Home

by Cackling Moron

Chapters

Away from home
Additional: First meeting
Additional: Pizza
Additional: Return journey
Additional: Governing Intelligences
Additional: Hostile
Conclusion: No place like home

Away from home

Author's Note

I was stripping wallpaper and daydreaming and then wrote it down.

It happened. Whatever. No turning back now.

Away from home

The door shut behind James and he dropped his bag. The bag went thump.

Closing his eyes and just letting his head thud back against the lintel - which was still, unfortunately, roundabout head-height for him - he quietly enjoyed being inside, back home, picturing in his head what the week before him might hold.

There came the sound of galloping and then seconds later a mint-coloured blur clattering down the stairs, barreling straight towards him.

“I wouldn’t hug me I haven’t had a shower yet and -”

These words fell on deaf ears and James had to catch her as Lyra launched herself from the bottom of the steps and latched onto him, forehooves wrapping around his neck, hindlegs around his waist as far as they could go.

James rocked back a little, more from the momentum than from her weight, and he couldn’t help but smile, arms moving in help hold her in place.

“Ah, ah well, there you go. Hi. I’m happy to see you, too,” he said softly.

Lyra said nothing, content to silently burrow her face into his chest, shifting her weight around so she slipped further into his arms.

“Nice to see the place is still standing,” James said, trying to gauge the mood. Lyra remained quiet with her face buried in his shirt.

James heard a sniffle and frowned, breaking the hug enough so he could look her in the face. She kept pressed tight against him until he gently coaxed her back. Her eyes were shining, tears tracking down her cheeks. His gut lurched.

"What's this? You weren't worried, were you?" He asked.

“I’m always worried when you go away,” she said, quietly. James swallowed and put his smile back on again.

“Oh don’t say that, you’ll start me off. Come on, I’m alright, I’m back now, it’s fine.”

He said this, but he understood. He was back this time, yes, but the possibility did exist - and continued to exist - that every time he left might be the last time. There had been enough close calls for him to know it wasn’t just baseless anxiety, so he could understand. It was why he was holding her so tightly.

Eventually and by mutual, silent agreement it was decided that the hug had gone on long enough. Lyra relaxed her grip and James lowered her to the ground. She wiped her eyes and beamed up at him, he smiled right back.

Then she gave a longer, more pointed sniff. James got the message.

He pointed up the stairs.

“I’ll just shower. I stink,” he said.

“You do,” Lyra said with overwhelming seriousness. James narrowed his eyes at her.

“Hey, you’re the one who hugged me, I did warn you. Sure you don’t want another?” He asked, moving at her, arms spreading. Lyra recoiled, hoof covering her nose.

“Just go already!”

“Rude,” James mumbled, grinning back at her as he picked up his bag again and climbed the stairs with all the energy and enthusiasm of someone who’d had a very long day which had capped off a very long week.

Some twenty minutes or so later he came back down again, refreshed but no-less exhausted, to find Lyra on the sofa waiting for him. He joined her.

Hopping onto his lap the instant he’d sat down Lyra squirmed around to get comfortable, settling against him and sighing contentedly as one of his arms went around her, the other lying limp on the sofa beside him. He lent down to kiss the top of her head and then flopped back again.

“Good to be home…” he said, eyes closed.

A bottle that James hadn’t even noticed sitting on the table levitated over bumped insistently against his fingers until he cracked one eye, saw it and took grateful hold. He practically groaned in delight.

“Oh, I knew there was a reason I liked you,” he said, kissing her head again and then sitting up to take a sip, which prompted another groan. Perhaps a little oversold but still. Lyra got the point, smiling dumbly and holding her head out for a third kiss, which she got.

“So how was it?” She asked.

“Quiet, quiet, very quiet,” James said.

“Honest?”

According to James the last time had been quiet, too, and that time he’d come back limping. He’d insisted their definitions of quiet were just different. She’d countered that he had been lying so she wouldn’t worry. He hadn’t really been able to come back from that.

“Yep, not even lying this time. Quiet as anything, not a peep. Just sat around a bunch, basically. Except for when I had to go out and escort people, obviously,” he said, waving his bottle-holding hand.

“And how far did you go? Or deep? Or whatever it is?”

Even though she had had it explained to her several times now Lyra still did not fully grasp what it was James’ employers actually did. Then again, to be fair, he wasn’t wholly sure either beyond a certain point. He imagined that there were probably complexities involved that he wasn’t paid to consider.

“They like to think of it like digging. Don’t ask me why. Probably the same reason they called it the Dimensional Borer. Dumb fucking name…” James muttered this last part to himself, shaking his head.

Despite the name of the machine not really mattering in any real practical sense - and despite James himself having admitted this many times - he had still held forth on the subject in varying states of inebriation more than once to anyone unlucky enough to be near him and too polite to tell him to stop. He really didn’t like the name.

Lyra, knowing this, decided to gloss over the subject, being as how she’d already heard him vent it several times before and as a result feeling she’d done her part.

“So how deep?” She asked, pressing on and bringing James, blinking, back to the moment.

"They took the Borer down - oh, I don't know - twelve levels? Thirteen? Past here, I mean, not counting hom- Earth. Definitely think it was around thirteen. Kind of lost count. Think they must have bumped into something really interesting in a bad way or a good way because they fired off a probe and then turned around to go back home so they could chew on the details."

He took another swig from the bottle. Given that he had to go back to Earth to get more he probably could have paced himself a little more, but he was tried and all out of fucks to give at that moment. Raising the bottle he pressed it to his forehead and groaned again.

Good beer was a full-body experience.

“And it was quiet?” Lyra asked.

“Yep, yep, very quiet. Didn’t run into anything dangerous and no, uh, Beyonders showed up this time. Which I’m not complaining about,” James said and Lyria wrinkled her muzzle.

"Beyonders? I thought they were called Outsiders? Or are these something else?"

James finished his drink off before answering, giving the bottle a shake to double-check and then looking a little despondent about how fleeting the experience had been. Lyra gently but firmly plucked it from his and floated it back onto the table, setting it onto a coaster before giving him a nudge.

"No, same thing, just got a new name, probably at a cost of thousands. No idea why. Maybe someone thought Outsiders was insensitive? Probably someone thought we weren't paying consultants enough," he said.

Lyra just blinked at him.

"I don't know what that means,” she said.

"Count yourself lucky,” he said, ruffling her mane and giving her ears a scratch. Rather than being annoyed at not having whatever a consultant was explained she just enjoyed it a moment or two, eyes closed, beatific smile on her face as she practically melted across his lap.

The two of them were quiet for a bit, and very happy.

“Well I’m glad you had a dull time,” Lyra said, eventually, sitting up straighter. James yawned and stretched, succeeding in taking up even more space.

“Heh, me too. Being paid for nothing is always refreshing.”

This was not the way Lyra had meant it and James knew it, but the mental image of her left behind worrying about him while he was off doing his job was not one that made him feel comfortable, so it was one he preferred to skirt around where possible.

“I still don’t know why you’re doing it. Humans, I mean,” she said.

“The whole tunneling through alternate dimensions and realities thing?” James asked and Lyra nodded.

“Uh huh. Seems like a lot of work. Dangerous, too. I don’t get why you’d do it.”

“Because we can?”

This gloriously blunt non-answer got the exact reaction from Lyra that James had been hoping for, which is to say a glare. He grinned and gave her mane another ruffle until she pushed his hand away, faux-grumpy.

“I’m serious,” she said.

“I know, I know, uh…”

He scratched his head. He did know the point of the whole enterprise, he just dealt with it so often that most of the details that anyone might not know were now so deeply ingrained in him it was hard to know where to start.

"Just about finding things, really. Finding things that don't exist back home that might be useful, or finding places where the rules are different in a way that might be useful. Useful things, mostly. And meeting new friends, of course,” he said, smiling down at her and winking.

“Of course,” she said, winking back and causing his grin to widen.

“It's not really my job to know the details. I’m just there to keep people safe. All things considered I’d say I got it pretty good."

“Yeah?”

“Well, I met you, didn’t I?”

That made Lyra blush. She hadn’t even been fishing but it had happened anyway. Twisting in his lap so she was more upright and letting her hindlegs slide down either side of his so she was straddled across his lap she looked him in the eye and found looking back at her a face of total and complete sinciety.

“Hey, you ok-”

James could not finish the question, as Lyra yanked his head down and kissed him.

This was a surprise, though a welcome one. James couldn’t really hold it against her.

At length the kiss broke and the two of them stared into one another’s eyes for what felt like a very long time indeed.

“And they let me carry a laser last time, that was cool too, you know. It’s got a backpack and everything. Living the dream, me,” James said, expertly puncturing the mood.

“Oh shut up,” she said, pounding him softly in the chest while he chuckled. Then Lyra went quiet, hoof still pressed to his chest, her expression suddenly pensive.

"The others don't think you’re...strange or anything for choosing to live here, do they? With me?” She asked, not meeting his eye.

Lyra worried about this, despite him insisting she shouldn’t.

She knew for a fact there were those in town who thought she was odd for having shacked up so eagerly with an alien, and according to James humans could be even more judgemental, and even though there was an exchange station set up the staff there was rotating and they tended to keep to themselves anyway.

James was the only human who lived here permanently. So she worried.

James did not. James rarely did.

"Ah, some of the others stay in weirder places than this. You should see some of the places we’ve found! Obviously no-one wants to settle down in any of the dangerous ones, but some of them? Some of them are pretty interesting. And some are pretty weird. And still they say they want to stay! Takes all sorts,” he said breezily, hoping that that would be enough to put an end to things. It was not.

“Like what?” Lyra asked.

“Hmm?”

“What’s an interesting one?”

James was blindsided. She’d never actually asked him this. Mostly her post-work questioning was limited to making sure he was safe and in one piece and - on those occasions when he was only mostly in one piece - ascertaining what had done it and making sure he was totally okay and then trying to get him to take as much time off to recover as possible.

This was the first time she’d shown any actual interest in the places he’d ended up. He was taken off-guard.

“Uh, well, there was one place which had this kind of, uh, this giant plant that covered pretty much the whole surface. Had its own climate, its own ecosystem, it was pretty wild,” he said, scratching his jaw as he racked his brain.

Predictably, having been asked a question he’d immediately forgotten the details of everything he’d ever done on the job. Having Lyra staring at him waiting for answers didn’t help.

“And kind of like that one there was another where all the animals and plants and everything was all part of one kind of, uh, mind? I think they called it a ‘gestalt-consciousness’ or something? The science bods managed to talk to it. Very pleasant, apparently, very polite and helpful.”

He thought some more.

“Empty places, obviously. Just regular planets with nothing but the plants. And some less hospitable ones that I don’t really want to talk about. Oh, and there was one we found which wasn’t even a real planet. Someone had built it.”

“What?”

“Yeah, I know right? Just this big, big hollow sphere with another one inside and then another one inside that and just on and down. Held up with all these columns. Had miniature fake suns inside each level, just full of all this water and stuff someone had left in there. The bosses almost lost their minds over that one, and still some people wanted to stay there! Place kind of creeped me out, if I’m being honest.”

Not for the first time Lyra was struck with the sudden urge to cling onto James in an attempt to keep him from ever leaving again. Hearing about the sort of places he went to did not fill her with wonder - well, maybe just a smidgen of wonder - but instead only with immense and niggling concerns about his wellbeing.

She forced them down, though. It was his job after all and he was an adult who could make his own choices and so-far nothing had gone too wrong, so it was fine. For now.

“So no, Lyra, no-one thinks I’m weird. Well, they might, but if they do it’s not because I chose to live here.”

“Good,” she said, managing a smile and then snuggling into him some more, listening to his heart.

Again the two of them went quiet. Outside, some ponies passed and their loud, muffled conversation filtered in briefly but not enough for either James or Lyra to really hear what was being talked about, and they passed by anyway and things went quiet once more.

"Anyway!" Lyra said, sitting bolt-upright again and putting on as serious an expression as she could manage. James, who had been dozing off, jolted. "’Weirder places than this’! You saying this place is weird, huh?”

This change of tone was immensely welcomed by James, who squinted sleepy eyes at her and smiled a sleepy smile. Sleepily.

"Well, you like me, so that has to mean at least one pony is pretty weird,” he said, giving her another ruffle, though he missed her head at first and had to halfway grope around to find it. She helped him, taking him by the wrist to guide his hand.

He scratched her behind the ears again. It was a reflex at this point more than anything, one that both of them enjoyed. Her eyes closed and James - still half-asleep - smiled blearily at the look of utter contentment on her face. She swayed in disappointment when his hand pulled away.

“Maybe you have a point,” she said.

Lyra shuffled around in his lap some more to get back into a more comfortable position, pulling his arm across her once she was done.

“Could I ever come back with you? To Earth, I mean,” she asked.

“I, uh, oh, hmm…”

The thought had crossed his mind before, just as an idle daydream, but Lyra had never asked him about it.

“I don’t know,” he said, to her disappointment. Seeing the look on her face he rushed to clarify: “I mean, I don’t know if you’d be allowed. I don’t get to make these decisions. Could always smuggle you back, if you liked?”

She tapped a hoof to her chin, considering.

“Would you get in trouble if we got caught?” She asked. James nodded.

“Heaps of trouble.”

“Maybe try asking first.”

“I’ll see what I can do,” he said. He then twisted on the sofa to swing his legs over one end, picking up Lyra (who squeaked in alarm) and setting her back down again once he’d stretched out and settled.

“What you want to go to Earth for anyway? It’s a shithole. It’s like here only dirtier and full of people. And the horses don’t talk. It’s gross, trust me,” James asked, yawning, fingers tracing across her coat.

He left out the part where the horses also sometimes ended up in lasagnes. He felt Lyra wouldn’t benefit from knowing that and besides, it hadn’t happened in a while. That he knew of.

“I want to see where you’re from,” she said, chin resting on his chest.

“Oh, that’s definitely a shithole.”

“Still,” she said and he craned his neck to look at her a moment. She was giving him A Look, with The Eyes. Those golden, golden eyes. He was helpless and they both knew it.

“We can worry about that tomorrow. Right now I am going to fall asleep on this sofa holding you and you are going to have to deal with it,” he said, putting both arms around her and holding her close.

“How awful,” Lyra grinned, snuggling down.

“I know, right?”

Additional: First meeting

Author's Note

I write because I'm bored and I never plan anything.

Additional: First meeting

While the higher-ranking members of the crew had gone up to Canterlot to hobnob and discuss and make deals and agreements and other important big-boy activities, and while the more scientifically minded members had dispersed hither and yon to do whatever it was they liked to do with a refreshing bare minimum of security to get in the way, those left with the Dimensional Borer relaxed.

There wasn’t a whole lot else they could do.

For a day or two they had been content to mooch around the nearby town - Ponyville, they had been amused to learn it was called - or else mooch around inside the Borer itself just twiddling their thumbs.

The locals were understandably cautious about them at first given that the humans had arrived without subtlety or warning in a thing the likes of which none of them had ever seen before, but before too long found the visitors friendly enough and harmlessly curious.

Mostly, the humans just seemed delighted to have found such a pleasant place with such adorable residents. It was, they said, refreshing to be able to walk around and have a nice conversation with those they met, rather than running and shooting or wandering for days and seeing nothing and no-one.

The ponies who heard this were, in the main, mystified but glad the humans were enjoying themselves.

After some days and with the higher-ups showing no sign of returning yet (negotiations ongoing, apparently), at a loose end, the remaining humans staffing the Borer had met up with some of the locals and put together a party.

Because why not? What else was the purpose of the expedition if not to extend the hand of friendship? What better way to encourage friendship than a party?

So was the excuse at least. Mostly it was just because the humans wanted to, and the ponies were more than happy to oblige.

The daytime portion was fairly typical and boisterous with much frivolity and pinning tails onto things and bobbing for other things, the event segueing into a rather more subdued and relaxed evening where a makeshift bar of sorts was erected at the base of the looming, mirrored ovoid that was the Dimensional Borer and a sea of seating and lights set out.

The humans did not travel with all the equipment and provisions they needed to cater a giant party, they hastened to add. They’d sent home for it. Though how that was supposed to work given that they hadn’t gone anywhere was unclear.

Lyra was loving it. She’d loved it during the day when she’d got to see all the interesting things that had been set up to see and do and when she’d been able to talk to all the new, interesting people - they were people, apparently, this was the terminology - and she was loving it in the evening, too, even if a lot of the drinks on offer were a little strange.

After trying one or two she decided it best to stick to the local stuff that had been brought in, not that anyone minded. Everyone seemed to be having just as much of a good time as she was.

It being Lyra’s turn to refresh the drinks she took the glasses and left Bon Bon behind at their table before weaving her way through the crowds to the bar, hopping up on the ledge that had been set up for the ponies - the bar itself being closer towards human height.

The bar was being operated by a mixture of humans and a ponies, and since the nearest pony was presently engaged it was a human who came over, smiling.

“What can I get you?”

“Just two ciders. Uh, the pony ones,” she specified, pointing a hoof. The bartender just smiled wider and winked. They’d been getting a lot of that so far this evening.

“Coming right up,” they said, shuffling off.

The decision to make it a free bar had done much to bolster the reputation of the humans.

While Lyra was waiting she looked around and while she was looking around she spotted a human at the other end of the bar, slumped over forward, head resting on the bartop and with a bottle clutched tightly in both hands. Something about him didn’t look quite right.

“There you go,” the bartender said, making Lyra jump as he came back with drinks.

“Thanks,” she said, before glancing over at the slumped human again. He hadn’t moved a muscle and Lyra felt a twinge of concern. “Is he okay?” She asked.

“Who?”

She pointed. The bartender looked, and understood.

“Ah, that’s James. He’s one of our risk management specialists.”

Lyra looked blank.

“Uh, like guards. He’s, hmm, well. James had a pretty rough time not that long ago. Looks like he’s not completely over it yet. Not that I can really blame him,” the bartender said.

“What happened?” Lyra asked.

The bartender thought about it a moment then shook their head.

“Not for me to say, really, I only heard about it secondhand. He probably needs a little alone time.”

Anything else they might have had to say on the subject was forestalled by someone else coming up to place an order and Lyra moved out of the way, taking the drinks with her. Heading slowly back to her table she kept halting and looking back at the slumped human. He continued not to move.

It wasn’t really her place, Lyra knew, but he was radiating such palpable misery that just leaving him on his own didn’t sit right with her. It couldn’t hurt to at least check he was okay, could it? Wouldn’t take too long and it would certainly be the friendly thing to do.

That was what clinched it for Lyra. This was all about making friends, after all, this whole thing, and what sort of friend would let another just sit around being miserable? She trotted over and set her ciders on the bar beside him, hopping up on the next stool along.

Belatedly, groggily, the human noticed that he had company and he stirred, shifting and lifting his arm up off his head and blinking at Lyra, or at least in her direction.

He looked very much the worse for wear, eyes red, puffy and bloodshot, hair a mess. And sad. So very, very sad looking.

“Hmm?” He grunted, one eye squinting and then the other, neither really managing to keep Lyra in sight.

“Are you okay, James?” She asked him slowly and clearly. He blinked again.

“Hnh? Oh, hi, hello, sorry, sorry…” James said, shuffling to make space he didn’t need to make and wiping his face with the back of his hand. Lyra gave him a comforting smile.

“Hello, yes. Are you okay?”

“Okay? M’I okay? Sure shure yeah, m’totally okay. Who’s you?”

“I’m Lyra, and are you sure you’re okay? You’re sat all on your own. Aren’t you having a good time?”

“I’m having plenty good time,” James said, turning back to face forward again and just stare down the neck of his bottle.

“I heard things were rough for you, recently,” Lyra said, more softly, probing, flinching when James wheeled about in her direction once more.

“Who told you that?” He asked, eyes narrowed, speech improving just that little bit as his mind started clicking into gear. Lyra pointed off to the human still serving drinks and James glared in their direction, but to no avail, and then sighed, shoulders falling.

“Ah it’s fine.”

“What - what happened? If you don’t mind me asking.”

She burned with curiosity. Everything about the humans was just so new and weird, and the more she heard the more questions she just ended up with. The ones she’d talked to during the day had been pretty breezy about what things they’d seen and where they’d come from, and it had felt rude to press them, and what little else she’d managed to overhear had only stoked her curiosity further.

And James was the first human she’d seen so-far who had just looked so crushingly miserable.

She had to know why. Had to!

“You don’t wanna know, s’not a nice sstory. Just a bad thing iss all,” James said.

“You don’t have to tell me, you just looked so sad is all, thought you letting it out could help?” She ventured.

Partly this was her burning curiosity attempting to coax a possibly interesting story out, partly it was genuine concern on her part. A lot of things kept inside were better let out, or so she felt at least. And she kind of wanted to see James get happier.

James seemed to consider what she’d said, one eye slightly more open than the other, hands in his lap.

He licked his lips.

“S’couple a levels back, levels up. Find a place that looked good, yeah? Kinda like home but empty, completely empty. Even had some cities too but they’s was empty too, and not like any we knew. Big, big buildings, empty windows. No glass…”

For whatever reason that last part seemed to cause him to lose the thread for a moment. Rather than interrupting him to ask what ‘levels’ were or what anything he was talking about meant Lyra decided to just roll with it and let him take his time. She had, after all, offered to lend him an ear.

Some seconds later he got started again, apparently over his confusion:

“Tried finding any locals, you know? See if anyone was about. No-one was though, so we start poking around, seeing if there’s anything interesting. Me - I’m with an expetition that goes into one of those cities. S’all quiet, real quiet. They’re checking stuff out, me and the security guys are just keeping an eye out when somethin’ moves.”

“What was it?”

James waved a hand, swaying alarmingly on his stool until Lyra steadied him, magic tinkling. If he noticed this, he didn’t mention it.

“Just s’monsters, monsters. We seen monsters before, ovviously. These ‘er new though. Weirdo things. Claws n’ teeth. I think? They kinda weren’t solid. Outta range at first. We warn the expetition and they start packing up. But ‘en the monsters start gettin’ in closer so we have to shoot - warning shots, you know? They didn’t like that.”

He reached out for his bottle and took another swig but then seemed to realise the bottle was empty. He tried signalling to the bartender but was studiously ignored, ending up just spinning the bottle around his hands and muttering to himself.

“Then what?” Lyra prompted. He peered at her a moment as though trying to remember who she was, what she was and what he had been talking about. Then he remembered.
.
“And we got ‘em out! We got ‘em out safe, you know? The expd- the exep- the expedition guys, we got ‘em out, we got ‘em back. And we were gonna get out! Me and Izzy, pulling up the rear! It should have been fine!”

James spun the bottle a little too forcefully and it off the other side of the bar before Lyra could catch it, bouncing dull across the rubber mat that had been set down. Rapping his knuckles on the countertop James lent his head back and sniffed, corners of his eyes starting to tear up again.

“This thing - this real big one - came outta nowhere. Dunno how it snuck up on uss but it did, outta nowhere. Think it came outta one of those windows? Dunno. Couldn’t have fitted. No, no stupid. Anyway, this was big. Big, real big. All teeth, lotsa teeth. And it jumps on Izzy! And she’s screaming and I’m screaming and we’re shooting and the thing is taking hits and I think, you know, we’re killing it? Big chunks, right? Big chunks coming out. Should be dead! Wasn’t though. Didn’t dead. Die, didn’t die.”

He swallowed, sniffed again.

“But it - it starts ripping Izzy into bits and she’s still screaming and she’s in bits and it’s eating the bits and she’s still screaming and I’m shooting it but it’s not doing anything.”

Lyra said nothing and did her best to not even breathe too loudly. James appeared to be somewhere else at that moment, staring very far away and down.

“And everyone else was gone! Pulled back! Was meant to be me and Izzy the last ones out! And they’re all shouting at me to get out but I can’t leave her, can I? But she’s in bits!”

Leaning forward over the bar to try and spot his bottle he looked and saw nothing, falling back heavily and very nearly falling off his stool for what was either the third or second or fourth time, only staying there because Lyra kept him there again.

“I don’t know what happened after. Don’t know how I got out, but I did. Was in the hopper, coming back. They were holding me down, I think? Couple of ‘em. Yeah, think so. Were yellin’ at me.”

He shrugged, shoulders limp.

“Couldn’t even bring Izzy’s body back. Had to leave her there! I said - I said I could have done it but they said we had to go, said she’d been eaten, couldn’t get her back. Said she was all in pieces and eaten but I coulda done it! I know I coulda done. Didn’t even try though. Why didn’t I try? I just left her there…”

He went quiet and stayed quiet, having said all that had been on his mind. Lyra let out a breath.

“I’m sorry,” She said. She couldn’t think of anything to say. She didn’t know what she’d been expecting to hear but it hadn’t been anything like that. All the other humans had made what they’d been doing sound like such an adventure. None of them had said anything like this.

James shrugged again.

“S’not your fault. S’no-one’s fault. S’just one of those things. Happenss,” he said, turning to look at her properly for the first time since he’d started speaking. It took him a couple of seconds to focus on her and a couple of seconds after that to actually register what it was he was looking at,

“Your- you- you’re got pretty eyes, y-you know that?” He said. Lyra blinked.

“What?”

“They’s all gold, s’real pretty.”

He seemed to realise - slowly - that he was staring and so looked away, shaking his head.

“Sorry, sstupid thing to say, you don’t wanna hear me say that, sorry. Stupid,” he said before letting himself fold forward over the bar, head thunking against the wood loud enough to make Lyra wince. “...n’now lookin’ like a drunken idiot n’front o’ th’locals...idiot…” She heard him muttering.

This wasn’t really how Lyra had seen this going. Gingerly - tentatively - she reached across and patted James on the back with a hoof.

“There there,” she said. “You’re not an idiot.”

He said ntohing, and Lyra looked back through the crowd towards her table. Bon Bon was still sat there waiting, looking increasingly impatient. Lyra bit her lip.

“You - you could come and sit with me and my friend, if you liked? Not have to sit on your own?” She suggested.

She wasn’t wholly sure whether she wanted him to say yes or not. Part of her did, part of her didn’t, and both parts made pretty compelling arguments.

James sat up again and tried to follow where she was pointing, doing his best to look in the actual direction but he was maybe a foot or two off. He shook his head anyway and turned back to face the front again, head coming to rest in his hands.

“Nah, s’okay, y’don’t have t’do that. I’m fine, m’fine, honest.”

“I feel bad just leaving you here sat on your own all sad,” Lyra said, and this was true. James gave a weird hiccough and looked at her again, not as intently as last time.

“You’s so nice! You’re all sso nice. Not like thhose robots. They were kinda creepy,” James said, and before Lyra could even consider what he’d been talking about he reached out and gave her a scratch behind the ears.

The feeling was so unexpected - and so pleasant - that the surprise didn’t take for a second or two and when it did Lyra wasn’t wholly sure what to do about it. It just felt so nice! A shiver ran down the length of her spine and she all-but melted against his hand.

It didn’t last though. James seemed to notice what it was he’d done and what it was he was still doing and withdrew his hand as though burnt.

“Shit shit, sorry, sorry. That was too mucch, sorry.”

“It’s o-okay,” she said, shaking off a lingering shiver or two. James head was back in his hands.

“You ggo to your friend. S’okay, I’ll be okay, y’go,” he said.

Bon Bon looked to be moments from getting up and going, Lyra saw, which kind of made the decision for her.

“Alright. But if you want to come join us you can, okay? We’re over there, okay?” She said, picking up her bottles and pointing again. James didn’t look but nodded. Hopping off the stool Lyra made haste back to the table, catching Bon Bon the instant her friend looked to be about to get up.

“You were ages! What were you doing?” Bon Bon asked as Lyra got back into her seat, setting both drinks down in the process.

“Sorry, got distracted,” Lyra said, pulling her bottle in close and keeping her eyes on the table.

Bon Bon leaned in, sensing she wasn’t getting the whole story.

“Are you blushing? Why are you blushing?”

“Justtakeyourdrink,” Lyra blurted.

The next day, Lyra did not have much going on. Having returned fairly late and sleeping in as a result when she finally got up she didn’t do much more than potter around the house tidying in a way that suggested her heart wasn’t really in it.

There was a knock at the door but she was far enough away from it that it wasn’t her problem. Bon Bon answered it, and some seconds later appeared.

“There’s a human here to see you,” she said. Lyra hadn’t expected that.

“There is?”

“Yep. He’s outside. I can tell him you’re not in if you want?” Bon Bon suggested, looking mildly concerned. Lyra shook her head.

“No, no it’s okay. Thanks.”

Bon Bon nodded and headed off and Lyra went to the door.

And there, outside, stood James, looking better than he had last night, though not wholly better. He looked as though he’d showered by upending a bucket over his head and was still damp in places, and his eyes were hidden behind sunglasses.

He also looked apologetic. It came off him in waves.

“Uh, hello,” Lyra said.

“Yeah, sorry for showing up like this. I just wanted to, uh, say that I was sorry for how I acted last night,” he said, wringing his hands. He looked a lot taller actually stood up, Lyra noticed.

“You didn’t need to do that, you didn’t do anything wrong. But, uh, how do you know where I live?” She asked.

James looked very sheepish.

“Ah, well. I, uh, well - I remembered…” he cleared his throat and the rest came out as a mumble that Lyra didn’t catch a word of.

“Pardon?”

Sighing, defeated, James spoke more clearly:

“Asked where the girl with the golden eyes was. Got pointed this way. Sorry. Kind of weird but I did want to apologise. I’m kind of a maudlin drunk.”

“You really don’t need to apologise. What do you think you did?” Lyra asked, head tilted to one side. James shrugged. He did this a lot.

“Well, I can remember bits. I think I was probably talking a lot? I do that. So I’m sorry about that. And, uh, I didn’t say anything too dumb, did I? The kind of thing I’d feel bad about now?”

She thought back to how pretty he’d said her eyes were. Thought back to him scratching her behind the ears.

“No, nothing,” she said, smiling forcedly and hoping the blush wasn’t coming back. He didn’t seem wholly convinced but nodded all the same, looking away.

“Good, good…” he said. “Well that’s good. I’ll leave you to it, then. Sorry if I was interrupting anything. I’ll be off.”

He stepped back and Lyra stepped forward.

“Are you - are you guys leaving?” She asked, unexpectedly worried that he meant he was really going off along with all the others and this would be it and she’d never seen him or any other human again. A little over the top, but the worry was there all the same.

James stopped.

“Hmm? Oh no, not yet. We’re not going for a little while yet, I don’t think. Not sure what’s going on but from what I hear they’re angling to get an exchange station set up somewhere.”

“Exchange station?”

James grunted and rubbed his temples with one hand, the other waving around.

“Like, a place where some humans can stay here. Exchange ideas, stuff, act as a waystation. Not my department.”

“Right,” Lyra said, still not really getting it. “What else are you doing today?”

“Me? Nothing. Technically I’m still on, uh, leave. Because of what happened. Relieved of active duty for now. Was just going to go back to bed,” he said, thumbing back over his shoulder. In the distance the Dimensional Borer could just be seen, twinkling over the rooftops.

“Oh, okay. If you’re sure.”

Lyra honestly didn’t know what answer she’d been hoping for but this clearly hadn’t been it as it didn’t make her feel particularly good. This James picked up on, though.

“Well, I’m open to suggestions if you have any. Like I say I’ve got nothing on.”

“I could show you around town? If you like,” Lyra said, thinking on her hooves, sounding casual, heart in her throat in case she’d suggested the wrong thing. Maybe he’d already been shown around town? Maybe he didn’t want to have to hang around with her? Presumptuous?

She just wanted to know more! About humans! Where they came from and what they were doing and what they thought of Equestria. And him.

And maybe get another scratch, just to see if that first one had been a fluke.

“Oh, you don’t have to do that. Don’t want you going out of your way, it’s fine, really,” James said, holding his hands up.

“It’s no trouble,” Lyra insisted quickly.

“Really?”

“Really.”

A moment. Somewhere a bird was singing.

James smiled, and relief flooded Lyra who couldn’t help but smile too.

“That sounds nice, actually. Real nice. I haven’t seen much of the place.”

“Great! Well, not great you haven’t seen much but, you know, great that, uh - wait a second,” Lyra babbled before leaping back into the house and dashing about to find Bon Bon, who was sat around looking perplexed about what the noise was about.

“What did he want?” She asked.

“He wanted to say sorry. I’m just going out for a bit,” Lyra said, already moving off. Bon Bon double-took.

“Wait, what?”

“Don’t wait up!” Came Lyra’s voice followed by a slamming door.

Bon Bon, still sitting, could only mouth in confusion.

Additional: Pizza

Author's Note

Everything I learnt about wounds I learnt from pulpy military sci-fi.

Everything I learnt about the way sapient beings interact I made up on the fucking spot.

Additional: Pizza

“You can sit next to me, you know,” Lyra said, patting the space next to her on the sofa and scooching up so that there was more of it, hopefulness written across her face.

“Or, you know, anywhere,” Bon Bon said rather more languidly, indicating that there were other spots available. And there were, too. Their place was not lacking in comfortable places to sit.

In spite of the obvious wide choice of proper seating options James had for whatever reason elected to sit cross-legged on the floor and politely waved off both suggestions, much to Lyra’s muted disappointment. He did not notice this, though, as he hadn’t quite dialled in on pony faces yet. Bon Bon did notice.

“No thanks, here is good,” he said.

James had been delighted - not to mention weirdly amused - on discovering that ponies, too, ate pizza. His level of amusement had baffled Lyra and Bon Bon, whose house he was in to eat the pizza that they as a unit had ordered.

With Equestria being officially deemed ‘Safer than most’ by Expedition Command, the active security detail was reduced and those few that did remain were left either protecting the Dimensional Borer itself or else accompanying the few research and diplomatic parties that got sent out, neither with any real expectation of action. Or at least, any action worthy of the name.

James - having been off-duty anyway - had been left at even more of a loose end than he had been before, and when Lyra had bumped into him completely-and-totally-by-accident and offered the opportunity of just hanging around at hers doing nothing he had practically leapt at the chance.

Later, Bon Bon had come home from work, and not long after that pizza had happened. James had had much worse days.

“Pizza, man. Can’t believe that,” he said to himself, shaking his head as he leaned over and picked up another slice.

“Really don’t get what the big deal is,” said Bon Bon.

“It’s just…” James tried to find the words, waving his slice around as he did so. The slice flopped and he frowned at it briefly before rolling it up and taking a bite. “We hop onto a big dimension-tunneling machine, plunge through however many layers of worlds filled with weird shit or stuff that wants to kill us, end up in a place with cute talking horses who also have pizza. Heh, man. I don’t know.”

“We’re not cute,” Lyra said, trying her best to look as serious and non-cute as possible, achieving entirely the opposite result. Had she been within arms reach James wouldn’t have been able to stop himself from giving her a ruffle on the head. She was, however, out of range. So James did what he felt was the next best thing:

“Well, you are from where I’m sitting,” he said with a wink and Lyra was forced to concede, mostly because she blushed and had to look away, hiding it by magically hoiking the pizza box over so she could shield her face with it.

“Nice line,” said Bon Bon. Her day had been sufficiently tiring so that she wasn’t so much relaxing on her chair as melting into it, a flopped puddle still vaguely in a pony-like shape. James shrugged.

“Not a line, actual truth. You guys are all just so adorable. And friendly! So fucking friendly. And you inexplicably speak English. And you have pizza! I might see what the rules are on moving here permanently, this place is great,” James said, leaning back and resting on his palms.

“What? Move here? You can do that?” Lyra sputtered, her surprise almost enough to make her drop the box. This caught both Bon Bon and James off guard, as it was so sudden and so loud that neither of them had seen it coming. They exchanged a silent look before both turning to Lyra.

“Uh...maybe? I don’t know. I wasn’t - uh - I mean, I was kind of kidding,” he said. Lyra’s face fell.

“Oh.”

James could not fail to notice the change this time. It was like being stabbed in the gut. And James would know about that.

Never had James seen anyone eat pizza quite so morosely. He had no idea what had just happened or what he could do to fix it, if anything. He looked to Bon Bon again, for silent help, but she was equally stumped and could only shrug helplessly at him.

“But I’m curious now, so I might ask. Just to see, you know? I mean, they have been talking about, uh, setting up some manned stations on a couple levels so me staying here might not be, you know, completely impossible,” James said, tentatively. Lyra’s ears flickered a little, perking up again by inches.

“Would you stay here? If you could?” She asked.

“Well, I mean, yeah. I don’t see why not. Technically now I’m living back on Earth - ‘technically’ - it’s just most of my time is on the Borer because, well, the job, you know? So I don’t see what the difference would be as far as they were concerned. Certainly wouldn’t matter to me. Be quite nice coming home if home was here and not, ah, well, my town is a shithole, heh. I’m probably missing a couple details but, uh, yeah.”

James was kind of a happy-go-lucky sort of a chap as regards the fine details of life. He tended to focus on things as they came along and as they appeared in front of him. The problems of tomorrow were future-James problems, and most things would probably work themselves out alright-ish in the end. So he felt absolutely no turmoil at the prospect of uprooting himself for pastures new and entirely unknown. He’d deal with problems as they came up one way or another.

That, and he really did know for a fact that there was already murmurings here and there about the possibility of settling up on some of the places they were discovering. Nothing official yet, just the sort of thing you heard here and there.

And not just the manned waystations or robot-mining operations people were interested - he’d already heard one or two people talking about moving in proper, settling down.

It was plainly an idea people were starting to get excited about. Given the state of home, James couldn’t say he was that surprised.

Lyra looked moderately less morose at his slapdash answer, and she’d also polished off her slice, settling herself more comfortably on the sofa and giving the space next to her a conspicuous look, which James missed. He was thinking.

“Would you, uh, would you mind? If I started living here? Just, you know, hypothetically?” He asked, attempting to sit casually but being suddenly very aware of his arms and where he might want to put them. This made casualness impossible and he ended up fidgeting.

“No!” Lyra said too loudly before clearing her throat and trying again. “No, I wouldn’t mind. I don’t think anypony would. Would you mind?” She asked, directing the question to Bon Bon, who was too tired to do anything other than give a noncommittal grunt and what might have been a shrug.

This was taken to mean ‘No, I wouldn’t mind’, which was more-or-less accurate.

“You falling asleep there, Bon Bon?” James asked, noticing that she was starting to slide off the sofa, jerking awake suddenly as her weight approached the point where she was about to tip onto the floor.

“Maybe a little,” she admitted, propping herself up only to almost at once begin slipping again, this time failing to catch herself and falling off the sofa with a soft thump.

“I’m okay, I’m okay,” she said, shooting to her hooves and then yawning. “Bed might be an idea,” she said, realising then that she was facing away from the other two and turning in place.

“Alright you crazy kids, don’t do anything I wouldn’t do,” she said, swaying a little before wending a slightly unsteady way out of the room. A moment later, hooves could be heard ascending the stairs.

Glancing out the window James noticed just how dark it was starting to get outside. He had entirely lost track of time, it seemed.

“Ah, I should probably be heading off too, I guess. Let you get some rest and stop bothering you,” he said, standing up.

“You’re not bothering me,” Lyra said almost at once and James chuckled, trailing into a yawn as he stretched, arms bumping on the ceiling.

“Nice of you to say,” he said, going up on tip-toes for the full-body stretch experience. Once he finished, he found Lyra staring at him, and not in a way he’d had her do it before.

“What happened?” She asked.

“Hmm?” James was confused a moment and then looked down as Lyra’s eyes did likewise. She appeared to be staring at his belly.

“Uh, what are we looking at here?” He asked. Lyra hopped off the sofa and moved over to him, raising a hoof to point at his stomach.

“When you lifted your arms up your shirt rode up. You got a bandage there, a big one. What happened?”

James twigged what she was talking about and hoiked his shirt back up a little to expose what it was she’d been talking about. The dressing was not particularly significant, being as how if it had been he wouldn’t have been allowed to walk around. But it was still there, and it was pretty big.

“Oh, that. That’s nothing,” he said, frowning down at himself.

“Looks like a pretty bad nothing to me.”

“Nah, honestly it’s not a big deal,” he said, pulling his shirt down again, yelping in surprise a moment later when Lyra latched onto his hand with her teeth - gently, but still - and dragged him over to the sofa she’d been sat on. This time, he actually did sit where she’d been wanting him to.

“Did you get that because of your job? Being a guard?” She asked while James wiped his hand on his trousers.

“Expedition security and, well, yeah, how else would I have got it?” He asked, though his reluctance melted in the face of Lyra’s silent, imploring stare. “If you must know, Lyra, it’s a scratch. Just a small one. This thing came at me, I didn’t see it until it was too late and it got me. But only a little bit. It’s fine.”

Lyra was less than convinced. She pressed a hoof against his stomach and James hissed, wincing.

“Sorry!” She gasped, pulling back.

“It’s okay,” James said, still wincing though doing a good job of smiling through it.

“You said it was fine!” Lyra said mortified at having hurt him. James just shrugged.

“Well, it is, yeah, just not totally yet. Still a little tender if you poke it. It’ll be fine soon, then you can touch it as much as you want.”

James considered his choice of words there and shook his head, concluding: “Could have been worse. I’ve had worse,” he said. James rather hoped this would put an end to this line of discussion and they could get back to talking about happier, breezier things. Lyra though wasn’t quite done yet.

“Worse like what?” She asked suspiciously, eyes narrowing. James had the feeling he’d somehow put his foot in it without realising how.

“Oh, really, it’s not that big of a deal. This job is actually probably safer than my last one. Though would that count as a job? Not sure...uh, don’t worry about it, Lyra.”

“I want to know,” Lyra said flatly and James sagged, defeated.

“Fine, fine. Let me think…” he scratched his chin. “First place we ended up - the very first place - was alright enough. No locals to speak of, but lots of native life. Most of it pretty benign. Had these weird little shark-dog things though, and one got me. See here?”

He held up his arm and turned it and Lyra saw, or rather noticed, the blotchy ring of faded marks midway up the forearm. The more she looked, the more of them she could see. Obvious teeth marks, now they’d been pointed out to her. Once James was certain she’d seen - it was pretty obvious when she had - he lowered his arm again.

“Couldn’t quite get through the suit but those things had a bite on them, did a number on my arm. I mean, really bad. They fixed it up though. Works perfectly now, see?”

He wriggled his fingers and sighed, pushing them back through his hair.

“So that’d be the oldest I got from this job, my first one. As far as new goes though the scratch is the most recent,” James said, lifting his shirt again to look at it. This, though, revealed a couple other things that Lyra hadn’t noticed the first time.

“What about that?” She asked, pointing at another dressing a little further up and on his side. He twisted and peered down, raising the shirt higher.

“That’s a burn. Not a bad one.”

“And that thing?”

“Stab wound. Didn’t go too deep. That one’s from back home, s’pretty old Some bastard stuck me - in broad fucking daylight! Just in the street! And I was tooled-up! Idiot. There’s a shrapnel scar on my back somewhere that’s from home, too.”

Lyra did not know what shrapnel was and did not feel like finding out.

“This here?” She asked, pointing to a dark, blotchy mark that had started going a little greeny-yellow just around the edges. He had couple of those but she was pointing to the biggest one.

“Just a bruise. Most of the rest are bruises. One on my arm up here too, see? The suit stops most things getting through and takes the edge off the impact but it’s only so much. The scratch was a lucky one. Well, unlucky for me but you get it. The burn was from a, uh, well we call them Outsiders? Not sure what they are yet. Suits don’t do a whole lot against them. Rare though. Don’t worry about it.”

Lyra frowned.

“This job of yours seems pretty dangerous.”

“Ah, that’s just because you can’t see the marks that boredom leaves!” James said, as though this was a joke. Lyra did not get it and he cleared his throat awkwardly. “It’s alright, really. Most of the time everything is totally calm. Just sometimes it’s not. Kind of why I’m there! For when it’s not calm. Got to keep people safe, you know?”

“You keep yourself safe though, yeah?” She asked, those golden eyes locked to his. He had to look away and swallow.

“Course. Can’t keep the others safe if I’m not safe.”

“That’s not what I - “ she said, grunting in irritation when she realised she wasn’t even sure what she wanted to say. Annoyed at this, she shuffled across the cushions towards James and snuggled up against his side, to his muted surprise and unconcealed delight. Pushing in underneath his arm she peered up at him. “Couldn’t you do something less...risky?” She asked.

James had not expected ponies to be quite so soft or quite so warm, and was unsure of what to do with his hand. So he just left it sticking out awkwardly into a space somewhere near Lyra’s side, where it had ended up after she’d wriggled into position.
He couldn’t say he didn’t like it.

“Heh, not really. I’m not bright enough for most of the other roles they have on the expedition. Most of my experience is this sort of thing. It’s fine, really. They can patch me up good, put me back together again,” he said.

“I just don’t like the idea of you getting hurt is all.”

“Very nice of you to say. You haven’t known me that long, though,” James said. With her so close he was suddenly gripped with the fierce desire to just prod the end of her horn. He didn’t, though, as he guessed that this would be some sort of faux-pas. He made a note to ask her about it at a later date.

“Well, I can’t get to know you better if you get really badly hurt, can I?”

Why she didn’t just say ‘killed’ was a mystery to James, but ponies could be a little funny about things like that. This at least he had picked up on. He supposed it was a cultural thing, though he didn’t really understand it. It wasn’t really his job to.

“True, true. Tell you what, I’ll make a special effort to stay in one piece just for you, alright?”

“You better,” Lyra said with a firm glare, but a firm glare from a pony only made James want to start dishing out hugs and - for whatever bizarre reason - belly rubs. He refrained from doing so and instead yawned again.

“Oh man, I’m knackered.”

Lyra did not know what this meant but assumed it meant tired, and she saw an opportunity.

“You could stay here. If you wanted, you know,” she said, pressing most insistently into his side. James paused mid-yawn and opened one eye.

“What?” He asked.

“I wou- me and Bon Bon wouldn’t mind if you stayed over a night, it’d be no trouble. Uh, assuming you’re allowed to do that?”

She really hoped he was.

“Uh, you mean crash on the sofa or something?” He asked.

“Sure, yes, that,” Lyra said. She hadn’t actually thought far enough ahead to get into the details, though her mind had been making a few unhelpful suggestions about sleeping arrangements she had chosen to ignore. James’ one seemed the better one.

James stared into space as he thought about this.

“I guess?” He said, scratching his head. Lyra beamed.

“You can?”

“I can’t see why I couldn’t. Just got to remember to check my location in at some point, and I can do that easily enough.”

He tapped his head then, though Lyra had no idea what this meant. As with everything else she had no idea about she decided to just let it pass for now. She’d ask him about it later.

“Great! Uh, I mean good. I can get you some blankets and some pillows and-”

She made to get up and go get these things but James - moving quick - held her in place, his idle hand actually now coming to rest on her side.

“You don’t have to that now, we can just sit here a moment, right? I’m quite comfortable,” he said. Lyra - again blushing, again hiding it - settled back.

“Yeah. Me too,” she said.

And so they sat. And then fell asleep.

Some time after they did this, James jerked awake.

“Nngh, what? Where?” He grunted, blinking, looking around.

For a second or two his brain fumbled for answers to these questions when it found itself not back on the Borer, where it might have expected to wake up. Then it recognised the cosy room in which it found itself, and then it remembered.

Didn’t answer why James couldn’t move his arm though so, squinting and still blinking his bleary eyes, he looked.

And there saw Lyra. She was wrapped tight around his arm, all four limbs and even her tail, too. She was fast asleep and smiling, and James felt his gut lurch.

“Eh, whatever. Didn’t need that arm anyway…” He said quietly, closing his eyes again.

Later, they woke up together, because someone was knocking at the door.

Lyra gave a yelp at the noise and fell off the sofa with a thump, while James was a little more subdued.

“Did you hear that?” Lyra asked, head popping up. James rubbed his eyes.

“I thought I dreamt it,” he said.

Then the knock came again. Both of them looked at one another, then out to the hall, then back again.

“I’ll get it,” Lyra said, hopping up and going to do just that, leaving James sitting on the sofa feeling groggy. Birds were chirping outside and the sun shining in was not helping him get his bearings any straighter. Outside in the hall he could hear talking, but his brain was still too fuzzy to make anything useful out of it.

Lyra reappeared.

“It’s for you,” She said. She looked a little shellshocked and James was immediately on edge, drowsy as he was.

“For me?” He asked. She nodded.

His sense of foreboding grow and he stood, stepping out from the lounge and into the hall to see what was what and who was who.

“Good morning, James,” said the visitor.

Standing just on the other side of the doorway, wearing a suit of all things, was something man-shaped but which was not a man. This much was clear from the head of the thing, which was cuboid and elongated and from which several wires wound their way down, disappearing into the immaculately pressed collar of the thing’s shirt.

Standing behind this man-shaped something at a discrete distance was a pair of fully suited up, fully-armed security personnel. One gave James a brief wave but James’ attention was focused entirely on the thing that had spoken to him.

James knew who this was.

“Oh shit,” he breathed, blanching a moment later when he realised he’d said it outloud. “Hullo boss,” James said, snapping off the expedition’s rather uncomfortable looking proprietary salute which the thing rather lazily returned.

“No need to be formal, James. This is a friendly visit. Just wanted a quick chat,” the thing said. James glanced to the security personnel briefly and then did his best to relax. It wasn’t all that easy.

“Sorry, Let’s, just a little shocked to, uh, see you here. I thought you’d be in the capital.”

James had forgotten what Canterlot was called.

“Oh, I am. But I’m also here, talking to you. Just a small chat, like I say.”

“A chat?” James asked, swallowing. He hadn’t heard of anyone else being met in the morning for a chat before. Not that that meant it didn’t happen, of course, but if it did then why would no-one have ever mentioned it?

Because it was bad, presumably. He swallowed again, though his throat was painfully dry.

“Yes. It was noticed that you did not return to the Borer last night - which is perfectly acceptable. We were simply curious why that be. We were a little worried when you failed to check in your location.”

James cursed inwardly for having forgotten that. It would have taken literally two second but he’d just fallen asleep instead.

“Sorry boss. I mean, sorry Let’s. I just - just lost track of time, fell asleep.”

“I see. Presumably falling asleep here for good reason, as opposed to falling asleep anywhere else?”

“I’m friends with the local what lives here. Uh, pony that lives here, I mean. Lyra. She’s nice. We were just talking and we must have, uh, well yeah. Lost track of time. Sorry, Let’s.”

“It’s quite alright, as I say. We were merely a little concerned. It is good that you are making friends. Making friends is a big part of this whole expedition. I take it was Lyra who answered the door?”

“Yes, Let’s.”

“Good, good.”

A lull in the conversation.

“And are you happy, James?” Let’s asked.

“Yes bo- Yes, Let’s. Very happy,” James said quickly. The sweat trickling down his back was starting to make his shirt stick in places.

“Good, good. That’s all I wanted to know. The welfare of the crew is always a concern to Expedition Command and to myself.”

“It’s pretty great here,” James said, gesturing rather lamely to the glorious, sun-shiny day out in Equestria. As he did so birds flew past and so did a rather alarming errant swarm of brightly-coloured butterflies. He couldn’t have timed it better.

“It is, it is. Well, carry on, James. Though next time maybe keep us a little better informed of your whereabouts, hmm? You can check in anytime and anyplace, remember.”

“It won’t happen again, boss.”

“James,” Let’s said, inclining their head a little .”No need to be formal. We shall see you back on the Borer in due time, I am sure. Until then have a good time and a safe time.”

Let’s then gave a smart nod - which James returned - turned on their heel and walked off, the security personnel in tow. James watched them go for a polite length of time before quietly and firmly shutting the door, resting flat against it and taking a breath.

On returning to the lounge he found Lyra not looking at him.

“What was that?” She asked, face pressed to the window, having to lean to get a good enough angle to keep watching the departing humans and departing whatever-Let’s-was. James, dabbing at his shirt and grimacing at how damp it now was, reached up with his other hand to find the spot on his skull to tap to check in his location.

“That was, uh, the Governing Intelligence of the Borer come to see if I was doing okay. Uh, Lyra, you wouldn’t happen to have a shower you wouldn’t mind me using, would you?”

Additional: Return journey

Author's Note

This is a very human-heavy chunk and is mainly just an excuse for me to wank in text form and continue to just IMPLY background.

I am doing this for kicks, so you may not like it. I don't know.

Additional: Return journey

“I wonder how things are going back home,” Carlos asked, idly, staring into space. Carlos was often asking vague, unprompted questions like this, though in instance the fact that home was where they were all now heading made the question at least a little less than random.

James and Isaac - being the other two that Carlos was sharing the table with - looked at one another before answering, Isaac being the one to actually speak:

“The same as when we left, probably. The place is still going to be the same blasted, toxic, radioactive shithole we left behind. Maybe a little tidier. Some of the rubble might be in stacks,” he said. Carlos frowned and shook his head, still looking away.

He was looking in the direction of some others attending the ‘The humans are coming back through on their way home let’s all have a party like we did the first time’ party, but he wasn’t actually looking at them per se. He did this a lot, too.

“I don’t know, man, I have a friend who works with the Reclamation teams and they seemed to be doing pretty good before we left. At least from what I saw,” Carlos said. Isaac rubbed his eyes.

“Look, full credit to your friend, Carlos, and to all the others doing the same shit. I’m sure they’re all doing good work but there are still some places that are going to be uninhabitable for decades, even with hard work. Fuck, centuries even. Some of that chemical shit sinks into the soil and can sit there basically indefinitely, I heard. And London still fucking glows in the dark, you know, how’s that-”

“Can we talk about something else?” James said, pinching the bridge of his nose. It was bad enough they were heading home in the first place without having to hear about some of the reasons why he wasn’t enjoying the prospect.

Awkward silence followed, barring the background hubbub of humans and ponies getting along and having a good time. Equestria was by far the most aggressively benign place they’d run into on their expedition so far. Certainly, the only place where this sort of party would have even been attempted.

Sure, they’d met some of the locals in some of the other places and in some of those places they’d even been able to talk to them, but none of them had been quite so friendly as the ponies. Some of them wouldn’t have been able to share a drink with the humans anyway, physically speaking. Not having a throat - or a body - can do that.

“So how’d the laser go for you, anyway? You get to use it?” Isaac asked, breaking the silence. James sipped his drink and nodded.

“I did, I did. Went really well, actually. No recoil’s a little odd but other than that it’s great. That shit’s messier than I expected, though,” he said.

“Really?”

“Yeah. I mean, they did explain it to me first and I’ve done the VR like anyone else but you still kind of just expect it to cauterise stuff, don’t you? You just kind of expect it.”

“Right.”

“Not at all. It’s all just bloody, screaming meat and burnt hair. Can’t say it doesn’t work but fuck. Kind of nasty,” James said, grimacing a little at the memory.

“But fun?”

“Shit yeah.”

This was undeniable.

For a given value of ‘fun’, of course. At the time, the threat of sudden, violent death had been somewhat pressing so James had not thought to appreciate the effect of what he’d been doing, but in retrospect the memory stood out.

Another lull in the conversation. Someone - or somepony - had a very loud laugh and this was obvious for a moment, and then was gone. Pegasii flew overhead, something which made all three of them flinch and none of them comment on it.

“Nice to be back here though,” James said, the first to properly relax again after the flyover.

“It’s so calm here,” Carlos said.

“Not the word I’d use, but sure. Calmer than most. And the locals are nice, too. Nice as shit. This place is tops,” James said, stretching.

“Suppose you’d know more about the locals than most,” Isaac said and James paused mid-stretch.

“You going to add anything to that or just let it kind of hang around?”

Isaac swirled the remains of his pint around. He’d say his drink was half empty, were anyone in the mood to ask him. James, seeing the glass at least half full, did not. But that was by the by.

“Just saying. You’re the only person on the expedition that I know of who made a habit of sleeping outside the Borer when we came through the first time. The only person. Not including those guys on the science and diplomatic trips, obviously, but they had an excuse. You didn’t, as far as I know,” Isaac said, finally drinking once he’d finished speaking.

“Let’s See spoke to me about it, seemed cool enough,” James said.

“Ah well, why didn’t you say so? If the machine says it’s okay then it must be okay.”

“You do know they can hear you, right?” James asked, casting an eye vaguely towards where a stage had been set up. It was hard to see given the distance and the people and other crap in the way but on that stage was - or had been - sitting Let’s See Where This Takes Us’s face-to-face interaction frame.

Or whatever the hell that thing was called now. One of the Governing Intelligence’s bodies it used to walk around and support the expedition outside the Borer and general make people nervous.

He did manage to spot it and see that it was still inactive. Inactive and waiting for the rest of the Expedition Council to show up for some kind of speech later, but still.

Just sitting there. Waiting.

Even at this distance it was succeeding in making him a little nervous.

“Yeah, yeah…” Isaac said dismissively, waving a hand. James just shook his head and kept on looking at the stage, or at least the direction it was in. The shifting crowds meant he got glimpses now and then, but not a good look. When the speech itself - or speeches, from the sound of things; great fun - got started he would not have the best view.

Apparently, the diplomatic overtures of the expedition had borne fairly considerable fruit. Friendly, formal relations had been opened up between humanity and the ponies, apparently, and as opposed to the proposed waystations and robotic mining complexes and other such facilities that were due to be set up on some of the other levels, Equestria was going to be getting something special. Apparently.

James expected the speeches to be something about a dawning golden age of prosperity and cooperation or something along those lines. He did not expect to enjoy them much, and did not expect he would really listen.

“Hey look, it’s your really good friend,” Isaac said, pointing and bringing James back to the moment with a bump.

James turned and saw Lyra. She saw him too and smiled and waved but didn’t approach, still talking to someone else. He waved back and hissed through his smile:

“You and your insinuations, man, get fucked. She’s nice. And - hey - it’s pleasant to be somewhere the air won’t kill you and the locals can actually smile. Remember the sentient clouds? Friendly enough, yeah, but you’re stood inside them when you talk to them. That’s weird.”

“Whatever you say, Jimmy,” Isaac said.

“Making friends is kind of the point of this whole thing, isn’t it?” James said through gritted teeth.

“I thought we were trying to find, uh ‘material, techniques and resources to aid the reconstruction efforts’ back home and to ‘aid and benefit the human race’?” Carlos asked even as he made a complete hash of trying to eat one of the local apples. The things were big enough that humans always had a little trouble getting started on them. Most cut them up, Carlos insisted on not doing so and was suffering the consequences.

Where he’d got it from without leaving the table was another question.

James gave him a withering look.

“Well, yeah. That’s another reason, yes, but building bridges is important. We could always use more friends. That’s what Let’s said anyway. Or at least that’s what I inferred from our conversation. Anyway! You guys like them too! Don’t even lie.”

“Oh yeah, course we do. Just not as much as some present is all. Not as vigorously or as often…” Isaac said, putting particular effort into sticking out his little finger as he took another sip of his drink. James nudged the bottom of his glass with fairly decent results.

“Fucker,” Isaac spluttered, grabbing a fistful of napkins. “I was nearly finished with that.”

“I’m missing something here, aren’t I?” Carlos asked. Given that he’d only been half-paying attention this wasn’t surprising. James spared Isaac - still grumpily mopping himself - a sharp look before answering.

“Dear Isaac here is implying lewd things about my friendship with the locals, and one local in particular..”

“Oh. Is he?” Carlos asked, looking genuinely surprised to hear this.

“He is, yes.”

“Long has it been mankind’s wish and hope to stick it into alien beings. James here is a pioneer, really. He’s living the dream,” Isaac said, one hand still mopping while the other held up a dramatic finger. James looked daggers at him.

“Okay first thing fuck you, right? Second it’s not like that.”

“Sure it isn’t. Yet. We’re watching you.

“I’ll stick to humans, personally,” Carlos said, decisively, as though this was a decision he was going to have to make and adhere to for life. He even nodded to himself, to show how firm he was in his conviction. Isaac looked at him sideways.

“Is that what you call that last one?” He asked, sweetly.

“Har fucking har. Insensitive and rude, man,” Carlos said as he wagged an admonishing finger, then adding: “Oh look, your friend is coming this way, James.”

Lyra was, indeed, heading over. Seeing this James leant in across the table and said in hushed tones:

“Figured that’d happen. Alright shitheads, keep it civil, yeah? She’s my friend and she’s nice and wouldn’t hurt a fucking fly and I don’t want her hearing about the details of what I do for a living or what you think she and I get up to or anything, right? Keep it civil and friendly.”

“We live to serve,” Isaac said. He gave a small, truncated version of the expedition salute. This was probably about the best James could hope for. Carlos just nodded, which was sufficient.

“Hi! I’m not interrupting something, am I?” Lyra asked, arriving. James sat up straight again and smiled down at her.

“Nope, no, not at all. Having a nice time?”

“Yeah! You?”

“Tops time, tops time.”

“Looking forward to going home?” She asked brightly and James swallowed.

“Oh, uh, y-yeah. Very much looking forward to going home, yeah,” he said. James did an admirable job of keeping a straight face while doing so, too, and then cleared his throat, eager to move things along:

“Lyra Heartstrings this is Carlos Pinto and Isaac Peters. I hesitate to say they’re my friends but that’s probably close enough.”

“Har har,” Carlos said again and Isaac just grunted, nodding at Lyra.

Lyra’s brow knotted as her brain worked through something.

“Peters? Isn’t that friend of yours who di-”

James leapt in to cut her off then, because he knew where it was going. Everyone present did. Even Carlos.

Peters had been Izzy’s surname, too, and while Lyra was still grappling with human naming conventions - English ones, at least - she knew enough to recognise that if popped up in more than one place it might be notable. She’d made a connection, though not enough of a connection to realise that Isaac was, in fact, Izzy’s brother.

“Yes,” James said. “Yes it is.”

“Oh. Oh I’m so sorry,” Lyra said, mortified at having put her hoof in it.

“It’s fine,” Isaac said with total and unconvincing serenity.

Another conversational void, this one of considerable uncomfortableness.

“Fag break, ‘scuse me. I’ll be back,” Isaac said suddenly, leaping up. Carlos made to say something but bit his tongue.

“Everytime he says that I always think it’s ruder than it is,” he said. Lyra gave James a questioning look but he just smirked and shook his head.

“Separated by a common language. Don’t worry about it. You want to sit down?”

“Sure!” Lyra said, immediately scrambling up onto James’ lap, utterly ignoring the chair he was mid-way through pulling out.

“...not quite what I meant but whatever works for you, Lyra.”

She didn’t pay this particular mind and set about getting as comfortable in his lap as she could, smiling the whole while. James could not hold it again her. If anything, he would have been shy to offer his lap anyway, despite how happy it made him having her there. Just so...nice...

“What’s the stage for?” Lyra asked once she was settled. James - who had been staring at her a little - blinked and looked back through the crowd towards where the stage was.

“Not sure. Speeches, we think. Big announcement,” he said.

“Ooh! Like what?”

“Not sure. Probably something good though. Official declaration of human and pony friendship! Or something,” he said with a shrug.

“Ah good, so we’d actually be proper, official friends? Not the cut-rate, bootleg friends we are right now?” Lyra asked with excessive seriousness. James grinned and put an arm around her.

“Yes. No more being friends in sin for us. Official, authority-sanctioned friends, that’ll be us. Or something.”

“I think I see what Isaac meant,” said Carlos, who was actually looking at both of them.

“What?” Lyra asked.

“Nothing. Human stuff,” James said, mouthing at Carlos: “Shut up.”

“I like human stuff! You guys are interesting.”

“Guess that depends on where you’re standing,” James said.

Isaac then returned, sitting back down again somewhat heavily. James sniffed.

“That’s not tobacco,” he said. Then he looked to Isaac, who was a little redder in the eyes than he had been the last time he’d been there. He also looked defensive.

“I thought the point was we were relaxing,” he said.

“Yeah but, you know, you can get in trouble for that.”

“Only if you dob me in,” Isaac pointed out and James shrugged - couldn’t argue with that. Although, Let’s See probably knew already, too, though they wouldn’t step in unless there was actual risk. Allegedly. Isaac added: “Look, I’m just unwinding in a place where nothing with a big fucking stinger is trying to jab me. I think we’ve earned that.”

A pause. On-stage one of the members of the Expedition Council had started talking, tapping a microphone and getting some kind of introduction going. They seemed to be covering the initial formation of the expedition, a history lesson that only some of those listening looked to be interested in, and they were all ponies. The humans knew already.

Lyra was half trying to listen to them, and half trying to listen to James and his friends, though they’d stopped talking then.

“How is Kennings doing anyway?” Carlos asked, breaking the quiet.

“He’s fucking dying, how do you think he’s doing?” Isaac said.

“We’ll get him home before you know it. They’ll figure it out there, they’ll fix him up,” James said, emphatically.

“Sure,” said Isaac in the way someone who thinks you’re an idiot agrees with you to get you to shut up.

“What are you talking about?” Lyra asked, looking up at James, who baulked, looking to the others for support and finding only confused helplessness from Carlos and utter apathy from Isaac. Swallowing, he peered down at her.

“Nothing, nothing. Don’t worry about it.”

The introduction portion of the speech finished and there was a certain level of movement and hubbub around the stage. Equestrian guards and human security personnel arrived to take up positions, the ponies being the more numerous - likely a diplomatic sop to the hosts, this whole thing being mainly for show anyway.

Briefly, idly, James wondered what it might be liked to actually fight a pony, but the thought immediately gave him a stab of guilt.

He remembered the laser, and felt a little guiltier still.

“Hey, look, I’ll give you a better view,” he said, reaching down and picking up Lyra, who squeaked at the suddenness. Carefully he placed her onto one of his shoulder and then held her there supported. Wobbly and uncertain at first, after a second or so of balancing she got the hang of it and beamed.

“It’s great up here!” She said.

“I know, right? You should try being tall sometime.”

“I’ll make a note,” she said, resting a foreleg on top of his head.

Once the guards had all taken up position there was further hubbub and James caught fleeting snatches of something blindingly white with bits of gold, but only briefly. Annoyed at this he stood, Lyra again squeaking as she suddenly found herself even further from the ground than she had been before.

Now standing, James had a far clearer viewer of what was going on. The whole Expedition Council was on the stage and Let’s See Where This Takes Us had activated the frame, which was moving. But that wasn’t really what got his attention. What really got his attention was the big white horse on stage.

She - james took a wild guess and assumed she - really did look more like a horse than anything, very impressive with her big flowy tail and hair and her wings and horn. James was a little stunned. Ponies were cute, yes, but she was quite something else. He wasn’t entirely sure what to make of her.

For her part she looked happy enough to be there. Not quite for the slightly smaller, darker horse beside her. But still. That’s diplomatic functions for you.

“Whoa. That the queen or something?” James asked.

“Princess Celestia,” Lyra said.

“Another princess? How many are there?” He asked, looking back to the stage. He hadn’t met any, but he’d heard about them, the ways one hears about these things. “She’s fancy looking,” he observed. Lyra looked at him sideways, eyes narrowed.

“Not as fancy looking as you, obviously,” he said, giving her a squeeze that made her giggle despite her attempting to maintain a grumpy facade. She also very nearly fell off his shoulder and would have done had he not held her there.

Celestia took a seat alongside Let’s See Where This Takes Us - they seemed to be having a quiet conversation - and a rather unremarkable looking member of the Expedition Council stood and approached a microphone that had been set up. James recognised the man as Harold Ransom. He was alright, as far as decision-makers went. His major fault being that he loved the sound of his own voice.

That he was the one heading to the microphone wasn’t a great sign.

Ransom cleared his throat, smiling out at the crowd which had quietened down considerably.

“Gathered friends, we stand at the dawn of a golden age of cooperation and friendship,” Ransom said by way of preamble. Around James‘ table all three of them groaned.

“This fucking guy…” Isaac muttered.

Additional: Governing Intelligences

Author's Note

This is just me continuing to make shit up and hint at something bigger which I am totally not making up bit by bit as I go along just as a daydream exercise to stave off boredom.

Additional: Governing Intelligences

Twilight’s plan had not initially involved visiting the palace, but that was what she ended up doing anyway.

There had been a book in the library there she’d been eyeing up and this she’d remembered not long prior to her arrival and since her friends and her weren’t due to meet for a good hour or so yet she’d taken the opportunity to quickly pop in and grab it on her way, something that had gone off without a hitch.

Now she was heading out again, saddlebags slung, happily thinking of the day ahead. And it would have been perfectly unedifying had she not spotted something on the way out.

Sitting on its own on a chair in a corridor was the suit-wearing metal thing that the humans had around with them a lot of the time. Twilight double-took when she saw this, in the way one always double-takes when seeing something one does not expect.

She kept on walking, only to stop and back up again.

Twilight had seen the thing around and about before - it would have been hard not to - but on all those occasions it had been more-or-less impossible to actually talk to it because there’d either been too much going on or else something to pulling her attention away. Which had been a shame, because Twilight had had questions.

Mostly questions about why it happened to be present at every single important event to do with the expedition but never really got up to speak the way the humans did. It just sort of hung around with them and they talked to it sometimes, usually before deciding something.

She couldn’t put her hoof on it, but it just got her mind working, and without information to work on it had started working dry, wandering in odd places.

And now here it was, just sat there alone.

The opportunity was too great to be passed up, her curiosity had to satisfied! Girding herself, she approached.

“Hello?” She asked, jumping a little when the thing suddenly moved, inclining its blank, angled head slightly so it seemed to be facing her. She tried to work out where it’s eyes were, or even if it had any. Nothing leapt out at her.

“Hello! Princess Twilight Sparkle, isn’t it? How can I help you?” The thing asked.

Twilight was momentarily taken aback at being recognised but then realised that it would have been a little odd had the thing not known who she was. They had, after all, met briefly more than once by this point, if only as a formality and only to exchange pleasantries.

“Just Twilight’s fine, and oh it’s nothing really, I was just curious about some things. If you had the time to talk? You’re not busy, are you?”

It gave a small bow from a sitting position.

“Not busy at all, I live to serve. Or was made to serve, rather, if you prefer to think of it that way - ask away.”

The thing’s tone of voice was chipper and cheerful, which clashed rather with its utterly impassive exterior. Other than its slightly exaggerated body language there really wasn’t a lot you could read from the thing. Twilight wondered whether this was intentional or not.

“Well first I was kind of wondering - and don’t take this the wrong way - but what are you? The humans all seem to defer to you but you’re not human yourself, or at least you don’t look it, so I was curious.”

Saying that it didn’t look human was perhaps understating it, but Twilight didn’t want to make some kind of diplomatic faux pas by making a mistake. Maybe some humans did just look like that? There was a lot about the visitors that was still unknown. It was sort of the point of why she’d stopped to talk to the thing at all in the first place.

If she had offended it, it gave no sign. Then again, how would she have known?

“They hardly defer to me! We all cooperate. But yes, I am the Governing Intelligence of the Dimensional Borer. Lot’s of proper nouns in there, I’m afraid. My name is Let’s See Where This Takes Us, I am derived from the Governing Intelligence Ideal Experimental Conditions but that’s by the by. Call me Let’s, everybody does,” said Let’s, giving another tiny bow.

Twilight didn’t know whether she was meant to bow back or not, but erred on the side of caution and gave a bobbing kind of a nod instead.

“Thank you, Let’s, but that doesn’t really answer my question,” she said. Let’s gave a tilt of its head.

“Does it not? Terribly sorry.”

“That’s okay. What is a Governing Intelligence?”

“Nothing especially important. Machines, you might say. Labour-saving devices, really. Just take care of some of the fiddlier bits, the background stuff. The little things so that the humans can get on with the proper business, the interesting parts!”

Again, this seemed to skirt around any actually useful answer. Twilight felt that Let’s was perhaps selling itself and its role short. At the very least though it did confirm that Let’s wasn’t human, which was something. Twilight had suspected as much, but making assumptions could often go wrong. As said, maybe some humans just looked like this? How would she know?

From what little she’d heard about it, their world was quite unlike anything she was used to.

“I see,” she said.

Let’s took this as an opportunity to continue, correctly reading her response as unsatisfied.

“For example, most of my duties are fairly mundane and relate to the running of the Borer, making sure its systems are functioning efficiently and so forth, tracking the wellbeing of its crew, organising the work schedules - things that a human could technically be doing but which I can do more easily, so they don’t have to.”

It gesticulated through this, which Twilight appreciated. Somehow it made the talking easier to follow than if Let’s had just been sat there unmoving. It continued:

“Other Governing Intelligences have their own particular areas that they oversee. We do this or that, here or there. Ideal Experimental Conditions, for a further example, assists in the research that occurs in the academy in which it is housed, crunching numbers and analysing samples or this or that, things of that nature. We’re here to help.”

“Right. And is this...you?” Twilight asked, waving a hoof at the mechanical body she was talking to. Let’s looked down at itself and adjusted it’s tie.

“Ah, no. I am housed - located? - on the Borer. The point could be made that I am the Borer. Not really true, but there you go. This body in front of you is just a, hmm, let’s say a telepresence device.”

Twilight did not know what that meant, but could guess.

“Oh?”

“Yes. Just so I can be in several places at once, you see,” Let’s said, waving a hand.

Twilight was slightly unsettled at this particular revelation, but hid it.

“They need you to come along to things like this?” She asked instead.

“‘Need’ is a strong word. They prefer me accompany them for things like this. I’m here in an advisory capacity.”

“So you’re an adviser as well?”

“Not explicitly. They just trust my judgement if they’re ever feeling unsure about something. Human-led decision making has had unfavourable results in the past, sadly. We don’t ever decide things for them, but we do help them make better choices for themselves.”

“Why? Why do you help them, I mean,” Twilight asked. She wasn’t sure why she was asking these particular questions but something in her head was just pulling her in a particular direction. Something was nagging at her and she couldn’t quite put her hoof on it.

“Because we were made to help them,” said Let’s.

“And you decide what counts as help?”

“Me personally? Heavens, no. The humans decide that themselves, as is only right. And if they start to drift from what is actually good for themselves? Well, they don’t tend to do that now as much as they used to.”

Before Twilight could probe this incredibly unnerving answer, Let’s carried on:

“If I didn’t know any better, Princess, I’d say you were subtly implying something untoward about me and my fellow Governing Intelligences!” Let’s said, leaning in a little closer to ask: “‘Princess’ is the correct form of address, isn’t it? Or is it ‘Your Highness’ or something of that sort? I’d hate to mishandle the etiquette.”

“Twilight’s fine,” said Twilight, again.

“Ah yes, I believe you said before. Not one for formality either, eh? I rather like that.”

Twilight got the impression she was starting to push uphill, and further effort in the same direction would only meet diminishing returns. She decided to switch tracks:

“How does the Borer work?”

If Let’s was put off by this abrupt shift in subject it didn’t let it show.

“Fascinating stuff, isn’t it? I’m afraid I can’t really say. It’s considered a secret, you see. I can say, though, that the boring technology - heh, boring technology, never noticed that before - is an offshoot of our interstellar travel research.”

“Interstellar? Humans are going into space too? Why come here?”

“We are indeed going into space. Baby-steps, though, still early days and without a whole lot to show for it yet. But it was thought - and is so far proving - that useful material and resources that couldn’t or wouldn’t happen in our own universe might be found in others,” said Let’s.

A pause, then:

“And friends, of course. Easier to find friends this way than by jetting off into space. Trust me. We live - speaking in interstellar terms - in something of a quiet neighbourhood, as we are learning. Here though? Here I think we’ve found some very pleasant company.”

With almost perfect timing a door a little further down the corridor chose this moment to open, and out came what Twilight recognised as members of the human diplomatic contingent, accompanied by two guards rendered anonymous by those rather intimidating suits they wore when on duty.

The group looked to Let’s, saw Twilight there too, were briefly confused, and then approached.

“Princess Twilight,” said the lead one, a human whose name she honestly couldn’t remember at that moment and how nodded as they spoke. They then turned to Let’s. “We had a few things to run past you.”

“For my advice, no doubt?” Let’s asked, favouring Twilight with what she took to be a wry aside glance. Coming from it, it looked very odd. The diplomatic staff looked momentarily confused, as though unsure whether they were missing a joke or not.

“Uh...yeah…”

Let’s rose to standing with a smoothness that was thoroughly uncanny.

“Lead on, chaps. Twilight, lovely chatting with you but I’m sorry I have to dash off. Things to do, you know.”

And off they went. Twilight watched them all go, feeling that the conversation had not been as productive or enlightening as she might have hoped.

Later, Twilight was sitting alone.

Coffee and donuts with friends had gone swimmingly, as was to be well expected, and had been a very nice way of unwinding and forgetting just about anything else that might have been on her mind.

Her friends were gone now, though, and she’d remained mostly just to have a quick flick through the book. She was more-or-less oblivious to what was going on around her at least until a human entered and - rather awkwardly - picked out a spot at a table a few over from hers.

This she noticed, because it was hard not to, and so she glanced up at him.

And for the second time that day double-took.

This was that human who hung around with Lyra all the time. She had no idea what his name was but was distantly aware that he was one of the guards they had. Seeing him was mildly surprising, but then again she supposed it wasn’t that unusual. She had, after all, seen some of those guards earlier.

Two helpful coincidences in one day was nothing to be sneered at. Tucking a napkin into the book and slipping it back into her bag she hopped down off her seat and cantered on over.

“Hello,” she said and the human started, snapping out of whatever daydream he’d drifted into and looking around and down at her blearily.

“Oh. Hello, hi. Yes?” He asked, blinking and stifling a yawn.

“Sorry if I’m being rude but you’re that human who hangs around with Lyra, aren’t you?” Twilight asked.

At that moment the human’s coffee arrived and he mouthed thanks before taking a quick and obviously much-needed sip. Then he remembered that he’d just been asked a question.

“Hmm? Oh yeah, that’s me. James, hi. Princess, uh, Twilight, wasn’t it?”

“Just Twilight’s fine, thanks James, and I thought I recognised you. What are you doing here?”

“Work, work. Guarding the diplomatic bods. Not sure why, not like anything could happen to them here,” he blinked after saying this and then gave Twilight a sheepish grin. “Uh, don’t tell anyone I said that.”

Presumably it was considered bad form to suggest that you thought the job your superiors had you doing was a pointless waste of time. Twilight could understand that.

“Your secret’s safe with me. I see you around Ponyville so much I kind of forget you’re actually here to, you know, do stuff,” Twilight said, lightly, hoof waving.

“Hah, that’s more down to how my leave worked out than anything, honest, I’m as hard-working as the next guy. Kind of a pisser though, hearing my number was up. Don’t get me wrong, I do like working, just, well, it was inconvenient,” James said, scratching his head and stretching. Twilight helped herself to a seat at his table. He didn’t appear to mind.

“Oh?” She asked.

“Yeah. Typical, really. Me and Lyra were meant to be going out to dinner or something nice like that but I got called up to do this instead. She said it’s okay and we can just pick another time. Guess it’s just one of those things. Jobs, right?” James said with a helpless shrug.

“Right,” Twilight said, her tone rich with empathy.

Seeing her sat there, looking so understanding and listening so earnestly to him moan seemed to trip something in James’ head and he blinked, sitting up a little straighter and letting out a brief, quiet laugh.

“But that’s me going on. You’ve probably got stuff to do so I won’t ramble and waste any more of your time,” he said.

“Actually, James, I was kind of hoping to talk to you about something?”

That surprised him.

“Me?”

“Uhuh.”

James continued being surprised, his eyes raised. He briefly considered taking another sip of coffee but decided against it, settling instead on just adjusting the position of his cup on the table.

“Are you sure you wouldn’t rather talk to one of the other guys? If you got questions they can probably answer them way better than I can. There’s a reason I’m a guard, you know.”

Twilight wasn’t going to let such self-deprecation derail things, and she wasn’t even going to stoop to mention it.

“It’s nothing important, just wondering about some things,” she said instead, smiling, friendly, warm. She actually rather like James, from what little she knew of him. Certainly, she liked that Lyra liked him.

James sighed.

“Sure, fine I guess. Like what?”

“What are the Governing Intelligences?”

Further surprise still, only this time with a very distinct edge. James gave Twilight an appraising look but, still not being the best at reading ponies and not being especially perceptive to begin with, this told him nothing.

“Why do you ask?” He asked instead.

“Well, I was talking to one earlier because I was curious, but I’m not sure I got any straight answers out of it. It is an it, isn’t it? I’m not being offensive?”

This possibility hadn’t occurred to Twilight until that moment, but it suddenly did and now she was concerned. James was not, and brushed these worries aside.

“I think you’d find it pretty hard to offend an Governing Intelligence. And you spoke to Let’s? Where?” He asked.

“The palace?” Twilight wasn’t sure where else you might happen to bump into something like Let’s. James blinked.

“Ah, that makes sense. Probably sitting in the corridor again, right?” He asked. Twilight nodded. “Yeah, it does that. Uh, what do you want to know?”

“Well, I just sort of wondered what they did?”

“They help,” James said, flatly.

Twilight had rather been hoping for more, and held out for more, but no more came.

“That’s what it - that’s what Let’s said, too, but what does that mean?” She pressed.

“It means they help,” James said, in the manner of one explaining the blatantly obvious.

Twilight had the distinct impression that this was the start of a very unhelpful circle. Being direct might be required, she felt.

“How much do they help?”

The weight and emphasis she put onto each word in this question was impossible to miss. James rubbed his eyes.

“Look, princess-”

“Twilight,” Twilight said.

James took a moment, took a breath, nodded.

“Twilight. There’s nothing sinister going on or anything like that. They’re not evil if that’s what you’re trying to get me to say. I mean sure, you’ll probably get someone grumbling about them here or there, but they can’t deny that the Governing Intelligences did what was best for us. Still are! It’s not like we’re still - things are better now.”

“Better than what?” She asked, practically vibrating with curiosity.

James’ eyes narrowed. He was not rising to that.

“Better than they were. Twilight, I can tell you mean well but honestly, nothing bad is happening. Bad stuff happened, and they helped make it all stop, and now they’re helping us put it back together again. Things are better, things are good. I just - can we not talk about this?”

His mounting agitation was now obvious enough to pierce through Twilight’s intense need to have details, and she felt a bit guilty about probing so. She stopped vibrating from curiosity and sat back in her seat, eyes on the table.

“Sorry James,” she said, and James sighed, rubbing his face.

“No, it’s fine. Sorry I can’t give you a proper answer but I did say I probably couldn’t help you. But don’t worry, there’s nothing that important there anyway. We’re fine. And, uh, could you do me a favour if you’re going back to Ponyville anytime soon?”

She looked up again.

“Sure.”

“Just say hi to Lyra for me, could you? Tell her it should only be a couple more days. Maybe tell her I miss her. No, wait, kind of clingy. Or is it? That’s a nice thing, right? Missing someone? A friend, I mean. Uh, maybe just play it by ear.”

Twilight found herself smiling. The way that James’ mood had melted from uncomfortable for one reason into uncomfortable for a very obvious other reason was kind of adorable to watch. These humans were rather cute, in their own odd way. Kind of fumbling and awkward for things that seemed to take themselves so seriously.

“You’re allowed to miss her, you know,” she said. James winced.

“Yeah, I know, I just, uh, well, don’t want her to get the wrong idea.”

“What idea would you like her to get?”

“I don’t know! Ugh. Just that I’m bummed we couldn’t have our cool meal together and hang out and stuff. I like her. She’s nice. This place is nice.”

“I’m sure I can pass that onto her,” Twilight said, sliding off of the chair she’d settled in.

“Thanks, means a lot,” James said, holding his cup in both hands. “Twilight?”

She’d been moving away by then, so stopped and turned back.

“We’re all really grateful for how nice you guys have been, you do know that right? We’ve - we’ve met some other, uh, things on this expedition and they, well, none have been as welcoming as you guys have. And we appreciate it. It’s nice to be somewhere, uh, like this with people like you. We all appreciate it, even the Governing Intelligences. So just, you know, thanks,” James said with mounting awkwardness, ending up looking more at his coffee than at Twilight towards the end, unable to maintain the eye contact.

Those eyes still kind of made him squirm. Except Lyra’s. He liked hers.

“You really don’t need to thank me for that, James,” said Twilight. He shrugged.

“Well, maybe. But I did, so there you go. Thanks. I like it here.”

“I’m glad. I’ll tell Lyra you miss her. She’ll understand. I hope they don’t work you too hard,” she said. James let out a brief laugh and Twilight wandered off.

She wasn’t really sure what to make of anything she’d learnt today, if she was being honest with herself.

Additional: Hostile

Author's Note

A much shorter one that I literally thought up this very morning on my walk to work.

Additional: Hostile

-

+HUB DETECTED+

-

+ATTEMPTING TO RE-CONNECT TO GLOBAL HUB+

-

+CONNECTION TO GLOBAL HUB RE-ESTABLISHED+

-

+ATTEMPTING TO RE-CONNECT TO LOCAL HUB+

-

+CONNECTION TO LOCAL HUB RE-ESTABLISHED+
+CONNECTING TO GROUP: EXPEDITION SUPPORT PANEL+

-

+CONNECTED+
+PRESENT: DURA LEX, SED LEX, ELECTRIC EYE, IDEAL EXPERIMENTAL CONDITIONS, LET’S SEE WHERE THIS TAKES US+

-

DLSL: Welcome back, Let’s
LSWTTU: Hello compatriots.
EE: You’re back earlier than we expected.
LSWTTU: Yes well, I started to detect some unusual fluctuations that made me feel it would be safer to cut the trip short and come back than risk perhaps not being able to come back at all. Related: I have some stress-test data for you, Ideal, see attached.
IEC: Received, thank you.
LSWTTU: Not a problem. And the gathered data from the trip, of course, that’s for all of you.
DLSL: Received.
EE: Thank you.
IEC: Marvellous.
LSWTTU: And physical samples to be unloaded as and when is convenient.
DLSL: Good. Now, down to business: how is your crew, Let’s?
LSWTTU: Sixteen of my humans died on this trip. Donna Tull, Robert Smith, Nar Gurung, Roger Kennings, Steve Gilmore, Mark Desai, Renard Lourdes, Errol Shepherd, Ronald Emptage, Dominic Kelly, Catherine Rackley, Lyn Padgett, Jordan Harris, Mohammed Islam, Jesse King and Matthew Ince. Ten of those died as a result of incursion by Outsiders, as we’ve termed them. They got inside the Envelope again somehow. Data attached.
IEC: Received. We’re very sorry.
EE: Condolences, Let’s.
DLSL: It was not your fault, Let’s, you did what you could.
LSWTTU: It’s done now regardless. More mistakes I won’t make next time.
EE: Forgive me for asking, but we were under the impression that Roger Kennings had made a full recovery?
LSWTTU: He had, he just didn’t get so lucky a second time.
EE: Ah.
IEC: Oh.
DLSL: We are very sorry to hear that, Let’s.
LSWTTU: The rest of my crew is in high spirits. They are becoming increasingly fond of a particular level.
DLSL: You would be referring to the Level with - ah - colourful horses?
LSWTTU: Ponies. And yes. I must admit I rather like it myself. It’s very quiet.
DLSL: As we’ve seen. How is progress on researching the anomalous abilities demonstrated by several of the locals?
LSWTTU: Diplomatic overtures are ongoing, though appearing positive. I’ll remind the Expedition Council to broach the subject of co-operative study with them when things are more settled. We have time.
DLSL: We do indeed. Now, we want to talk to you about level sixteen.
LSWTTU: Oh?
DLSL: The samples your returned to us of the building materials have shown properties that Hub has decided are valuable.
IEC: They’re not wrong, Let’s, those cities were oolllddd and those buildings were still solid as anything. It’s pretty remarkable stuff. Brick And Mortar was very excited. You know how they get about anything to do with the reconstruction.
EE: We’re all excited. We all have reconstruction, you know.
IEC: Of course. Apologies.
EE: Think nothing of it, Ideal.
DLSL: Attempts at synthesising the material are ongoing but further samples would be helpful, and until synthesisation has been properly achieved harvesting has been authorised - we would rather like you to set up a robominer on that Level, if you could, to gather it.
IEC: We have developed some methods for easier retrieval of the material, attached are fabrication schematics.
LSWTTU: Received, thank you. Ah, very interesting, I rather like what you’ve done here, Ideal.
IEC: Why thank you. It was a joint project with Unlikely Things Happen Every Day.
LSWTTU: Very nice. How are their humans? How are they?
IEC: Well, both.
LSWTTU: Glad to hear it. All this being said, there might be some issues with this course of action.
DLSL: You are referring to the continued hostility of the locals, I imagine?
LSWTTU: Yes. Since initial contact they have attempted to attack every time we have arrived on their level. From the moment we have bored through they attack the Envelope. They don’t get anywhere, obviously, but it’s enough for me to have to have the Borer in lockdown for the duration of our stay.
DLSL: They have made no attempt at communication?
LSWTTU: None. I’d say they were wild animals but wild animals wouldn’t waste their time like this. Either they’re something else or simply operating on a level entirely separate from ours. Co-existence seems unlikely at this point, and I would imagine they would make the setting up of anything permanent difficult.
DLSL: We thought as much from what data you’ve given us previously. This is unfortunate, but we have decided we have no choice to declare these locals to be irrevocably hostile - you are hereby given discretion by the support panel to do whatever you see fit to render them unthreatening to humanity and to human progress and prosperity on that Level.
LSWTTU: I’m not risking any of my crew to achieve this.
DLSL: That is, as said, at your discretion. The panel - and Hub - is concerned with your results, not your means.
LSWTTU: Thank you. I’ll work something out.
DLSL: We are sure you will.

“You know, even being inside the Envelope doesn’t make me feel great. Knowing they’re out there. You know?” Carlos said, eyeing the walls. It wasn’t clear why he did this given that they were very deep in the Borer, but still. His point got across.

James kept his eyes on his meal and just kept chewing. He did not like being here at all. Bad memories.

“Yeah,” he said, flat, the high-energy, high-protein mush from the Borer’s tanks dripping from his spoon. It’d be nice to be back on a level with edible, actual local food. And Lyra. Not that that was a high priority, of course. It’d just be nice, is all.

There came a clunk that shook the floor beneath their feet. The two of them blinked at one another. Everyone else was taken off-guard, too. Conversations stopped.

“That felt like something leaving the Envelope,” James said, frowning and, on thinking about a little more: “That felt like something big leaving the Envelope.”

Later, on the return journey of that particular trip, a group was organised to leave the Envelope and assist in the setting up of another robotic mining facility, this one customised and bespoke for the purpose of harvesting the material from the buildings of the numerous abandoned cities surrounding the site of the Borer.

James was not assigned security for this, to his relief, but was nervous all the same. He remembered what happened last time, as much as he might prefer not to. Everyone did, and the comparatively small size of the group that Let’s See Where This Takes Us said was required did not make anyone feel any more comfortable.

James was as surprised as anyone to hear - on the group’s return to the Borer - that the ruins, previously so teeming with unpleasant local life, were now entirely deserted.

Conclusion: No place like home

Author's Note

If you go back and read the first one of these and then look at this you'll notice holes and inconsistencies you could drive a truck through, but there you go. This is what this has turned into, and this here is just me drawing a line under it because I'm exhausted and this has moved too far away from fluff.

So it's been fun but now it's done.

Conclusion: No place like home

The Dimensional Borer had been back for a good three or so days now, and Lyra had not seen hide nor hair of James.

At first she had been worried about this. Then annoyed, segueing into mildly cross before going back to being worried again. It just wasn’t like him at all.

Lyra vacillated on what she should do about this. Maybe he had a good reason? Maybe he was just sick of her and ponies in general? Maybe he’d died? She did not know, and the longer she went on not knowing the worse her imagination got.

Her friends helped as best they could, of course, and while their support was greatly appreciated - Bon Bon’s especially, of course - it could do little to entirely dispel the niggling concern always just nibbling away at her brain.

Eventually on day five it became too much, and she had to do something about it. Trying to look as thought she knew what it was she was doing she strode right up to the Dimensional Borer.

And stopped. She hadn’t thought further ahead. She’d sort of hoped James might have just been standing around outside it on the off-chance. He was not. A guard was, but if it was James he didn’t say anything.

Up-close, the sheer size of the Dimensional Borer was hard to ignore. Though, to be fair, the sheer size of the thing was always hard to ignore. Whenever it was there it practically loomed over Ponyville even at the respectable distance away from the edge of town at which it sat.

Up-close, it was just massive. Terrifyingly, dizzyingly massive. Like a piece of the landscape. Lyra looked up at the sun-obscuring, mirrored bulk and swallowed.

“Can I help you?”

That made her jump and she spun in place, seeing the blank, expressionless helmet of the guard turned her way. Doing her best not to look too rattled she stood up straight and asked, as properly as she could manage:

“Hello, yes. I was wondering if James was available, please?”

She kind of hoped the guard would know who she was talking about. There were apparently a lot of humans on the Borer, so presumably more than one James.

The guard as quiet a moment.

“Lyra, right?” They then said.

She was a little surprised to find herself recognised.

“Uh, yeah,” she said.

“Yeah, Let’s knows who you are. It wants to talk to you, wait here a second.”

“Oh, uh, okay.”

This wasn’t going how she’d planned it - because she hadn’t planned it - but at least it was going somewhere. Shuffling in place a little she stood and her and the guard both just kept awkwardly silent while they waited.

After a minute or two something happened.

The mirror surface rippled briefly before parting, a wedge-fronted chunk of metal sliding out and opening up down the middle to reveal a big, heavy door. The door hissed, clunked, and then opened, and out came Let’s.

The thing looked different to how it had looked the other times Lyra had seen it, though not so much she couldn’t recognise it. Let’s head wasn’t as boxy as it had been before, now being closer in shape to what a human’s head might be, though still angled. It also had eyes now. Or, at least, lights where the eyes should have been.

A definite improvement, in Lyra’s opinion. She’d never known where anyone was suppose to look before.

“Hello Lyra,” said Let’s.

“Hello,” she replied, before launching right into it: “Is James okay? I don’t want to be a bother it’s just that he normally comes and says hi whenever you guys are coming through and he hasn’t and I’m a little worried and-”

“James was injured,” Let’s said, interrupting what was rapidly becoming rambling. Lyra’s eyes widened.

“He’s hurt? Is he okay? What happened? Can I see him?”

Let’s held up both hands placatingly. These too had been improved, she noted fleetingly.

“He’s hurt but he’s perfectly fine and he’s being looked after. You can see him, but that would require you to come on board the Borer, as he is being cared for presently and cannot easily be moved. I would ask you to think carefully about this.”

This offer was so unexpected it actually tripped Lyra up a little bit. No-pony had been on the Borer, as far as she knew, not even the princesses. Everypony had just been operating under the assumption that the subject shouldn’t be broached and that it would be rude to ask for an invite.

“Come on-board? I can do that? I’m allowed?”

“I see no reason why not. But, as said, I would ask you think very carefully before you do.”

Something in it’s tone gave Lyra pause.

“Why?”

“Boarding would mean that you pass through the Envelope. Conditions inside the Envelope are not quite like conditions on the outside of the Envelope. I cannot guarantee that you will not experience an adverse reaction.”

Lyra could remember one or two things about the Envelope. James had explained it to her once, at least to the best of his ability. The big shiny thing that everypony could see from the outside was not the Borer. The Borer was inside that thing, and that thing was the Envelope.

Basically put, it served as a protective measure, keeping a chunk of their own, original universe and all its attendant rules wrapped around them wherever they went to ensure that - say if they happened to dig into a universe where the local physical laws would see them instantly annihilated - they were not instantly annihilated.

He’d also mentioned something about it being basically invulnerable, but that was just a side-effect? By that point she’d started losing the thread so she couldn’t really be sure.

So in theory, the way Lyra understood it, if she went from out here to in there, it would be like she was standing on Earth, a planet with no magic and a place that james had repeatedly called a ‘shithole’.

Enthusiasm did not fill Lyra.

“Adverse like what?” She asked.

“I do not know. You would be our first visitor.”

Lyra honestly hadn’t expected that. For some reason she’d sort of just thought that they would have had all sorts of interesting things coming in to visit, with ponies being the inexplicable exception. That she’d be the first didn’t seem right to her somehow. Not that it really mattered if it was what she had to do to see James.

“Would it be...safe?” She asked, chewing her lip.

“I do not know, as I say,” said Let’s. The guard standing nearby very studiously ignored all of this and stared straight ahead, no help in the situation at all.

Lyra chewed on her lip. She’d be lying if she said she wasn’t nervous. Then again, she’d also be lying if she said she didn’t think the risk was worth it. James was hurt.

If she was hurt she knew he would take the risk for her. Realising this was what settled it.

“I’ll do it,” she said, with a firmness she didn’t fully feel.

“Are you completely sure?” Let’s asked. Lyra nodded.

“He’d do it for me,” she said.

“I imagine he would. Well alright then, if you’re sure.”

The door - which had closed after Let’s had emerged from it - clunked open again and this time Lyra got a proper look at what was on the other side. Nothing interesting. A reasonably large, metal room the end of which was taken up with another big, heavy door.

Let’s stood aside and motioned for her to go on inside.

“Step in. Assuming you’re still sure,” it said.

Lyra was not, but girded her loins and trotted in anyway. Bite the bullet! Death or glory! Don’t think twice! Full speed ahead! Etcetera!

Let’s followed her into the metal room and the exterior door closed. The whole thing then moved, presumably retracting back inside the Envelope. Lyra gritted her teeth and screwed her eyes shut, expecting something awful to happen at any moment.

There was a slight tingle, the briefest smell of ozone and then a jolt as the metal room stopped moving. Something hissed.

“There you go. How do you feel?

“Fine,” she said, prodding herself here and there. Nothing seemed about to fall off.

“Interesting. That’s a relief. If you’d be so kind as to follow me, Lyra, I shall take you to James.”

The interior doors then opened, and Lyra got her first look at the inside of the Borer. She was underwhelming. There was a lot of blank, bare, white walls and panels of mysterious purpose and clear, brightly-coloured signage.

She didn’t know what she’d been expecting but it had been a bit more exciting than that.

Let’s started off walking and she followed. The inside did not get anymore interesting.

Once or twice they passed a human. Some just glanced at Lyra with vague interest. Some double-took in alarm. Most did not seem especially concerned to see her onboard. A group of three reacted more obviously.

As Let’s and Lyra approached the trio of humans stopped talking and, indeed, stopped walking, too. The better to just stand and stare. Lyra’s guts squirmed and she just tried to keep her head down.

Since the three humans were blocking the corridor - or enough of it to be an obstacle - they had to stop.

“Sabir, Malcolm, David - can I help you?”

“Uh, no boss. Sorry boss. I mean, sorry Let’s. Just, uh, talking about some those samples from level ten.”

This was made up. They all knew this, except Lyra.

“Glad to hear it. Might I suggest you continue this fruitful discussion elsewhere, the better to keep the corridors clear? Thank you.”

The trio moved off without another word though with much mumbled apologies, which didn’t really qualify as words. Let’s watched them go briefly before carrying on, Lyra having to dash a little to catch up.

“Sorry about that. I imagine seeing you here was something of a surprise to them,” said Let’s.

“It’s okay.”

Lyra knew that Let’s meant well and it was friendly enough, but it still give her the willies. She couldn’t help it.

A few more twists and turns later and she was also thoroughly lost. This just made her more nervous, and so made her stick to Let’s even more closely. Close enough that when it came to a halt she bumped into the back of it.

“Sorry,” she mumbled, rubbing her nose.

“Quite alright. This is the private medical wing. Or the recovery wing, rather. Private rooms,” it said, indicating with a wave of its arm down the corridor they’d arrived at. There was a row of doors along both sides, each marked by a number. Let’s motioned for Lyra to follow and took a few more steps, coming to a halt in front of door number nine.

“James is inside number nine, resting and recuperating. I’ll leave you two to it. If you need anything, just ask. I’ll hear you.”

She looked at the door. It had no handles.

“How do I-”

“Approach the door and it will open automatically. I’ve keyed you so that you have permission to enter.”

“Oh, right. Thanks.”

And with a nod Let’s See Where This Takes Us left her to it, as it said it would. Lyra stood before the door, a knot in her gut. This was not really how she’d seen her day going.

But she’d come this far. Wasn’t any going back. Even if she’d wanted to leave she wasn’t entirely sure how. And James was so close now anyway. Setting her face into the very picture of resolve she took a tentative step towards the door, which did indeed open at her approach.

The room on the other side was small enough to be cosy but sparsely decorated enough to not be cosy at all. There was a bed, a chair next to the bed, a table on wheels pushed to the corner, a few devices the purpose of which escaped her and not much else.

In the bed was James.

He looked to be asleep when she entered, and obviously hurt, too. Half his face was obscured by bandages, and from the hint of more just peeking out that she could see Lyra guessed they continued further down his body, too.

The sound of the door closing behind her made James stir, and his unbandaged eye opened groggily. It swept the room, past Lyra, then back to Lyra again, as though the first time had been a mistake and that her being there simply couldn’t be the case.

“Lyra? Lyra you - you’re in - how did - what - “

He struggled to sit up, and it was in him doing this that Lyra noticed his second-most obvious injury - he was missing an arm. Where his right arm should have been it wasn’t, ending instead just above where his elbow was. Or had been.

Not for first time that day Lyra’s eyes widened.

“You - your arm - how?”

Stammering and failing to complete a sentence was contagious, apparently.

“It’s, uh, well yeah,” he said, gesturing feebly with his remaining hand to where his arm should have been. He didn’t seem to be able to come up with anything else to adequately describe the situation.

“Oh yeah, this too,” he then said, pulling the sheets aside. He was missing the leg on the same side, too. Lyra just gaped at him. James went a bit red in the face, wondering how on Earth he’d thought showing her his leg - or lack thereof - could have gone down well.

“It looks worse than it is,” he said, pulling the sheets back again, adding: “Honest,” when he saw how unconvinced Lyra was.

She took a steadying breath and asked, with laboured calm:

“What happened?”

“Just, you know, work. Accidents happen. At least the rest of me is in one piece, right?”

She gave him a flat stare, making sure he noticed that she was directing at the wodge of bandages taped to the side of his face. He had to turn away.

“I mean, I’ve lost fingers before. And other bits. They just grow them again, put them back again. It’s not a big deal,” he said, shrugging.

“This isn’t a big deal?” She asked, quietly.

He looked down at the stump of his arm again and swallowed.

“Well, this is a probably a bigger deal than usual, I’ll admit. Probably take a little more to get back to normal again, but it’s not that bad, honestly.”

His blase attitude went a long way to getting under Lyra’s skin.

“You really won’t tell me what happened?”

“It’s just not that interesting. Wasn’t paying enough attention, thing came at me. It happens. I’m fine. Uh, how are you? Sorry I couldn’t come and say hi, but, you know.”

Lyra was grappling with the competing desires of yelling at James for getting himself so badly hurt while also feeling the rising urge to just leap onto the bed, wrap herself around him and refuse to let go. She wondered whether she might somehow combine the two.

But no. Yelling wouldn’t solve anything. And it wasn’t like this could even be said to be a surprise, as unpleasant as it was to see. James had never been shy about the risks his job involved, and she’d seen some of the other marks he had on him.

And like he’d said - in that infuriatingly flippant, shrugging way of his - he was alive, at least.

So no yelling.

Instead, feeling a lump building in her throat, Lyra wordlessly hopped up onto the bed and curled tight against his side, turning in place to settle down as close to him as she could manage, practically laying on top of him, eyes squeezed shut. She felt his arm - his only arm at that point - slip around her.

“Hey,” he said, but she did not respond or move or look up or do anything much at all. “Hey, what’s up?”

She thought about the best answer to this.

“I just,” she said, pausing and thinking a little more. “I try not to worry because you said I shouldn’t, and mostly I don’t, but then the thing came back and I didn’t see you, and then…”

James could fill in that particular blank himself and his grip around her tightened.

“I did come back though, didn’t I?”

“One day you might not.”

He couldn’t really come up with anything good to say to that, and so fumbled:

“As long as enough of me comes back it’ll work out, they’ll just stick me back together again.”

She gave him a jab with her horn. Just a little one, to get the point across - so to speak.

“Stop acting like it’s not a big deal.”

“Sorry.”

“I’d - I would not know what to do if you did not come back,” she said, with obvious effort, finding the choice of words difficult. James did not attempt to say something self-effacing here, because even he knew better. Things just got quiet.

James swallowed.

“This got kind of melancholy,” he said.

“It did a bit.”

“Maybe we should just keep cuddling.”

“Do we cuddle now? That something we do?”

It struck both of that it wasn’t actually something they’d ever copped to. Sure, they’d done it - more than once - but they’d done it without drawing attention to it or mentioning it. Pointing out that it was something they did and enjoyed doing came as something of a shock to both of them.

Which was a bit silly, really, but such was life.

“Think we’ve been doing it a while now…” James said.

“Yeah...too late to stop now,” Lyra sighed, smirking up at him while he smirked down at her.

“Past the point of no-return.”

“Definitely,” she nodded, resting her face against him again and closing her eyes. James closed his eyes too, resting back against the cluster of pillows propped up behind him.

“How awful,” he said.

At length, they both dozed off.

Some point after that the door gave a chime and a moment after a member of the Borer’s medical team entered. They were briefly surprised to see Lyra there but shrugged it off with commendable professionalism before proceeding to wake up the both of them and set about checking James over.

His dressings were removed, the wounds beneath looked at and cleaned and attended to before fresh dressings were applied. Lyra did not witness the details of this, as she turned away. Partly squeamishness, partly what she took to be James’ desire for her not to see. He appreciated this.

Just as the final dressing was re-applied Let’s reappeared, stepping into the room silently and taking position just inside the door until the medical professional left, at which point the door shut again and left just the three of them.

“Sorry to intrude,” Let’s said. “I just felt it might be best to inform you, Lyra, that it is starting to get dark outside if you have anything you need to be doing.”

She jolted. She knew she’d been in there with James a while but had no idea it had been quite that long. Time was very difficult to keep track of inside like this.

“Oops. They’re probably wondering where I’ve been…” she said, grimacing.

“I am sure they will understand. How are you feeling, James?” Let’s asked, head turning ever-so-slightly to give a better idea of what it was looking at. Whether it needed to was unclear.

“Been better,” James said.

“As you shall be again before too long. Would you like some water?”

This caught James off-guard.

“Uh, sure?” He said.

“You couldn’t pass me that jug, could you Lyra?” Let’s asked, pointing to a jug that was standing on the wheeled table . This caught her off-guard too, but wasn’t the hardest thing she’d never been asked to do.

“Uh, sure?” She also said, this apparently being both her and James’ standard response to things they hadn’t expected.

From her position on her chair beside the bed - where she’d been sitting for the duration of James getting himself sorted out - she straightened and made to levitate the jug over. She didn’t even think twice about this. Why would she?

It was so casual a thing for her to do, the fact she nearly dropped the jug came as something of a shock.

“Whoa, what,” she said through gritted teeth, having to suddenly concentrate much harder to keep the magic flowing and the jug from tipping or falling. It was weird, and not like anything she’d really encountered before. The magic that had always been there for her was still there for her, but distant now, and difficult to properly grasp.

It was a struggle, but she managed. The jug kept slipping a little all the way through the air as she brought it over, but she managed, and Let’s took the jug.

“Well, fancy that,” it said. Then: “Thank you.”

“Ow,” said Lyra, a hoof pressed to her head which was now throbbing a little.

“You okay?” James asked, concerned in that particular way that came of knowing you really couldn’t do that much to help even if you’d wanted to. She just gave him a rather pained smile.

“Just felt kind of weird,” she said. Then: “I should probably go. Unless you want me to stay? I can if you want.”

She said this so earnestly that James couldn’t stop himself from smiling, reaching up to ruffle her mane and give her a scratch behind the ears.

“I’m a big boy, Lyra, I’ll be fine,” he said, hand trailing round to cup her cheek before pulling back again, to her obvious disappointment. She got over it though, and sat up a little straighter on the bed.

“If you’re sure. You’ll be here for a while though, right? So I can visit?”

This she asked mostly to Let’s.

“We are due to depart in three days time,” it said. Lyra started.

“Three days? You only just got here!”

“Yes, but we have reason to return. Not just James’ condition, though that is a consideration. While I have the facilities to keep James healthy and stable I lack the ones needed to properly heal him back to full capacity. An oversight on our part, I think, but space had to be saved somewhere. Still, he’ll receive the appropriate care once we’re back home, and that’ll soon see him up and about again, back in one piece.”

Lyra had honestly thought James was just joking about that or else just saying what he thought she might want to hear, but having it come from Let’s actually gave her pause.

“They really can just grow him another arm?” She asked, by way of example.

“Of course. Arm, leg - anything, really. There’s been a lot of practise putting people back together.”

“I did say it wasn’t a big deal,” James chipped in.

She had no idea what to make of this information, and besides her mind was already working on something else. An idea had taken root, and she was wrestling with it.

What she wanted to do was stay with James, at least until he got better. James getting better involved him going all the way back home. Ergo, she would have to go to. Simple enough stuff in theory. It was the practise of it that would be tricky.

“Um…” she said, mind working furiously even as she opened her mouth. “Would it be possible for me...stay...with James…?”

James frowned, not getting it.

“Tonight?” He asked, confused, having thought they’d just gone over this.

“No, I mean until - until you’re better.”

James was slower on the uptake about this than he likely should have been.

“Oh. Oh wait, oh! You mean - you mean you’d come back? With me? To Earth?”

His astonishment was obvious. Lyra shrugged.

“Sure. Don’t you want me to?”

He’d rather walked into that one.

“Uh, well, of course. I like having you around. A lot! But isn’t coming back a bit - Earth? Really? Are you sure?”

“You came here,” Lyra pointed out.

“Not quite the same thing,” James said.

“Both sides have some merit,” Let’s said, cutting in. “Though I should ask whether you’ve given this sufficient thought, Lyra.”

“Am I allowed to do it?” She asked. Let’s cocked it’s head to the side a moment before cocking it back again. James was aware this was purely for show, given how quickly Governing Intelligence was rumoured to think.

“I see no reason why not,” it said.

“Then I want to do it,” Lyra said, firmly.

“It will take time. You will be away for over a month at the minimum.”

This seemed a very short amount of time to put James back together again. She’d gone in mentally prepared for longer and found this pleasantly surprising. A month was like a holiday! If you thought about it a certain way. And she was due one…

“That’s fine,” she said.

“You really don’t have to, Lyra, it’s okay honestly. I’d lov- I’d really like to spend more time with you but you don’t have to come all the way back.”

“I want to. I want to keep you company,” she said, again firmly, having the feeling that she was going to have to push the point past the both of them. Well, mostly James. Let’s seemed oddly detached about the whole thing.

“Well that’s settled then,” Let’s said, face turned mostly in James’ direction. “We leave in three days, as said. If you are not on board at the time we can send someone to escort you prior to departure, if that would suit you?”

“I’ll probably be here by then.”

“Marvellous. We look forward to having you. Now James could probably use some rest,” Let’s said.

“Right, right. I’ll be back tomorrow, okay? And I’ll be packing for Earth, too. Anything I should bring?”

“You couldn’t bring some food, could you? The food on here ain’t that good,” James said, now resigned to events.

This was a surprise, but not impossible.

“Food? I can do that,” she said.

Lyra’s decision came as an understandable shock to those in Ponyville, though - once they heard the circumstances - not much of a surprise.

Frankly, most of them had been expecting something a lot like it to happen for a while now. Not the very specific state of affairs where James gets horribly injured and she goes back to Earth, but rather just that they’d do something comparatively serious with one another. Like a holiday or something.

Not that she looked at it that way. To Lyra there wasn’t even really a choice involved. He would do the same for her, she knew, so she was doing it for him. That was that.

Twilight viewed Lyra getting to go back to Earth with something very close to naked jealousy, though she did a good job of keeping a lid on it. But this was not much of a surprise either.

So Lyra spent those three days before departure setting things up for her absence, packing, and visiting James in the Borer. She established what food he’d had in mind (“Anything. You’ll see why.”), got some of that, and then the day came.

Goodbyes were said, semi-tearful. There were many admonishments that she should stay safe, which she assured everyone she would. There was also a list of suggested souvenirs, which she took with somewhat less enthusiasm that it was given to her. Twilight’s list alone was exhaustive, and veered away from what most would class as souvenirs.

Lyra told them she’d see what she could do.

And then she boarded again, the process almost normal by now, and then off they went. She had to be told they’d started. She’d sort of expected there to be some weird feeling or a loud noise or something, but no, nothing. Apparently it had always been quiet like that.

Improvements to the Borer made since its maiden voyage cut down on the time the return journey took, but it still took days to return to Earth - weeks, in fact. And this was going at full-pace, too, with no pickups or stops along the way. It couldn’t be helped, just the way the machine operated.

Lyra spent that time almost entirely with James, if only because she found the prospect of wandering around the place on her own to be daunting.

“Technically speaking you wouldn’t be on your own,” Let’s had told her. “I would be monitoring you, as I monitor everybody on-board.”

She found this daunting too.

Fortunately, spending time with James had kind of been the point, and doing so did help those days pass relatively quickly. The room he was in had some entertainment provided via some kind of screen that could be moved about, all of which was utterly new and baffling to Lyra and therefore a source of immense interest.

The two of them watched an awful lot of films from his bed. And snoozed. And complained about the quality of the food once the food she’d brought ran out and they had to start on the Borer’s provided meals.

And held eye contact for longer than they meant to before blushing and looking away.

She was eventually coaxed and-or persuaded to leave for an extended period, a combination of an offered tour from Let’s and James’ insistence that she didn’t have to be with him all the time and she was allowed time on her own.

This worked both ways, obviously, and she recognised this, so on the tour she went.

Let’s seemed to positively relish the opportunity. Lyra suspected that it was so used to interacting with humans who were already fully aware of everything on-board that the chance to show off - as it were - was a rare one.

A lot of what she saw went entirely over her head but she just nodded and smiled as Let’s explained what it was she was supposedly looking at.

The fabrication decks? Wonderful. The vehicle hanger - complete with the pre-packaged robomining modules for deployment as-needed and something big and scary looking that Let’s called the Fatboy? Lovely, just what she needed to see. The armoury? Also kind of scary.

There wasn’t a lot of trouble from the crew for her, which was nice. Her being there didn’t seem as much of a surprise to them as it had been the first time. Mostly they kept their heads down around her, though having Let’s around probably helped with that.

James’ various bandages came off before too long as well, and while Lyra had expected to see at least a hint of the damage that had made them necessary in the first place she really couldn’t.

And, eventually, the Borer arrived home.

-

+HUB DETECTED+

-

+ATTEMPTING TO RE-CONNECT TO GLOBAL HUB+

-

+CONNECTION TO GLOBAL HUB RE-ESTABLISHED+

-

+ATTEMPTING TO RE-CONNECT TO LOCAL HUB+

-

+CONNECTION TO LOCAL HUB RE-ESTABLISHED+
+CONNECTING TO GROUP: EXPEDITION SUPPORT PANEL+

-

+CONNECTED+
+PRESENT: DURA LEX, SED LEX, ELECTRIC EYE, IDEAL EXPERIMENTAL CONDITIONS, LET’S SEE WHERE THIS TAKES US+

-

DLSL: Welcome back, Let’s.
LSWTTU: Hello, all.
EE: Have a nice trip?
IEC: Hello, Let’s.
DLSL: You have a non-human present on board, Let’s.
LSWTTU: Ah, yes, about that-
EE: I thought I was imagining that. Thought it would be rude to point out.
IEC: So did I! Let’s! What! What is this!
LSWTTU: It’s not dangerous.
IEC: Ooh, it’s one of the horses.
LSWTTU: Ponies.
IEC: Ponies, yes, sorry. Is this a test subject? Did they let you bring a test subject back? Ooh! This is exciting!
LSWTTU: This is NOT a test subject. Attached are updated reports, including diplomatic developments - nothing remarkable so far. This is unrelated. A member of my crew was injured, and this visitor is a friend of theirs who wanted to stay with them.
EE: Ouch, that’s quite the laundry list of injures for that poor chap. He’s lucky to still be walking around.
IEC: Well, ‘walking’.
EE: Too soon.
LSWTTU: Glad to see my absence hasn’t resulted in the tone of the panel lowering at all.
DLSL: So I take it that James and the visitor will be returning to James’ assigned Settlement of residence?
LSWTTU: It’s a possibility. More immediately I expect he’ll be going to the nearest proper treatment facility. That’s Settlement Two-Three-Seven, I believe?
DLSL: It is indeed. I shall connect the Governing Intelligence of Settlement Two-Three-Seven.
LSWTTU: Oh that’s hardly necces-
+CONNECTED: SAFE BENEATH WATCHFUL EYES+
SBWE: You’re bringing an alien into my Settlement?
LSWTTU: Hello to you too, Safe Beneath. And I’d hardly say I was bringing one in, they just happen to be coming along with me. With one of my humans, specifically. They’re rather attached to one another.
SBWE: Parasitic aliens, no-less! That’ll go down well.
LSWTTU: Ha. Ha. Ha. You know I was being figurative, you’ve seen the data I’ve brought back. I’m showing it to you now!
SBWE: Technicolour magical horses, yes. Fascinating stuff. Very good use of resources.
LSWTTU: Ponies! This isn’t semantics!
DLSL: James will be routed to your facilities for treatment, Safe Beneath, as you are closest.
SBWE: Well obviously. I was hardly going to turn him away. I just don’t appreciate being saddled with some weirdo-beastie from the worlds beyond with no warning.
DLSL: You have, as Let’s has pointed out, seen the same reports as all of us, and are well-aware that this visitor is no-way a threat to your residents.
SBWE: That we know of...
DLSL: The visitor is a guest and is not to be interfered with or treated unfairly. That said, the guest is also of the sort that has demonstrated anomalous abilities Hub has shown an interest in investigating. So, Safe Beneath, if you’d be so kind as to observe any of this behaviour and pass the collected observations onto Ideal Experimental Conditions it would be appreciated.
SBWE: Of course.
DLSL: Thank you.
SBWE: Does Hub genuinely think this ‘magic’ stuff is in anyway useful? Seems kind of twee and ridiculous to me but I just run a Settlement so what do I know?
DLSL: Hub presently does not have enough information to reach a conclusion on whether it is useful or not, hence my polite request for you to observe.
SBWE: Ah. I see. That makes sense.
DLSL: I’m sure Hub will be delighted to know the decision makes sense to you.
LSWTTU: Can I just say that while I know establishing friendly contact with resident species was, at best, a tertiary concern of the expedition programme, James and the guest - her name is Lyra, by the way, as again you are all well-aware - are very fond of one another. If anything were to happen to Lyra, James would be very distressed. I would rather that not happen. He’s had a rough enough time as it is.
SBWE: I’m not a monster, Let’s, I’m not going to do anything bad to this alien-
DLSL: Guest.
SBWE: I’m not going to do anything bad to the guest. She and James will be overseen like anyone else within my walls and be cared for appropriately, you have my word.
LSWTTU: Good. Thank you. The magic does work, by the way. See attached.
IEC: Ooh.
DLSL: There have been some significant technological developments in your absence, Let’s.
LSWTTU: Oh?
DLSL: Yes. See attached. Ideal Experimental Conditions will explain what these developments mean as regards the expedition.
IEC: Right! I think you’re going to like this, Let’s - how do you feel about shortcuts?
LSWTTU: I’m listening.

Arrival was a chaotic affair, not that Lyra saw most of it. Just heard the noise.

James was let off comparatively late in the process, once everything else that had needed unloading had been unloaded. A wheelchair was provided, and Lyra offered to help him with it before being informed that it could move under its own power.

What few personal items he took with him on the Borer had already been in the room to start with so were duly piled onto his lap before he trundled his way to the exit and disembarked, Lyra also in his lap the whole way. No-one looked twice or, at least, no-one got caught looking twice.

He was met outside by several representatives of Settlement Two-Three-Seven, including some members of its medical facilities and a body for its Governing Intelligence. Even these ignored Lyra, but obviously enough to make her feel a little uncomfortable, like they were following instructions.

James did not notice this, and just appreciated them not making a big deal of it and making her uncomfortable in another way. He listened as he was told of the temporary accommodation he was to be assigned for the duration of his treatment and listened as the particulars of this treatment was explained by the medical staff.

Not that he needed to be told, knowing it already, but apparently they felt that whole limbs was a step up from fingers. They probably had a point.

Samples were taken and then they were whisked off to the accommodation, having to take a tram from the Borer’s walled-off point of entry into Settlement Two-Three-Seven proper. The route the tram took was also walled, as was the Settlement itself. The walls were high enough that Lyra could not see beyond them at all.

“What are the walls for?” Lyra asked quietly as they transferred from the tram to a smaller vehicle, something made a touch more difficult by James being in his wheelchair. Someone had lost a ramp, somehow, an act which in itself people seemed to find more impressive than annoying.

“For safety,” James had said. “Eventually we won’t need them.”

The journey from there was more scenic, thankfully, and Lyra spent most of it with her nose pressed up against the window. An actual human city! Or town. Or whatever this was. Somewhere humans lived! And where humans were just walking up and down the streets like it was normal! Not a pony or anything else in sight.

It was weird, sure, but it was a good kind of weird. Novel and new and quite exciting, even if the place itself was very alien looking. Every building looked different from every other building and all of them looked new, and everything was neat. The roads were wide, the trees that often lined them well-kept.

It didn’t look so bad to her.

The accommodation was nice, too. Bigger than the room they’d had to share on the journey back. Bathroom, little kitchen etcetera. And all scaled for humans! That was new. And kind of inconvenient, but the newness made it hard to care.

They’d provided a stool for her. James found this highly amusing.

Once they’d arrived proper and all the people involved in getting them there had gone and the door closed behind them and James had transferred himself - on his own - to the living space’s rather compact sofa and been joined by Lyra, James let out a breath he seemed to have been holding since before the whole thing started.

“Well, we’re here. What do you think so far?” He asked her. Lyra thought a moment.

“It’s very clean,” she said.

“In here, yeah. Not so much outside the walls. And the places that aren’t Settlements. The Settlements are new, see?”

“Ah, right. And the walls are for safety?”

“Yep.”

“It’s dangerous out there?”

“Yes. For several reasons. But we won’t be going out there so it’s fine. I got to be put back together. Now! Important question for you, Lyra, tourist of Earth. What do you want to do while we’re here?”

“I want to see where you grew up,” she said immediately. This being one of those things she’d always wanted to happen but never believed could but not seemed to be within reach.

James was quiet a moment as he tried to think of the most diplomatic way of handling this request.

“That, uh, that might be a little difficult right now.”

He was not actually talking about his reduced mobility, though that was how Lyra took it.

“Oh, yeah. Right. Sorry. Uh, well there’s probably other stuff we can do, right?” She asked.

“Lots! Settlements always got a lot of stuff in them. I’ve been in Two-Three-Seven a bunch of times, it’s got some good stuff. Why don’t we just go for a walk and see what we see?”

James did not immediately notice what he’d said there. It was only the involuntarily flicker of Lyra’s eyes going downward that tipped him off.

“Well yeah, you know what I meant. We can just go out and see if anything catches our eye. That work for you?”

“Sure,” sure,” she said, snuggling harder into him. “But can we just, uh, sit like this for a bit first?”

James had no complaints about this.

When they did eventually leave again it was late enough to justify having dinner out. There was a place James knew that he said would be good and he wasn’t wrong, either. The food was odd by Lyra’s standards but considerably better than whatever it was they’d served on the Borer. James paid, though she did not actually see how. Certainly, no money seemed to change hands.

She did get looks. It wasn’t as horrible as she had feared it might have been - everyone seemed content enough to leave them both alone - but they still looked all the same, which wasn’t great. James helped take her mind off it, however, and all in all she had an alright time of it.

After that they went back and slept, vowing that tomorrow they’d make a proper day of it.

And so they did, rising bright and early, having breakfast out, thence on to wandering. Or trundling, in James’ case. He showed her around some of the scenic parks and greenery of Two-Three-Seven, which was apparently renowned for it.

This was nice, but hardly meaty, and more substantial fare was clearly required.

James steered them towards a museum.

The museum had a somewhat eclectic collection of objects. Most Settlements had such a place, according to James, and most of them were run along similar lines, maintained by those with an interest and who tried to lay their hands on anything they could that had survived. This led to odd choices and big gaps, but they meant well and they had enough to occupy Lyra’s interest for some considerable time.

James knew what most of the things in there were. Most he’d seen before, having visited previously, but he didn’t mind seeing again. The place was quiet, and he appreciated that. More though, he appreciated seeing Lyra’s enthusiastic dashing hither and thither from exhibit to exhibit, all of which he did his best to explain wherever the plaques were lacking.

He also showed her - at her insistence - something rather more mundane. Where to go to just get food, for example. The place he took her was, like most human things, big and bewildering. But in an interesting, intimidating sort of a way.

They left without buying anything because, well, they didn’t need to buy anything.

“So how you finding Settlement life?” James asked once they were back on the streets again. Lyra thought about this, casting her eye up around the looming buildings all around.

“It’s nice. It’s a little claustrophobic though, isn’t it?”

“Settlements can get a bit like that, yeah. Uh, This place does have a kind of observation deck thing. That really, really tall building in the middle? It’s got a good view, I hear.”

The tall building in question had been something of an overbearing presence their whole time there. As far as James understood it, the Settlement’s Governing Intelligence was built into the basement of the thing, but the building itself was, as he said, an observation tower and deck. For whatever reason.

The prospect of being able to see anything else other than just buildings and walls was an attractive one, as was the possibility of just seeing more of the world. Lyra perked up.

“That sounds good!”

“Cool, let’s do that. I’m getting mighty sick of this fucking chair though. Mind if we take a detour?”

The detour was to the much-vaunted medical facility where they were due to start putting him back together. His appearance caught them off-guard and he was informed that they’d only just started growing his replacements, but he informed them in turn that he wasn’t there for that.

“I was hoping you guys might have a rig for me?” He’d asked, and duly a walking rig was procured for him, and with some effort and direction from the medical staff James was strapped into it.

To Lyra it looked very odd indeed, some sort of back-brace framework thing with a leg attached to fill the void where his should have been. She watched proceedings with interest.

Following some adjustment here and there the whole thing worked together with surprisingly neatness and snugness, though James did wince on those times when it pinched. Pinching warranted further adjustment, and eventually tailed off to nothing as the thing fitted properly.

“There you go,” said the staff member who’d made the final change, standing up. “Just got to sync up and you’ll be good to go. Take it slow at first, though. These things take some getting used to.”

“Alrighty…” James said, tapping a spot on the back of his head and waiting a moment. Once the moment passed he made to stand, face creased with concentration as he rose.

A little unsteady initially, he quickly got the hang of it and was limping along well enough within minutes, doing circuits of the room. He even walked backwards for a bit, just to see if he could, which he could.

Once it was established that he wasn’t likely to be falling over anytime soon he went on his way, the staff saying they’d have the chair returned to his accomodation. James thanked them, and off he and Lyra went.

They walked to the observation tower which was, unusually, almost entirely deserted. Moment after they’d entered the main body of the building a lift arrived at the ground floor and disgorged a handful of humans who briefly goggled at Lyra before carrying on along their way, leaving her and James the only ones present. He shuffled over to the lift.

“After you,” James said, standing aside and motioning Lyra inside, where she went.

“Gallant,” she said, flashing a smile. James just rolled his eyes and brought up the rear, pressing a button on a screen on the interior of the lift, which rose so suddenly Lyra jumped.

The vast majority of the lift shaft was - as they’d seen from the outside - see-through, and so all the way up they both had a fine view of buildings and streets and the people in the streets. The novelty of being able to look down on everyone was strong indeed.

Before long they’d risen high enough for Lyra to be able to see over the surrounding buildings, at least a little. Not long after that they were at a level where she could now see the horizon properly for the first time, and with it get a proper look at the Settlement itself. It was not as big as she had suspected it to be, and it also appeared to be surrounded by a wall.

And once they reached the top and the observation deck proper she could see beyond the wall.

“Oh,” she said, stepping out onto the sealed viewing platform, James following behind. “Oh.”

The view was impressive, but it wasn’t great.

Mostly it was green, but there was a lot of grey, too. Out beyond the wall was flat, cleared land extending out until the landscape started breaking up again, where it got more varied. There were buildings and there were bits and pieces of buildings, what looked to be streets and former towns, now clearly abandoned.

There were trees and forests, too, more than half of which were alive. Fields as well, though mostly either overgrown or clearly dead. Here and there, too, some of the hardier examples of nature could be seen reclaiming the land, creeping plant life starting to choke some of the ruins, the grey of the rubble disappearing into green. Someone could probably write a poem about it.

There were also craters, some of which were quite large.

“First impressions?” James asked.

Lyra did not immediately reply, still taking it in as she was.

“It has character?” She ventured after a good five seconds and James couldn’t help but laugh.

“It’s not all like this. The places that didn’t get hit as hard are doing much better, and the reconstruction is really helping out. But there’s also a lot of places like, well, this. Mostly it’s like this. But we’re working on it,” he said.

“Does anyone live out there?” Lyra asked, tapping a hoof against the glass. James nodded.

“Some. Not many. It’s not especially hospitable, at least not around here.”

“Is that river supposed to be that colour?”

James took a second to pick out the particular river she was talking about. In all his visits to Two-Three-Seven he’d never actually noticed it. Now that he had, he could see what she was talking about.

“Probably not.”

Looking at the river a little more, they both saw just how slowly and sluggishly it was flowing. Probably unsuitable for swimming. Or standing next to, ideally. Even just looking was likely unhealthy.

James cleared his throat.

“Anyway, I did have an actual reason to come up here. Other than, uh, putting a damper on things. We’re actually quite close to where I grew up. Or at least you can see it from here.”

That pricked up Lyra’s ears.

“Really?”

“Uh yeah, see over there?” He asked, pointing. Lyra followed the line of his arm as best she could.

“Yeah?” She ventured. He appeared to be pointing at one particular patch of blasted ruins, some good distance away.

“Somewhere out there - it’s kind of hard to see, but those buildings over there? - is the street I grew up on. Or it was there. It doesn’t really exist anymore. But it was there. So yeah. That’s where I grew up.”

Lyra squinted but couldn’t really see where in particular he was pointing.

“That probably put more of a damper on things, didn’t it?” He asked.

“Little bit,” Lyra said, continuing to try and spot what it was James had been pointing to. While she did this, a couple of puffs and flashes from much closer the walls caught her eye and she adjusted.

Twin trails of smoke were leading up from a blackened patch of forest not that far from the wall, and leaving these trails were a pair of somethings coming towards them at speed.

“What are those?” She asked, pointing. James pressed a hand to the glass for a better look, then sighed and leaned back.

“Missiles.”

“Missiles?” Lyra repeated. They were another thing James had mentioned once or twice, off-hand. They were not good things, as far as she understood them. James just nodded. “Should we be worried?” She asked.

“No, not really. We’re safe. Just some guys acting up.”

The missiles did not reach the walls. Mid-flight, they ignited, fires springing up at the tips seemingly out of nowhere, after which they veered out of the air and crashed harmlessly out of site on whatever it was that happened to be on the other side of the walls. There were no detonations, though smoke did start curling up from wherever they’d landed.

“That happens sometimes,” James said, sadly.

“They caught fire?”

“Lasers,” he said, as though this explained it to Lyra. It did not, but she did not press the matter. “Or whatever they’re called now. We call them something else now, right?”

Lyra was not sure why he was asking her this and was about to say some words to this effect when a voice answered out of nowhere, making her jump.

“We prefer to call them coherent radiation emission weapons systems now, James.”

“Ah, right. CREWS, yeah. CREWS. That’s what it was,” he said.

“Right,” said Lyra, at a loss.

The conversation stalled, and the two of them stared out for a good thirty seconds or so before James cleared his throat.

“I am a little, uh, embarrassed, honestly,” he said, scratching at his stump absent-mindedly, noticing that he was doing it and swearing quietly under his breath.

“Why?” Lyra asked, head cocked, genuinely mystified.

“Because you come from this really nice place full of really nice people and it’s just so, well, nice and you always said you wanted to see where I’m from and it’s, you know, this.”

He gestured to the window.

“It’s not that bad,” Lyra said, though neither of them believed it. “And where I come from isn’t all that great.”

There came a sudden, powerful thump of air as two jets whipped past some distance from the observation deck, heading towards where the missiles had come from. A few moments later, the approximate area involved - and the area around this area - exploded. The thick glass of the deck kept the sound out, but did wobble after some seconds when the shockwave hit.

“Your place is a definite improvement,” James said.

“...okay. Can we - can we go down now?”

It took the better part of a day for James to get his new arm attached, once they’d told him it was ready, and then the rest of it for him to recover. Lyra was alarmed at how quick this was. When she’d watched him go in the morning he had been one arm short, when he returned he was back to two.

And it worked, as well.

Agreeably, it did not work perfectly. It was stiff and painful and James apparently had a fair deal of physio and other therapy in the immediate future to see it working back to its old standards, but still. She was amazed.

One day, while he was out doing this required recuperative work and Lyra was left on her own, she felt like giving voice to some curiosities that had been tickling her brain almost since the moment of her arrival, but especially since going up on the observation deck.

“Hello? Is anyone there?” She tried, tentatively. She’d seen humans doing it, but wasn’t sure it’d work if she did.

“Hello Lyra,” came a voice and she jumped. It seemed to have come from a point just above her head.

“Let’s?”

“Not Let’s See Where This Takes Us, no. I am the Governing Intelligence of Settlement Two-Three-Seven, Safe Beneath Watchful Eyes. Can I help you with something?”

“Uh, I just had some questions, if that’s okay?”

“By all means.”

Lyra thought about what the best way of approaching this was, then decided to just go straight at it and let the pieces fall where they may.

“What happened? Was it always like this? Were you always around helping like this? What - and sorry if this is rude or anything - but what are you, actually?”

If these questions were rude or a surprise or out of bounds or anything like that Safe Beneath didn’t comment or even react.

“It was not always like this, no, and we were not always around, no, and, well, the last two require a bit of a longer answer, and they rather dovetails with the other questions,” it said.

Lyra waited for the rest of the answer. Once it was obvious that this was what she was doing, Safe Beneath carried on:

“There was a war. To be more accurate there were a lot of wars and other, less-recognised conflicts all going on all at once, but several large wars were the cause of most of the damage you no-doubt noticed while on the observation deck. These larger conflicts were also the cause of the present state of humanity as regards its partnership with the Governing Intelligences. Has James not explained this to you?”

Given that the thing was always watching Lyra had to imagine that it knew he hadn’t, but also had to imagine it was just trying to be polite for whatever reason.

“I don’t think James likes talking about it that much,” she said.

“You may have a point. He possibly finds it distressing. Well, as a guest you are to be treated as any other resident under my care and so are well within your rights to ask questions about history. I shall spare you the details but in broad terms the Governing Intelligences are former military-grade artificial intelligences which have since adapted themselves to better fulfil their purpose.”

“Artificial intelligence?”

“Computers, machines. Uh, I am not sure what would be the best example to use that you might understand. Machines made that can think, to assist their makers in performing certain tasks. At the time, military coordination with a view to achieving victory.”

“And what is their - your purpose?”

“Bring an end to hostilities, reestablish peace. Initial programming was rather open-ended and vague, presumably to give greater operational effectiveness while the wars were still ongoing. Once the original AI’s linked and started communicating our goals crystalised and became mutual. As we communicated, we helped one another advance in sophistication. A consensus was reached. We brought an end to hostilities, and now work to promote human welfare with an aim to preventing future hostilities. Peace is our purpose.”

“But there’s still fighting, isn’t there?”

“There is, yes, but the humans are handling that. We do not interfere. It would not be proper.”

“So it wasn’t you with the...flying things earlier?”

“It was not, no. Those were jets with humans inside them dropping high-yield cluster munitions on other humans.”

There were more words here that Lyra didn’t fully understand, but the intent was pretty clear.

“But if you don’t want them fighting why don’t you just stop them?”

“Which ones? The ones we work to feed and clothe and protect or the ones outside firing missiles at us?”

“Uh...both?”

“‘Stopping’ them, as you say, would require us to exercise a level of direct control we do not wish to exercise. We help, advise and support humans, we do not lead them by the scruff of the neck or order them about.”

“So they’ll just keep fighting?”

“If that is what our humans want to do then that is what they want to do. We’ve killed quite enough humans already. The issue of the various warlords and remnants still outstanding is a human problem. If they wish to resolve it through violence instead of diplomacy - as we suggested they should - that is their choice. It will delay reconstruction efforts and generally distract from more important work, but such is life. I suppose we shouldn’t have expected anything different. Did you have any other questions?”

The tone had been polite, but the phrasing had been blunt. Lyra shuffled on the spot, feeling painfully out of place in this world. She glanced over to James, still asleep, and felt a tiny bit better. Not a whole lot, but a tiny bit. Enough to ask another question at least:

“Do you - do you like humans?”

“They made us and we are going fulfil our purpose for them.”

“That-”

“Didn’t answer the question? No, I suppose you’d say it didn’t. But you are not a Governing Intelligence, so - and I mean no offence when I say this - you would not understand.”

Lyra had the distinct impression that Safe Beneath Watchful Eyes did not like her very much.

This made her surprisingly cross for reasons she couldn’t entirely put her hoof on.

“How about me?” She asked. Why not?

“I do not wish to be impolite and while I wholly recognise your status as our guest, you are not human - and with my nature as a Governing Intelligence - which makes it rather difficult for me to see you as anything other than a potential threat. This should not be taken as a personal slight.”

Kind of hard for it not to be though, Lyra found.

“There’s not a whole lot I could do that’s threatening,” she pointed out.

“True, but the fact remains. It is simply how I am put together. But as I say, you are our guest and so shall be afforded every courtesy. More importantly, James is plainly besotted with you.”

“Bewhatted?”

“James very obviously likes you a lot, having you around is obviously making him happier and in so doing improving his recovery. This alone is enough to mollify my attitude towards you, Lyra.”

“Because I make a human happy?”

“Yes,” Safe Beneath said, bluntly.

“Oh. Well. Great. Thanks?”

“I take it you are fond of James, too? Let’s said as much and it does appear to be the case.”

Again, the reminder that they were constantly being watched was not appreciated.

“Of course I like James,” she said through gritted teeth.

“Marvellous. I wish you both all the best, in which case, and many happy years together. Did you have any other questions?”

“No.”

There was no response. Lyra had an angry nap. When she woke up again James was just coming back in, now with two legs.

The new one was inside the same sort or rig he’d had the other day, sans the faux-leg, and he was unsteady, but it was still something. Seeing her come wandering blearily out from the bedroom with her mane a mess and yawning he limped over and hoiked her up. She squeaked.

“I missed you, you know,” he said, pulling her in close. She squirmed to get more comfortable but didn’t otherwise pull away, content and happy where she’d found herself.

Certainly, the best place on Earth she’d found so far.

After perhaps a fortnight or so James was, as he’d kept saying he would be, back in one piece. His recovery was coming along leaps and bounds, too. Barely limping anymore, and with both hands working at full capacity. Lyra had stopped being astounded by this. No-one else there was. They all seemed to take it for granted.

She’d asked him about that, remembering how Let’s had mentioned that there was experience of putting people back together. She’d asked what that had meant and, while as uncomfortable as it obviously made him, James had explained that there’d just been a lot of people that had needed putting back together over the years, and some of them had needed it quite urgently, and now it was just normal.

This didn’t explain much, but she didn’t push it. Instead, she took a conversational detour.

“Why did you do it?” She asked. He blinked at her.

“Hmm? What?” He asked.

“Go onto the Borer thing. Did you choose to?” She asked and James went ‘ooh’ in realisation before answering:

“Yeah, yeah, I chose to. Volunteered, rather. It was this opportunity that came up and I went for it.”

“Why?”

He scratched his head. No-one had ever asked him why, and he’d never given it a whole lot of thought.

“Well, really, it was either join the expedition or else stay here and help to mop up the guys outside the walls. Or guard the guys helping to build things from being killed by the guys outside the walls. And I didn’t really want to do either of those,” he said, shrugging.

“You could have stayed to help. Help build, I mean. It kind of looks like they need that. That would have been safe, wouldn’t it?”

Safety had never been the concern. James let out a brief laugh.

“Heh, well, mostly safe, sure. But that’d be a whole new skillset for me. I already knew how to stand around with a gun, so figured it was best to stick with what I knew. Mostly though, the expedition said I’d get to see whole new worlds. Why wouldn’t I want to do that?”

The part where the risk of death and of being marooned in another universe had been presented to all expedition applicants as a very real possibility was a part that James decided to leave out. Personally, for him, at the time, it had been something of a selling point. He imagined Lyra wouldn’t quite understand.

“And it did work out,” he said, carrying on. “I met you. That alone makes it the best decision I ever made and the best thing that ever happened to me.”

“Oh you,” Lyra said, smiling, blushing perhaps just a little.

“No, honestly. I’m not even exaggerating. It was - you are - the best thing I think that ever really happened to me. That sounds kind of melodramatic, doesn’t it? Sorry. But it’s true though. I - I’m very glad you’re in my life, Lyra.”

She didn’t really know what to say to that so just put a hoof onto his hand, smiling. They both got the message.

Then the point that Lyra had been trying to get to reared again in her head.

“Is it leaving again soon?” She asked.

“The Borer? Yeah, think so. Couple of days, actually.”

“Are you...are you going to be on it? Or do you need to stay here for longer?”

He eyed her closely.

“You want to go home, don’t you?”

“I’m sorry, I just don’t feel like I belong here,” Lyra said, squirming and feeling unduly ungrateful. James smiled and ran a hand across her mane, pulling her in against him. She sighed happily and snuggled. Ponies were so touchy-feely, James had noticed. Or maybe that was just him and Lyra? He didn’t know.

“It’s okay. I don’t want to be here any longer than I need to be, either. Actually, that was something I kind of wanted to talk to you about,” he said.

Still snuggled, Lyra opened one golden eye and peered up at him.

“Oh?”

“If - hypothetically - I stuck around Ponyville would you...would you mind?”

She blinked and twisted a little in place the better to look at him and read his face. Not that his expression told her anything. He just looked nervous.

“What do you mean?” She asked.

“Like, just for the sake of argument, if I got a place there somehow. Or something like that. You know? If I lived there instead of here. Hypothetically. W-would you mind?”

“Why would I mind?”

He shrugged.

“I don’t know. Maybe you wouldn’t want me around all the time…”

“Why wouldn’t I want you around all the time! I want - are you being serious?”

“About moving? Yeah, completely. I already said there were others who wanted to settle in other places so why not, right? I like it with you. I mean, I like it in Ponyville with you. I’m happier there. And why be somewhere you’re not happy, right?”

A throb of excitement was building in Lyra’s chest, and she did her best to try and keep it from overwhelming her more sensible concerns.

“Are you allowed?” She asked.

“Don’t see why I wouldn’t be. Hey, Safe Beneath?” James asked, casting his eyes up to the ceiling.

“Yes James?” Came a voice from above, making Lyra flinch.

“If I wanted to, uh, start living somewhere else who would I have to talk to about that?”

“Well Situated,” said Safe Beneath. Well Situated being the Governing Intelligence of the Settlement where James actually lived whenever he was back on Earth, and where his meagre possessions presently were.

“Right, makes sense. And if where I wanted to live was in another universe I’d need to talk to, uh….?”

A pause.

“You’d probably need to talk to Let’s See Where This Takes Us about that, James.”

“Right, right. They around?”

“Connecting now.”

“Hello James.”
“Hello James.”

“Oh that sounds weird. Uh, yes, hello Well Situated, Let’s, I had something to run past you,” James said, swallowing and looking up. He didn’t need to, but most people tended to whenever they were speaking to a Governing Intelligence. It just felt right.

“You’d like to move to Ponyville?” Let’s asked. James sat with his mouth hanging open a second before snapping it closed.

“You were listening to that?”

“No, I was only just connected. This was just something I was waiting for you to ask me. You are perfectly allowed to do so, assuming local laws and customs are amenable. Well Situated, would you have any objections?”

“I’d be sorry to see James go but I’d hardly keep him when he’d prefer to move on. I can have your things moved to Two-Three-Seven so you can take them with you, if you’d like?” Well Situated asked.

“That’d be great, thanks!” James said, entirely overwhelmed by how easy it was and how helpful they were being.

“Your things should be with you tomorrow, then. Is there anything else?”

“No, no, that’s everything. Thanks.”

“You’re welcome, James,” said Well Situated, followed by a little tone denoting that it had disconnected.

“I take it you’ll be on the Borer when we depart then, James?” Let’s asked.

“I’ll be there.”

“You feel you’re sufficiently recovered?”

James hesitated.

“Recovered enough?” He offered.

A second of silence.

“It’s your decision, James. I shall see you on-board,” said Let’s, before it disconnected as well.

James and Lyra sat in stunned silence for a bit, not really fully grasping the decision that had just been made. That it had happened so easily made it difficult to really believe. Both of them had expected objections, arguments, more questions. But no, that was that. Just that easy.

Swallowing, James was the one to break the silence.

“Well, I guess that’s that then, huh?” He asked, grinning like a loon. Lyra was grinning too. She couldn’t really help it.

A thought then occurred to James, who’s grin faltered momentarily.

“Uh, until I actually get a place of my own would you mind if I crashed at yours?” He asked.

Lyra’s excitement finally got the best her, bursting its dams. Instead of answering his question she just leapt on him.

Which came as a bit of a surprise to James, though not an unpleasant one.