she said, “I was so excited – I thought I finally figured out my purpose in life. But I still don’t really know why I’m here.”
Bon Bon walked over and rested her foreleg across Lyra’s back. “Aw, don’t be like that,” she said. Lyra sniffled. “Hey, at least you made some progress, right?”
Lyra looked up at Bon Bon. “I guess,” she said, although she didn’t sound particularly happy about it.
“What if we went over to Sugarcube Corner for a couple of cupcakes? Would that make you feel better?”
“Maybe…” Lyra said. In reality, she knew that that actually would make her feel better.
“Well, come on then. Let’s go.”
The couple strolled through Ponyville. Already, Lyra was starting to feel more like her upbeat self – a lot of it was simply due to the fact that Bon Bon was there for her.
As they rounded the last corner, a high-pitched voice caught their attention. “Lyra! There you are!”
The two stopped as Pinkie Pie zipped in to meet them. “I’m so glad I found you! I just wanted to let you know that Twilight and the girls and I are about to head off to buffalo country for five days!”
For a moment, Lyra was confused. Then she gasped as she remembered and realized what this meant. “Five whole days?” she asked.
“Yep! I’m still not sure why you wanted to know… oh, unless it’s part of some kind of surprise! If that’s it, then don’t tell me! But if there isn’t a surprise, then you’d want to tell me so I don’t get my hopes up, but that means if you don’t say anything, then I’ll know there’s a surprise, which would ruin the surprise! So don’t tell me, but also don’t don’t tell me! Actually, just forget I said anything – we’re leaving in an hour, and I still haven’t packed! Bye!” She raced away before Lyra could say a word.
“What was that about?” Bon Bon asked.
A smile appeared on Lyra’s face – even larger than the smile she had when she thought she had figured out her purpose in life. “I’ll explain at home – I have to get ready!” She galloped off, back toward their house.
Bon Bon just stood there. “But… the cupcakes…” she said. Shrugging, she chased after Lyra.
At home, Lyra was upstairs, digging through the mess at the bottom of the bedroom closet, deciding what to put into her saddlebag. A slightly winded Bon Bon entered the room.
“What’s going on?” she asked.
Lyra stuffed a set of hoof-mounted suction cups into the bag. “Twilight Sparkle isn’t going to be home!” she exclaimed. “I finally have a chance to use the portal!”
“The what?” Bon Bon replied. She then recalled a conversation she had had with Lyra a few months ago. “Wait, is this about that primate world?”
“The human world,” Lyra corrected. “And of course it is!”
Bon Bon sighed. Twilight Sparkle had taken Lyra out to lunch a while back in order to rekindle their Canterlot friendship. When Lyra returned, she relayed to Bon Bon a story Twilight had told her about using a magical portal to live among tall, hairless, chimp-like primates. Normally, Bon Bon didn’t mind Lyra’s fascination with the idea of intelligent apes (and her occasional emulation of their supposed behavior), but when Lyra found out that such creatures definitely existed, her obsession became a little excessive. Fortunately for Bon Bon, Twilight had told Lyra that she couldn’t allow her to go through the portal – something about excess magic possibly disrupting the balance of the other world or something. Bon Bon had just been glad that that seemed to be the end of it.
Until now. “Princess Twilight won’t let you use her portal,” she exposited. “So you’re going to do it when she’s not home?”
“What other choice do I have?”
“To not use it!”
Lyra placed a grappling hook in her bag. “Bon Bon, this is a dream of mine. To have the chance to not just live among humans, but to experience being one for myself? I have to do this!”
“You’re planning on sneaking into a princess’s castle and using a magical device after she specifically told you not to. Do you know what kind of trouble you’ll get into?”
“Only if I get caught. That’s why I had to wait until I knew she’d be gone.” Lyra found a rag and a bottle of chloroform. She wondered when they acquired a bottle of chloroform, then added both items to the bag.
“And how will you even know how to use the portal? There’s probably some special spell you need to cast.”
“Nope – no spells. It’s just a simple mechanical hookup. Pinkie told me.”
Their exchange out on the street suddenly made more sense to Bon Bon. “So you got Pinkie Pie to tell you how the portal works, and then you asked her to let you know the next time Princess Twilight would be out of town. And you don’t think Pinkie will put two and two together and tell the princess?”
“It was two different conversations, a few weeks apart,” Lyra said. “This is going to work. I’ve never been this excited in my entire life!” She started flipping through the miniature file, screwdriver, scissors, corkscrew, and other tools embedded inside a pocketknife.
“You are planning on coming back, right?”
Lyra folded up the pocketknife, placed it alongside the smoke bombs and wig in her saddlebag, latched the bag closed, and looked at Bon Bon. “Well, come on – pack your bags!”
“Wait, what?” Bon Bon exclaimed. “What makes you think I’m going?”
Lyra looked stunned. “I… I assumed we’d be going together. Don’t you want to go?”
Bon Bon’s expression softened. “Lyra, you’re the one who wants to see these creatures. And if it didn’t involve disobeying a royal command and traveling through a mysterious portal, then of course I’d love to come with you. But I can’t risk it. And to be honest, I’m a little afraid of what a portal of pure magic might do to an earth pony.”
Now Lyra just looked hurt. “You don’t trust magic?”
“No, that’s not what I mean! I trust magic here. In our world. And I love your magic. But this is an unknown portal that sends you to another dimension and transforms you into a completely different animal. What if it only works because it’s reacting with ponies who are magical themselves? What would it do to a pony that didn’t have magic?”
“I really don’t think that’s an issue,” Lyra said.
“But we’re talking about a magic that nopony completely understands. Look… I still think it’s a bad idea, but if you really want to do this, I’m not going to stop you. And I promise I won’t tell anypony. Just please be careful.”
“I will,” Lyra said. She kissed Bon Bon on the cheek.
That evening, Lyra set off for Twilight’s castle. She had originally planned to go that afternoon, shortly after Pinkie left. But Bon Bon’s admonitions had stuck with her, and she realized it might be better to go under cover of darkness, when there would be fewer witnesses and fewer questions. Her decision had the unfortunate side effect, however, of making that night’s dinner with Bon Bon extremely awkward. They had each tried to keep things peaceful by talking about anything except Lyra’s plan. Even though the plan was all that either of them could think about.
Lyra peered around the corner of a building. There wouldn’t have been any reason for the citizens of Ponyville to question why Lyra was walking through the streets shortly after nightfall. Still, she stuck to the back alleys and the shadows. She wished that her coat wasn’t so brightly colored. Once she reached the edge of town, Lyra checked to make sure that no one was around. She then cantered down the open pathway toward the front door of the castle.
Ignoring the door, she kept moving, hugging the sides of the castle’s base until she reached a back window roughly three times her height off the ground. The light wasn’t on, which Lyra hoped meant the room wasn’t currently occupied. Soon, the entire window was enveloped in a golden glow as Lyra used her magic to unlatch the window from the inside and open it. She then removed the grappling hook from her bag, levitated it toward the open window, and gently secured it against the ledge. Rope climbing wasn’t Lyra’s strong suit, but her adrenaline got her up the wall and inside the castle.
With a faint light emanating from her horn, Lyra examined her surroundings – she was in the kitchen. Satisfied that she was alone, she quietly removed the grappling hook and relocked the window. Now she just needed to find the room containing the portal.
Lyra extinguished her horn, cautiously opened the kitchen door, and peeked out into the hallway. Pinkie hadn’t said whether Spike was accompanying Twilight on this trip (or whether “the girls” included Twilight’s new student), so Lyra still had to be on guard. It made Lyra feel a little better to see that none of the lights in the hallway were lit. Re-illuminating her horn, Lyra was dismayed to see so many doors . Well, nothing to do except try each one.
Some of the rooms were meant to be guest rooms, and some of the rooms were empty, waiting for Twilight to find a use for them. Eventually, Lyra found a room containing scrolls and parchments. The portal wasn’t inside, but she knew she had to be getting close.
Sure enough, the next room was a library. Followed by another library. Followed by a… how many libraries did this pony need? Lyra grew frustrated – any one of these libraries could house the portal, and the time she spent examining each one just increased her chances of being caught.
Finally, Lyra found herself in a much larger library than the previous rooms had contained. Off to the side, she saw a body-length mirror attached to some intimidating-looking mechanical equipment. It seemed to match Pinkie’s description – this had to be the portal! Now she just had to find the magical book.
Lyra assumed that if the book powered the portal, it would probably be in the same room. She really wasn’t looking forward to scouring all of those libraries in an attempt to find one unknown book. While keeping her horn aglow, she cast a second spell and began running over each of the shelved books with her field. Soon, she identified a book which had a faint, yet unfamiliar magical energy.
Lyra pulled the book from the shelf – the cover depicted Princess Celestia’s cutie mark. She opened the book to the first page, hoping to find a title or some instructions, but instead found what appeared to be a hoofwritten letter: “Dear Princess Celestia,” it began. Lyra flipped through the pages until a familiar name caught her eye: “Dear Princess Twilight.” The letter described some kind of school competition unfamiliar to Lyra – this had to be the right book! It was even the right size to fit in the empty stand mounted above the mirror!
Lyra stopped and listened once again for any hint of Spike or another pony. She wasn’t sure how much noise the portal would make once it was activated and didn’t want anyone to quickly reach the room before she could go through. Satisfied that no one was nearby, she levitated the book to its spot at the top of the contraption.
Instantly, there was a surge of magic and light, followed by crackling energy. Several parts of the apparatus began moving and making noise. Lyra winced at that, but she still didn’t hear anyone else approaching. Soon, the image in the mirror changed to a swirling pink and white pattern. After a few seconds, the surface returned to being reflective, but now maintained a kind of motionless fluidity – almost as if it contained a still pond mounted vertically. Lyra was pretty sure this meant it was ready.
Lyra took a step forward, then stopped in place as the enormity of the moment washed over her. She took a deep breath, exhaled, and stuck one hoof into the portal, as if to test the water.
Then, giving herself a determined nod, she stepped all the way through.
Chapter 2: Transformation
Canterlot High School was closed for the night. So nobody was around to see the teenage girl emerge from the base of the statue in front of the building, bent over on all fours.
Lyra looked at the unfamiliar building in front of her. The portal worked! Which meant…
She looked down at where her forehooves would be. In their place, she saw two unfamiliar appendages, shaped similarly to those on a monkey.
Even though she was still trying to be stealthy, Lyra couldn’t help but let out a restrained squeal of pure elation. Hands! She had hands! She was a human!
Lyra stood up. She was standing up! On two legs! Like a human! Because she was a human! Her cheeks hurt from the sheer intensity of her smile, but she didn’t care.
She checked that no one was watching her. She tried walking. It was a little unsteady at first, but she found it to be a lot easier than when she tried to walk on two legs back when she was in her pony body. She quickly got the hang of walking, so she tried trotting. Then she began to gallop in a wide circle around the lawn.
She stopped at the statue and stuck her arms out in front of her. She looked at her hands. She wiggled her fingers. She grasped at the air, then used one hand to clasp her forearm. Hands were amazing – everything she dreamed they would be!
Lyra then took a moment to look down at the rest of her body. To her surprise, she came out of the portal wearing clothes – some kind of lightweight pink top and a pair of ruffled blue shorts. And how did she only just now notice she was wearing boots?
Somehow, her saddlebag had turned into a pack on her back, secured by straps over each of her shoulders. But most surprising of all was the fact that she had gained a necklace, a chain of small links supporting a miniature lyre – a perfect three-dimensional representation of her cutie mark. She pushed her finger across the strings, but discovered that they were inflexible strips of metal. Lyra wanted to see where her cutie mark was located, but something in the back of her mind told her that if she came out of the portal wearing clothes, there was probably a good reason to leave them in place.
So instead, she continued to try out her new limbs. She hopped. She marched in place. She linked her fingers together and performed an arm wave. She looked around for things to interact with. And that’s when she saw it…
A bench.
After about an hour, Lyra realized that she had nowhere to sleep for the night. As fascinating as her new body was, she knew that she had to focus her attention on finding some shelter. All of the moving around had kept her warm, but she was wearing shorts and the night air had begun to get chilly.
The doors of the big building by the statue were locked, so she picked a direction at random and began to walk. She was unsure of what she should look for – a hotel? Some human’s house? Any empty cardboard box? She remembered that Twilight had told her that every citizen of Ponyville had a human counterpart in this world. Too bad she didn’t know where human Lyra lived.
As in Ponyville, most of the buildings in the town were closed for the night. Off in the distance, she saw one structure with its lights still on. As she got closer, she saw a sign… Sugarcube Corner? This world even had its own Sugarcube Corner? With no other ideas on where to go, Lyra made her way toward the door.
Before she walked in, Lyra realized that all of the humans inside were going to assume that she was this world’s Lyra. Her goal was to find out where human Lyra lived… without making anyone suspect that she wasn’t actually human Lyra. This was going to be challenging.
Lyra opened the door (with her hands!) and the aroma was unmistakable. This was Sugarcube Corner, all right. And even though she knew it would happen, it was still disconcerting to see what were clearly her pony friends, but as humans. There was Mrs. Cake, standing behind the counter. Daisy, Lily, and Rose were sitting in a booth, chatting. That human over on the other side of the room was unmistakably Pinkie Pie – Lyra decided it was safest to not attract her attention.
As Lyra continued to survey the room, she was startled by a familiar voice: “Lyra? Is that you?” Was that Berry Punch?
Lyra turned her head, and sure enough, there was a human version of Berry Punch, sitting at a table by herself and drinking a root beer float. Well, she’d been spotted. Time to find out whether she could act like a human.
“Hey, Berry,” Lyra said, sitting down across from her. “How are you doing?”
“Fine,” she replied. Whew – her name is Berry Punch in this world, too. “What are you doing here?”
Lyra briefly panicked. She had no idea what human Lyra would be doing, let alone why Berry Punch would feel the need to ask. Was she suspicious? Was she just making conversation? Lyra just wanted to find out where her human counterpart lived and get out of there as quickly as possible. But she couldn’t ask Berry for information about herself. Who else could she… of course!
“I’m looking for Bon Bon,” Lyra said. “Do you know where she is?”
“No…” Berry Punch replied, thinking. “She’s probably home.”
Lyra panicked again. I can’t ask her where home is – human Lyra already knows that. How else can I—
“Why don’t you just text her?” Berry Punch asked.
Lyra now felt both relief and panic at the same time. It seemed like Berry had given her an opening, but she didn’t know what “text” meant. It was clearly a verb. Maybe it was something you did with some kind of object? Lyra replied, “I don’t have my…” take a guess… “texter?” She only partially succeeded in not making it sound like a question.
Berry’s reaction told Lyra that that wasn’t the right word, but luckily, it must have been close enough that it wasn’t complete gibberish. She picked up the small, glass-covered rectangle sitting on the table in front of her and started rubbing one of her fingers across it. Lyra was fascinated by the motions the human hand was capable of.
“I think I have her number in here,” Berry Punch said. “There it is – I’ll text her for you.” Using both of her hands, she began tapping on the rectangle with her two opposing fingers. After a few seconds, she stopped, and while still looking at the rectangle, said, “Lyra’s at Sugarcube Corner looking for you. Doesn’t have her phone.”
Berry set the rectangle down and took a drink of her root beer float while Lyra made a mental note that that rectangle must be a “phone.” Which humans use to “text.” Unsure of what to say, Lyra just smiled at Berry.
“Got any plans for the weekend?” Berry asked.
Lyra decided that being as vague as possible was the best strategy. “Oh, you know. Just going to take it easy. You?”
“There’s a sale at Fashion Corral, so I’ll probably go there sometime. They have cute tops.”
“Mm-hmm,” Lyra replied. The conversation ground to a halt.
After a moment of awkward silence, Berry’s phone buzzed. Without picking it up, she tapped it. Lyra saw that doing so changed the color of the light it emitted.
“She says she’ll be here in a few minutes,” Berry said.
“Great! Thanks!” Lyra replied. She realized that she didn’t know what to do while she waited. Was it rude to get up and leave Berry Punch alone after she had just helped her? Lyra decided that even though it was risky, she would stay and make small talk. Maybe she could pick up some more clues about how the human world worked.
So for the next fifteen minutes, Lyra and Berry Punch chatted. In Ponyville, they were just casual acquaintances, so Lyra assumed the same would be the case here. It was mostly idle chitchat – the only subject that significantly confused Lyra was when Berry asked how she did on the chemistry test. Lyra gave a noncommittal answer and was relieved when Berry started describing her own challenges with the test.
When the conversation turned to gossipy topics such as who was and wasn’t dating, Lyra was fascinated to discover that the individual humans had the same personalities and relationships as their Ponyville counterparts. All the while, Lyra tried her hardest to refrain from staring too long at the human noses around her. They looked like tiny muzzles, but they didn’t include the mouth. They didn’t even look like the noses on the apes back in Equestria.
Lyra had her back to the door, so she didn’t initially see it when another human approached their table. “Lyra?” the human said. Lyra looked up, and as soon as she saw the pink and blue on the human’s head, she knew exactly who it was.
“Bon Bon!” Lyra exclaimed, perhaps a bit more excited than she should have acted.
“You were looking for me?” Bon Bon asked, confused.
“I sure was! Thanks, Berry!” Lyra said and got up from the table. She motioned for Bon Bon to follow her to a booth in the corner of the bakery.
As they were sitting down, Bon Bon spoke. “What’s going on? I thought you were at home.”
Lyra wasn’t sure what she meant. Wouldn’t Bon Bon have known whether human Lyra was home? That was the one thing that Lyra worried would blow her cover while Berry was texting her.
No matter. Lyra had already decided that she needed someone in the human world to confide in. And if there was anyone she could trust, it was Bon Bon.
She kept her voice low, just in case another human was trying to listen in. “Okay, this is going to sound weird, but hear me out. I’m not the Lyra that you know. I come from a world of ponies. There’s a magical portal that connects my world with your world, and I used—”
“Wait, you’re from the pony world?”
Lyra blinked. That wasn’t the reaction she was expecting to… oh, right! Twilight had told her that the humans knew about her true identity as a pony princess. So of course they would already know that Equestria exists!
“I… yes.”
“Is Princess Twilight back, too? Is there another magical creature threatening this world?”
“No. Actually, Twilight doesn’t know I’m here. I kind of snuck over here behind her back. Please don’t tell her.”
“I won’t say a word,” Bon Bon replied. She cupped both of her hands over her mouth in demonstration.
“Okay! So this makes this part a lot easier. I just got here, and I was trying to find out where human Lyra lived – I wasn’t sure where else I could spend the night.”
“Oh, sure! I can take you there. Come on!”
“…So are any more of you coming over right now?”
“I doubt it,” Lyra replied. The two were walking through a peaceful residential neighborhood. “Twilight said that she didn’t want anypony else to use the portal—”
Bon Bon giggled. “‘Anypony.’”
“Oh. Yeah, I guess you wouldn’t say that here. What’s the right word – ‘anyhuman?’”
“Just ‘anybody.’ Or ‘anyone.’”
“Huh. We sometimes say those, too. Weird. Anyway, Twilight’s out of town, so I snuck through without her knowing about it. I have to go back before she returns on Tuesday – if she finds out I was here, I’m going to be in big trouble.”
“Yeah, ever since Lyra – my Lyra – found out Sunset Shimmer was originally a unicorn, she’s been begging her for a chance to visit the pony world. But Sunset Shimmer said the same thing, that it was too risky to let anybody and everybody visit both worlds.”
The two approached a two-story house with some kind of long, horizontal strips adorning its sides. It was more boxy and angular than the cottages in Ponyville. To Lyra’s eyes, it looked a lot like all of the other houses in the neighborhood. Then again, the same could be said of Ponyville’s cottages.
“Oh man, Lyra is going to freak out when she sees you,” Bon Bon said. She rang the doorbell, then after a moment, shouted, “Lyra! It’s me, Bon Bon!”
After another moment, the door opened. “Bon Bon? You know my parents said you can’t come over when they’re not home. What are you…” Upon seeing… herself… standing next to Bon Bon, her mouth hung open.
“Whaaaa…?” was all she could manage.
“Lyra, this is Lyra. She’s from the pony world,” Bon Bon said, grinning. She was thoroughly enjoying her Lyra’s reaction.
For her part, Ponyville Lyra’s reaction wasn’t much different. She hadn’t had the chance to look at a mirror since arriving in the human world. Not only was this the first time seeing her human face – essentially – it was also strange to be looking at another one of her. Even though she had known going in that this would be the case, it was still a little mind-boggling to actually see physical evidence of it.
“How long until your parents get back?” Bon Bon asked.
“Another couple hours,” human Lyra answered blankly. Her mouth was still hanging open.
“So, can we come in? I think this is a special exception,” Bon Bon said.
“Sure…” human Lyra said, stepping back to let them inside. Her mind was a little overwhelmed at the moment, so she just did what Bon Bon said.
The three sat down, Bon Bon and Ponyville Lyra each in a recliner and human Lyra at the end of the sofa. After a few minutes, human Lyra was finally able to get a mental grasp on the situation.
“I can’t believe me from the pony world is here in my living room!” she said. “What’s it like? Oh, I’ve always wanted to visit there!”
“Yeah, that’s what your Bon Bon was telling me,” Ponyville Lyra replied. She too had finally regained control of her senses enough to hold a conversation.
“You have no idea. I love unicorns! One second…” Human Lyra ran upstairs. After a few seconds, she returned with some notebooks. “I asked Sunset Shimmer to draw what your unicorns look like, but she isn’t a very good drawer.” She showed Ponyville Lyra a crude drawing of a unicorn. It wasn’t terrible, but it wasn’t that great, either.
“Well, that’s… basically…” Ponyville Lyra said, trying to find the right words.
“So I tried to interpret that into what I thought they might look like,” human Lyra said, showing her another drawing. It was closer, though a little more muscular than the average pony, with a longer horn. “Or are they more like this?” She showed her the cover of a notebook, which depicted a tall, slender unicorn soaring through outer space.
“Well, that looks more like a horse,” Ponyville Lyra said of the notebook cover. “We’re ponies – we’re shorter, and our legs aren’t that skinny. Maybe a little rounder around the belly, if I’m being honest.”
“I just wish Sunset would let me…” Suddenly, human Lyra’s face lit up. “Wait a minute. If you just got here, then does that mean the portal is still open?”
“Yeah – I activated it without Twilight knowing. So please don’t tell her about this.”
“Princess Twilight doesn’t know? Then that means that Sunset Shimmer doesn’t know either, right?”
“I don’t know who that is, but no. No one knows I’m here. Except for you and Bon Bon. And my Bon Bon back home.”
Human Lyra began to have a little trouble breathing. “So I could go visit the pony world right now… and nobody would know?”
“Oh…” Ponyville Lyra said with a smile of realization.
“Hold on,” Bon Bon said. “Are you actually thinking of…”
“It’s perfect timing!” human Lyra said. “We don’t have school tomorrow and then it’s the weekend. I’ll come back on Sunday night. When am I going to get a chance like this again?”
Bon Bon looked uncertain. “Only ponies have come through to visit our world. We don’t even know what would happen if one of us tried to go through the other direction!”
“There’s only one way to find out,” human Lyra said. “Come on, Bon Bon – you know how much I want to do this!”
“And it would solve the problem of there being two Lyras in this world at once,” added Ponyville Lyra. “I can cover for you, and you can cover for me.”
“See, Bon Bon? It’s two against one.”
“That doesn’t count!” said Bon Bon. She closed her eyes and exhaled to steady herself. She looked at human Lyra. “Are you sure this is a good idea?”
“It’s the best idea!” human Lyra said. “You know I’ve always wanted to see a real live unicorn!”
“See one?” Ponyville Lyra said. “In my world, I am a unicorn.”
Human Lyra’s eyes widened. “SHUT. UP. That’s it – I’m going, right now!”
Bon Bon knew she had lost the debate.
Ponyville Lyra was just as excited, eager to help her human self fulfill the same dream she was fulfilling. “Do you know where the portal is?”
“Yep – it’s in the base of the statue in front of Canterlot High.”
“Okay, so when you go through the portal, you’ll be inside a library in Twilight’s castle. I don’t think anyone else is there right now, but be careful, just in case. When you leave the library, you’ll be in a big hallway with a pair of large doors at one end. Those are the doors to the outside. Then, follow the path to Ponyville. Turn right at the pizzeria, then left at the farrier’s, and another left at the barber shop. My house is the third house on the right.”
“Farrier’s?” human Lyra asked.
“Horseshoe seller,” Ponyville Lyra explained.
Human Lyra grinned. “Right at the pizzeria, left at the farrier’s, left at the barber shop, third house on the right,” she repeated. She looked at Ponyville Lyra’s backpack. “Anything I need to bring?”
“Nah, anything you might need is at home,” Ponyville Lyra said. “This is just filled with stuff I used to sneak into the castle.” Suddenly, it dawned on her. “Oh, you’ll need to sneak back in when you want to come back! You’d better take it.” She took off the backpack and gave it to her human counterpart. “I used the grappling hook to get in through the first window in the back. Although if no one’s home, you could probably just go through the front door.”
“Got it. My room is upstairs to the right, on the left-hand side. I can’t think of anything else you need to know. Bon Bon, are you coming with me?”
Bon Bon looked surprised at the offer. “I’d rather not. I should be getting home anyway – I told my parents I wouldn’t be gone too long.”
“Then can you help me?” Ponyville Lyra said to Bon Bon. “I could really use someone I can ask questions about how to be human.”
“All right,” said Bon Bon. “I’ll be over tomorrow after breakfast.”
“I usually go to bed around eleven,” human Lyra said. “Although since there’s no school tomorrow, it’ll be closer to midnight. I spend most of my time in my room, so mom and dad shouldn’t get too suspicious. Have fun! Bon Bon, can you at least walk me to Maple Street?”
“Of course. See you tomorrow… Lyra,” Bon Bon said. She had enjoyed meeting someone from the pony world, but it was strange to address a second Lyra by the same name. The two humans left and closed the door behind them.
Lyra stood alone in the house, trying to organize her thoughts. Now that it was too late to ask, she realized that she really needed some clarification on why everyone kept referring to school. Also, apparently she lived with her parents? She made a mental note to ask Bon Bon about those things tomorrow.
But she had accomplished her goal of finding a place to sleep, and she was alone, at least for the time being. Which meant that it was back to trying out her new limbs. She wondered how easy it was to go up and down stairs on just two legs…
Maple Street was where Bon Bon needed to turn left to head home and Lyra needed to turn right to head to the portal. The two stood at the corner of the intersection, faced each other, and held hands.
“I’ll see you on Sunday night,” Lyra said.
“Please be careful,” Bon Bon said. Lyra could feel Bon Bon’s hands shaking.
“I will,” Lyra promised. She leaned forward and the two shared a good-bye kiss.
Lyra let go of Bon Bon’s hands, gave her a smile, then turned around and began walking toward the high school. Bon Bon knew it was time to turn around and walk home. Instead, she found herself taking small steps backward while she watched Lyra recede into the darkness.
Shortly thereafter, on the grounds of Canterlot High, Lyra approached and stood in front of the portal. She thought about what Bon Bon had said about how no person had attempted this before. Lyra was still confident – after all, if it didn’t hurt the ponies who came through to their world, it shouldn’t hurt going in reverse – but Bon Bon’s nervousness made her a little nervous, too.
Lyra thought about being a unicorn, and that gave her the courage to go through with her plan. She poked one finger into the portal to make sure it was actually open, then instinctively closed her eyes and stepped through…
…to the main library of Twilight Sparkle’s castle, where Lyra emerged from the portal on her two hind legs, then quickly dropped onto all fours. That motion removed any apprehension which was inside her – the portal worked, and she was definitely a pony. She looked down at her hooves for confirmation and began to giggle uncontrollably.
As Lyra turned her head to look at her tail, she caught her reflection in the mirror-like portal behind her. A horn! She had a horn! She wasn’t just a pony – she was an honest-to-goodness unicorn! Lyra stood there, staring, transfixed. She was a little surprised at the shape of her muzzle (and the stubbiness of her horn), but she was still overjoyed.
She wanted to shoot a beam of magic from her horn right then and there, but then she remembered that her immediate goal needed to be to sneak out of the castle. She located the library door, walked up to it, and saw that it had a pull handle. She reached up to grab it… then realized that she didn’t have fingers. Uncertain of what else to do, she placed her hoof inside the handle and awkwardly stepped backward on her other three legs while pulling the door open. It seemed like a more natural motion than wedging her horn behind the handle and pulling with her head.
The hallway was nearly pitch black, illuminated only by some faint moonlight entering through a far window. Once her eyes adjusted to the additional darkness, Lyra spotted the large exit door and made her way down the hall. She tried to walk quietly, but no matter how slowly or lightly she stepped, her hooves still made a clip-clop noise on the crystalline floor which reverberated throughout the castle. This put her on edge, but fortunately, she didn’t hear the sound of anyone else approaching. Finally, she reached the front door – another door which she had to pull open.
Lyra stepped outside and awkwardly pulled the front door closed. A little way down the path stood a charming town filled with cottages. Lyra quickly followed the path to the edge of the town. Satisfied that she had escaped the castle undetected, she paused to get a feel for her new body. When she had looked at herself in the portal mirror, the pink light emanating from the machinery had made her coat appear to be some shade of blue, or maybe purple. But now that she was standing underneath a streetlamp (filled with what appeared to be… fireflies?), she could see that her coat was actually an aquamarine color similar to the skin of her human body.
The lack of hands and feet was obvious. But Lyra also realized that she was standing on her four legs differently than she would stand on human arms and legs. Given the way her joints moved, she equated it to standing on just her fingers and toes. But even though the motion was different, she was able to instinctively walk, trot, and gallop.
Lyra thought that being in a horse’s body would be the most interesting thing of all, but what really caught her attention was the image of a lyre located on each of her… thighs? It looked just like her necklace – the necklace that her grandmother had given to her when she was just a little girl. The necklace which had somehow disappeared, along with her clothes. Lyra reached out to touch the image – it appeared to be a permanent part of her coat. Astounding.
Being a pony was exciting enough, but most importantly, she was a unicorn. Before she went home, Lyra wanted to do something amazing with her horn. She decided on a rainbow. Then she realized that it would be too dark to see a rainbow. A glowing rainbow! Perfect!
Granted, she wasn’t sure how to create a glowing rainbow. But if she was able to instinctively understand how to walk in her pony body, she was certain that rainbow magic would come naturally to her, as well. She focused her concentration on her horn and imagined a glowing rainbow shooting forth from her forehead.
And nothing happened. Well, not nothing – she felt an unfamiliar sensation, similar to a tingling, graze over her horn. And she thought she saw a slight golden light reflect off the post of the streetlamp. But there was no rainbow, glowing or otherwise. She tried again, squeezing her eyes shut and concentrating as hard as she could. But the sensation felt the same, and when she opened her eyes, there was still nothing.
Disappointed, Lyra decided to head home. Maybe there would be something there that would help her figure out how to make a rainbow.
Although the streets of the village were winding, with buildings seemingly scattered around at random, Lyra was able to successfully follow the instructions given to her. As she approached the third house on the right, she saw that the lights were on. Lyra stopped and wondered how she would be able to sneak in. She then realized that the other Lyra hadn’t said anything about sneaking out in the first place – maybe she had made up some kind of excuse about traveling to explain her absence? Lyra hoped that she would be able to bluff her way out of it and slowly opened the door.
Bon Bon was upstairs when she heard the door creak open. Ponyville was a friendly place where no one locked their doors at night, but still, visitors had the decency to knock first. Instantly on high alert, she quietly stepped down the hall. The glass in a picture frame at the top of the stairs provided the perfect reflective surface for her to look down toward the front door without being spotted.
When she saw who it was, she stepped out and walked down the stairs. “Lyra? Let me guess – the portal didn’t work?”
Lyra felt a number of emotions in quick succession. First, she reflexively jumped back in fear because she had been spotted. When she realized it was the pony version of Bon Bon, she calmed down. This was followed by amusement at the sight of Bon Bon as a pony. Finally, confusion as to why she was in Bon Bon’s house.
Seeing that Bon Bon was waiting for an answer to her question, and remembering that the other Lyra had said that Bon Bon knew about the secret plan, Lyra realized that it was safe to tell her the truth.
“Actually, I’m Lyra from the human world. It’s nice to meet you, Bon Bon. I’m sorry I came in – pony Lyra told me that this was her house.”
At first, Bon Bon thought that Lyra was trying to be funny. But the way she was startled while walking into her own home… Lyra wasn’t that good of an actress. Which had to mean… oh, Celestia.
Bon Bon couldn’t think of anything to say, other than to repeat what had already been stated. “You’re… a human?”
“Yep. Pony Lyra came to my house. I’ve always wanted to see your world, so when I found out the portal was open, we decided to switch places.”
Bon Bon groaned internally. She wished it could be a year ago, when humans were still just a myth. But hoping that this situation wasn’t actually happening didn’t make it any less real – she’d might as well roll with it. And this was a version of Lyra, after all.
“Sorry – when Lyra said she’d be traveling to your world, I didn’t expect anypony to travel here. Come on in.” Bon Bon closed the door behind Lyra, who only stepped forward far enough to take in the décor. She was distracted by how much the furniture resembled human furniture.
Lyra turned her attention back to Bon Bon. “I don’t want to get you in trouble. If you can tell me where Lyra lives… oh, and if you know what excuse she gave for being gone, that’d help.”
“Lyra lives here. With me.”
Bon Bon wasn’t expecting Lyra’s surprised reaction. The happiness was also unexpected, but nice. “Really? Cool! But what about her parents?”
“They live in Canterlot. We visited them this past Hearth’s Warming.”
“So she lives out here on her own… with you?”
“Yeah.”
“Lucky!”
Bon Bon wasn’t sure why this was such big news. She hadn’t paid close attention to her Lyra’s second-account descriptions of the human world, but she was under the impression that everything there was parallel to Equestria. “Don’t you live together where you come from?” she asked.
“We still live at home, with our parents. Do ponies not live with their parents when they’re in high school? Or do you not have high school?”
“We both already graduated,” Bon Bon said. As bizarre as this whole situation was, she had to admit she also found it a little intriguing. “So the two of you are still in school?”
“This is our last year.”
“Are you a couple?”
“Totally. No matter what her parents think.”
Bon Bon smirked at that. There were definitely parallels.
“Does that mean while I’m here as a pony, I can stay here with you?” Lyra asked. It sounded too good to be true – she had to be certain.
“If you’re switching places with Lyra for the next few days, then I guess so,” Bon Bon said.
“Just until Sunday. I have to go back to school on Monday,” Lyra replied. She was more disappointed than ever about that.
“Okay. Well, I hate to be a bad host, but when you arrived, I was getting ready for bed. So we should… hmm.”
“Oh, no problem. Where’s your Lyra’s room?”
“That’s the thing. We only have the one bedroom. And even though I guess you’re the same as Lyra, I’m not sure that I’m comfortable…”
“Oh! No, absolutely! I totally understand! I can sleep down here, if that’s okay with you.”
Bon Bon sighed in relief. “Yes – thank you. I’ll get you some blankets. And the couch is pretty soft. I’m sorry I don’t have anything better – we never have anypony over for the night.”
Bon Bon went upstairs to get the blankets while Lyra struggled to take off the backpack which had transformed into a saddlebag. Lyra was too excited to be sleepy, but she didn’t want to be a bad guest – especially not for the pony version of Bon Bon. Besides, there were rugs on the floor – she could quietly keep moving around in her pony body while Bon Bon was asleep upstairs.
The rainbow would have to wait until tomorrow, though.
The next morning, Starlight Glimmer returned to Twilight Sparkle’s castle after having spent the majority of the week in Canterlot. It had been an intense few days meeting with Princess Celestia’s leading wizards to discuss her modifications to Star Swirl the Bearded’s time travel spell. Now that she was home, she had just enough time to check in on Owlowiscious and make sure Twilight hadn’t left behind any other assignments for her to do before she left on another trip – she would be spending an extended weekend in her former village to continue the work of rebuilding her friendships with the ponies living there.
As she walked down the hall, she heard a humming noise coming from the main library. She walked in and saw that the portal to the human world had been left on.
“I know that Twilight’s already with the buffalo – Spike just sent me a letter from there,” Starlight said to herself. “She must have been in a hurry and forgot to turn this off.”
Starlight levitated the magical book from its place above the portal and put it back on the shelf. The whirring of the machinery died down, and the gateway between Equestria and the human world was closed.
It took Lyra a few moments to realize where she was.
As she woke up to the brightness of the morning sun, the first sights she registered were the blurry, light blue walls which appeared in front of her half-lidded eyes. But her bedroom was cream-colored… a feeling of unfamiliarity began to creep over her. She then sensed that she was alone in her bed. What was going on?
As the room began to come into focus, the memories of the night before began to creep back into her consciousness. She lifted an arm out from under the covers to be sure – she was still a human! The realization quickly snapped her awake.
After she had been left alone in the house the previous night, she had continued to learn what her arms and legs could do. It turned out that it was actually easier to walk down stairs on two human legs than four pony legs. She had then spent the majority of her time holding and manipulating things with her hands – the entire process was still a novelty to her, so she didn’t really miss having magic.
She had been examining her face in the bedroom mirror when she heard someone enter through the front door. As had been implied by human Lyra and Bon Bon, human Lyra’s parents also lived in this house. It felt kind of weird for Lyra to say “Hi, mom” and “Hi, dad” to the human versions of her own parents, but she needed to keep up appearances. When she saw them take off their shoes, she decided it was safe to take off her boots and socks, so she spent the next several minutes in human Lyra’s bedroom examining her new human feet. She tried using them to pick up various objects in the room, but had nowhere near the success she had been having with her hands. The monkeys back in Equestria made it look so easy… she wondered whether all humans had this shortcoming or whether she was doing something wrong.
When the clock reached midnight, she had taken human Lyra’s advice and gone to bed, although she subsequently lay there awake for an hour, her mind racing with all of the things she wanted to do and learn about being a human. She could hardly believe this was all really happening!
With that excitement back in full force now that she was once again awake, Lyra got out of bed and headed downstairs for breakfast. She had forgotten that human Lyra’s parents would be down there, too.
“Somebody slept in,” Lyra’s dad said in a friendly tone.
“Well, uh, I had trouble falling asleep last night,” Lyra said truthfully. She was afraid to say anything else for fear of inadvertently revealing that she wasn’t the real human Lyra. Fortunately, this seemed to satisfy “her” dad, who went back to reading his newspaper and eating his cereal.
Lyra’s mom was already rinsing her dishes out in the sink and placing them into some kind of large box with racks inside. “Any big plans for the day?” she asked Lyra.
“I thought I’d just take it easy,” Lyra said. Hey, if that line worked once…
“If you go anywhere, just leave us a note,” Lyra’s mom said. “See you tonight.” She walked out of the kitchen and left the house. Lyra heard the sound of a motor starting, then the sound of some kind of machine receding into the distance.
Lyra turned her attention back to the table. She was relieved to see cereal and milk there along with an open place setting with a bowl, spoon, and glass of orange juice – she had no idea which cabinets and drawers contained any of those items. As she poured herself some cereal and began to eat, her father finished his breakfast and got up. He gave Lyra a kiss on the top of her head, said good-bye, and left the house. When Lyra heard a similar motor sound, she got up and looked out the window, where she saw him leaving in some kind of self-propelled carriage.
Alone in the house once again, Lyra finished her cereal and juice. She looked at the newspaper left behind on the table. She intended to read it to learn more about the human world, but all of the articles were about authority figures and places she had never heard of. And that just made things more confusing than informative.
Which was why she was engrossed in the comics section, wondering whether there might be another world where cats and dogs really could talk, when she heard the same doorbell from the night before, followed by knocking at the front door, followed by a muffled “Lyra! It’s Bon Bon!”
Lyra opened the door. “Thank goodness you’re here,” she said. “I have so many questions.”
“Your parents have already left for work, right?”
They weren’t actually her parents, but Lyra knew what Bon Bon meant. She nodded, assuming that they hadn’t left for some different reason.
Bon Bon came in. “I promise I’ll answer everything I can,” she said. “But since we don’t have school today, I also wanted to show you what we do for fun. Does your pony world have a mall?”
After pony Bon Bon had gone to bed, Lyra continued to move around in her pony body. It was a lot more flexible than horses in her world were. She also practiced picking things up with her hooves, which wasn’t as impossible as she expected it to be. She was able to hold and lift things with both of her front hooves, balancing on her rear legs for short periods of time.
When she had finally gotten a little tired, she realized she wasn’t sure where Bon Bon wanted her to sleep. Bon Bon had said that the couch was soft, but didn’t horses sleep standing up? So she draped a blanket over her back, walked behind the couch, and sort of leaned against it while standing on all four legs. She rested her head on one of the couch’s back cushions and eventually drifted off to sleep.
That was the sight which greeted Bon Bon as she came down the stairs the following morning. Bon Bon nearly laughed out loud, but she was able to stifle the sound just in time, allowing Lyra to continue to sleep. Which was good for two reasons: One, it would have been rude for Bon Bon to wake up her houseguest. And two, it gave her the opportunity to go back upstairs and get the camera so she could snap a picture. Bon Bon wasn’t sure whether it could be considered blackmail if the pony in the picture wasn’t technically Lyra, but she was sure the photo would come in handy somewhere down the line.
As Bon Bon started making breakfast, Lyra woke up. She followed the sounds to the kitchen.
“Good morning,” Bon Bon said. “You know, it’s okay to lie down on the couch.”
“Oh,” Lyra said, embarrassed. “I wasn’t sure how you slept in this world, and I didn’t know whether I could put my hooves on the furniture…”
“Don’t worry about it,” Bon Bon said. “Breakfast will be in a couple minutes.” Lyra watched in fascination as Bon Bon picked up a flour-filled measuring cup with her teeth and poured it into a mixing bowl.
After Bon Bon switched to using her hoof to stir the contents of the bowl with a whisk, Lyra said, “I never thought about how difficult it would be for horses to pick things up.”
“Ponies.”
“Hm?”
“We’re specifically ponies. Horses are bigger.”
“Oh. Sorry.”
“Again, don’t worry about it. This is new to me, too, talking to a pony that looks like Lyra but isn’t actually Lyra. Er, that isn’t the same Lyra. Yeah, this is confusing.”
Lyra chuckled in understanding. “You see, in my world, instead of hooves, we have what are called hands. They have these things on them called fingers, which are—”
“Oh, I know all about hands, believe me. My Lyra was absolutely obsessed with getting to see a human. She knows all about their hands and feet and walking around on two legs.” Bon Bon picked up the bowl with her teeth and poured some of its batter onto a hot griddle.
“How does she know so much about humans if she’s never seen one?”
“There have always been myths about super-evolved chimpanzees, but pretty much everypony assumed they were just legends,” Bon Bon said. “Until Princess Twilight went to your world last year and found out that humans exist.” She picked up a spatula with her teeth and flipped the pancake onto its other side.
“I never thought of grabbing things with your mouth. You make it look so easy – though I guess you’ve been doing it for your whole life.”
Bon Bon was still holding the spatula in her mouth, so she just gave a slight nod.
“And you eat pancakes, too,” Lyra said. “This is crazy.”
Bon Bon slid the spatula under the finished pancake. Instead of simply lifting it onto the plate, she flipped it through the air, just to show off. She picked up the edge of the plate with her teeth and carried it to the table. She motioned for Lyra to have a seat. “There’s the first one. And there’s the syrup.” She went back and poured more batter onto the griddle.
Using both of her front hooves, Lyra awkwardly fumbled with the syrup bottle while Bon Bon watched in amusement. She eventually managed to pour some onto her pancake. “See? I don’t know how you’re so good at this.” She looked down at the place setting. “And you’re able to use a fork and knife without hurting yourself?” She knew there had to be some trick involving the frog of her hoof – she just didn’t know what that trick was yet.
“I am, although usually, I just eat things with my mouth. I wasn’t sure whether or not you wanted silverware. When unicorns use it, most of them just use magic to pick it up.”
“Oh yeah! I was going to ask how to use my horn. I was trying to make a rainbow last night before I came here, but I couldn’t figure out how to do it.”
“Make a rainbow?”
“Yeah, you know – have a rainbow arc out of my horn.”
“I’ve never seen Lyra do that. Actually, I’ve never seen any unicorn do that.”
“Oh.” There was a slight hint of disappointment in Lyra’s voice. “Can you help me figure out what I can do?”
“Not really.” Bon Bon lifted her bangs to illustrate the lack of horn on her forehead. “I’m an earth pony. We don’t bother learning about unicorn magic since we can’t use it.”
“Oh,” Lyra said again – the disappointment was more evident now. She clumsily lifted her knife with both hooves and started sawing at her pancake.
Bon Bon flipped the next pancake and watched Lyra in silence. After some thought, she said, “Star Tracker has a unicorn daughter who’s been learning about magic. How about I go over after breakfast and see if she has any beginner’s magic books that you can borrow?”
Lyra’s pride was hurt a little bit at the implication that she needed a beginner’s book on magic. Even though she realized that was exactly the case. “That’d help,” she said reluctantly. “Although I don’t want to be a burden.”
“It’s no trouble,” Bon Bon said. “And trust me – I’ll let you know if you’re becoming a burden.” She gave Lyra a playful smile. “Besides, it’ll give you something to do – I’ve got a big order I need to fill today, so I’m going to be too busy to show you around Ponyville.”
“Thanks,” Lyra said sheepishly.
“If nothing else, we need to teach you how to put that pancake out of its misery.”
“If you want to fit in, you should probably use the word ‘people,’” human Bon Bon said.
“‘People?’” Lyra asked.
“Instead of ‘humans.’”
“Wait… you aren’t humans?”
“We are, but we don’t call ourselves ‘humans’ in conversation. When you say that, it makes you sound like you’re an alien trying to blend in. Which I guess you kind of are.”
“When Twilight was telling me about you, she never used the word ‘people.’ Just ‘humans.’”
“If Princess Twilight is anything like our Twilight, then she probably got caught up in being a scientist.” Bon Bon thought for a moment. “It would be like if I called you an equine. That’s scientifically accurate, but I’m guessing you usually call yourself a pony.”
Lyra seemed to understand. “So what’s one people called?”
“A person.”
“That… doesn’t make sense.”
Bon Bon laughed. “I know.”
The two were walking to the mall, getting a later start to the day than Bon Bon had anticipated. After Bon Bon had come over, Lyra spent the next two and a half hours bombarding her with questions about both the human world in general and human Lyra’s living situation. The living situation questions weren’t as interesting to Lyra, but she realized that if she was going to pass for human Lyra, she needed to know things such as where the dishes were located and which bathroom was “hers.” And Lyra still picked up occasional informative human tidbits such as how to operate a garbage disposal. And that humans ate lettuce, but not grass.
Finally, Bon Bon had assured Lyra that she had learned enough minutia of human Lyra’s life to keep her parents from becoming suspicious. So after leaving a note for Lyra’s parents (which gave Lyra a chance to learn how to hold a pen with her human hand), Bon Bon and Lyra strolled through the quiet neighborhood streets on their way to the shopping mall.
“Here it is,” Bon Bon said proudly as they arrived. The two entered, and Lyra was astonished by the sight. So many stores… it reminded Lyra of the streets of Canterlot, if an entire street was stacked on top of a second street, all under a single roof. Lyra could see how a human person could spend an entire day in such a place, which was exactly what Bon Bon intended to do.
So they leisurely walked from store to store, with Lyra taking in and describing to Bon Bon all of the differences between the human world and her pony home. For example, Lyra was amazed at how much of the clothing was mass-produced – in Equestria, clothing stores were not nearly as ubiquitous and nearly all of the clothing was custom-made. Of course, she reasoned, humans spent a lot more time wearing clothes than ponies did.
Occasionally, the two would encounter the human version of one of Lyra’s Ponyville friends – Lyra was never quite certain how to interact with them when that happened. After all, what do you talk about with Rarity if she’s a high school student who doesn’t operate her own boutique? When those situations came up, Bon Bon took the lead – in Rarity’s case, it turned out that you ask her one question about whether a piece of clothing is currently “in,” then let her talk for ten minutes straight about what’s hot and what’s not in the upcoming seasons.
After leaving a shoe store, Bon Bon became very excited as they approached the next shop. “You have to see this place!” she said. “I worked here for my summer job last year – it’s the best!”
She led Lyra inside the store, which was named Sugar’s Sweets. The walls were lined with an extensive assortment of confections. “You’ve got to try the candy here,” Bon Bon said. “Pick something out – what’s your favorite?”
Lyra felt a little overwhelmed by the number of choices. Her eyes were drawn to the wide selection of salt water taffy, available in every color of the rainbow. “Do they have blueberry taffy?” she asked.
Bon Bon scoffed a good-natured scoff. “Of course they have blueberry taffy!” she said. She approached the woman standing behind the counter. “Good afternoon, Sugar. Can we please have a quarter pound of blueberry taffy? And do you have any fresh honeycomb toffee?”
“We sure do, Bon Bon.”
“Then I’ll have a couple ounces of that, too.”
“You got it.”
As the woman measured out the taffy and then went into the back room, Bon Bon said, “That’s Sugar Beet. Best boss ever. She’s already promised to hire me again this summer.”
Sugar Beet came back with a second bag to go with the bag of taffy. Bon Bon paid and then took Lyra to a bench a short distance from the storefront.
“Check this out,” Bon Bon said, opening the non-taffy bag. “While I was working here last year, I read about this candy called honeycomb toffee. I asked Sugar if I could try making it in her shop, and she let me. It went so well that she’s been selling it ever since.”
Bon Bon picked a piece out of the bag. The top and bottom were relatively solid, but along the sides, Lyra could see dozens of air holes. “Oh, it looks kind of like a honeycomb,” she said.
“Right,” Bon Bon replied. “It isn’t actually made with honey. Try it.”
Bon Bon popped the piece of candy into Lyra’s mouth. Even though it was called a toffee, it had a surprisingly crunchy texture. The taste was deliciously sweet, and because of the air holes, it didn’t feel too heavy. Lyra “mmm”ed in approval.
“I know, right?” Bon Bon said. She ate a piece. “It’s best fresh like this. If you leave it out in the air for too long, it gets too sticky. So we dip it in dark chocolate, which makes it last longer, and sell it that way.” She ate another piece.
Lyra opened her bag of taffy and picked up one of the individually-wrapped pieces. The candy looked mouth-watering, but Lyra was more entranced by the delicate motions she was able to perform with her fingers. Not just picking up the taffy, but unwrapping it, too.
Lyra ate the candy. “This tastes great,” she said through the taffy in her mouth. “It has a really strong blueberry flavor.”
“See, what’d I tell you?” Bon Bon said. “This place is the best.” Lyra realized that she should have known that human Bon Bon would share the same affinity for candy that her Bon Bon had.
After they had finished the toffee and put the remaining taffy into Bon Bon’s handbag, the two visited Disc Center. Seeing the confusion on Lyra’s face, Bon Bon explained, “It’s a store that sells movies and music.”
“Oh, like a record store.”
“Sort of.”
Lyra was learning that other than the two-legged bodies, the biggest difference between her home and the human world could be found in all of the devices and gadgets the humans had. This store was especially foreign to her – none of the boxes looked like they were big enough to hold a record.
“Is there any kind of music you want to listen to?” Bon Bon asked. She motioned toward some small glowing screens positioned above headphones. At least Lyra knew what the headphones were. Probably.
It was then that Lyra remembered her efforts during the previous day to determine her purpose in life. She didn’t know how to go about it in Equestria – maybe the human world contained music that would give her inspiration.
“I don’t suppose you have lyre music here,” she said.
Bon Bon looked puzzled. “No…” she said as she tried to think of the closest substitute. “There’s classical music, but I don’t think they play the lyre in it.”
“Is it happy? Or upbeat?”
“No, just really slow. But if you want happy and upbeat, there are lots of choices.”
Bon Bon took Lyra over to one of the screens and started tapping on it. Doing so caused the screen to change, displaying a list containing the names of singers and pictures of album covers.
“Anything that looks interesting to you?” Bon Bon asked.
Lyra read through the list. She decided to skip the human world’s versions of Sapphire Shores and Countess Coloratura – Lyra assumed that she already knew what their music sounded like. After Bon Bon showed her that she could press the down arrow to see more choices, Lyra scrolled down until she saw a title and artist she didn’t recognize: “Cheer Up” by Hairswoop Heartthrob. That looked promising.
Lyra indicated that she wanted to listen to that one, so Bon Bon pressed the screen with her finger and put on some headphones from the same station so she could also listen to the song. Lyra took that as the cue to put on her headphones.
Although the song was catchy, it wasn’t at all what Lyra was hoping for. As best as she could tell from the lyrics, the young male singer was addressing a girl who had recently been through a breakup. He told her to cheer up, because someday she’d find the boy who was right for her. He then proceeded to tell her this again and again and again. He must have been really proud of rhyming “there’s no need to tear up” with “girl, you’ve got to cheer up,” given the number of times he repeated it over the course of three minutes.
The song was similar to the pop music Lyra could hear back home. It didn’t tell her how human music might be different than Equestrian music and it gave her no insight into how she could use her gift of playing the lyre to bring happiness to others’ lives. So when the song ended, Lyra decided to shift the conversation in a new direction.
“You said that this store had movies, too? Is there a theater in the back?”
“No – they sell movies on DVD.”
Lyra stared blankly at Bon Bon.
“Discs that you play at home that have the movie on them.”
“Do most homes have movie theaters in them?”
“No – you watch it on your television.”
Another blank stare.
“You don’t have television?!”
“No…” Lyra said hesitatingly.
“Okay, I need to teach you what television is before you get home tonight. But you know what a movie theater is?”
“Yeah, we have one of those in Ponyville.”
“Do you have movies like Coalition of Heroes ?”
“What’s that?”
“It’s a group of superheroes who fight bad guys that want to take over the world. It’s based on a comic book.”
“You have movies based on comic books?” Lyra said dubiously.
“The new one just came out. I was going to see it with my Lyra this weekend, but if you don’t have anything like it in the pony world, I should take you. Come on!”
Bon Bon led Lyra through the mall to the movie theater. The next showing of Coalition of Heroes: Earth’s Final Defense was beginning in thirty minutes. Bon Bon purchased two tickets.
“Bon Bon,” Lyra said, “I don’t want you buying all these things for me. Let me… oh, shoot! I brought money with me when I came through the portal, but it was in my bag. And I gave that to your Lyra.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Bon Bon said. “First of all, does your money look like this?” She held up a five-dollar bill.
“No – it’s gold bits.”
“So your money wouldn’t be any good here anyway. And second of all, Lyra left her wallet at home. I’m going to reimburse myself for your ticket when we get back.”
Lyra thought about that. It seemed wrong to take human Lyra’s money without her permission. But when she considered it further, Lyra realized that she wouldn’t have a problem if her Bon Bon wanted to take some of her bits to show human Lyra around Ponyville. In a way, it was sort of like spending the money on herself.
As Lyra and Bon Bon waited for the movie to begin, Lyra hoped that her human counterpart was learning as much as she was.
After breakfast, Bon Bon had gone out to borrow the beginner’s magic book from Star Tracker. She realized nearly too late that she didn’t have a plausible excuse for needing a foal’s book on magic. Ultimately, she wound up saying something vague about using it as inspiration for an order she was making, which seemed to work well enough.
She returned home to find Lyra enthralled by the motions of her tail. “Here you go,” she said, reaching into her saddlebag, pulling out the book, and placing it on the arm of the sofa. “I’d offer to help, but all that talk about auras and field energy is gibberish to me.”
“Thanks,” Lyra said. She flipped the book open to the first page using her hoof.
“I’ll be in the kitchen,” Bon Bon said. “I’ve got to make two hundred chocolate-dipped strawberries, each depicting an abacus, for Smarty Britches’ cute-ceañera.” She exhaled at the mere thought of fulfilling such an order. “If you have any non-magic questions, feel free to ask.” With that, she left for the kitchen.
Lyra actually did have a number of questions about the second-to-last sentence Bon Bon had said, but she was too eager to learn how to perform magic to follow up on any of them. She turned a few more pages of the book until she reached the first chapter.
Welcome, young unicorn, to the world of magic.
“Well,” Lyra said to herself, “at least I won’t have to worry about seeing any words I don’t recognize.”
The collagenous calphosphium of a unicorn horn is a highly specialized semiconductor of equinic energy.
Lyra groaned.
She soldiered on with the text. With the proper concentration, a unicorn can direct that energy through his or her horn. Follow these 23 steps to identify the energy within your body and channel it into your horn.
Lyra followed the steps, then followed the directions written in the subsequent two chapters. After she was able to produce an aura around her horn, she learned how to connect that aura to an inanimate object by directly touching the object with her horn. The book had suggested a ping-pong ball for this purpose, as it was round and lightweight, which made it both easy to manipulate and less likely to damage something if it was sent in an errant direction. However, Bon Bon didn’t have a ping-pong ball, so she pointed Lyra to last week’s newspaper, which she crumpled into a ball.
Once you can feel that you have enveloped the ball with your magic, lift your head. You will find that the ball travels upward, as if it was attached to the tip of your horn. Congratulations! You have just levitated an object using magic. Once you release your concentrated energy, the ball will fall to the ground.
Lyra did just that. As she picked up the paper ball with her hooves and placed it back on the end table, the thought crossed her mind that this was a lot of effort to go through in order to learn a skill she would only be able to use for two more days. But she had spent years wondering what it was like to be a unicorn – now that she had the chance, she wasn’t not going to perform some magic.
Of course, you have seen older unicorns lift objects using magic without directly touching their horns to those objects. Now that you understand the basics of connecting your aura to an object, the next three chapters will prepare you to cast your energy out and “touch” objects that aren’t in contact with your horn.
The book had warned that some of the steps might take a while to practice, but Lyra was always able to master them within no more than three attempts. She attributed it to being considerably older than the book’s intended audience. Finally, she reached the big moment.
Now you are ready to lift an object without touching it with your body. Stand about the distance of your head away from the ball. Project a field out toward the ball and fully envelop it. While remaining aware of the field, focus your energy into an aura around your horn. Next, find the signature of the field using your aura. Because both the field and the aura are representations of you, they should “connect,” and you will see your aura surround the ball. By subtly altering your auratic energy, you can lift the ball into the air and move it around. Be careful not to alter the flow of energy too quickly, or your connection will “slip” and the ball will fall.
Lyra carefully performed each of the steps. And watched with amazement as the crumpled-up newspaper floated before her very eyes. She made the ball dance in the air a little bit. As the realization of what she was doing hit her – she was using her unicorn powers to make something float in the air! – she let out a high-pitched squeal of delight.
“It sounds like you’re getting the hang of it,” Bon Bon said from the kitchen.
“I am!” Lyra said with pure joy in her voice.
Lyra released her energy and let the ball fall onto the sofa.
Practice standing closer to and farther from the ball as it levitates. You will find that the farther away you are from an object, the more difficult it is to maintain your connection.
Lyra spent a few minutes practicing that.
Once you are comfortable picking up and gently setting down the ball, you may practice lifting other objects. Be sure to select objects that increase gradually in size and weight, as it is more difficult to lift larger and heavier objects. Do not lift your pets or any other living things – they will be scared by the unexpected movement and their thrashing to get back in control will cause you to lose your connection and drop them.
Lyra used her magic to pick up one of the pillows on the couch. That was pretty easy. Then she set her sights on one of the logs stacked next to the fireplace. She had to take a couple of steps forward, but she was ultimately able to lift that, as well. She then decided to push herself and walked over to the loveseat. That was outside of her skill level – she could barely surround it in a field, let alone lift it.
Part of Lyra wanted to just keep levitating random objects, but she decided to see what else the book had to offer.
It is actually more difficult to use magic to manipulate only part of an object – for example, to turn just one page of this book. Over the course of the next two chapters, you will learn how to project a field around a portion of an object, and then move only that part.
“Whew! I’m finished!” Bon Bon announced as she stepped out of the kitchen. “That took even longer than I thought it would.”
Lyra hadn’t really been paying attention to the time, as it was only then that she noticed it was already evening outside. Had she really spent the majority of the day learning how to pick up a paper ball?
“Check it out,” Bon Bon said proudly. Lyra followed her into the kitchen. There, spread across all of the counters and the dining table, were dozens upon dozens of plump, ripe strawberries, each one dipped in creamy milk chocolate. On top of each chocolate shell, there was a depiction of an abacus carefully drawn using four different colors of tinted white chocolate.
“That’s amazing,” Lyra said.
“Thanks,” Bon Bon said. “This was one of the most complicated orders I ever had to make. So, how’s your day been?”
“Well, I can lift a pillow with no problem,” Lyra said.
“It sounds like we both accomplished a lot today. We deserve a treat. I dipped a few extra strawberries in case I messed up some of the abacus designs. Want some?”
“Sure!”
The two relaxed with the extra chocolate-dipped strawberries. Lyra got to show off levitating them into her mouth while Bon Bon explained to her what a cute-ceañera was and why it would require her to draw abacus pictures on fruit. This led to an explanation of why ponies had cutie marks.
“So this appeared when I realized my special talent was candy making,” Bon Bon explained. “And Lyra’s,” she said, pointing to Lyra’s flank, “represents her ability to play the lyre.”
“Pony Lyra can play the lyre? How do you play the lyre with hooves?”
“I don’t know how other ponies do it, but Lyra actually uses her magic to play.”
“I wonder how long it takes to learn to do that. I mean, it’s really cool that I can make things float through the air, but I didn’t realize using magic was so much work.”
“Hey – if you’re also Lyra, then maybe you have a natural ability to play the lyre, too.”
“Well, I do have a lyre back home. I haven’t been practicing much lately, though.”
“Let’s find out!”
Bon Bon led Lyra upstairs, where the other Lyra kept her lyre. Lyra picked it up using her newfound magical ability.
“And you said she doesn’t use her hooves at all?” Lyra asked.
“Nope. She manipulates the strings using her magic.”
Lyra looked at the floating lyre. Carefully adjusting her aura, she bluntly cast a small surge of energy past the instrument.
The lyre produced a sound reminiscent of a wet hairball being dragged across the strings.
“Ooh,” Lyra said with obvious disgust in her voice. “I don’t think I can do this without hands.” She made another wet hairball sound for emphasis.
“Forget I said anything.” Bon Bon waved her hoof dismissively. “Hey, at least you’re still able to pick stuff up, right? Can you help me pack up my strawberries so I can put them in the icebox?”
“Do you have any more extras?” Lyra said, smiling.
“You drive a hard bargain.”
Lyra and Bon Bon left the movie theater after seeing Coalition of Heroes: Earth’s Final Defense .
“So are there humans – I mean, people – in your world who have the ability to fly?” Lyra asked.
“No,” Bon Bon answered.
“What about the ability to shoot lasers from their fists?”
“All of the superpowers are made up. Everything that you’ve done today – that’s pretty much the extent of what people can actually do in real life.”
“Then how were those actors able to do that?”
“It’s all special effects – they use computers to make it look like they’re flying and picking up trucks.” Bon Bon realized what the next question would be. “Computers are these devices that can be used to change what’s on the screen. For example, they used computers to make it look like those buildings were destroyed – they didn’t really blow up all those buildings in reality.”
“So if you don’t have superpowers or magic, what do you do when an alien tries to take over the world like that?”
“That’s never happened in real life. The only thing even close to it has been when creatures from your world tried to take over our school.” Bon Bon stopped to consider that. “Multiple times. But when that happened, it was always solved by someone from your world doing some magic thing to stop it.”
“Your land is a lot more peaceful than Equestria. I’ve lost track of how many times I’ve thought the world was coming to an end.”
Bon Bon wasn’t sure how to respond to that, so she decided to change the subject. “Well, today has been a lot of fun for me – I hope you had fun, too.”
“Oh, absolutely – there’s so much here that I’ve never even imagined.”
“But we have an assignment due in English class on Monday and I want to get a head start on it – we have to read two chapters from this really boring novel. I’ll do it tonight, then I’ll come over tomorrow and help you write an essay so my Lyra doesn’t get in trouble.”
Bon Bon walked Lyra back to “her” home. Before leaving, Bon Bon showed Lyra how to play games on the other Lyra’s phone so she would have something fun to do for the night. With that, Bon Bon went home to work on her English assignment.
Lyra ate dinner that night with the human versions of her mom and dad – it reminded her of how much she missed doing that back home. After dinner, she decided it was safer to not risk accidentally revealing that she was a different Lyra, so she retreated up to the bedroom and spent the rest of the night playing Cookie Collision on the phone. Maybe it was just because she was using a finger she had never controlled before on a piece of technology she had never encountered before, but Lyra thought it was a surprisingly fun game.
“I wish I could live in the human world forever,” she said to herself.
The next morning, Lyra woke up early enough to head downstairs and actually eat breakfast with “her” human mom and dad. The previous day, she had worked so hard to learn the correct way to hold a pen, she was now also holding her silverware with the same grip. Luckily for her, neither parent noticed the strange way she was eating her scrambled eggs.
“Don’t forget,” Lyra’s mom said while she spread blackberry jam on her toast, “you have to do the laundry and mow the lawn today.”
“Oh, right,” Lyra said. Bon Bon had told her that one of human Lyra’s chores was doing the laundry. Bon Bon had even shown her what to do, and it was pretty easy – just put the clothes in, add some soap, press a button, and let the machine do the rest. After seeing all of the clothes at the mall the previous day, Lyra understood why humans would invent a machine to clean all of them.
However, Bon Bon hadn’t mentioned that the other Lyra also had to mow the lawn. After breakfast, Lyra went outside to see if she could find the lawn mower. She looked in the shed, but all she saw were a wide selection of gardening tools and a couple of machines that she couldn’t identify.
So Lyra went back inside and started a load of laundry. While the machine was working, she went upstairs to the bedroom and tried to think of a way to find out where the lawn mower was without revealing that she was actually a pony from another dimension.
While Lyra was focused on shooing away the first tiny feelings of panic that were beginning to creep in, a peppy tune started coming from the phone. Lyra was startled at first, but then walked over to look at it. The phone displayed a picture of Bon Bon.
It was also displaying two circles: A green circle with some kind of elongated U and a red circle with an X. Theorizing that the red circle was bad, Lyra touched the green circle with her finger. The circles disappeared.
Lyra heard a faint voice coming from the phone. “Hello?” It sounded like Bon Bon. Lyra leaned down to listen. “Lyra, if you’re there, pick up the phone.”
Lyra picked up the phone and held it toward the top of her head. She then lowered it so it was closer to her human ear. “Bon Bon?”
“Good – I was worried you wouldn’t know how to answer the phone. How’s everything going?”
Lyra was a little confused – how could Bon Bon hear her? She answered anyway, quietly so Lyra’s parents couldn’t overhear. “Fine, except I’m supposed to mow the lawn. Do you know where the lawn mower is here?”
“Just so you know, I can barely hear you – maybe try pointing the other end of the phone toward your mouth. But I think the lawn mower is in the shed.”
Lyra moved the entire phone in front of her mouth and spoke into the screen. “I looked in there – I didn’t see anything that looked like a lawn mower.” She moved the phone back toward her ear for Bon Bon’s response.
“I finished our English assignment. I’ll come over and help you find the lawn mower, then there’s some other homework we need to do, too. See you soon.”
“Okay, see you soon,” Lyra said into the phone. Suddenly, the picture of Bon Bon disappeared. Lyra was going to have to ask her what just happened.
After a few minutes, the doorbell rang. “Lyra! Bon Bon’s here!” Lyra’s dad shouted.
Lyra went downstairs, where Lyra’s dad had opened the door for Bon Bon. “I’m here to work on our homework,” she told him.
“Come on up,” Lyra said. Her face immediately, though briefly, registered a look of alarm – was upstairs where they did their homework? Lyra’s dad went back to watching tennis on the television screen in the living room. Apparently, she hadn’t said anything wrong.
The two went up to the bedroom. Bon Bon said, “After I read the chapters, I realized that it didn’t matter if you wrote the essay, since it would just be printed out anyway. So I wrote two essays – one for me and one for Lyra. I just need to print hers out on her printer.” She started to press buttons on some equipment on Lyra’s desk that Lyra hadn’t recognized and therefore hadn’t touched.
“That’s good,” Lyra said. She was relieved she wouldn’t have to write an essay, although she felt bad that Bon Bon was doing so much extra work. “Then we can find the lawn mower, right?”
“We will,” Bon Bon said, “but we have another assignment that I need you to help her with. Do you know anything about algebra?”
“It’s been a while since I had to take an algebra class,” Lyra said. “And I’ve forgotten pretty much all of it. It isn’t anything I’ve had to use since school.”
“I was afraid of that,” Bon Bon said. “Lyra is going to owe me big time when she gets back. Okay, how’s this for a plan: We’ll find the lawn mower, then while you’re outside mowing the lawn, I’ll be up here printing out Lyra’s essay and starting on the algebra homework. When you’re finished, come back here. We can’t have both of our assignments be in my handwriting.”
“Sounds good to me,” Lyra said. She only had a basic comprehension of everything that needed to happen, so she wasn’t about to try to come up with a different plan.
The two went downstairs. Lyra’s dad was engrossed in the tennis match and Lyra’s mom had left to go grocery shopping, so there was no one to question why they were in the garage.
“No lawn mower here,” Bon Bon said. “Are you sure it wasn’t in the shed?”
“I don’t think it was,” Lyra said. “We can check again… oh! Let me move the clothes into the drying machine first.”
After Lyra did that, the two opened the shed.
“It’s right here,” Bon Bon said, gesturing to the larger, wheeled machine sitting in the middle of the shed.
“That’s a lawn mower?” Lyra said. “I was expecting something smaller, with a handle that led down to a curved blade thing.” Lyra vaguely pantomimed what she was attempting to describe.
“That’s a lawn mower,” Bon Bon confirmed. “Here.” She pulled the lawn mower out, unscrewed a cap on the top, and began to fill it from the gasoline can stored in the shed. After she finished and put the can back, she told Lyra, “Hold this handle down.” Lyra did so.
Bon Bon yanked on the pull cord a couple of times. The lawn mower roared to life.
“That’s loud!” Lyra shouted over the noise.
“Yep!” Bon Bon shouted back. “Keep holding this down – if you let go, the mower will stop and you’ll have to start it again. I’m going to go upstairs. Don’t run over anything!”
Bon Bon left and Lyra began to mow the lawn. This was one chore that was easier back in Equestria – it wasn’t too difficult to find a hungry pony who would be willing to graze on your lawn and keep it looking tidy.
“Saturday is when Lyra and I usually go to the market,” Bon Bon said. “Do you want to come with me?”
The two had just finished breakfast. Lyra had volunteered to clear the table so she could pick up more objects with her magic. Now she was levitating a spoon above the sink just for the sake of levitating something. “Sure!” she replied, dropping the spoon. “I can’t wait to see what a normal pony day is like.”
After they delivered the chocolate-dipped strawberries to town hall for the cute-ceañera, Bon Bon and Lyra made their way to the marketplace. Lyra was fascinated to see so many pony versions of her high school friends. Only they weren’t in high school – they all had jobs. She was also captivated by the sight of pegasus ponies casually flying through the air as if that wasn’t the most amazing thing that could ever happen. She wondered what it would be like to fly, but decided not to express those thoughts to Bon Bon. After all, Bon Bon didn’t have a horn or wings.
Lyra found the actual shopping portion of the trip to be a little tedious. The stands were all so specialized – Bon Bon had to make a separate purchase at each one. It wasn’t like the grocery store where you could just put everything into your cart and then pay for it at the end.
While Bon Bon was examining some tomatoes, Lyra absentmindedly reached for her pocket. It was only after she made the motion with her hoof that she remembered nothing was there.
“Huh,” she said offhandedly to Bon Bon, “I forgot that I wasn’t wearing pants, so I couldn’t get my phone.”
“What’s a phone?” asked Bon Bon. “Is it like a phonograph?”
“No, my smartphone – er, telephone.” When Bon Bon didn’t immediately reply with any sign of comprehension, she added, “Wait, you don’t have telephones here?”
“I don’t think so…”
“How do you talk to each other when you’re far away?”
“We send a letter. Through the mail.”
“Like, the paper mail?”
“What other type of mail is there?”
Lyra was stunned. She looked around, and sure enough, she didn’t see anything resembling telephone wires… or even power lines. She thought harder – she had been so preoccupied with being a unicorn, she hadn’t really paid close attention to what was and wasn’t in Bon Bon’s house. But she hadn’t seen a television, the stove didn’t appear to be electric… the refrigerator! No, wait – Bon Bon had called it an “icebox.” Was that plugged in?
“Do you not have electricity here?” Lyra asked.
“We have lightning,” Bon Bon replied. “That’s electricity.”
“But what about electric power?”
“I don’t know what that is,” Bon Bon said.
“Okay, wow. This world really is different. How do I describe it… Well, first, a telephone is this little device we have that you talk into. The other person also has a phone, and no matter where they are, they can hear what you’re saying. And they can talk back. It’s like having a conversation, even if you’re miles apart.”
“So telephones shoot electricity back and forth at each other?”
“No, they’re powered by electricity, and they use… signals… well, I’m not completely sure how they work, but they do. We also have e-mail, which is like writing a letter, except when you send it, the other person gets it immediately. My parents used to send paper letters, but no one does that anymore.”
Bon Bon tried to envision what Lyra was talking about, but couldn’t. “You’re right – our worlds are different.”
Just then, DJ Pon-3 walked by. The music coming out of her headphones was so loud, Lyra could hear it from where she was standing.
“Wait a minute,” Lyra said. “If you don’t have electricity, then what’s powering those headphones?”
“Unicorn magic,” Bon Bon explained. “Some unicorns have the ability to produce excess magic, which can be stored and used in gadgets designed to react to it. I have a taffy puller that works on magic, since it’s a lot of work to do it all by hoof.”
“Well, we don’t have magic, so we use electricity. It’s sort of like… less powerful lightning that travels through wires.”
“I guess you have a lot of different stuff over there,” Bon Bon said. She didn’t want to be rude, but if she could get through life without understanding exactly how unicorn magic worked, she didn’t see any need to try to understand the power source of a world she didn’t even live in. She went back to comparing tomatoes.
A couple of hours later, after Bon Bon had finished her shopping, she asked Lyra, “Are you hungry? Do you want to stop at the Ponyville Diner for an oatburger?”
It seemed to be about lunchtime – at least, that’s what Lyra’s stomach was telling her. “What’s an oatburger?” she asked.
“You don’t have oatburgers? Oh, you’ve got to try one!”
Bon Bon took Lyra to the Ponyville Diner. The waitress brought each of them an oatburger, some hay fries, and a glass of ice water.
“Hay fries?” Lyra asked.
“Fried hay,” Bon Bon explained.
“Sorry – we don’t eat hay in my world, so I’m just a little hesitant. Do you have french fries here? Made of potatoes?”
“We have fried potatoes, yeah. But hay is cheaper and more plentiful. And it’s what you usually eat with an oatburger.”
Lyra picked up a hay fry with her magic, dipped it in ketchup, and put it in her mouth. She started chewing – first tentatively, then normally. “I was expecting not to like this, but it’s all right,” she said. “I guess anything tastes good if you fry it and cover it with salt and ketchup.”
“Right – this isn’t the peak of fine dining,” Bon Bon said. “But it’s where a lot of ponies go for an ordinary lunch, and you wanted to see what it’s like to be a pony.”
“You’re right,” Lyra said. “Sorry – I didn’t mean to sound like I was putting this place down.”
“It’s okay,” Bon Bon said. “It’s kind of a greasy spoon. Everypony puts this place down a little.”
After they had finished their food, Lyra fidgeted on her seat.
“I have a question,” she said. “If you all sit leaning forward like this, then why do so many of your chairs have backs on them?”
“You know, I’m not sure,” Bon Bon replied. “Tradition, I guess. There’s probably some reason dating back hundreds of years that only the furniture makers know. The rest of us don’t really think about it.”
“Let me try something,” Lyra said. She shifted backward, kicking out her rear legs. She let them dangle over the edge of her seat while she put all of her weight on her haunches. This caused her to lean backward, resting against the back of the chair.
Bon Bon couldn’t help herself. She started to laugh.
“What? It’s a little awkward, but it doesn’t feel that weird. It actually feels more like the way I sit in my normal body.”
Bon Bon wiped a tear from her eye. “No, no – that’s just it. In my whole life, I’ve only ever seen one other pony sit that way.”
“Who?”
“My Lyra. Oh, you two really are the same.” She signaled for the waitress. “Have you ever had a chocolate milkshake?”
“Oh, yes!” Lyra licked her lips.
“I’ll get us a milkshake. Uh, I mean, a milkshake for each of us. Sorry – my Lyra and I usually share, and since I’m looking at Lyra…” She shook her head clear. “You know, I think I’m having an identity crisis on your behalf.”
After Lyra had finished mowing the lawn, she put the mower back in the shed and went upstairs.
“Need a break?” she asked Bon Bon.
“Sure,” Bon Bon said.
“Can you… help me figure out what to do with the laundry now that it’s dry?” Lyra asked sheepishly. “Sorry – I know I’m asking you to help me with chores.”
“It’s all right,” Bon Bon said. “That’s a lot easier than simplifying polynomials.”
They went downstairs and walked past Lyra’s dad, who was taking a nap in his recliner. In the laundry room, Bon Bon showed Lyra how to fold clothes which never had more than two sleeves. She also helped her identify which articles of clothing belonged to human Lyra and which belonged to her parents. After they finished, they returned to the bedroom.
“Can I ask you some stuff about being human?” Lyra said. She began to shut the door so no one would overhear that she was really a pony.
“Sure, but you can’t close the door. Lyra’s parents say we have to leave the door open when we’re up here in her room.”
Lyra swung the door back and sat down next to Bon Bon at the foot of the bed. “When Twilight was describing what humans were like,” she said, “she told me that you were hairless except for the manes on your heads. But when I was looking at my arms, I can see really thin, light hairs. Is that normal?”
“Yeah – we all have that,” Bon Bon said. She showed Lyra her forearms for confirmation. “I guess we’re ‘hairless’ compared to monkeys and apes because the only long hair we have is on our heads. And men grow facial hair. By the way, we don’t call these ‘manes.’ Since it’s the only hair we have, we just call it hair.”
“Ah, okay,” Lyra said. She looked at her hands. “Oh! I have a question – in the movie theater yesterday, you put your hand on mine, then pulled it away suddenly. What was that?”
“Oh,” Bon Bon blushed. “I’m sorry about that. I was distracted by the movie, and I saw Lyra sitting next to me, and I forgot for a second that you weren’t my Lyra, so I just automatically…”
“No, that’s all right,” Lyra said. “We ponies do a similar thing, only we kind of wrap our hooves around, sort of like this.” She tried to demonstrate with her wrist and her forearm. “Can I at least see… I mean, I’m not going to get to have fingers ever again…”
“Okay,” Bon Bon said. She held out her hand and took Lyra’s. The two sat there, Lyra’s right hand in Bon Bon’s left hand, for a few seconds.
“I can understand why humans do this,” Lyra said. “Can I try one other thing? I really want to see what it’s like.”
Bon Bon hesitated for a moment. “All right…”
Lyra leaned over and gave Bon Bon a kiss on the cheek. Slightly longer than a peck; just long enough for Lyra to register what the sensation was like.
“Uh…” Bon Bon said. She released Lyra’s hand. “This is weird.”
“I’m sorry – I just wanted to know,” Lyra said. “You don’t have any hair on your cheek, and I really wondered what that was like for humans…”
“No, it’s weird because…” Bon Bon tried to find the right words. “You look just like Lyra, and you sound just like Lyra, but I know you aren’t actually the same Lyra, so my brain is getting these different signals… it’s just really confusing.”
“I’m sorry,” Lyra said guiltily. “I shouldn’t have done that. This is confusing for me, too. I’m not trying to make excuses. But even though I’ve always wanted to see humans, I guess I never really thought about the fact that I would see Bon Bon – the love of my life – as a human. And now I’m seeing Bon Bon, but I don’t have those feelings about humans, but you’re Bon Bon… I didn’t mean to make you feel like that. I’m so sorry.”
“It’s okay,” Bon Bon said. She gave Lyra a small smile to let her know that it really was.
An awkward silence hung in the air. Lyra stared at the floor, then over toward the corner of the room. Upon seeing the black case sitting there, she spoke again.
“Anyway. So back home, I’ve been trying to figure out what my purpose in life is. I know it has something to do with my ability to play the lyre, but I can’t figure out what exactly. I see that this world’s Lyra has a lyre, too – maybe she knows something that I don’t. Is she good at playing it?”
“I think so,” Bon Bon said. “If you play, too, I don’t know what your standard for ‘good’ is. She plays it better than anyone else I know could.”
“In Equestria, when we find out what our special talent is, we get these marks on our bodies,” Lyra told her. “I have a picture of a lyre as a permanent part of my coat. Assuming that this body is the same as your Lyra’s body, I didn’t see any marks on it, so I wasn’t sure if anything like that happened here.”
“No, nothing like that,” Bon Bon said. She wasn’t entirely sure what Lyra was talking about, so that seemed like an accurate response.
“Would she mind if I tried playing her lyre?” Lyra asked.
“I don’t think she’d mind. It’d be okay if she played yours, right?”
Lyra nodded. She walked over to the corner of the room and took the lyre out of its case, then sat back down on the bed. “Is this how she holds it?”
“With one hand on the side like that, yeah.”
“Okay,” Lyra said. “Bear with me – this is the first time I’ve ever tried to play with fingers.”
In reality, it wasn’t all that different than when she played as a unicorn. Unlike most pony musicians who played plucked string instruments, Lyra used only her magic to pluck the strings of her lyre. She did so by casting an invisible, blob-like field which had multiple tendrils emerging from it – those tendrils were what she used to manipulate the strings. She got the inspiration from her idea of what human hands were like.
So now that she was working with an actual human hand, her approach wasn’t much different. She began to play – slowly and deliberately at first, then gradually faster as she became accustomed to how her fingers were hitting the strings. Soon, she was happily improvising an upbeat tune.
After a few minutes, Lyra finished playing. “Not bad,” she said to herself. Her human fingers didn’t have quite the reach or dexterity that her magic had, but considering those limitations, she was pretty pleased with the result.
Bon Bon just sat there with a shocked expression on her face. “Wow,” she said. “I’ve never heard my Lyra play that well before.”
“Really?” Lyra said, surprised. “I would think that she’d be more familiar with using hands than I am. How often does she practice?”
“Not as much as she used to,” Bon Bon said. “She’s been focused more on other stuff lately. I think she’s addicted to Cookie Collision. Heh… I probably shouldn’t have introduced you to it.”
“So I guess she can’t help me figure out how to bring joy to others with the lyre.”
“No. If anything, you should be teaching her.”
Lyra got up and put the lyre back in its case. Another dead end.
“Well, I guess we should get this homework out of the way,” Lyra said. “What are you studying? Maybe I’ll recognize something.”
Bon Bon showed her the algebra problems she was working on. Lyra recognized the material only in the sense that she could remember seeing something like it years ago, but she couldn’t remember enough details to help Bon Bon in any useful way. Eventually, Bon Bon finished the assignment, then Lyra copied her answers onto a separate sheet of paper. It was math, so it was okay that they each came up with the same numbers. Plus, the teacher already knew that Bon Bon and Lyra worked on their assignments together.
After the homework was complete, the two watched internet videos until it was dinnertime, at which point Bon Bon went home. The rest of Lyra’s night was pretty mundane by normal standards. But because she was occupying an unfamiliar body in a foreign world, even the mundane was fascinating to Lyra.
After lunch at the Ponyville Diner, Bon Bon and Lyra dropped off the food Bon Bon had purchased. Bon Bon then gave Lyra a guided tour of Ponyville. It included the assorted shops, Sweet Apple Acres, and looking at the Everfree Forest while standing a safe distance away. As dinnertime approached, they headed back home.
While Bon Bon prepared dinner, Lyra looked for something to do. “I take it you don’t have TV either,” she said from the living room.
“I don’t know what that stands for, so probably not,” Bon Bon replied from the kitchen.
“It’s this flat screen that lets you watch all kinds of shows.”
“You mean like a movie theater?”
“Oh, you have movie theaters?”
“Yeah, but not many. Most ponies don’t like the lifeless feeling of a flat image – it creates this weird sensation of distance, even when you can see the other ponies up close and larger than life. The majority of us prefer live theater – you can sense that the other ponies are actually there , even if they’re pretending to be somepony else.”
“Is it strange that even though I’m in the body of a unicorn with the power to make things fly through the air, the fact that you don’t have television is one of the hardest things for me to wrap my head around?”
“Yeah, probably. One pony’s normal is another human’s strange, I guess.”
“I can’t imagine life without television. Or phones. I know you’re going to take this the wrong way, and I don’t mean it like that, but you don’t know what you’re missing.”
“You don’t have magic in your world – you didn’t know you were missing that until you came here. Which is better: Television or magic?”
“Oh, that’s hard. Well, I’ve been able to get by without television so far. On the other hand, I have to admit that after only two days without a phone, I’m starting to go through withdrawal.”
“It sounds like I don’t want to know what I’m missing.”
Bon Bon continued to make dinner while Lyra spent some more time enjoying her pony body by going outside and galloping a few laps around the perimeter of the house. At first, Bon Bon was worried that it might attract attention, but she decided that it was no more unusual than some of the other things her Lyra did.
When the food was ready, she called Lyra in and the two sat down to a lasagna dinner. Bon Bon gave Lyra a fork to use, but Bon Bon elected to simply eat her meal by leaning her muzzle into her lasagna.
“I wouldn’t do this if it was a formal dinner,” she explained. “But at home, just with Lyra, this is a lot easier than trying to use a fork. And it’s not like I’m making a mess of things.”
Lyra opted to stick with her fork – she hadn’t been a pony long enough to be able to be as neat as Bon Bon. Plus, it gave her another excuse to levitate something. As she levitated her drinking glass toward her mouth, she said, “We don’t go through nearly as many straws as you do in this world, although I can understand why.” She held up her hoof as a visual aid. “I don’t know how I’d be able to pick this glass up without spilling it all over the place. I guess I never realized how useful fingers were for grabbing things.”
After dinner, Bon Bon wrapped up the leftover lasagna and placed it in the icebox. Then she said, “Is it okay if I ask you to help me with the dishes? Lyra and I usually do them together, and it goes a lot faster if I wash and she dries.”
“No problem,” Lyra said. “You’ve been so nice to let me stay here and make food for me – it’s the least I can do.”
Bon Bon filled the sink, washed the first plate, and held it out for Lyra, who had the dish towel floating at the ready. With uncertainty, Lyra wiped at the plate while it was still in Bon Bon’s hoof.
“You need to take the plate, or else I can’t start washing the next one,” Bon Bon said.
“Oh. Um… I’m not sure what to do here. Picking up two things at the same time was a few chapters later in the book – I didn’t get that far.”
Neither Bon Bon nor Lyra trusted Lyra to hold wet plates and glasses in her hoof without dropping them, so Bon Bon started placing the dinnerware directly onto the drying rack, where Lyra was then able to use her towel. As a result, washing the dishes took some extra time.
As the chore wore on, Lyra said, “I wish there were dishwashers in this world.”
“There are, but only the richest ponies can afford to hire somepony to wash their dishes for them.”
“No, I mean… a dishwasher is a machine that we have where I come from. It’s a box that you put all of your dirty dishes into. You just add soap, press a button, and it automatically sprays everything clean and then dries them. Then all you have to do is put them away.”
“You mean no one has invented a machine to put the dishes away yet?” Bon Bon asked facetiously. Lyra gave her a playful shove to the shoulder.
Eventually, the two finished the dishes. It was still early evening. “What’s the plan?” Lyra asked.
Bon Bon thought. “Lyra and I don’t do anything on Saturday nights… well, nothing that I would do with somepony else,” she said. “Tell you what: I have some leftover chocolate from yesterday. How about I make us some candy? While I’m doing that, there’s something that maybe you can tell me about.”
“What’s that?” replied Lyra.
“Like I was saying yesterday, everypony used to assume that humans were mythological creatures. Lyra has a lot of books with fictional stories about humans, and I’ve read a few of them out of curiosity. I’m sure that most of it was just ponies making things up, but I was wondering how much wound up being accurate.”
“Oh, sure,” Lyra said. “It would be interesting to see what you all thought we were like without ever having met us.”
Bon Bon went upstairs and brought down a couple of books: Humans in Manehattan and Teleported to the Human Dimension . Bon Bon thought the latter seemed especially appropriate, given the circumstances. Lyra agreed, and began to read it. Bon Bon went into the kitchen, took the chilled leftover chocolate out of the icebox, and began to form it into little balls about half an inch in diameter.
A few minutes later, Bon Bon was stirring a mixture of sugar, water, and corn syrup on the stovetop. This didn’t require much of her concentration, so she began to reflect on the conversations she had had that day with Lyra from the human world.
There sure are a lot of strange inventions in that world , Bon Bon thought. Television, automatic dishwashers, some kind of electricity mail… well, it would be nice to have a machine that washed my dishes for me. And being able to immediately get a message to a pony when they’re in another city could come in handy on occasion.
I’ll bet Lyra is having the time of her life over there. She’s getting to see all the humans she could ever hope to see and she’s getting to use their inventions. I guess I’d better get ready to listen to her go on and on about all of the things the humans have that we don’t have in Equestria. This human Lyra sure can’t stop talking about them. Just two days without a telephone and already she misses it? How addictive is using a telephone?
Bon Bon almost didn’t notice that the sugar had already dissolved into the mixture. At the moment, there was nothing for her to do except place a thermometer into the pot and wait for the temperature to rise.
Is my Lyra going to become addicted to the telephone? Is she going to be dissatisfied with oatburgers and hay fries? Is the human world really so much better than Equestria?
Bon Bon looked at the thermometer. The temperature had barely changed. This wasn’t surprising, since it usually took about ten minutes, but she was trying to find something to distract her from her thoughts.
Lyra has seemed so restless lately, wondering what she’s supposed to do in this world. What if… what if she finds out that the reason she didn’t know what to do in this world is because she finds her purpose in the other world? She’s the only pony I know who was convinced – not just open-minded to the idea, but utterly convinced – that humans were real. She’s always wanted to know what it was like to be a human. Now she’s doing it… what if she discovers that her destiny is to be with the humans?
Before she left… she never answered me when I asked if she was coming back.
Bon Bon stared through the thermometer, gazing at nothing. She heard laughter coming from the living room. She abruptly snapped back to attention and went to see what was so funny.
“This is a dramatic story, but you’re right – it isn’t very accurate,” Lyra said. “Humans are a lot cleaner and capable of forming complete thoughts. And if a sentient pony showed up, we wouldn’t try to kill it – we would welcome it and want to become friends. Don’t worry – your Lyra is completely safe in my world. I’m sure she’s fitting right in.”
Lyra’s assurances did not put Bon Bon’s mind at ease.
After breakfast, Lyra went upstairs and turned on the small television in the bedroom. Bon Bon had showed her how to operate it the day before, and she was amazed at how many different types of entertainment humans had at their fingertips. Because it was Sunday morning, it seemed like half of the programming was either political roundtable discussion or televised golf, but that was still fascinating to Lyra. If humans couldn’t fly, then how did they get those pegasus-eye views of the golf holes?
The doorbell rang. “I’ll get it!” Lyra yelled. She turned off the television, hurried down the stairs, and opened the door – she knew who it would be.
“Good morning, Lyra,” Bon Bon said. She turned to Lyra’s parents, who were both sitting in the living room, reading the newspaper. “Good morning. Lyra and I are going to the rec center.”
“Have fun,” said Lyra’s dad.
“Have fun,” echoed Lyra’s mom. “Be back by dinnertime.”
“I will,” Lyra said. She followed Bon Bon outside, where she saw a car parked in front of the house.
“The rec center is kind of far away,” Bon Bon said. “My parents let me borrow the car.”
Lyra was intrigued. Bon Bon had taught her what cars were as they walked home through the mall parking lot, and while Lyra had been in a carriage before, Bon Bon said that being in a car was different. Bon Bon opened the passenger door for Lyra and she got in. Unlike a carriage, all of the seats were facing the same direction.
Bon Bon got in the driver’s seat, showed Lyra how to fasten her seat belt, started the car, and began to drive. Rather than looking out the window at the passing scenery, Lyra’s attention was focused on how Bon Bon was simultaneously using three of her limbs to push the pedals, turn the wheel, and activate the turn signal lever.
As Bon Bon explained that there was an engine under the hood which made the car move, Lyra said, “Oh, like on a train.”
“Well, kind of,” Bon Bon said. “It’s like a more powerful version of what was running the lawn mower.”
“How fast can it make us go?”
“The rec center is within the city, so we have to stay under the speed limit. And my parents might notice if I put extra miles on the car, so I can’t take you out on the freeway to show you. But… not quite as fast as a train, but close.”
“Wow,” Lyra said. “That’s really convenient. How did humans get around before—”
“Hey, we’re here!” Bon Bon interrupted. She didn’t want to have to address the subject of horse riding.
Lyra looked at the nondescript building coming into view. “So what’s in there?” she asked.
“Well, you’ve been talking about how much you like having human arms and legs,” Bon Bon said. “So before you leave, I thought I’d take you to a place where you’d have a lot of chances to use them.”
“If I wasn’t strapped to this seat, I would hug you right now.”
Bon Bon and Lyra walked down the streets of Ponyville back toward home.
“It definitely is another bright shining morning,” Lyra said. “I’ve never heard an entire town sing about it, though. Is that some kind of pony tradition?”
Bon Bon opened the door. “I wouldn’t call it a tradition necessarily,” she said. “It does happen every now and then.”
“Is there a schedule, or…?”
“I heard the song starting a few blocks away,” she said. “I always like being a part of it when it happens, and I figured you’d want to see what it’s like.”
“So is that a common song around here?”
“Nope – I’ve never heard it before.”
“But… how did you…”
“Instinct, I guess,” Bon Bon said. “A lot of things happen that nopony can explain. At least this one is fun.”
Lyra didn’t ask any more questions. Compared to all of the other things she had seen during the weekend, that wasn’t the strangest.
Bon Bon walked toward the kitchen. “Breakfast will be in about ten minutes,” she said.
Lyra spent the time looking out the window at the various ponies going about their business. It was her last day in the pony world, and she wanted to drink it all in.
When she finished preparing breakfast, Bon Bon said, “The oatmeal’s ready. I added a special treat for you.”
Lyra entered the kitchen. In her bowl of oatmeal, she saw some of the candy-coated chocolates that Bon Bon had made the night before.
“Candy in oatmeal? I don’t think my parents would let me get away with that.”
“Neither would mine,” Bon Bon said. “Good thing it’s my kitchen. Besides, is this really any different than a chocolate chip muffin?”
“Hey, you don’t need to convince me,” Lyra said. She picked up a spoon with her magic and dug in.
As they ate, Bon Bon said, “I don’t have any plans for today. Is there anything you want to do?”
Lyra thought. “I don’t know what kinds of choices I have,” she said. “What do you usually do for fun?”
“Ponyville isn’t a very big town, so there aren’t a lot of entertainment options,” Bon Bon said. “Often, we’ll just hang out with friends. Although I don’t want to do that with you here in case they start talking about things that you don’t know about – I don’t want anypony to figure out that you’re not the same Lyra.”
“Are there any other towns nearby?” Lyra asked.
“Not really,” Bon Bon said. “Nothing close enough that we could take the train, see it, and still get you back here by a reasonable time tonight.” She tapped her hoof on the table. “Well, I know it isn’t the most exciting thing in the world, but we could go to the park. Oh! That’s not a bad idea – the Cloudsdale Aerial Ballet Company is performing there this afternoon. That should be fun.”
Lyra was skeptical – in her experience, the words “ballet” and “fun” were rarely found in the same sentence. Still, the only other thing she could think of was to learn more magic, and by the time she did that, there wouldn’t be any time left in the day to use it.
So after breakfast, the two went to the park. Because the aerial ballet would take place in the sky, there were no stands or seats set up anywhere on the ground, which meant that ponies could engage in normal park activities while they waited for the show to begin. Bon Bon and Lyra had arrived a couple of hours early and Bon Bon had brought along a Fribzee flying disc for them to play with. This gave Lyra more opportunities to use her magic to catch the disc. Although she was terrible at throwing it: When she used her magic, she sent it too far. When she used her hooves, it didn’t go far enough. And when she used her mouth, it flew off completely in the wrong direction.
As more ponies arrived to prepare to see the ballet, the park began to get a little more crowded. An impromptu game of freeze tag broke out, which Lyra and Bon Bon participated in. It might have been Lyra’s imagination, but a couple of ponies she had accidentally hit with the Fribzee seemed to go after her first when they became “it.”
Finally, a pianist, violinist, and cellist set up their instruments and started to play, which indicated that the ballet was about to begin. The audience laid out blankets on the grass and relaxed – some sat and craned their necks upward while others lay flat on their backs. While there were no stands set up on the ground, Lyra saw clouds which had been formed into bleacher-like shapes on which some of the pegasus ponies sat.
Lyra found that sight to be equally as interesting as the ballet itself. Sure, the dancers were graceful, and the sight of winged ponies gliding and diving through the sky was something she had never seen before. But even though it took place entirely in the air, it was still a ballet. Lyra had a good ear for music, but technically proficient formal dancing never interested her all that much. So when the ballet ended and the two began to walk home, the ballet wasn’t what was on Lyra’s mind.
“Do all ponies have the ability to stand on clouds?”
“No, just the pegasi. If you or I tried to do that, we’d fall right through.”
“How does that work?”
“It’s just part of the abilities they’re born with. Pegasi all naturally have the ability to fly, walk on clouds, and control the weather. Unicorns all naturally have the ability to perform feats of magic. And earth ponies all naturally have the ability to understand the earth and the things that grow from it.”
“Wait, go back – pegasi can control the weather?”
“Yeah. Who controls the weather in your world?”
“Nobody. Weather just happens. Some people try to predict what the weather is going to be, but they’re not always right.”
“What do you do when you need the weather to be clear for an outdoor event, like that ballet?”
“You cross your fingers and hope that it doesn’t rain.”
“When you cross your fingers, what does that do?”
The recreation center was filled with activities. Many of those activities emphasized physical movement, and Bon Bon was determined to show Lyra as many as possible – the more physically demanding, the better.
Even though they weren’t dressed for it, their day began with a beginners’ yoga class. Bon Bon had never tried yoga before, but she assumed that all of the stretching and unusual poses would be a good way to work out Lyra’s arms and legs. Lyra enjoyed it, as her previous days’ experiments in using her limbs had all been aggressively vigorous. She found the tree pose to be especially exciting – standing on two legs was fun, but she had never successfully stood on just one leg before.
After yoga, a samba dance aerobics class was beginning, so that’s where the two went next. It was Bon Bon’s second time attending one, and Lyra’s first. The class was the polar opposite of yoga – instead of being calm and slow, it was loud and fast. But it got Lyra and Bon Bon moving a lot, even if they frequently had trouble following along with the dance moves. Fortunately, they only ever ran into each other and never into any of the other members of the class.
Afterward, they both agreed that dance aerobics was a little more exhausting than either of them had anticipated, so they should probably take a break. Luckily, there was a pottery class, which was a perfect opportunity for Lyra to get her hands dirty and use her fingers to mold a vase. Or maybe it was an urn. It also could have been a generic clay pot – it really depended on what angle it was viewed at.
“I’m blaming this on the fact that having hands is a new experience for me, and not the fact that I have very little artistic talent,” she joked to Bon Bon.
The instructor walked by to look at their work. She encouraged Lyra not to give up. Turning to Bon Bon, she said, “That’s a very nice ashtray.”
“It’s a candy dish,” Bon Bon replied. The teacher merely said “Oh…” and walked away.
“Okay, now I don’t feel so bad,” Lyra said.
Before they put their handiwork in the kiln, Bon Bon drew a heart and signed her name on the inside of her candy dish. Lyra drew a heart and a picture of a lyre on the outside of her vase. “We have signatures too, but when it comes to decorative things like mailboxes and bags, we use our cutie marks to identify ourselves,” she explained. After they fired their pieces, they exchanged them as gifts to remember each other by.
After pottery class, they washed their hands. Even having to scrub vigorously between her fingers and under her fingernails was a novel experience for Lyra. Then it was time for lunch. The two went to a nearby restaurant for nachos, on the assumption that nachos would be the most fun to eat with their hands. Lyra’s favorite part was licking her fingers clean of nacho cheese.
They considered playing tennis next, but Bon Bon cautioned that after a heavy meal of nachos, running around a tennis court might not be the best idea. Fortunately, the recreation center also had table tennis, which was just as much fun.
“So as a unicorn, you would normally float your paddle in the air with magic?” Bon Bon asked.
“That’s right,” Lyra responded.
“So you’re not used to actually holding the paddle with your arm.”
“Mm-hmm,” Lyra confirmed.
“Then how are you beating me?!”
After failing to make progress with “best two out of three” and then “best three out of five,” Bon Bon realized that “best four out of seven” sounded desperate, so she suggested a new activity. A trip to the rock climbing wall didn’t take very long compared to the other activities, but it did show Lyra exactly what fingers were capable of doing. They were capable both of performing feats of amazing strength and of feeling incredible pain.
The two then grabbed a basketball and headed outside for a game of one-on-one. Trying to shoot the ball while running, dribbling, and avoiding the other player resulted in ten missed shots in a row, at which point they agreed that neither of them was any good at basketball.
“What if instead we played—” Bon Bon caught herself, then realized that this one was okay to say— “a game of Horse?”
“You want to make it harder by running around on stilts?”
“No, it’s where I make a shot, and then you try to make the same shot. If you miss, then you get an H. The next time you miss, you get an O. Whoever spells HORSE first loses.”
“Oh, you mean a game of Mule.”
The game took a while because each girl agreed to not be penalized with a letter if she initiated a shot but failed. Their emphasis was on unusual ways to shoot the ball, which, combined with their lack of basketball ability, resulted in a lot of misses.
The game was tied at three apiece – Lyra had H-O-R and Bon Bon had M-U-L (they had decided to adapt the Equestrian name of the game to “Mules”). As Bon Bon stood with her left side to the basket and held the ball in her right hand, she decided to ask Lyra about a problem which had been on her mind all day.
“When do you have to go back?” she began. She heaved the ball over her head. It barely made contact with the edge of the backboard and bounced away.
“Monday night,” Lyra said as she chased after the ball. “Twilight comes back on Tuesday, but since I don’t know what time, better safe than sorry.” She brought the ball back and sat down a couple of feet away from the basket.
“So since my Lyra is coming back tonight,” Bon Bon said, “what are you going to do about tonight and tomorrow?”
“There’s an unused bedroom across the hall,” Lyra said. She put the basketball between her feet and lay down on her back. “I’m hoping I can hide in there.” She raised her feet into the air and tried to use them to throw the ball. She missed the hoop completely.
“If that doesn’t work, let me know,” Bon Bon said as she picked up the ball. “I don’t know exactly what I can do, but I’ll help you figure out something.” She bounced the ball as hard as she could against the ground in front of her. Amazingly, the ball traveled high into the air and through the hoop.
“You’re about to get your S handed to you,” Bon Bon taunted. “And yes, I have been waiting to say that for the past five minutes.”
“You’ve got something on you!” Lyra yelled at Bon Bon. “It’s disgusting! You want to wipe it off! It’s slime! No – it’s ants! It’s bugs!”
Bon Bon eagerly pointed her hoof at Lyra. They were playing charades.
“Bugs! First part – you! Your jaw. Around your jaw. And you’re batting your eyelids. Flirtbugs.”
Bon Bon shook her head.
“You’re pointing to… line jaw. Box jaw. Not a box jaw. Not a box jaw? Is this going to be like when you expected me to get ‘manticore’?”
Bon Bon sighed and tried something else.
“You’re fluffing your hair. Lice! You’re posing. You’re a model. You’re… I don’t know what you’re doing now. Is that a curtsy?”
The last of the sand fell through the timer.
“I was a lady!” Bon Bon said. “Not a stallion –” she motioned around her muzzle – “but a lady. Ladybug!”
“Oh…” Lyra said. “What are we, like one for seven? We’re not very good mimes.” Lyra felt that her performance could be attributed to the fact that she kept forgetting that in order to indicate a number, she had to stomp her hoof on the ground.
“Yeah,” Bon Bon agreed. She put the contents of the game box on top of the other games the two had played. “I don’t really have many games that you’d like. The only thing we haven’t played yet is Equestrivia, and I’m guessing you wouldn’t do very well at that.”
It was nearing evening, although the sun hadn’t yet touched the horizon. Lyra hadn’t planned to go home quite this early, but she was running out of things to do. It was difficult when every time she went outside, she had to act like she understood everything that was happening around her.
“I guess I should get ready to go back,” Lyra said. She used her magic to pick up the saddlebag filled with things to sneak into the castle, which she had left lying against the wall in the living room. Two days ago, she had looked at what was inside the bag. She really hoped the other Lyra had just overprepared.
“All right,” Bon Bon said. “Let me get you something.” She walked into the kitchen. A few moments later, she came back with a small paper bag, which she placed into Lyra’s saddlebag. “I packed up the rest of the chocolates for you to take home.” She tightened the strap on the saddlebag.
“Thanks,” Lyra said. “And thank you for being so nice to me this weekend. This has been a dream come true for me, and it wouldn’t have gone nearly as well if you hadn’t helped.”
“You’re welcome,” Bon Bon said. “Anything for Lyra. Any Lyra.”
“Do ponies hug?” Lyra asked. “Or since you’re on all four legs, what do you—”
Bon Bon wrapped her front legs around Lyra. Lyra awkwardly did the same.
“Thanks again,” Lyra said as she got back down on all four hooves.
“Good luck breaking into the castle,” Bon Bon said.
“Unless it locked behind me, I’m just going in through the door,” Lyra said. “I don’t think I’ve figured out this body well enough to use a grappling hook.”
“Yeah – if anypony asks, just say you’re there to water the princess’s plants or something.”
“Well, I’m off.” Lyra stumbled backward as she opened the door. She laughed at her klutziness. “Magic is fun, but I’ll be glad to have hands again. Not to mention I’m finally going to get back to my phone!” Lyra didn’t notice Bon Bon wince a little at that.
Lyra stepped outside. “Thanks, Bon Bon!” she yelled. Seeing the other ponies in the street, she said, “I’ll say hi to you-know-who for you!”
Bon Bon watched as Lyra walked away. After a moment, she quietly said, “Tell her I miss her.” But Lyra was too far away to hear.
A few minutes later, Lyra approached the castle. As the other Lyra had predicted, the front door wasn’t locked, so she stepped in, trying to act as casual as possible. She walked down the hallway and attempted to remember which room had the portal in it. It took her a couple of tries, but pretty soon, she found it.
Lyra gave herself one last opportunity to perform some front and back kicks with her four-legged body. She then walked up to the portal and raised her front hoof forward. It stopped against the surface of the mirror. Stunned, Lyra started moving her hoof along the mirror. Completely solid. It was then that Lyra noticed there was no longer any glow or noise coming from the machinery surrounding the mirror.
Lyra’s irises shrank. She stepped back. This was the portal, right? There wasn’t another one? Lyra looked around the room. She stepped out into the hallway and checked a few of the nearby rooms. Nothing. She went back into the main library and examined the machinery surrounding the mirror. Nothing that resembled a plug or an on/off switch could be found. She tried pressing harder against the mirror with both hooves. Then she stepped back, not wanting to crack the glass.
Lyra’s heart was beating faster and faster. Did they leave the portal on for too long? Did all of the magic drain away, leaving it closed forever? With no other ideas, Lyra left the library and galloped down the hallway, forgetting to try to be stealthy. She fumbled to get the front door open, then galloped back into Ponyville and back to Bon Bon’s house.
Bon Bon was clearing the blankets off of the sofa when she heard the rapid knocking at her door. She opened it to see a panic-stricken Lyra.
“Lyra?” she asked. “Which Lyra—”
“The portal is closed!” Lyra exclaimed.
It took Bon Bon a moment to process what that meant. “Closed? So you—”
“Do you know how to turn it on?”
Bon Bon tried to think back to three days ago. “Lyra never said. She just said that it wasn’t a magic spell – it was something mechanical. Pinkie told her how to do it, but Lyra didn’t tell me what Pinkie said.”
Lyra calmed down a little bit. “Okay, so the portal can be reopened.” She didn’t have a complete plan in mind yet, but she knew what the first step had to be. “Where’s Pinkie?”
“Pinkie’s away visiting buffalo country until Tuesday,” Bon Bon said. “Along with Princess Twilight and the rest of her friends.”
“Oh no,” Lyra moaned. “I’m supposed to be at school tomorrow.”
“It’s okay,” Bon Bon said. Instinctively, she placed her foreleg over Lyra’s shoulders to comfort her. “Come on in. We’ll figure something out.”
Bon Bon led Lyra inside. Lyra just stood there, nervously shifting on her hooves.
Bon Bon thought. “Do you know if there was anypony else in the castle?” she asked.
“I didn’t hear anything,” Lyra said. “But somebody had to have turned the portal off, right?”
“Princess Twilight took on a student recently,” Bon Bon said. “Maybe she’s around somewhere. And I can’t think of anypony else who might know how the portal works. I think we need to try to find her.”
“Okay…” was Lyra’s only response.
Bon Bon grimaced. “I guess Lyra’s going to find out whether it’s better to ask for forgiveness than permission,” she said. The two of them left to go back to Twilight’s castle.
Lyra won the basketball game by tossing the ball into the air and hitting it with her head into the basket. She realized that she probably had a slight advantage in doing so, since as a pony, she was more accustomed to using her head instead of her limbs, but a win was a win. Plus, it was getting close to dinnertime, so one of them needed to end the game somehow. Afterward, Bon Bon drove Lyra back home.
“We never figured out how my Lyra was going to switch back with you, or hide you, or what,” Bon Bon realized while she was driving. “And she doesn’t have her phone on her, so she can’t call me to work out a plan.”
“Hmm,” Lyra said, trying to come up with something.
“We can’t wait by the portal to meet her, because our parents expect us to be home. Hopefully, she comes to my house instead of yours. Then I can call you and we can think of something at that point.”
“Yeah, one Lyra should be able to sneak the other in while her parents aren’t paying attention,” Lyra said.
“In case she tries to go to your house first, keep an eye out,” Bon Bon said.
“I will… although the bedroom faces the backyard.”
“Yeah…” Bon Bon said. “Do you know how to make a call on your phone?”
“Not at all,” Lyra said.
“Okay, before I leave, I’ll write down instructions on how to call me. Let me know when she comes back. Or if there’s a problem.”
Bon Bon dropped Lyra off, gave her the instructions on how to use the phone, and went home. During dinner, Lyra’s parents made conversation with Lyra about what she did at the recreation center. Lyra hoped she would remember to tell the other Lyra about the day’s activities, just in case her parents ever mentioned it again.
After dinner, Lyra went upstairs to watch TV. Now there was a wide variety of dramas and comedies to choose from. Lyra settled on a comedy in which the characters were trying to put on a musical. She wasn’t watching it very closely though, as her eyes kept darting out the window toward the backyard, looking for any sign of the other Lyra.
After a second episode of the comedy (now the characters had gotten into a big misunderstanding when they thought that one of their friends was pregnant), there was still no sign of the other Lyra and no calls from Bon Bon. It was getting kind of late. Lyra decided to give Bon Bon a call.
“I was just going to call you,” Bon Bon answered. “Is everything all right?”
“I haven’t seen your Lyra yet,” Lyra replied. “Is she with you?”
“No, I haven’t seen her either,” Bon Bon said. “I’m getting a little worried. Um… do you want to go through the portal to find her and bring her back?”
“I can, but how do I leave without her parents noticing that I’m gone?”
“Let me see,” Bon Bon said. There were a few moments of silence. Then Lyra faintly heard Bon Bon say, “Mom, can I meet Lyra at Sugarcube Corner? It’ll only be an hour.” That was followed by the voice of Bon Bon’s mother, though it was too far away for Lyra to make out what she was saying.
After a couple more moments, Bon Bon was at full volume again. “Ask your parents if you can meet me at Sugarcube Corner for an hour. If they ask why, just say that I’m buying you a sundae because you beat me at basketball or something.”
“Okay,” Lyra said. She put the phone down and went down to the living room, where her parents were watching TV. “Mom, dad, can I go meet Bon Bon at Sugarcube Corner?” Lyra wasn’t used to having to ask permission to go somewhere.
“Just be back before curfew,” Lyra’s mom said.
Lyra wasn’t sure when curfew was, but replied, “It’ll only be about an hour.” When no objections came forth, Lyra said, “Thanks!” and went back upstairs.
Lyra picked the phone back up. “See you at Sugarcube Corner,” she said.
“Great. Bring your phone. See you.” Bon Bon hung up.
Fortunately, Lyra had made her initial trip from Sugarcube Corner to Lyra’s house in the dark, so she was able to find her way back to the dessert shop without much trouble. When she arrived, Bon Bon was already there, waiting in the same corner where they had their first conversation.
“We’re meeting here so we have an alibi,” Bon Bon explained. “I don’t trust my parents – or rather, I don’t think they completely trust me. So in case they ask the Cakes, it needs to look like we were just meeting here. Act like you forgot to bring something, then leave and go through the portal to find my Lyra. Call me when you come back through. I just hope she hasn’t already come back, because I don’t know what we’re going to do if that’s the case.”
Lyra looked at the phone in her hand. “Um, I’m not sure I should take this into Equestria,” she said. “We don’t have anything like it, and considering what the portal did to my saddlebag, I’m not sure what it would do to a phone.”
“Just hide it somewhere near the statue,” Bon Bon said. “The school isn’t open, so there shouldn’t be anyone around. Just make sure you aren’t followed.”
“All right. And when we get back here, you’ll have a sundae for me?”
“Did you tell your parents I was buying you a sundae?”
“No – they didn’t ask.”
“Then I don’t have to buy you anything,” Bon Bon smiled.
Lyra smiled back and rolled her eyes. Abruptly, and with an exaggerated motion, she smacked her hand to her forehead. “Oh, I forgot,” she said a little too loudly. “Wait here – I’ll be back in a few minutes.” She walked to the door and left.
Lyra was also able to remember how to retrace her steps back to the portal from which she emerged three days ago. Once she reached it, she looked to see that no one was around. She then reached up and put the phone on top of the statue’s pedestal. Confident that no passersby would see the phone, she stepped forward.
…And was stopped rather suddenly as her entire body ran up against the solid stone base. Startled, Lyra stepped back and started feeling the pedestal with her hands. She walked around, searching each of the pedestal’s four sides, but found nothing except carved rock. Worried, she picked up the phone and called Bon Bon.
Bon Bon wasn’t expecting her phone to ring so quickly after Lyra left. “Hello?” she answered.
“Um… Bon Bon? The portal’s closed.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’m at the statue, but there’s no portal here. It’s just solid rock. I don’t know what happened.”
Silence. “Okay,” Bon Bon finally said. “Come back here. We’ll figure something out.”
Both Lyra and Bon Bon entered Twilight’s castle.
“Hello?” Bon Bon shouted down the hallway. The time for stealth had ended. “Is anypony home? We need your help!”
There was no response. All Lyra heard was the hooting of an owl.
“Yeah, it doesn’t look like anypony’s here,” Bon Bon said. “Princess Twilight’s student might be with her visiting the buffalo.”
The two left the castle and started to ask around town. None of the Ponyville citizens had seen her recently, though Mrs. Cake was at least able to inform Bon Bon that the name of Twilight’s student was Starlight Glimmer.
With no other options, Bon Bon and Lyra returned home. “It looks like you’re stuck here until Princess Twilight comes back,” Bon Bon said. “Wanna try Greedy Greedy Griffons again?”
Lyra returned to Sugarcube Corner to find Bon Bon sitting in the booth with an ice cream sundae and two spoons.
“I was going to get one for us anyway,” she said. “But now I need it to keep me calm.”
Lyra picked up a spoon and took a bite. “I don’t know why the portal is closed,” she said. “I’m hoping it’s something simple, like the book that powers the portal fell out of its holder or something. There are some other possible explanations, but they would all mean that somepony knows I opened the portal and came here, and I don’t want to think about that right now.” She took another bite of sundae to keep those thoughts at bay.
Bon Bon was also making quick work of the sundae. “Is there any way to reopen the portal from here? I don’t want my Lyra to be trapped in your world forever. No offense.”
“No, I understand,” Lyra said. “Twilight said something about the portal opening on its own every so often. I don’t remember exactly how long it takes, but I think it’s over a year. As far as I know, the only other way to activate it is with the book, and that’s in Equestria.” She put another spoonful of ice cream in her mouth and exhaled through her nose. “Until someone over there opens the portal back up, there’s nothing we can do.”
“What if we talked to Sunset Shimmer? She has a book that she uses to communicate with Princess Twilight between worlds. We could ask her to ask Princess Twilight to do something.”
“That won’t help right now,” Lyra said. “Twilight communicates with this world using the book that powers the portal. Even if we get a message to Twilight through the book, she won’t see it until she comes back on Tuesday. And I really really don’t want to tell Twilight that I used the portal until it’s absolutely necessary.” Another bite of ice cream.
“Lyra has school tomorrow. It’s necessary now.”
“If I can’t think of anything by tomorrow, then we’ll send a message on Tuesday morning,” Lyra promised. Another bite. “But sending a message before then won’t do any good anyway.”
Bon Bon forced herself to accept that fact. “Then you’re about to find out what high school is like here,” she said.
The next morning, Lyra walked onto the grounds of Canterlot High School. Unlike the night before, the area was bustling with activity, with students meeting outside or walking to class. Bon Bon was waiting for her out front.
“How do you turn off the alarm on this phone?” Lyra asked. “It keeps going off every five minutes. I had to stuff it in a drawer so her mom and dad wouldn’t notice.”
Bon Bon took the phone from Lyra and tapped the screen a couple of times. “There you go. Here, let me put it on vibrate for you. You’ll get in trouble if your phone goes off during class.”
“Thanks.” Lyra took the phone back. “All right, it’s been a while since I’ve gone to school. And I don’t know if school in your world is the same as mine. What do I do?”
“Just stick with me,” Bon Bon said. “Except for fifth period, all of our classes are together, so I can show you where to go. Just take notes and don’t call attention to yourself. Hopefully nobody will notice that you’re not the same Lyra.”
Bon Bon led Lyra inside and to their first class: History. Lyra had grown accustomed to seeing human versions of her pony friends, but this was the first time she had seen a human version of a donkey – the class was being taught by what appeared to be Cranky Doodle Donkey.
Lyra realized, though, that he probably wasn’t called “donkey” in this world. Students were still filing in, so she whispered to Bon Bon, “What’s the teacher’s name?”
“Cranky,” Bon Bon whispered back. “He lets us call him by his first name because he hates being called ‘Mr. Doodle.’”
The bell rang. Lyra took a pencil and paper out from her binder. She was going to get a lot of practice using her hand today.
Cranky stepped to the front of the class. “All right, settle down,” he said. “We’ve got a lot to cover if we want to get through the Fountain Lake Banking Scandal today, so let’s get started.”
He began a long lecture about a financial scandal that took place over a century ago, when a shipping magnate and an oil tycoon made a deal with a bank president to circumvent tax laws in exchange for stock options and insider trading information. At the beginning of the lecture, Lyra had her eyes on the chalkboard and pencil in hand, ready to take comprehensive notes. After all, it was indirectly her fault that human Lyra was trapped in Equestria – Lyra didn’t want her to fail a test because she was forced to miss school.
But fifteen minutes in, Lyra found herself struggling to stay awake, let alone understand or care about this ancient scandal. She would write down something Cranky said – for example, “qualified dividend tax rate” – and immediately have no idea what it meant. There was absolutely nothing about this subject that she found interesting. She took some solace in the fact that it was likely human Lyra would feel the same way.
Even though the class was less than an hour long, it felt to Lyra like it took forever for the bell to ring. As Bon Bon walked with her to their next class, Lyra said, “I don’t miss school.”
“History is the most boring class we have,” Bon Bon told her. “I’m not saying the others are going to be fun, but at least they’re going to be slightly less boring.”
The next class was chemistry, and Bon Bon was right – they were learning about chemical reactions, which meant Lyra got to participate in a lab. The students formed groups of four, took their places at lab tables, and put on safety goggles and protective gloves.
“Miss Bond, do I really have to wear these dreadful gloves?” Rarity asked from three tables over. “It’s just hydrogen peroxide.”
“This hydrogen peroxide is a lot more concentrated than what you can buy at the drugstore,” Miss Bond said. “It’ll burn your skin if you get any on you. Be very careful, everybody.”
Each group measured out the hydrogen peroxide into a flask, added some dish soap, and then poured in a small amount of potassium iodide. As soon as the last component was added, the liquids produced a large quantity of foam, which poured up and over the top of the flask.
“The foam contains all of the oxygen released as a result of the reaction,” Miss Bond explained. “But more importantly, look at the thermometer inside of the flask. You’ll be able to see that the reaction produces heat, as well.”
Rainbow Dash, at the same table as Rarity, was already pouring more hydrogen peroxide into a new flask and measuring out more potassium iodide. “So if I add twice as much iodine, then that means the reaction—”
“NO!!!” shouted Miss Bond.
Chemistry class ended all too quickly, which meant that it was time to go to English. At the beginning of class, Lyra turned in the essay that Bon Bon had prepared for her over the weekend. She tried to act casual even though inside, she was terrified – this was technically cheating, even if circumstances dictated that it had to be done. The last thing Lyra wanted to do was get sent to detention and put a mark on human Lyra’s record. She was pretty sure the teacher wasn’t actually paying attention to her, even if her conscience was trying to convince her otherwise.
Bon Bon, however, knew her Lyra well enough to be able to read the expression on any Lyra’s human face. “Calm down,” Bon Bon whispered to her. “So long as Mrs. Syntax doesn’t give us a pop quiz, there’s nothing for you to worry about here.”
“There might be a pop quiz?!” Lyra choked.
Fortunately for Lyra, there was no pop quiz that day – just a lecture about the characters in the novel. Lyra wasn’t sure whether this novel only existed in the human world or whether she simply hadn’t read the Equestrian equivalent, but because the class was already halfway through reading it, she had no idea what the teacher was talking about. And because the lecture was only about the action that had happened in the most recent chapters, with no context as to how it related to the rest of the novel, Lyra found it to be nearly as boring as Cranky’s lecture.
After English class, it was time for lunch. Even after she received her entrée, Lyra was still happy for the break from education. As Bon Bon looked toward the seats, Lyra looked at her tray. “No matter what nation you go to, even in a completely different dimension, cafeteria pizza is always the same,” she observed.
“I can’t think of an excuse to not sit with Amethyst Star and Shoeshine today – we always have lunch together,” Bon Bon said. “Just try to always be chewing – if they ask you something that only my Lyra would know, I’ll answer for you.”
As it turned out, Amethyst Star was more interested in talking about how she helped her older cousin’s family move into a new house over the weekend, so Lyra didn’t have to worry about raising any suspicions. However, the extra chewing was still necessary, as the pizza was extremely rubbery.
The bell rang to signify the end of lunch, which meant it was on to algebra class. For the second time in her life, Lyra learned how to divide polynomials, which she was confident she would forget within a week’s time. She also spent a lot of her time in the classroom just staring at her fingers. She wondered if you shaved a pony, whether their skin would have as many creases and patterns.
After algebra, Bon Bon and Lyra went to their locker.
“Okay, this is where I have home ec and you have music class,” Bon Bon said. “I’ll show you where to go and I’ll meet you there after the bell.”
Lyra’s expression brightened – music class! Finally, a subject she was actually interested in! Her favorite memories from her time at school in Canterlot were when her music teacher would have the class sit around with their instruments and experiment with the ways those instruments could be played and their sounds combined.
Since human Lyra’s lyre had been sitting next to her backpack, Lyra brought it with her to school that day, just in case. She grabbed it from the locker and eagerly followed Bon Bon to the music classroom, her mind racing with ideas of how she could more easily use her fingers to hit the notes she wanted.
“The passage you just listened to,” the teacher droned, “is a typical example of this composer’s use of hemiola. In this example of syncopation, the sudden feeling of there being two beats per measure instead of three beats per measure creates the sensation that the meter has shifted. Listen to the sixteen measures again and see where the hemiola begins.”
It was twenty minutes into the class, and Lyra’s eyes had glazed over. This wasn’t what she was hoping for in the slightest. Not only was the teacher sucking all of the life out of an innovative-sounding symphony, but Lyra already understood syncopation, giving her no incentive whatsoever to listen to the lecture. Lyra looked at the other students, who appeared to be similarly bored. She looked at the sheet of notebook paper in front of her, which was completely blank. She started drawing random loops on it to give the appearance of taking notes.
After the longest music class in the world (or so it felt to Lyra), the bell rang. Lyra hung out in the hallway until Bon Bon showed up. “Last class coming up, right?” Lyra asked.
“Well, normally, this is when we’d go to government class,” Bon Bon said. Lyra frowned – another subject that she didn’t pay much attention to in her day-to-day life. “But this week, they’re doing some kind of ‘enrichment showcase’ during a different period each day. So now, we’re going to the gym.” Lyra smiled a little bit – she wasn’t sure what an enrichment showcase was, but it had to be better than learning about dukes or whatever.
All of the students gathered on the bleachers in the gymnasium. On the stage at the opposite side, Lyra could see all sorts of unconventional musical instruments. She started to get her hopes up a little bit, although after what she had just experienced in music class, she didn’t get them up too much.
Once all of the students were in the gym, Celestia stepped out to address them – a sight which took Lyra by surprise.
“Welcome, students, to the first of five installments of the Canterlot High Enrichment Showcase. In order to be a truly well-rounded individual, you need more than simply books and studying.”
Lyra couldn’t quite make out what Twilight Sparkle said to her friends a few rows away.
“It is my job as principal to ensure that you are exposed to a wide variety of viewpoints and experiences to prepare you for adulthood. I ask that throughout the week, you keep an open mind and give our assorted guests the opportunity to share their perspectives with you. In doing so, I hope to broaden your horizons and provide you with new ways of looking at the world and your lives.”
That caught Lyra’s attention.
“And now, it is my pleasure to introduce a band which travels across the country to share their unique style of music. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Walks of Life!”
Seven musicians, all appearing to be in their early to mid-twenties, came out, each taking one of the instruments. The balalaika player, a woman with muted powder blue skin and wavy brown hair, addressed the students.
“Thank you for allowing us to perform for you this afternoon. My name is Melody Fusion, and we formed this band to show that people from all walks of life, no matter how different or unusual they may seem, can come together to create something amazing.
“I know that when most of you think of a band, you think of the normal instruments – guitars, drums, piano, that kind of thing. And I know that most of you aren’t familiar with the specific instruments that we’ll be playing today. Even if you do recognize some of them, I’ll bet that you’re wondering how” – each musician played a couple of notes on their instrument as it was identified – “a balalaika, a marimba, the tabla, a cornet, a sousaphone, a double bass, and a concertina could possibly work together to form one unified sound. Well, you’re about to find out.”
Lyra was figuratively on the edge of her seat. Why wasn’t music class like this?
“Before we begin, I want to extend an invitation to all of you. We believe that music is supposed to get the listener involved, to be experienced. We want you to let go and feel the music. So as we play, if you want to clap your hands, go ahead. If you want to shout, go ahead. If you want to dance, then get up and dance! We don’t want you to just watch us – we want you to be a part of the music with us. There’s no wrong way to do that – the only wrong way is to not be a part of it at all.”
With that, the band began the first song. It started with the tabla – its player set the mood by tapping on the drums with a slow, steady rhythm. The marimba player picked up his mallets and began to occasionally add notes to the rhythm, evoking a feeling of uncertainty. Next, the double bass player set bow to strings and provided a steady, relatively low hum, introducing a sense of melancholy to the atmosphere. This was intensified when the sousaphone began to softly play bass notes which complemented the double bass.
The balalaika was the next to join, plucking individual notes which accompanied the marimba in its sense of trepidation. Finally, the cornet took the lead. Starting at the lowest end of the horn’s register, it began playing a languid, mournful tune. After about a minute, some of the students began to look at one another – were they supposed to clap along to this?
But subtly, almost imperceptibly, the tempo of the tabla was beginning to increase. The pauses between the contributions of the marimba and balalaika became shorter. The double bass began to move up the scale, introducing different chords. The sousaphone started to play more punctuated notes, accompanying the marimba and balalaika as they began to convey a sense of purpose. The cornet’s tune slowly became brighter, and the concertina finally came in, joining the cornet as it cautiously projected a sense of optimism.
This gradual change continued until even the non-musically-inclined students sensed a different mood in the air. Then, abruptly, all of the instruments stopped at the same time. It felt like an awkward ending to the song – wasn’t it still building up to something? To fill the silence, the students began to lift their hands to politely applaud.
But right before they could, all of the instruments played a single, two-second exclamatory note (which the percussion instruments simulated with rolls and the balalaika simulated with tremolo picking). They then launched into a variation of the previous tune, only now it was significantly more cheerful. The cornet was confident and powerful. The concertina and balalaika took turns punctuating the cornet’s phrases. Even the sousaphone sounded peppier.
Lyra felt a chill course through her entire body. She wasn’t surprised that the strange collection of instruments was able to find a way to play in harmony, but she was awestruck by the sheer joy they were able to convey together. Without even recalling Melody’s permission to do so, she began to clap in time to the music. And now that she had broken the ice, some of the students around her joined in. Soon, the majority of the student body was clapping along to the song.
The song came to an end, but the band didn’t stop. Seamlessly, they began their next song, this one featuring the balalaika in the lead role. It too filled the gymnasium with a sense of energy and excitement. Unable to contain herself any longer, Pinkie Pie jumped off of the bleachers with a loud “Whooooo!” and began dancing on the gym floor. She found three students in the front row who appeared to be enjoying themselves and pulled them out onto the floor with her. They were hesitant at first, but her energy was infectious, so they began to dance, too.
The song was about eight minutes long, and by the end of it, roughly one-fourth of the Canterlot High School students, including Lyra and Bon Bon, were dancing while the band played.
“You guys are amazing!” Melody shouted once the song had finished. When the band played at schools, she always made the same offer for the students to join in, but usually, she had to make an effort to even get the kids to clap along. But this time, after just two songs, the performance had turned into an impromptu school dance. Micro Chips was even running over to the lighting console to turn off some of the gym’s fluorescent lights and add some colored spotlights to the makeshift dance floor.
“Let’s keep it going!” Melody yelled, both to the students and to her bandmates. The band started playing their next song, now with the concertina taking center stage. It didn’t seem possible, but this song was somehow even more energetic and lively than the first two.
When Lyra experienced this song – one of the most cheerful songs she had ever heard in her life – a sudden urge overwhelmed her. She ran off the dance floor and back to where she had been sitting in the bleachers… where the lyre sat, still inside its case. Acting purely on impulse, she took out the lyre and ran back onto the floor, past Bon Bon, and up onto the stage.
And Lyra started playing along with the band.
When the students saw what was happening, they cheered. When Lyra looked at the members of Walks of Life, they were all smiling, encouraging her to keep playing.
So Lyra played. She immediately fell in sync with the rest of the band, always complementing them, never overshadowing them. She felt the joy of the music course through her body and into her fingers, which instinctively found every note she intended to hit. For the next forty minutes, she wasn’t secretly a pony in an unfamiliar world: She was Lyra Heartstrings, musician, whose lyre transformed the joy inside of her into music that could be given to others, who could then experience it as the same joy that she felt.
The assembly came to an end much too soon. Melody Fusion thanked the students for the best response she had ever seen – by the end, nearly all of the students had spent at least some time on the dance floor. Principal Celestia dismissed the students, who began to file out of the gymnasium and head for home.
Bon Bon ran up onto the stage to meet Lyra. “I’ve never heard playing like that!” she exclaimed. “I expected you to grow pony ears and hair extensions right there on the spot!”
Lyra gave Bon Bon a startled, puzzled look. Bon Bon quietly added, “It’s something that happens here – something to do with the magic Princess Twilight brought over. Don’t worry about it.”
A few other students also complimented Lyra on her playing as they left the gymnasium. It was only then that Lyra realized she may have just made things more complicated for human Lyra once she returned.
As the crowd thinned out, Berry Punch approached the band and Lyra. “I just wanted to thank you all for this,” she said. “I’ve been having kind of a tough time lately – I don’t want to get into details, but I’ve been feeling pretty depressed. It felt a lot like that first song you played. But then, when you turned the song around, and then, when you,” she pointed to Lyra, “started playing like that… it just made me feel like things could get better. So thanks.”
Melody thanked her in return and, kneeling down on the stage so she could talk to Berry one-on-one, told her about things she thought about to improve her spirits when she was feeling down. Lyra just stood there, stunned. First by Berry Punch’s candidness, and then by the realization that that was exactly what she wanted the meaning of her life to be – to bring joy through her lyre to those who needed joy.
As Berry Punch thanked Melody and walked away, Melody stood back up and turned her attention to Lyra. “That was some amazing lyre playing,” she said.
“Oh, thanks,” Lyra replied. “It was really all of you guys. Your music was so moving – I just went along with it.”
“Don’t be so modest – you’ve got a real gift,” she said. “Everything you played made those songs better than they’ve ever sounded. I think I speak for the rest of the band when I say that we would love it if you joined us.” Four other band members who were within earshot all nodded in agreement.
“I… you want… really?” Lyra said.
“I know, you’re still in school,” Melody said, “but that’s some serious talent – there’s no doubt in my mind that this is what you were born to do. And don’t tell your principal,” she said, leaning in closer, “but half of the people in this band dropped out of high school. If you know this is what you should be doing for the rest of your life, why put it off?”
Lyra looked at Bon Bon. Which reminded her that she was supposed to be pretending to be this world’s Lyra. She couldn’t make this kind of decision on behalf of someone else.
“That’s really nice,” Lyra said. “But I can’t… decide… um…”
“I don’t want to put any pressure on you,” Melody said. She went back to her balalaika case and pulled out a card. “Here’s my contact info. If you want to join, give me a call.”
Lyra took the card. “Thanks. And thank you for an incredible show.” She and Bon Bon left the gymnasium and headed home. For the entire walk, Lyra barely spoke – she just kept playing the events of the assembly back in her head, over and over.
Bon Bon wanted to devote the entire day to looking for Starlight Glimmer, but when she checked in at Sugarcube Corner in the morning, Mr. Cake told her that they were running low on gumdrops and needed to order more. So instead, she spent most of the day making small batches of candy to restock the multi-flavor assortment that the bakery required.
Lyra stood around outside the house – anytime she recognized one of the passersby as the pony version of someone she knew, she casually asked them if they had seen Starlight. Neither Bon Bon nor Lyra had explained to anyone why they were looking for Twilight’s student, so Lyra still had to maintain the illusion that she was the Lyra who lived in this world.
Lyra didn’t have any success in learning Starlight Glimmer’s whereabouts, but she did earn a bit by helping an elderly mare carry her heavy bags home. After she dropped off the bags, she swung by Twilight’s castle – still nobody there.
As she was walking back home from the castle, three young ponies with identical-looking marks approached her. She thought that they resembled some freshmen from her school, although she didn’t know their names.
“Hi, Lyra!” said the one with the bow in her hair. “Have you touched any ponies’ hearts with your lyre yet?”
Lyra had absolutely no idea what she was talking about. She struggled to think of a way out of the conversation without arousing suspicion. She decided to go with a vague truth.
“I’ve been spending a lot of time with Bon Bon lately,” she said. Technically, that response didn’t answer the question, so Lyra quickly changed the subject. “Right now, we’re looking for Starlight Glimmer, Princess Twilight’s student. Have you seen her?”
The three fillies looked at one another, each shaking their heads. “Nope,” said the one with a purple and pink mane.
“If you do happen to see her today, can you let her know that Bon Bon and I are looking for her?”
The three nodded their agreement. “Thanks!” Lyra said and cantered away, hoping that they wouldn’t follow her and ask her more questions she didn’t know the answers to. She slowed down when she overheard their voices – they were still in the same spot, arguing over whether they should knock on the door of the castle or whether Lyra had just come from the castle, making that plan a waste of time. In the time it took them to argue, they could have gone to the castle and come back already, Lyra reasoned.
When Lyra returned to the house, it was empty. After a few minutes, Bon Bon walked in.
“I delivered the gumdrops,” she said. “Any luck?”
“None,” Lyra said. “Although I did earn some money when I carried an old lady’s bags home.” She gave the bit to Bon Bon. “Consider it payment for letting me stay here and feeding me.”
Bon Bon accepted the coin. “I wouldn’t charge you to stay here,” she said. “And if I did, this wouldn’t be nearly enough.” She tousled Lyra’s mane. “But since you seem to want to eat every day ,” she said with exaggerated exhaustion, “I guess I could get started on dinner.”
“Anything I can do to help?”
“Well, if you’re offering, you can peel the potatoes.”
After they made and ate a dinner of grilled asparagus and mashed potatoes (Lyra determined that the easiest method was to hold the peeler in her mouth and use her magic to scrape the potato across the peeler), they washed the dishes and sat in the living room.
“I guess Starlight is with the princess,” Bon Bon said. “Well, at least we’ll be able to get this straightened out tomorrow.” She sighed. “I hope Lyra doesn’t get in too much trouble.”
Lyra was casually flipping through the pages of Humans in Manehattan . She looked up. “What’s going to happen to her?”
“That’s just it – nopony has ever disobeyed Princess Twilight before, so I have no idea what kind of punishment she’ll get. I’m trying not to think about it, because worrying about it isn’t going to change anything… I need to be distracted.”
“Want me to tell you more about my world?”
“Well…” Bon Bon hesitated. She also needed to be distracted from considering the possibility that her Lyra wouldn’t ever want to leave that place. She decided that talking about individual humans was safe. And there was something that she was curious to know. “What’s your Bon Bon like?”
“Oh, she’s amazing,” Lyra said with longing in her eyes. That just made Bon Bon miss her Lyra even more. “She’s nice and clever, just like you. And patient.” Lyra thought for a moment. “I’m really lucky to have her. Your Lyra is lucky to have you, too. I don’t know if I’ve ever told my Bon Bon that, so I don’t know if she’s ever told you, but I’m sure she feels the same way.”
Bon Bon blinked to try to keep the tears from welling up in her eyes. “Okay, stop – I didn’t ask you that so you would say nice things about me.”
“Well, it’s true. You told me that your Lyra was the same as me; my Bon Bon is the same as you. It’s unbelievable how many things in your world are similar to mine. You ponies might not have computers or microwaves here, but I’m really happy to see that everybody is just as nice and caring as everyone I know. Really, all you need is for someone to invent the telephone, and there wouldn’t be any differences between our two worlds!” She gave a good-natured laugh. Bon Bon smiled calmly. On the outside.
There was a knock at the door. Bon Bon got up and opened it. There stood Starlight Glimmer, wearing a slightly confused expression.
“I just got back into town,” she said. “Everypony says you’re looking for me?”
Bon Bon invited Starlight Glimmer inside and explained the situation.
Admittedly, they were confessing to some activities which, once Bon Bon said them out loud, sounded extremely surreptitious. Starlight probably reacted more rationally than other ponies would have, given the circumstances. But Bon Bon could tell that even though Starlight didn’t raise her voice in any way, she was making a concerted effort to keep her emotions in check.
Starlight agreed that the best course of action was to get the two Lyras back to their home worlds. As the three were about to leave for Twilight’s castle, Bon Bon remembered to make sure Lyra took the bag of chocolates with her. Lyra levitated the bag in front of her as she began to walk.
“You came here from another world and learned unicorn magic?” Starlight exclaimed. The alarm in her voice suggested that she was reconsidering her willingness to let Lyra freely leave Equestria.
Lyra raced for an explanation. “This is all I learned how to do! And humans don’t have horns, so I won’t be able to use it once I go back! I just wanted to know what it was like to be a unicorn – I’m sorry!” She wasn’t sure how to convey innocence – hold up her front hooves? Cower down on the ground?
The genuine concern in her eyes (and in Bon Bon’s eyes) convinced Starlight to believe her… for now. Starlight led the two back to Twilight’s castle, where she reactivated the portal.
Bon Bon had resigned herself to the fact that her Lyra’s scheme was no longer a secret, but Lyra felt obligated to make a plea on behalf of her otherworld counterpart. “I don’t suppose there’s any way you would be willing to just keep this between us?” she asked Starlight.
“No,” Starlight responded. She kept her tone firm but kind. “This is something that Twilight is going to want to know about. And I can’t exactly ignore the whole trespassing thing, either.”
Lyra frowned, but nodded in understanding. As she turned toward the portal, Bon Bon gave her a hug good-bye. “It was nice meeting you, Lyra. It’s about time for my Lyra to come back – let her know that I’ll be here.”
“I will. Thanks for everything.” Lyra hugged Bon Bon back. She then took the bag of chocolates from the air and walked up to the portal. She turned around, waved one last time, then stepped through.
Canterlot High School wasn’t completely closed for the night – the drama club was holding a late rehearsal – but nobody was outside to notice Lyra emerge from the base of the statue with a bag of chocolates in her mouth. She looked at her surroundings, then looked down at her body. She was both relieved and disappointed to be a human again.
Taking the bag in her hand, she ran home, eager to see her parents and her belongings. As she turned the last corner and approached her house, she slowed down when she saw the lights on and realized that there was already a Lyra inside. How was she going to switch back without calling attention to herself?
Instead of going to the front door, she snuck around into the backyard. She knew the back door would be locked, so she looked up and saw that the light was on in her bedroom. She tried to think of a way to get the other Lyra’s attention without getting the attention of her parents.
She remembered that whenever this situation occurred in the movies, the character would throw a pebble at the window. But where would she get something the size of a pebble? There weren’t any rocks or acorns in the backyard. She reasoned that she could throw one of the candy-coated chocolates, but that seemed like a waste of Bon Bon’s gift.
She walked back out to the street, where she found a couple of stones by the curb which looked small enough to not break the glass. She took them to the backyard and, positioning herself so she could make a beeline for the side of the house if her parents came out to investigate the noise, threw a stone up toward her bedroom window. It made a distinct, but not too loud, thunk .
In the bedroom, Lyra and Bon Bon were on the second-to-last problem of their algebra homework. Bon Bon had come over after dinner both to make sure Lyra’s homework was completed and to confirm that they would be talking to Sunset Shimmer tomorrow about getting the portal reopened. It had been a big day for Lyra, so Bon Bon hadn’t yet found a good opportunity to deliver the bad news that it was time for Lyra to tell Princess Twilight that she snuck through to this world.
The sound of the stone hitting the window caught the attention of them both. Bon Bon got up to take a look.
Outside, Lyra saw the curtain open. When she saw Bon Bon’s face peek through, she was so excited, it was all she could do to keep from shouting her name right then and there.
“It’s Lyra!” Bon Bon exclaimed, then clamped her mouth shut when she realized Lyra’s parents could have overheard her. Lyra got up from the desk to look outside. Bon Bon opened the window.
“We’ll be right down!” Bon Bon whisper-shouted. From the backyard, Lyra nodded, and Bon Bon closed the window.
Bon Bon and Lyra headed downstairs and toward the back door. “Where are you headed?” Lyra’s mom asked conversationally.
“Uh,” Bon Bon replied, “we thought we saw a dog in the backyard.”
“If there is something out there, let me know and don’t get too close,” Lyra’s dad said. “It could be a wild animal.”
“Okay, dad,” Lyra said.
The two went outside. As soon as she was through the door, Bon Bon ran to Lyra, firmly wrapped her arms around her, and kissed her. Lyra eagerly reciprocated.
“I was so worried about you,” Bon Bon said. “How’d you get back?”
“Well…” Lyra said and released her hold on Bon Bon. Bon Bon took that as an indication to do the same. Lyra turned to her pony world twin. “We had to ask Starlight Glimmer. Sometime after I came through, she saw that the portal was open and turned it off. Bon Bon and I didn’t know how to turn it back on, so we had to tell her what happened.”
Ponyville Lyra felt the bottom of her stomach fall out. She looked for a place to sit. She settled for just dropping down onto the grass.
“I’m so sorry,” human Lyra said. “We tried to think of some other way. We really did.”
“No, I understand,” Ponyville Lyra said. “We couldn’t think of anything here, either – we were going to have to contact Twilight tomorrow. I’m just… ohhh…” She put her head between her knees.
Bon Bon and Lyra walked to either side of Ponyville Lyra, knelt down, and each put a hand on one of her shoulders. “It’s all right,” Bon Bon said. She wasn’t sure whether that was true, but she didn’t know what else to say.
Human Lyra remembered the bag in her other hand. “Here,” she said, opening it and offering it to her double. “Your Bon Bon made these.”
Ponyville Lyra looked in the bag, took a chocolate, and popped it into her mouth. “Thanks,” she said, smiling a little.
Human Lyra offered the candy to Bon Bon, who also took one. The three sat in silence for what felt like half a minute.
“I filled in for you at school today,” Ponyville Lyra said, trying to change the subject.
“Oh, thanks,” human Lyra said. “What did I miss?”
“Lectures. Homework. Bon Bon understands it better than I do.”
“That’s usually the case,” human Lyra said.
“We had an assembly today,” Bon Bon said. “This traveling band played all of these weird instruments I’ve never heard of before.”
“Yeah, I guess you need to know,” Ponyville Lyra said. “Their music was really energetic and infectious. I kind of… grabbed your lyre and started playing with them.”
Human Lyra wasn’t sure how to respond to that.
“You should have heard her!” Bon Bon said. “It was like she had always been a part of the band. Everybody cheered.”
“I sort of got caught up in the moment,” Ponyville Lyra said apologetically.
“Don’t worry – she didn’t make you look bad,” Bon Bon said. “In fact, she was so good, the band asked her to join them, right there on the spot!”
“I can’t…” human Lyra stammered. “I mean, you didn’t…”
“No, they just gave me their card and told me to think about it,” Ponyville Lyra said.
Human Lyra considered that for a moment. “I don’t think I’m that good,” she said.
“You aren’t,” Bon Bon said. If anyone else had said it, Lyra would have been offended.
“Plus, my parents wouldn’t let me quit school,” human Lyra added. “It’s too bad—” Suddenly, she stopped talking, then held up a finger, indicating that she was formulating an idea. “Wait a minute.” She looked at Ponyville Lyra. “There’s no reason you couldn’t join.”
Ponyville Lyra and Bon Bon just stared at her.
“You’re the one who played well enough to be in a band,” she explained. “And if they travel around, you wouldn’t have to worry about there being two Lyras in town.”
Ponyville Lyra was overwhelmed by the implications. If she wasn’t already sitting down, she would have needed to sit down. “I did wish that I could have said yes to them right then and there,” she said, mostly to herself. “And if I never go home, then I can’t get in trouble…”
Ponyville Lyra stared at the ground. Bon Bon looked at human Lyra. Human Lyra smiled proudly.
“This is a lot to think about,” Ponyville Lyra said. “I can’t make this decision right now.”
Bon Bon asked, “Do you want to go back to the pony world, then come back here if you decide to join the band?”
Ponyville Lyra turned her head toward Bon Bon. “Now that Twilight knows I used the portal, there’s no way I’ll be able to sneak through again. If I go back to Equestria, then I’m never going to get to return here.” She turned to the other Lyra. “Can I hide in that bedroom across the hall while I think about this?”
Human Lyra shook her head. “Mom uses that room to store her painting supplies. She could walk in there at any time.” She looked at the house. “I can’t think of anywhere you can hide where my parents definitely wouldn’t find you.”
“Maybe I can help,” Bon Bon said. “We have that guest room in the basement. There’s no reason for my parents to check in on it. If you don’t make any noise, you should be able to hide for the night without my parents knowing you’re there.”
“Really? Oh, thank you,” Ponyville Lyra said. “I just really need some time to sort this all out.”
“All right then,” Bon Bon said. “You stay out here while Lyra and I go in and finish our homework. Then I’ll come get you and take you to my house.” The three stood up. As Ponyville Lyra watched them go inside, Lyra asked Bon Bon, “How am I going to explain how I was suddenly able to play my lyre so well at school tomorrow?”
“Just say some kind of unexplained magic took over,” Bon Bon said. “After everything else that’s happened this year, people would believe it. Or you could quit playing Cookie Collision so much, practice a lot, and play that well for real.”
After they went inside, Ponyville Lyra walked around to the side of the house, out of sight from the windows. She sat down against the siding and tried to put her thoughts in order.
Not too much later, Bon Bon came outside and got her. The two walked a couple of short blocks to where Bon Bon lived, another two-story house with an exterior of uniform-looking horizontal strips of wood.
The stairway to the basement was past the living room. Bon Bon opened the front door, looked to make sure her parents weren’t there, then motioned for Lyra to follow her. She led Lyra to the stairway, then signaled for her to go down the stairs and wait.
Lyra did so. Once she was at the bottom, she stepped to the side so she couldn’t be seen from the top of the stairs. She appeared to be in some kind of rec room space, with a home bar and a treadmill off to the side. There were also three closed doors.
Lyra heard Bon Bon greet her parents. Lyra thought that Bon Bon would then immediately come back downstairs, but she didn’t. Presumably she was waiting for the coast to be clear – after all, if there was no reason for Bon Bon’s parents to normally come down to the basement, then there was no reason for Bon Bon to be in the basement, either.
After a few minutes, Bon Bon finally met Lyra at the bottom of the stairs. Silently, she led Lyra through one of the doors into the guest room. She pushed the door shut without latching it.
“Here you go,” she said quietly. “There’s a window up there,” she motioned toward the top of one of the walls, “so don’t turn on any lights. And don’t make any sounds. If my parents found out I was sneaking what looked like my girlfriend into the basement, I don’t know how I would explain myself.”
Lyra cupped both of her hands over her mouth. Bon Bon smiled.
“I’ll come back down here in the morning before I go to school,” she said. “Good luck with your decision.”
Bon Bon left and closed the door behind her. Lyra flopped down onto the bed, stared up at the ceiling, and thought.
In the main library of Twilight’s castle, Bon Bon was standing vigil at the portal. It had been over three hours since the other Lyra had left, and her Lyra still hadn’t returned.
Starlight Glimmer stepped in through the doorway. “I’m going to bed,” she said. “You’re welcome to stay here for the night if you want.” Which was true, although considering the subtly alternating expressions of worry and determination on Bon Bon’s face, Starlight knew she wouldn’t have been able to get Bon Bon to leave anyway.
The hours passed. Bon Bon never sat down. She always faced the portal. Her body told her it was time for sleep, but her brain never allowed her to nod off for more than a few minutes at any given time.
As the night neared its end and Bon Bon continued to stare at the portal, doubts started to worm their way into her mind.
What could possibly be taking Lyra so long? , she thought. Why wouldn’t she immediately come home? Is there something in that world that’s holding her up? What exactly is in that world, anyway? Just a bunch of weird devices. Weird devices… that the human Lyra sure did love. A lot. More than anything here… No. My Lyra wouldn’t become so attached to ridiculous gadgets in just a couple of days.
Except… other Lyra and my Lyra are practically the same. And if the other Lyra was so addicted to human gadgets, then that means my Lyra is just as likely to become addicted. But even if she loved their gadgets, Lyra wouldn’t give up everything she had here just to stay there, right? How much better could the human world really be? It’s the same as Ponyville, just with a bunch of ape creatures. Ape creatures… that Lyra always wanted to see. That she always wanted to be among.
Lyra has been making such a big deal lately about trying to find her place in life. But she wouldn’t really think that her place in life is living with those humans, would she? Just because she was so excited to see what it was like to be human…
If humans think that the human world is better than Equestria… and if Lyra is now a human…
The morning sun’s first rays began to peek through the window.
If Lyra wanted to come back, wouldn’t she have returned by now?
It was the middle of the night. And even though Lyra was lying in a comfortable bed, safe in a guest room, she couldn’t fall asleep.
This is the opportunity I’ve always wanted , she thought. This is my purpose. I wasn’t born to just play the lyre. I was born to play the lyre so others could be happier. Not just pleased, like every time I’ve played my lyre in Equestria. Genuinely happier. Like today. With a band that understands me. Where I can make a difference.
And this world… this world is everything I’ve dreamed of. Humans are everything I hoped they would be. There’s so much here, so much to see and do and learn… way more than I’ve learned in just four days. If I leave, I’ll never get to experience any of it.
Everything I’ve ever wanted is in this world. The only thing this world doesn’t have… is Bon Bon. Well, this world has a Bon Bon, but she’s other Lyra’s Bon Bon – not mine. And I don’t feel that way about her, anyway.
Lyra pictured her Bon Bon in her mind.
Can I really leave Bon Bon behind forever? She’d understand, right? She knows this is my dream. If Bon Bon had the chance to live her dream – if she had the chance to become Equestria’s premier candy maker, but she had to leave me behind to do it – I wouldn’t stop her. I couldn’t stop her. It would hurt, but I’d do it for her.
But is it fair to expect her to do that for me? I know we feel the same way about each other. If I would do something for her, then Bon Bon would do the same thing for me.
Bon Bon…
In the moonlight, Lyra looked at her human hands. And clasped them together.
The morning sun was already rising in the sky over Ponyville. With no assignments scheduled until her teacher returned, Starlight Glimmer had taken the opportunity to sleep in. When she checked on the main library, she saw Bon Bon still standing there, still staring at the portal.
“You’re still here?” Starlight asked. “I’ll be honest – after I went to bed last night, I considered that this might have just been some complicated plan to allow Lyra to visit the human world. Obviously, that’s not the case.” She looked at Bon Bon’s bleary eyes. “Did you get any sleep?”
“Not really,” Bon Bon said. It showed in her voice.
Starlight couldn’t help but feel bad for her. “Do you want me to watch over the portal for a little while so you can take a nap?”
“No, that’s okay,” Bon Bon said. “Lyra’s my responsibility.”
“I’d offer to go there and find her for you,” Starlight said, “but Twilight expressly forbade me from going through the portal. She said the human world can be a strange, unfamiliar place if you’re not prepared for it. And the fact that I wouldn’t be able to use my magic… that’s what I rely on the most.”
“I couldn’t ask you to take that kind of risk for me anyway,” Bon Bon said wearily. “I’m sorry we’re even having this conversation at all.”
Bon Bon was clearly suffering – both physically and mentally. Starlight tried to think of something she could do to help.
Bon Bon continued. “To be honest, I’m this close to walking through that portal and finding her myself.” Her voice was still weary, but there was a sudden determination behind her words. “I know I’m not supposed to. I don’t know what the portal would do to me. I don’t even know where I’d go once I got there. But if Lyra isn’t coming back, then the least she owes me is an explanation to my face.”
“Twilight’s coming home this evening. She’ll go through and find Lyra and bring her back.”
Bon Bon’s tone changed again. “You know what? Forget it. Let her stay. If she wants to abandon her home, abandon me… then just let her. Let her enjoy her precious human world.”
Starlight stepped closer. “Bon Bon, you need sleep. Please – you’ll think more clearly once you get some rest.”
“This isn’t your problem. This isn’t the princess’s problem. It’s Lyra’s. And if she wants to choose—”
Just then, a figure emerged from the portal. It was Lyra.
Bon Bon glared at her. “I’ve been up all night—”
Before she could even finish her sentence, Lyra raced over and wrapped Bon Bon in the tightest hug she had even given her. Lyra buried her face in Bon Bon’s mane, trying but failing to hold back her tears.
Instantly, the anger drained from Bon Bon’s body. It was replaced by compassion, love, and relief.
“I’m sorry – I’m so, so sorry,” Lyra sobbed. “They offered me everything. They wanted me to be in their band. I could have played. I could have made people happy. I could have lived with the humans forever.”
Starlight stepped out into the hallway to give the two their space.
“But I’m not a human,” Lyra continued. “I’m a pony. Even though it was great being a human. Even if I could have had everything…”
Lyra pushed back to look at Bon Bon.
“Everything but you.”
Lyra pulled back into the hug. “I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t leave you. I’m sorry I didn’t come back right away. I’m sorry I put you through this. It’s the toughest decision I ever had to make in my life.” While still hugging Bon Bon, she wiped at the tears in her eyes. More tears took their place. “Please forgive me.”
Bon Bon was quietly crying now, too. She tried to speak, but her voice caught in her throat. Shakily, she took a breath, then responded.
“Of course I forgive you. I love you, Lyra.”
“I love you, Bon Bon.”
No other words were necessary. The two simply stood there, crying and hugging.
Eventually, they had to leave the library. Starlight Glimmer was waiting for them in the hallway. Before Starlight could even say anything, Lyra assured her that she wouldn’t try to evade Twilight’s punishment. So Starlight let the two go home to get some much-needed sleep.
Three days later, Twilight Sparkle called Lyra into the throne room. Lyra stood at the table opposite Twilight, who sat in her throne, crown on her head. This was a private meeting – the other thrones were empty. Spike waited outside.
“I apologize for the delay – I know this has been weighing on your mind,” Twilight said. “However, I wanted to be certain I had all of the facts before I made any decisions.”
“Please don’t punish Bon Bon for this,” Lyra pleaded. “This was all my fault. She told me not to do it, but I did it anyway.”
Twilight considered Lyra’s statement. “She housed your human doppelgänger and made sure no one knew about your absence.”
“She didn’t know the other Lyra was going to come to Ponyville. She was just trying to show kindness when somepony needed her help.”
“And that’s another thing. You let one of the humans enter Equestria without authorization or supervision.”
Lyra tried to think of a defense, but couldn’t. “You’re right. I did. She was just as excited to see ponies as I was to see humans.”
“Lyra, there was a reason I told you that you couldn’t use the portal. The magic between our worlds is still, for the most part, not understood. We’ve been lucky in Equestria so far, but the human world has already faced many near-catastrophic dangers due to the introduction of Equestrian magic. I haven’t even let my best friends go there, both for their safety and the safety of all of the humans.”
Lyra’s eyes got a little wider. Her eyebrows raised slightly in surprise.
“And worst of all, you left the portal open and unguarded. Who knows what that could have led to? If we hadn’t already defeated the sirens, for example, they could have used the open portal to come back to Equestria and wreak untold havoc.”
Lyra dropped her head. She hadn’t considered that.
“Was it really worth it just to see what humans were like?”
Lyra thought for a moment, took a deep breath, and exhaled. “Can I be honest with you?”
“Yes! You should.”
“If I had to make the choice all over again… I’d probably still go. I know I’m not doing myself any favors by admitting that. But this was an opportunity that was impossible for me to ignore. I know most ponies don’t understand why I love humans so much. It’s just part of who I am. It’d be like… it’d be like if I told you that there was this rare book filled with ancient secrets, just sitting on a shelf. And then I told you you weren’t allowed to read it.”
Twilight’s expression remained neutral.
“I had to know what the humans were like. I didn’t want to hurt them. I definitely didn’t mean to put them in any danger.” Lyra lowered her head again.
A few moments passed. Twilight said, “I spoke with Lyra and Bon Bon in the human world. They defended you. Bon Bon said you only wanted to see what it was like to be human, and that you did everything you could to keep from disrupting the other humans’ lives. Lyra said she was grateful for the chance to see Equestria. She begged me not to punish you. Of course, I suppose I should expect Lyra to say that about Lyra.” Twilight allowed herself a small smile.
Lyra still had her head lowered. Her eyes looked up toward Twilight.
“This is difficult for me,” Twilight said. “For a couple of reasons.” Twilight’s posture slumped just a tiny bit. “I understand your position. And I know your heart was in the right place. But that still doesn’t excuse what you did. And even though part of me wishes I could just solve everything by doing something like appoint you to lead a study of the human world, I can’t reward reckless behavior.”
Lyra looked down again.
“So here’s what I’m going to do,” Twilight said. “First of all, I will once again state that nopony is permitted to use the portal until we identify and eliminate the dangers of opening a bridge between our two worlds. That especially means you. The human world is not some kind of tourist attraction or vacation destination. You are not to visit again.”
Lyra knew that was coming, but it still hurt to hear.
“I’ve enchanted the book so that if anypony other than me uses it to activate the portal, it immediately alerts me and records their magical signature. And that includes the magic inherent in pegasi and earth ponies, too, so don’t think about getting an accomplice to do it for you. I repeat: You are not to visit the human world again.”
“I understand,” Lyra said.
“I also think it’s fair that you be liable for any damages that were the result of your opening the portal,” Twilight said. “Fortunately, when human Lyra came here, nothing bad happened and she didn’t hurt any other ponies, so there are no wrongs for you to right here in Ponyville.
“As for the human world, the only negative consequence seems to be that Sunset Shimmer spent the last couple of days trying to figure out what magic caused Lyra to play her lyre so well. Because that’s been a waste of her time, I’ve been trying to think of how you can make it up to her. Tell me: When you were talking to human Lyra in the human world, did you ever come into physical contact with her?”
Lyra thought back to when human Lyra was showing her the unicorn sketches, but couldn’t remember their hands ever brushing past one another. Then she remembered – the backyard. “Yes. My last night there, she put her hand on my shoulder.”
“That’s consistent with what she told me,” Twilight said. “When I met my double in the human world, we were afraid to get too close to one another, for fear of initiating some kind of cataclysmic reaction. Apparently that wouldn’t happen. I’ll report this finding to Sunset and consider that your repayment for her wasted time.”
“Thank you,” Lyra said.
Twilight continued. “However, you still need to be held responsible in some way for your actions.” Lyra braced herself for the worst. “This is what I want you to do:
“When I first moved to Ponyville, it was to study the magic of friendship. Whenever I learned something new about friendship, I was required to write it in a letter and send it to Princess Celestia. I suspect that this experience has taught you a thing or two about friendship, both here and in the human world. Therefore, I want you to write down your findings in a report to me, which I will then forward on to the princess. That is my final ruling.”
“Y-yes. Of course,” Lyra said, stunned. She was expecting a prison sentence at the least.
Twilight took off her crown, placed it on the table, then stepped down from her throne and walked around to where Lyra was standing. When she spoke again, her voice was soft. “I’ll start. When a friend – a friend you had lost over two years ago and only recently reconnected with – when that friend goes behind your back and betrays your trust, it’s difficult to forgive them.”
The words tore through Lyra’s heart. A prison sentence would have been easier to handle.
“Although the trust may be broken, it isn’t irreparable. Over time, I hope to rebuild that trust. Even though it would be easier to close myself off from that pony to ensure that she can’t hurt me again, it’s my belief that friendship is worth the risk. That is, if the other pony is truly sorry for what she did.”
Lyra could barely bring herself to look at Twilight. When she did, the tears in her eyes made it difficult to focus. “I am. I’m sorry.”
Twilight gave her a hug.
A Report on Friendship
It’s easy to take friendship for granted. If you get caught up in your own desires, you can lose sight of how what you’re doing might hurt others. You’re so focused on getting what you want, you don’t consider how your actions are damaging your friendship.
I know, because that’s how I recently damaged one of my friendships. The pony I’ve hurt still wants to be friends with me, even though I don’t deserve her forgiveness. It makes me realize how special that friend is and how much I want to be sure I never do anything to endanger that friendship again.
Meanwhile, I can report that in the human world, friendship works the same way as friendship here. The friendships I observed between the humans were exactly the same as their equivalent friendships in Equestria. And the humans are just as open to making new friends, too, even when confronted with the unfamiliar. One human knew that I was secretly a pony in a human’s body, yet she still treated me as a friend. The human version of me also treated me as a friend, although I don’t know whether that counts.
Finally, I want to report on love, which is a special, very close type of friendship. Being in love is like having a best friend, but with every emotion multiplied. All of the challenges and joys that are a part of friendship are also a part of love, but larger, which means the decisions you make are even more important. If having love is a hundred times greater than having a friend, then losing love is a hundred times worse.
I’ve been fortunate to find my true love. There is nothing in this world – or any world – which means more to me than her.
Six months later, Lyra and Bon Bon were visiting Canterlot. Lyra’s friend Lemon Hearts had gotten them tickets to attend Princess Celestia’s State of the Kingdom speech that evening. Which meant they had the afternoon to themselves to explore the city.
“Sure, those cookies were good,” Bon Bon said as the two left Discerning Desserts and walked down the street, “but they felt a little too artificial. Manufactured. Like they were trying to impress you with how perfect they were. I didn’t think it was possible for a cookie to have pretensions, but there you are.”
Lyra giggled. “Come on, there’s a new restaurant this way that’s supposed to specialize in gourmet salads. I want to see if we can get a reservation.”
Suddenly, Lyra stopped. Bon Bon stopped alongside her and tried to figure out what was going on. She saw Lyra staring straight ahead – about a quarter of a block away, across the street, there was a small park with a fountain near the entrance.
Without saying a word, Lyra began to trot toward the fountain, an expression of disbelief on her face. Bon Bon followed as Lyra crossed the street, entered the park, and approached a pony sitting by the fountain – a muted powder blue unicorn with wavy brown hair. She was playing a balalaika.
“Excuse me,” Lyra said. “Would your name happen to be Melody Fusion?”
“Yes,” she replied, slightly confused.
Lyra broke out into a wide smile. “My name is Lyra Heartstrings,” she said. “Have you ever thought about forming a band?”
