Chapters Lyra and Bonbon Take a Trip
“So you wear these underneath shirts?” Lyra asked, holding up a pink and lumpy piece of clothing.
“Yes. We’ll need to buy you about ten. And Bonbon will need a smaller size.” Stephanie said, picking up about ten of the pieces of double lumped clothing and putting them into the shopping cart.
“There is so much stuff about being human I could never imagine!” Lyra shouted, making nearby people stare.
“Lyra, you need to tone it down. We’re inside.” Stephanie warned.
Lyra suppressed a giggle. Her second day of being human was definitely better than her first. She had made a new friend, Bonbon had forgiven her, and she wasn’t in jail for public indecency. And she had found out her theory on humans wearing pants all the time was correct.
“Honestly, you’re acting like a kid in a candy store.” Stephanie said, putting some similar looking but not bumpy clothing into the basket as well.
“Ooh what are-“ Lyra started asking before Stephanie cut her off.
“You wear them under your pants.” Stephanie stated blatantly.
Lyra nodded, making a mental note to put those on before her pants whenever she got dressed, which she was still trying to get into the habit of.
At this time, Bonbon came by, sporting a straw hat with dark blue and pink roses on top. “I found this in the summer department. What do you think?”
“I’d give-“ Lyra suddenly inhaled loudly, covering her hand with her mouth and widening her eyes. “I can actually do it! YES!” She squealed.
After getting another warning shush from Stephanie, Lyra leaned in close to Bonbon, holding up an appendage of her hand.
“I’d give it a thumbs up.” She whispered.
Bonbon looked at her thumbs. “So that’s what these are? These are so useful. I mean not as useful as hooves, but they really help you pick up stuff.”
“Yeah.” Lyra commented, “I don’t get why humans can’t just pick up stuff like we do.”
“Did.” Stephanie interjected. “You’re a human now, don’t forget it.”
“How could I not?” Lyra said dreamily.
Oh how she had dreamed of this moment. The hands, the clothes, the cars, the technology. She pinched herself for the fifth time that day to make sure she wasn't still dreaming. It tingled. A tap on her shoulder brought her back to Stephanie.
“Look Lyra,” Stephanie started. “I know you’re going to have fun being human, I mean, that’s what everyone thinks you’ve wanted. And it’s cool that you actually do. But don’t you think you’ll miss being a pony at all?” She leaned on the cart with one hand, staring at Lyra with disbelief.
“The only downside I see so far is picking things up.” Lyra said. “But then again, HANDS!” She yelled, shoving the mentioned appendage in front of Stephanie’s face.
“And then there’s me who has no knowledge of human society and customs that still has trouble remembering to walk upright.” Bonbon sighed.
Lyra smiled, trying to cheer Bonbon up. “It takes time. You’ll get the hang of it. It took me at least seven months to stand without magical help when I was a pony.”
“I think it’s crazy how we got here.” Bonbon said. “Twilight's spell goes wrong again? I mean how cliche i that?”
“Well I for one am glad we are here.” Lyra remarked, crossing her arms. “You should be too Bonbon. You always talked about going out and seeing the world. Why not make it seeing the alternate universes?”
Bonbon looked up at Lyra with a dim look in her eyes. “I don’t know about you Lyra, but I had always planned to go back when I had finished traveling. I had connections back in Ponyville that I would need to go back to. I feel good that you finally found your calling, but I had a job back there. I had friends. I had a life.” With this, Bonbon sniffled, wiping a tear from her eye.
Lyra rested her hand on Bonbon’s shoulder. Her gentle fingers fixed a wrinkle in her shirt loaned from Stephanie. Bonbon opened her eyes, looking with blurred vision at Lyra. “You have me.”
“So what’s the story behind the spell Twilight cast?” Stephanie interrupted. “I got the gist that this was on purpose, but how exactly did everything go down in Equestrai?”
Bonbon rubbed the back of her head with her fist, moving her toe “Well, you see…”
“It’s a long story.” Lyra said. “We’ll tell you back at your place.”
Stephanie looked at each of them and shook her head. Lyra could tell she was just screaming for answers on the inside, but she did a very good job concealing it.
Stephanie suddenly perked up, as if remembering something important. She turned to Lyra pointing an accusing finger at her head. Of course, Lyra just took it as a pointing a finger. “Can you still do magic?”
Lyra’s face glowed as the word magic came out of Stephanie’s mouth. She had to think of a spell. Any spell would do. Something simple though. Something like-
Lyra felt a hand on her shoulder. She turned around and saw Bonbon with a worried expression on her face. “Not here, somepo- somebody might see. Normal humans can’t do magic remember?”
“But what about those guys with the top hats and wands that pull out rabbits?” Lyra inquired.
Stephanie facehoo- facepalmed. “It’s a trick. No person can do real magic.” She explained.
This gave Lyra a bit of worry. She was now a person. What would happen to her if she couldn’t do magic? She was so used to floating things around as a pony. How could she handle a life without magic.
She righted herself. She was human. This is everything she had ever wanted. Well, there were other smaller things, but this was her best dream come true.
The trio paid for the clothes and other things for Lyra and Bonbon, and they left the store in Stephanie’s car. It started, and just like before Lyra and Bonbon cringed. They felt something was wrong with the way this contraption could carry everything and itself with a black liquid that came out of the earth. At least it was more comfortable than the police car they had experienced earlier.
They finally reached Stephanie’s house after about a half an hour. Unloading the items from the back of the car, the trio had moved the items into the guest room. Lyra was sweating after the last bag had been put down. She wasn’t used to physical labor. She slumped into a corner panting.
Bonbon peeked in the doorway to the room. “Lyra, Stephanie wants to hear the story about Ponyville when you get the chance. When should I tell her-“
Lyra stood up from her corner, moaning in the process. “Now,” Lyra announced, “we’re telling her the story now.”
Author's Note
I'm going to get back on this. Feeling inspired after a pretty long time of feeling down.
Lyra and Bonbon Take a Trip
(Ponyville, three days earlier.)
Lyra was up and out of bed at least one hour before Bonbon had the sunrise greet her wakening. Lyra had marked down the days on her calendar, counting them until today. Today was the day Twilight revealed the big science project she had been working on for the past month, which the fliers said was about another dimension. Lyra had combed her hair until it started coming out, brushed her teeth until they were as white as her eyes, and showered until her coat almost started to fade.
Bonbon was still in her bathrobe with sleep in her eyes when Lyra showed up at the front door.
“Come on! Come on!” Lyra said, looking around to see if anypony else was heading towards Twilight’s house. “Hurry up! We’ve got to get there ASAP! Somepony might already be ahead of us! We’ve got to be the first ones! If we-“
Bonbon’s hoof was in Lyra’s mouth, muffling whatever she tried to say next. “Thirty minutes.” Bonbon moaned. With that Bonbon took out her hoof and left Lyra on the porch to finish getting ready for the morning.
It took thirty one minutes for Bonbon to finish up. As soon as Bonbon came out of the doorway, Lyra grabbed her and carried her all the way to Twilight’s castle. “We need to be the first ones there Bonbon! This is going to be extreme!” On approaching the structure Lyra noticed that nopony else was going inside. “Sweet!” Lyra exclaimed. “We’re first!”
Lyra barreled into the door, pushing it open and revealing a surprised Twilight Sparkle going over a scroll with Spike. “We’re here to see the alternate dimension!” Lyra announced, dropping Bonbon from her back accidentally. Bonbon’s face was green, and she rushed outside of Twilight’s house. After a splaaargh was heard, she soon came back in, looking a little droopy.
“Sorry about the bumpy ride, Bonbon.” Lyra said behind a sheepish grin. “I just really wanted to have seats in the front row.” Bonbon only replied with a disgruntled stare. Lyra knew she was in for it when this was all said and done.
“Well, you are the first ones to arrive.” Twilight commented, taking a sip of her lemonade. “You both came a whole hour early.” At this Lyra smiled, and Bonbon’s stare became one of contempt.
“We’re an hour early.” Bonbon repeated. Lyra dropped her head, as if the words were hung around her neck.
“Well, on the bright side,” Lyra said, “we’re an hour early to the greatest scientific discovery so far in Ponykind. I mean think about it; an alternate dimension where myths are seen every day. It’s a place with so much landmass that the population of the dominant race is over five billion. And,” Lyra’s face brightened before finishing, “it has humans!”
At this, Twilight did a double take. “How did you know that? That was supposed to be something I revealed during the opening introduction!”
“Oh please Twilight.” Lyra said, rolling her eyes. “You of all people should know The Royal Canterlot Library keeps track of all checked out books. I looked at the records of the books on humans and I saw you had been checking some out. I was going to ask you about it, but then I saw your fliers about another dimension, and I knew I had to wait. It was almost too good news to be true; to find a dimension where humans actually exist!”
Twilight smiled, obviously pretending to be interested by Lyra. Trying to fake it until she made it. “Well, according to the research I did, humans are actually the dominant race in this dimension. It has a link to ours that I haven’t been able to quite figure out, but I’m basically going to use that link to make contact with them by sending somepony over there for an hour. I was hoping-“
Lyra didn’t wait to hear Twilight finish the sentence. She had already grabbed Twilight by her shoulders and started a face to face conversation so close their eyelashes were touching. “SEND ME! SEND ME! BY CELESTIA’S HORN SEND ME!”
Twilight pushed Lyra off, a backing up a few feet. “You were actually the first one I considered Lyra. I knew I couldn’t do it since the magic anchors to bring the pony back will be with my magic, so looked at who else had prior knowledge of human society, and I found that you had checked out every book that even mentioned humans. Ten times or more each if I recall correctly.”
“Fifteen.” Lyra corrected.
“Either way,” Twilight said, “I believe your expertise on humans would help me do research on their universe. While you are there, I would need you to take notes on what you see, as well as get some samples of their literature and are you okay Lyra?” She asked, as Lyra had just turned on her side, open mouthed.
Twilight hurriedly went to her kitchen and filled a glass with cold water. She splashed it on Lyra’s face, making Lyra jump in the air and land on her stomach. Twilight got a worried look on her face, likely starting to doubt her choice.
But Lyra could not let Twilight pick somepony else. That would ruin her whole reason in coming to this event. She came to see a human. And see a human she would.
“I’ve got an idea.” Lyra said, still on the floor. “Why not send Bonbon along with me?”
This got Bonbon’s attention. “Wait what?!” she exclaimed. “What could I do to help?” She started backing up to the wall, looking nervously at the two.
“You could help me collect samples while I talk wi-, err, interview the humans.” Lyra suggested, finally realizing she was on the floor and standing up.
“That’s not a bad idea.” Twilight said. “A job this big would probably take more than one pony to do. And if something bad happens to one of you, the other would know what to do.”
“And what sort of bad things should we expect?” Bonbon asked, knees shaking and voice stuttering at the thought.
“Nothing as far as I know.” Twilight said, as if that were a good thing. “Lyra would probably have more knowledge of that than I do.”
Bonbon expectantly towards Lyra, looking for words of comfort. She was biting her lower lip, and sweat was rolling down her face. Lyra knew that if she said one negative comment, Bonbon would shut down and go into safety mode. She would be immobile and not allow any outside input.
“The worst things I’ve heard is that they walk on two legs there. You practiced at home with me once or twice. You should be fine.” The second sentence made Twilight’s ears perk up, but no questions were asked. Bonbon nodded, and her body returned to normal. But Lyra could tell she was still thinking of something.
“I could use help setting up the transport circle.” Twilight said. “Are you familiar with any time or teleportation runes, Lyra?”
“I’m okay with time runes.” Lyra stated, diverting her attention. “I remember some from reading a book on how magic clocks used to be made.”
Twilight went over to a nearby drawer and got out two new pieces of chalk and a slip of paper with the transport circle design inscribed on it. It actually looked like a target, with circles inside circles. She tossed the diagram and a piece of chalk to Lyra and said, “Okay, I have a diagram you can follow. Just work on the second outer circle and I’ll handle the actual teleportation runes. If you see a rune you don’t know, ignore it and I’ll get to it later okay?”
“Got it!” Lyra said, as she began to study the diagram. The second outer circle was comprised of two halves, which she easily knew from the beginning runes were the time away from Equestria and this dimension, while the other half was how long Bonbon and her were going to be in the other dimension.
Lyra realized what she was in charge of now. She was in charge of how long they would be interacting with humans. Twilight would need as much data as possible, so why make it an hour? Why not a day? Why not a month? Or even better…
(The Library, forty five minutes later.)
The audience chattered among themselves for a second until Twilight’s silencing hoof came off the ground. “I am not talking about any dimension either. This is a dimension where myths can be seen every day. Where technology has far surpassed ours. It is the world,” Twilight paused and projected the outline of a shaved monkey in the air with her horn, “of humans.”
With this, more muttering was heard. Twilight waited a few seconds for them to let it soak in, then raised her hoof for silence again. “Now, I ask you all to not try to perform what you are about to see at home. The people performing this project are professionals, and-“
At this, Lyra yelled from behind the only closed door “For Celestia’s sake get on with it!” which made some of the attending ponies look at the door, as if they had never noticed it. Twilight’s stare pierced the door. “I now present to you my two assistants.” She said, gesturing toward the already open door where Lyra and Bonbon had just come out.
There was a bit of pointing at Lyra with more murmuring. They all recognized her as the one who knew about humans, but they obviously didn’t expect to see her participating.
Lyra and Bonbon stepped over the chalk lines, making sure not to mess anything up, lest they go to the wrong dimension. Once they were in the center, Twilight continued talking. “These two will be in the human world for an entire day, but to us it will only seem like thirty seconds. They will bring back with them scraps of human life, which I will analyze at a later date. Now, I will ask you all to stand back. I am about to perform magic.”
Bonbon gulped. Lyra shook apprehensively. The crowd stood back from the circle, and Twilight pointed her horn at the chalk. Lyra was nearly exploding from excitement. She was going to meet humans. She was going to talk to them. She was going to see hands!
A beam emanated from her horn. The white chalk on the ground radiated purple light as Twilight increased the beam’s power. The inner circle that Bonbon and Lyra were standing on surrounded itself in a sparkling translucent blue sphere. The purple light glowed brighter and brighter, until both Lyra and Bonbon had to shield their eyes. Oohs and awe’s were heard from the audience as they flickered out of this dimension.
Lyra could feel her body changing. Her spine was curving and warping. Her legs drew into her body, until she felt she was a sphere. Then she felt her body taking a new form. One that felt familiar, but she couldn’t quite put her hoof on it? What exactly was happening?
Then things went black.
Lyra and Bonbon Take a Trip
Lyra removed her elbow from in front of her eyes. Things weren’t black anymore. Well, it was dark outside, but was it. Plenty of weird things would come later, but for now the weird thing was the lamp posts in the apparent park she was in. They didn’t flicker, as if the flame inside them was magic. And they were everywhere. Lyra looked at each one like a foreign object. This many magic lamp posts would take a lot of magical energy. How did humans do all of this?
Wait. She was here. Lyra was in the world of humans. She would be able to talk to people. She would use their slang. She would say, “Hey everybody!” She would be able to do anything and everything she had ever wanted to do back in Ponyville.
She recalled those times in the basement of her own house. The times practicing walking on her hind legs. That one time she fell on her back and nearly injured herself. The times she would dip her hooves in paint to carefully make handprints on paper. And sometimes even outside of her house she would sit down on chairs and benches like a human, just to rebel.
Now she no longer had to hide. Her face brightened, her heart raced, her breath became faster. “YES!” She yelled, pumping a fist into the air. Almost nothing could make her happier at this moment.
One of those almosts happened at that moment. She had just pumped a closed fist into the air. And a fist meant something other than a hoof. A fist meant that she had
“HANDS!” She yelled again, raising said appendage to eye level. She marveled at them, looking at the digits as if each individual one was Celestia’s horn on her own head.
She tried moving one. She tried the pinky first. That turned out to be the muscle for the thumb. She tried moving her thumb. This she was successful at. Her toes curled into the grass beneath her feet, grabbing earth and squashing it between.
Lyra realized what she was feeling. “Do I dare look down?” She hypothetically asked herself. She tilted her head towards the ground, eyes scanning for the mythical limb. “I have feet!” She exclaimed. “And whatever these things are!” She said, still looking down. She noticed the lyre on where she knew to be the human flank was still there. She touched it, feeling soft skin where she was used to coarse hair. She giggled, as it tickled her a bit.
She heard sobbing behind her. She turned around with ease, her feet giving her more support than her hooves ever possibly could have on two legs. She took easy steps towards the cries. Behind a bush, another human was in a fetal position and crying on the ground. Their hair looked strangely familiar. It looked a lot like
“Bonbon!” Lyra called to her friend. “Guess what? We’re human! We get to walk on to legs! We get to use hand gestures! We can even-“
“Be quiet Lyra.” Bonbon snapped.
Lyra was taken aback. Tears were being forced back in gasps by her best friend, and here Lyra was smiling and enjoying her first moments as a human. They obviously had two very different views on this strange turn of events.
“Bonbon, come on, there isn’t anything to be sad about. Think about it as collecting more data for Twilight. Or you could see it as being more immersed in the culture.”
“It’s not that.” Bonbon staggered. “It’s that- that I can’t walk.”
“What do you mean you can’t walk?” Lyra said, as if such a thing was equestrianly impossible.
“I keep falling forward Lyra.” She growled, sadness being replaced with anger. “I’m not used to walking on two legs.”
“Well, let me help you then.” Lyra said, walking over to her and grabbing her hand and helping her up. Her skin felt soft, a lot like
“The trick is to keep your center of balance at your bellybutton.” Lyra said, steadying her friend with her other hand. She led Bonbon to a nearby birch tree, Bonbon half standing up and half crawling on the way there. “Try to walk around the tree. Just keep a hand on it to steady yourself.”
Bonbon looked quizzically at Lyra, shaking to keep her balance. Lyra rolled her eyes and showed Bonbon her palms. “These are hands.” Lyra informed. “We use them to pick things up. Well, it’s not the hands themselves most of the time but the fingers sticking out of them.”
Bonbon nodded, unconvinced. She put her left fist on the tree and stood up shakily, as if an earthquake were happening. Walking around the tree counter clockwise, she started to get the hang of it. Left, right, left, right. The soil soft beneath her feet made a cushion, like a pillow. Meanwhile, Lyra was figuring out the muscles to her fingers, testing each one individually and grabbing the grass, letting the green blades flow out of her fingers.
Bonbon was now walking from tree to tree, still a bit wobbly but standing nonetheless. Lyra had begun rubbing her arms with her hands. She wasn't walking around like Bonbon, and it had become quite chilly out.
Bonbon stopped at a tree next to Lyra after some minutes. “I think I got it now.” She claimed. “We should go find some humans now. I’m sure we've already wasted more than our share of the day we’re here.”
Lyra remembered the chalk circle she had drawn for twilight. She remembered the runes that stood for day. She also remembered not writing down that rune. She scratched her head sheepishly and began to explain to Bonbon. “About that. I think we might need to get more acquainted with the humans.”
“That’s what I was saying.” Bonbon said, walking away. She stiffened herself halfway to one of the lamp posts, turning slowly in place. A stern look had replaced her normally soft face. She glared at Lyra. “What did you do?” she questioned.
“Well, you know how we are supposed to be here for a day?” Lyra murmured. “I sort of set it for us to be here for a year.”
Bonbon didn’t react. Mainly because her body was now on the ground, limp from shock.
Lyra ran over to her friend. She shook her by the shoulders, whereupon a mighty SLAP went across Lyra’s face. “Do you ever think when you do something?” Bonbon screamed. “Did you think of how this might affect me? We’re going to be stuck like this for a year, and the first thing that you think about is how you finally have hands!”
Lyra winced at the sting of her words. She hadn’t been thinking of her friend when she did this. She had been acting selfish. It would take a long time for Bonbon to get over this, if ever.
Luckily for them both, they had a whole year to sort it out.
Lyra and Bonbon Take a Trip
Disregarding the Constablulary
In spite of the heat of the conflict between the two friends, both of them shivered underneath opposite sides of a tree. The one with golden eyes pulled grass around her, occasionally glancing behind her as she let the blades of grass fall to the ground. The other had her arms over her knees and her knees over her chest, staring intently with furrowed eyebrows at the air ten feet in front of her. A breeze stirred the leaves, but Bonbon’s mind was set on keeping the crackling fire of anger alive in her stomach.
Lyra contemplated her decision. She had made Bonbon angry with her. She had messed up Twilight’s spell. She had potentially ruined her best friendship. She had gone to another dimension with a friend, and now she might return with, while not an enemy, somepony who wouldn’t care if she jumped off a cliff and fell into the middle of a lake. That would have to be a big overhang, or a small lake. How big does a body of water have to be in order to be considered a lake? Why was she getting so distracted?
A drop of water hit Lyra’s hand. She watched it roll off the back of her hand. She looked out and saw small drops falling in greater numbers outside the radius of the tree. The tree was a good place to stay from the rain, but it was still quite cold. She looked back at Bonbon, who seemed to have a good look at the darkness in front of her.
“So should we find a place to stay Bonbon?” Lyra suggested. “I mean, if we’re to get to know the human-“
“I’m still not talking to you.” Bonbon murmured.
“But you just replied to me there, so doesn’t that mean-“
“No it doesn’t.”
Lyra frowned and went back to pulling the grass. The uneven tree bark on her back made her back sore, but she didn’t pay attention to it. A list of things gone wrong today began formulating in her head. Bonbon wouldn’t talk to her. It was freezing and raining. She had lost her fur. Twilight would find out about the replaced rune and be furious when they got back. They had no clue where they could find humans. And she had run out of grass. Lyra felt around to see if any sprouts of grounded green shoots had been unattended by her hands, but all she found was the flatness of her own pickings.
She started to think of a plan. One that would hopefully get both Bonbon and herself indoors without any hair getting ripped out. It would need to be subtle, tactful and underwhelming. Bonbon wasn't going to listen to anything that would add more stress to the situation. Lyra had one shot, and she needed to use it wisely.
"Bonbon, I know you're angry with me, but that doesn't change the situation we're in. The runes on the other side will keep us here for a year, and that's my fault."
"It sure is."
Lyra winced before continuing. "Its raining, and this tree isn't waterproof. We need to find cover and probably a heat source. I can't change the situation any more than you can. We need to work with what we have."
Bonbon still sat motionless.
Alright. New approach. "Bonbon, I'm being serrious. If we want to survive here in the human world, it's going to take both of us."
"I thought the worst thing was that they walk on two legs." Bonbon said, her voice fluctuating.
"That's... mostly true. But a lot of the normal dangers from Equestria exist here. We can get sick for example. The weather is a random thing here. Humans don't have control over it. Remember that winter everypony got sick?"
Bonbon nodded.
"This rain will do the same thing to us. Which is why we need to get moving."
There's silence for a moment, then Bonbon sighed and stood up, turning to Lyra. "Whatever. Where do you suppose we go then?"
Lyra stood as well. "Humans often have shelters in cities as big as these. Finding one might take time, but asking around should–"
Lyra was cut off by a siren blaring once. Red and blue lights flashed in an alternating pattern, and a voice came from the left.
"Are you both lost?"
Author's Note
I will finish this chapter over the weekend, but I needed to let everyone know I was going to continue writing.
