Chapters I was sleeping, having a dream I thought, the kind of dream where you’re falling but it’s not a nightmare, and you land in bed, only when I landed in bed, it didn’t feel like my bed, and I still heard a voice where I shouldn’t, as I live alone.
“Hi, I—oh, I think it’s asleep.”
I know lots of people who are groggy in the morning, but that doesn’t apply to me. If I’m awake, I’m awake. But was I? If I was, why was I seeing something so obviously impossible. I was not in my dull, white-painted apartment, but in a rustic wooden house with smaller windows, and there was the small matter of the unicorn sitting human-style looking at me. She had a green coat and mane and a grin I’d seen many times on image boards.
“Lyra?”
The grin turned to a look of shock. “You know my name?!”
The human mind adapts rather quicker to the simply impossible than to subtler changes. Had I woken up alone in a strange place, I’d likely be panicking, or if there was a regular human in my room, the same, but a pony out of the show I loved watching was something I was, if not prepared for, prepared to be prepared for.
“Er, yes, if that’s right, but how did I get here?”
She started getting excited. “Oh, well, I’ve been researching humans for a while now. Nopony else believes in them but I think they’re amazing! But, the few anecdotes I’ve gathered and the other ponies I’ve talked to about them all treat them as legends, so I wanted to really see if they were real. I’ve been working on a spell to find one, which isn’t easy because spells to find something you know exists have been done, but a spell that just searches all of existence for something is fairly unconventional. Actually, I might be the first to do one, and I’m quite proud, I mean, I’m not a major mage, I’m really just a musician, but I’ve worked so hard on this spell, working my horn day and night, you know how it is when—“
She stopped and looked at my forehead, then at my back.
“But you’re an earth human aren’t you. I guess it would be easier to explain to a unicorn human, but I was just glad to find some human and then I worked single-mindedly on the teleportation spell to bring you here.”
“Actually, I’ve got to disappoint you. There are no unicorn humans or pegasus humans.”
Shocked again. “Really?! How wonderful, since you only have one tribe you must not have any wars in your history like ponies do!”
I got sheepish. “Yeah, you’d think that, wouldn’t you.”
Her horn began to glow and from a table by the window a quill and piece of paper floated over to her and the one began to write on the other.
“I’ve got so many questions to ask and I want to document everything!”
It was my turn for shock. Seeing a talking pony was beyond the pale, so I could deal with it. A glowing, floating pen and paper hit closer to home. “You really can do magic!” I said, getting up to look at them. It was in retrospect a silly thing to say, but I’d been asleep for the spell that had brought me there.
“Of course, stuff like that’s easy, and for earth ponies and pegasi they can just hold the pen in their teeth and—Oh! You have hands, right?! Can I see them? That’s the part I’m most fascinated by!”
I finally had a moment to take stock of the situation. The world of ponies, that I’d watched on TV and read comics and stories about with the other bronies and pegasisters was real, or at least appeared that way to all evidence, and if I couldn’t trust my senses, then there’s no point in considering anything. And I knew Lyra from the fan theories about her, and they all seemed to be accurate. She wanted me to help her understand humans, and that was fine by me, because she’d shown me, by doing this, that the cosmos was not a mundane place of meaningless physics, but that there was real magic in the world, even if it wasn’t the world I grew up in.
For that, I’d do anything, and the joy I felt at seeing this pony work something she’d call easy and I’d call a miracle was so much that I put some of it in mental storage for when I’d need it, and resolved to help her in any way I could, and to try to become her friend.
While thinking all this I had held my hands out and she was poring over them. I moved my thumbs in opposition because I knew that was something that biologists said was important to us. She came over and stared, while my own eyes were glued to the rippling glow coming from Lyra’s horn. I thought that later I’d have to show her cracking knuckles—that would really wow her.
“Lyra,” I began, relishing in saying her name, “I’ll be happy to give you all the help I can, and you can tell me more about Equestria and yourself, too.”
“That’s great! See, I have all these ideas that humans lived on Equestria long before ponies did, and they influenced a lot of our lifestyle. If we can learn from you, we might better ourselves. Though, you do know more about me than I do about you. And I still want to know how you know my name, and you have to tell me yours!”
I told her, and then continued, “Well, I don’t think it’s as simple as us living here before you. Now, this is just a guess, and I might be wrong, but, well, let me begin at the beginning.” I thought for a moment. “Ponies have fairy tales, right, that you tell to young foals?”
“Sure, lots of them. I remember as a filly my dam telling me stories about princes riding on white human steeds. Although, you look like I’d hurt you if I tried to ride you, and you’re not white. You actually look at bit like my friend Pinkie Pie if she were paler.”
I chuckled internally at how they’d played with an idea to put their species on top. Nothing wrong with that. I went on, “Well, some humans have thought that maybe every time someone makes up a fairy tale, that world comes into existence in some other dimension. Or perhaps they already exist, and what we think of as creation is really just perception. In any case, Equestria is one of our fairy stories.”
“So. . . we’re just a made-up world and the human world is real. I’m not sure I like that.”
“Our world might not be any more real than yours. Someone might have just made us up too. But if that’s the case, they did a much worse job. We don’t have any magic at all, and no way to find out about other people and make a spell to get one of them to talk to us. That was all you, Lyra, and I’m very grateful.”
I put my arms around her neck, and she put her forelegs around my back, and we held each other and embraced. We talked all day, about our worlds and ourselves, and every time she absent-mindedly used her horn to open a door or bring food in or such, I wanted to clap and squeal. I gathered she wanted to do the same every time I picked something up with my hands or wrote a note for her with her quill.
Lyra had had an excited grin on her face since we began. She said, “So, today, what I’d like to do is—“
“Hang on! How long do you propose to keep me? For that matter, you DO know how to send me back home, right”
“Oh, well, I didn’t think of it. . . but if there’s one thing they teach responsible unicorns to know, it’s to always think out the reversal of your spell before you cast it. Yes, I can. . . but must I?”
“I have responsibilities at home just as you do here. I can make excuses for a day, but much longer than that and my friends and family will be worried, and I don’t want that.”
“Then. . . it’s good-bye?”
“I’d like it not to be. We can set up a time—“ I cut myself off, as a thought occurred to me, something I’d forgot when I’d been explaining world-as-myth to her. “Send me back now!”
“What?! At least let me get a picture or—“
“No, no, I don’t mean—look, work the reversal spell now, then wait 5 minutes or so and bring me back here. It’ll be good practice to make the trip work in the future, and if I’m right, maybe I can stay.”
“You can?! I don’t understand.”
“And I don’t want to get your—and my—hopes up. So please do it and then we’ll plan to get that picture and set up when I can come back.”
“All right. Hold still.” Her horn began to shimmer green, growing in intensity.
Fully awake this time (though I do admit to closing my eyes), I felt after a moment as if gravity were pushing in all directions on all my nerve cells at once, then as if they all hit ground, I looked around, and I was back in my old one-bed-half-bath, and before the part of me that wanted to say it was a silly dream could get a word in edgewise, I ran to complete the task I had set myself. Over to the desk, open the laptop, quick now, her 5 minutes might be only 2, I know I’d rush if it were I bringing her back, good, the browser’s already open, hit the Official US Time web site (Why not just mouse-over the clock? Because I’m an idiot.) Yes! Make sure, run downstairs, get my smartphone, check its calendar and my own, looks good, looks good! Back upstairs and into bed, come on, position might matter, when, for the first time in the better part of a day, I paused and really thought about this.
Had I really just spent a day with a magical unicorn in a parallel world? Was I mad? Had I dreamed it? Was someone playing an inordinately elaborate prank on me? That was when my philosophical training kicked in. If I was mad, then there’s no point in thinking about anything, because I could be wrong. The prank was actually less likely than Lyra and Equestria being real on the Occam’s Razor principle: I was mostly a closet brony, the few people who knew I watched the show and were close enough to me that they might want to prank me didn’t know the details of Lyra’s human fascination, so I threw that out as least likely. And if it was a dream. . .
There was also the possibility that it was real, and that it was a one-time thing, that Lyra’s magic could only focus on me at that particular point in space-time, and that she would try to bring me back and fail. That potentiality and that of it being a dream would produce the same evidence, I would continue to lay there and nothing would happen for five, and then ten, and then fifteen minutes, until I got up and went on with my life. If that was the way it played out, I would choose the latter explanation over that of it being a dream.
What I couldn’t allow myself to do was hope. The world worked that way. Watched pots didn’t boil, washing your car made it rain, and when you’re holding still waiting for a unicorn in another dimension to magic you back there and doubting if it will work, you’d better not hope for it, or the fates will keep you on that bed forever. Relax, and be nonchalant, and maybe they’ll let it happen.
It was sooner than five minutes. The same tugging and pulling all over my body (don’t hope, you fool, it’s just your brain tricking you! Wait and keep your eyes closed) and the same jolt and then I was back in Equestria and Lyra was there and I leaped up and threw my arms around her long pony neck.
“I was right! It worked! I can stay!”
“You can? But, like you said, the other humans are waiting”
“And wait they will. Sit down, let me explain. Our worlds are on different time tracks. My world is like. . .” I racked my brain for an analogy. “It’s like a train that waits for you at the station. You go into town, you do everything you do, and when you get back the train’s still there and it hasn’t gone on. When you sent me back, my clocks and calendars were the same as when you brought me.”
“Oh, I get it, I’ve read about that at least in stories”
“Sure, you’re a smart pony, good, I’m glad.”
“But it doesn’t work the other way. If I do send you back, time still passes here at the same rate, otherwise you wouldn’t have felt the lag at all, you’d have just felt yourself teleporting out and then right back.”
I thought about it. “You’re right, good thinking. Five minutes there, five minutes here, but five minutes here, no time there. At least for me. Maybe if you came to my world it would be the reverse. Or maybe it’s matter-energy based and if I eat enough Equestrian food time will start to move there. We’re in terra incognita. . . or Equestria incognita, but we’ll risk it and certainly I don’t have to go now!”
“You said, ‘If I came to your world.’ Maybe I should try to work a spell like that.”
“Hmm. . . that might not be so good. I think we’d have to keep you secret, or say you’re some kind of trick. Or, maybe I could take you to one of the brony meetups, but if you did any magic there. . . if you could do any magic there. . . it might get awkward. And if you couldn’t you might be stuck.”
“Oh! I didn’t think of that. That would be bad. But I think I know what you mean about keeping secret. Other ponies here think I’m weird for liking humans, and I bet they’d freak if they saw you. I. . . we should probably send you back before my roommate gets home. She’s gone for a long weekend.”
“Yes, and it’s not like I can stay forever. I mean, let’s assume that time really does stand still in my world here. If I stayed ten years I’d still be ten years older, and then if I went home my people would freak. But we have today and now, so what do you want to do?”
“Talk more until I know everything about you and your world!”
We both laughed.
Chapter 3
Lyra magicked over another quill and pen and got ready to take notes. She sat down on a sofa human-style, one back hoof crossed over the other, and I gave a little chuckle.
“What is it?” she asked.
“No, nothing. Do you really find sitting like that comfortable?”
This was, of course, close to the pose that the bronies saw her in which spurred our idea that Lyra was a pony who liked humans. If my world-as-myth view was correct, this pose was the cause of her human fandom.
“Actually, no, but that’s why I do it. When I’m too comfortable I stop being focused, so I sit like this and the discomfort keeps prodding me to get done what I have to do, whether it’s thinking about something or taking notes or casting spells. I sat like this when I brought you here.”
“So you don’t just do it because it’s the way humans sit?”
She blushed slightly. “Well, I do think it’s a cool pose, but the focus thing is important too.”
I wasn’t really getting an answer to my question. She had a perfectly legitimate explanation for her odd position, but it also was tied in with humans. I decided to let her know what I was thinking.
“But is it possible that the whole reason you like humans is because you sit that way? See, that’s the only evidence anyone in my world had that you admired us, but it turns out to be true. Maybe we made you that way?”
She thought about that for a moment, uncrossed her hooves and leaned in. “I guess it’s possible, but I know that when I decide to go after some human artifact or story, I think it up inside my head. You saw a picture of me sitting. Did you see a picture of my brain?”
“No, I suppose I didn’t. So how did you start then?”
“Oh no! You’re the one here to tell stories. You let me know how it is that you came to know enough about the pony world to want to be here, and then I’ll tell you my story.”
She was right. I felt that I owed her something to let her know that, so I shifted myself into the position I had seen Bon-bon on the bench when Lyra sat human-style: on all fours, sort of in the push-up position.
“All right, though it’s not very interesting.”
“You let me be the judge of that.”
“Well, all the stories of Equestria, most of which are about Ponyville, are shown in series on what we call television. I don’t know if you have anything like that, but imagine a play that goes around to all the human households and does shows for everyone.”
Lyra’s quill moved rapidly. “But it’s not magic, right? Someone invented and built it?”
“That’s right. The invention is an interesting story in itself. There was this farmer out in a field—“
“Hang on, one story at a time. I got that you saw us on the television. Go on from there and worry about the invention later.”
I thought that was odd, as if she really wanted to know about the human world, Philo Farnsworth’s story was more important than mine, but I went on.
“OK, so there are lots of playlets they show, and most are about humans, but the one about Equestria was different. The ponies were nice to each other, but they weren’t stupid or cloyingly sweet, and the stories were fun to watch. Word of mouth spread, and I hadn’t seen a good story in a while, so I started to follow and pay attention. Other humans would share pictures and make up our own guesses about what some ponies were like, and that’s how I learned about you.”
“Why did you not see good stories?”
Again, it was the wrong thing for her to pick out of what I had said. I wanted to explain about bronies and the internet, not about my own viewing habits.
“I guess at the time I was a little. . . not sad or depressed, but anhedonic. I just wasn’t feeling the joy I used to. I had chalked it up to getting older.”
“And you got happy when you saw us ponies?”
I hadn’t actually thought about it till she asked the question. Pony fandom was something I was just into. But didn’t I wait for every Saturday morning intently?
“I guess I did. Nothing compared to the happiness when I saw you. I mean, to really be in Equestria instead of just seeing it on a tiny box.”
“Well, I think the story’s interesting. You were sad, and now you’re happy. Those are the best stories!”
Well, I couldn’t disagree with that.
“OK, your turn then. How do you know about us?”
“Well, as a filly I was always very impatient. I would ask my sire and dam things like, ‘Why can’t we have the zap apple jam now?!’ or ‘Why don’t we turn spring to summer sooner so the foals can have vacation?!’ and other ponies my age would tease me by saying, ‘Lyra wants to be human! Lyra wants to have things like inventions and technology! Lyra goes on two legs!’ You know, all the stereotypes of humans, that they’re impatient and rude and grasping. They made it into a singsong chant: ‘Lyra’s human! Lyra’s human!’ and for a long time it hurt. But as I grew I realized that those stereotypes weren’t all bad and I was like they said. And you know something? It turns out that mean ponies stop teasing you if it stops hurting. When I could actually say that I did like humans, and mean it, they stopped.”
The obvious follow-ups came into my head. How did those stereotypes come about and how did the other young ponies come to know them? And yet, I was thinking more about what she had said about teasing. Would I be better off if I could state proudly how much I loved ponies, and not worry about being made fun of?
“Well, you did invent the teleportation spell for me. I guess that’s something stereotypically human.”
I had thought it was an obvious connection to make, but Lyra stopped and her spell holding the quill and paper in the air was broken. They fell to the floor with a clack. She leaned to the side out of her seated pose.
“You really mean that. . . and not as a bad thing.”
“Yes.”
Her voice became a whisper. “I learned to take them so, but nopony ever complimented me like that.”
Then she recovered. “I guess you really are weird, aren’t you?!”
********************************************************************************************************************************
“Oh, do humans have music? I can play the lyre!”
“Of course you can. And yes, we have music, though I don’t play. I like to sing though, but I’m not very good.”
“Can you try? I’d like to hear what human music is like.”
“Well, can you play for me?”
“Hey, like I said, you go first.”
“But I can’t think of any songs right now, not that I can sing off the top of my head. Play for me, and then I’ll sing, I promise.”
“OK, I guess. Be aware, you’re getting for free what I make all the ponies pay heavy for.”
Lyra’s horn glowed again and from the bedroom floated in the small harp. She sat back up and held it steady between a foreleg and her crossed hoof. The strings began to move on their own, and her magic glow seemed to change in time like an audio visualizer. It was a high, lilting melody, not one I recognized, but it could have fit in with the type of music I’d heard ponies sing.
She didn’t play for long, perhaps two minutes, and at the end I applauded. She perked up. “Oh! You hit them together instead of on the ground! That makes sense.” She tried to clap her hooves together in mimic of me, but it wasn’t that impressive. “Doesn’t that hurt?”
“A little. I always thought that if you really appreciate a performance, you should give yourself a little pain to compensate the performer.”
“I’m not sure that that makes sense. Your turn now, you promised.”
“All right. See if you like this.” I breathed in and sang:
Becoming as popular, as popular can be Making my mark, making my mark in high society I’m the belle of the ball, the star of the show. I’m the type—
A crash of sound from the lyre cut me off.
“Nuh-uh! You think we don’t get the Canterlot hits out here in Ponyville? I wanted human music, not pony music sung by a human!”
“But that is human music! I mean, I’ve been listening to it a lot the past few weeks.”
“Well, you got it from us, right? It’s on one of the stories?”
“Yeah, it is. You’re quite perceptive.”
“So no fooling, now, a real human song.”
I decided that if I had to represent our whole species, I needed something epic. I started in again a capella on Beethoven’s Ninth.
Freude schoner Gotterfunken Tochter aus Elysium Wir betreten feuertrunken Himmlische dein Heiligtum
She really was quite talented. As I worked my way through, she held the lyre again and picked up the tune clean. Well, credit goes to Beethoven for having a melody that flowed naturally. But I correctly figured that she couldn’t anticipate the accidentals in the last line that are usually played by the accompanying instruments, so I sang them. And for three notes we harmonized instead of just synchronizing.
When we finished she said, “Oh, that was a lovely song! But why does it have nonsense words?”
“That’s not nonsense, it’s German. That’s what I do for a living, interpretation. The fun part is when some German speaker doesn’t realize that’s what you do and insults you, thinking you can’t understand, then you zing them back in their language.”
“Wait, I don’t get it. Everypony always says that humans don’t talk to other animals. So what animal speaks this German?”
“No, no, it’s other humans, from a different part of the world.”
“But if you’re both human, why don’t you talk the same?”
“Is that how it is here? Every pony speaks like us?”
“Well, yeah, that’s how it’s supposed to be. Otherwise you couldn’t communicate!”
“It is hard sometimes. Wait, doesn’t Zecora speak a different language?”
“But she’s a zebra. Of course she has to talk to other zebras. And she’s a pony so she can talk to us too.”
“Well, it’s not like that in the human world. We don’t talk to the animals, just to each other, and sometimes not even that.”
“Your world needs some good pony sense. You’re all Earth humans, but you can’t even talk to each other. Maybe I should work on a spell next to fix that.”
“You’re right, in many ways our world would benefit if ponies came and helped. But it’s still a beautiful place. Do you know what that song means?”
“All the nonsense? Of course not.”
“It’s called the ‘Ode to Joy.’ A tribute to all the happiness in the world. And it pictures joy as a girl with magic, or maybe with wings, who brings together all the people in the world in despite of their differences. It’s a song about friendship and love.”
She paused at that. “Well, if you know that, then maybe you don’t need ponies that much after all.” She got up off the couch. “I’m going to see what I can do about a meal. You must be hungry too, right?”
“Sure, I could eat.”
And as she trotted toward the kitchen, I heard her humming the tune again.
--End of Chapter 3. Starting with this chapter, I'm using the blog function to write some "making of" notes when I can think of them. Check them out!
I’d been at Lyra’s home roughly a day and a half. The day before we had been so engrossed that I hadn’t been hungry at all. At one point she had served snacks, cupcakes and apple tarts. I hadn’t thought to ask at the time, but it might well be that they had come from Sweet Apple Acres or Sugar Cube Corner, and those weren’t just treats, they were pony history. But I was beginning to be hungry for something more substantive.
From in the kitchen Lyra called, “So, you want a hay cake or a smoothie?”
I hadn’t considered that diet would be a problem. I walked in after her.
“Hay isn’t good for humans to eat.”
“No hay? That’s fine, I’ve got plenty of grass stuff too.”
“Grass is no good either.”
“What, are you just some kind of picky eater?”
“It’s not me, Lyra. Any human would say the same thing.”
“So it is true. You guys aren’t vegetarians.”
This was an area I had not wanted to tread. Would Lyra hate me if I tried to explain that I’d eaten animals at home? But what she said next surprised me.
“Well, that’s just fine, because neither am I! I guess it ties in with me being so into humans, but I don’t tie myself down to hay and grass either.”
I felt like a hypocrite. I was about to try to defend my carnivorous nature, and yet it felt wrong to me for her to do the same. Surely sweet little Lyra could never slaughter anything for food! But she went on.
“Nope, I’m a total beet-eater! It’s kind of a fringe group, and none of the others do it because of humans, but we think that root vegetables are more nutritious than hay or grass. Regular vegetarian ponies think it’s weird, but I’m used to that!”
Beets versus grass, that’s what passed for controversy in Equestria. I decided I’d stay mum about my own eating habits for now. If I could use her choice as a way to explain mine, I would, but not at that moment.
“I have a garden plot out back with beets, would you like to see?” she asked.
“Sure.”
She opened the back door and we stepped out into the yard. There was indeed a plot with rows of flowery leaves and a sweet scent emanating from them. I walked in between some of the rows.
“They look pretty good and tasty. You’ve worked hard on them, I can tell”
“Yeah, tilling and hoeing and watering are fine, but harvesting’s the worst. On harvest day I strain myself so much that my horn is sore at the end. This section is ready for this week, but I’ve been putting it off because it’s just so much work.”
I kneeled by the section she had pointed a hoof to, grabbed the nearest plant with both my hands, and yanked as hard as I could. The round roots popped out, dirt going all over the place.
“Have you got something to keep these in?” I said.
I saw her look of wide-eyed fascination at seeing me use my hands quickly turn into something more, a look of gratitude. She floated over a wicker basket and I threw the beet into it, then grabbed for the next one, and worked my way down the row.
She followed after, keeping the basket low for me to reach, and the work went quickly. There was a gentle breeze and the sun was shining. From down the road we heard some colts and fillies laughing and playing. This sound seemed to shake Lyra out of her reverie.
“Oh, what are we doing?! Get back inside!”
She galloped behind me and started shoving me in the back with her head. The basket settled gently in the soil and, prodded by her I hustled back in the house. She ran in a circle pointing her horn at the windows, and curtains slammed themselves shut.
She was frazzled. “You can’t be outside! What if somepony sees us? Sees you, I mean!”
“Did you mean to keep me hidden as long as I’m here?”
“I didn’t mean to keep you at all, just get information. I. . . I didn’t know that you’d like it here or want to stay!”
“All right. But I do like it here.”
“And I like having you here. So we’ll have to figure out some way to let other ponies know eventually. But not by just having somepony walk by and be shocked.”
“You’re right, I suppose. I thought that being in Equestria would be all upside, but if ponies are afraid of me, we’ll have to work on fixing that. Anyway, forget the beets for now. I can eat them instead of grass or hay, but they’re not my favorite. Maybe I’ll show you some other roots you can plant that are good. But for right now, let’s see what we can do with fruits and nuts. You have nuts, right?”
She nodded, but as I said that I had an idea.
“In fact, maybe I can show you some recipes I use at home, you might like them!”
I was a halfway-decent cook back on Earth, the sort who watched cooking shows on TV and spent money on fancy kitchen gadgets, and one of my staple dishes had popped into my head as something that I could both enjoy here and share with my friend.
“Oh! I’d like that! No animals in it, right?”
So she did know. Well, at least I didn’t have to explain.
“Definitely. Well, eggs are ok, right? I mean, I know that some ponies raise chickens and that’s the only reason I can think of that you would.”
“Yeah, we eat eggs.”
“Good, and they have protein, and nuts like I said. Do you have walnuts here in Ponyville?”
“Sure, we can get those.”
“Great, let’s make a list!”
She floated over another quill and paper. Watching it never got old. I picked them out of the air, and watched her reaction. Handwork never got old for her either.
“Now, what about raisins? Can we get those?”
Confusion came over her face. “What are raisins?”
“No raisins, ok. How about grapes?”
“Those we’ve got.”
“Great, get some extra and I’ll show you what raisins are in a few weeks. Now, here’s a tough one for you. Mayonnaise?”
“Don’t know what that is either”
“OK, you don’t have that. How about vinegar?”
“Now you’re just making things up!”
“I am not. I’m trying my best to improvise.” We were both smiling like co-conspirators at this point, and any worries about being caught had melted away. “We can get oils, like olive or sunflower?”
“I’ve got oil in the larder.”
“Great, then I think we can do this. I know you’ve got lemons and apples and celery stalks in town. They were in some of the songs that you said I stole.” I added them to the list. “Ok, let’s go shopping!”
“Oh! Um. . . shopping means outside.”
Right. I’d forgot.
“Yeah, Ok. We’ll make do with whatever food you’ve got.”
“That’s silly, my little human. You wait here and I’ll go get all this stuff.” The list glowed and flew away from my hands as she trotted out the door. “See you soon!” she called back.
That was the heart of her compassion. She was going to leave me alone in her house, an alien who, for all she knew, ate ponies like her, to go out and get food for me. I wondered if all the ponies were that nice, or just her. And I hoped to myself that, if given the opportunity, I could show such character.
End note: There is a feed for horses made of beet pulp, but it is from the sugar beet, not the table beet that you get in stores, and it's just the pulp, not the root. Still, Equestrian ponies are not horses, and I felt it justifiable artistic license to say that some ponies eat the table beets.
See my Fimfiction blog for more notes on writing.
“I suppose the smart thing to do would be to send you home now and pretend that none of this ever happened, isn’t it?” Lyra said.
“Yes, it is.”
“We’re not going to do that, are we?”
“No, we’re not.”
It took us two minutes to get our bearings back, and another minute to realize that in those two minutes we’d lost all chance of containing the situation.
“I don’t suppose you could run after her and explain,” I said
“Bon-bon was always faster than me. I’m not an athlete, just a geek who sits home and meddles with magic she doesn’t think about the consequences to.”
“What do you think she’ll do?”
“Well, if it were a dragon or a parasprite invasion, she’d run to sound the alarm horn to alert all the other ponies. But a human. . . she might just panic.”
“I have to know. What is it about us that makes you all so afraid? Everypony except you, I mean.”
A wry grin came on her face. “Well, look at you! You’re all elongated and bald and your mane is so short and you’ve no tail and everything about you is just so. . . un-pony!” The grin began to falter. “And you talk odd and you have all this different history, the food and the hands and—oh my Celestia, I don’t want to lose you! I don’t want you to have to go!” She hugged me as tight as she could.
It was damned frustrating. There was nothing we could do, and no way to find any information about how to get to something we could do. I raged, I shook, I racked my brain to think of anything that might help.
Lack of control, it’s a scary thing. To sit back and have to accept your fate, whatever it might be, is not a trait of humans. Or of ponies. Evolution selects against it.
Lyra recovered her wits. Her muscles seemed to relax all at once. She let me go and trotted into the den toward a sofa.
“Nothing has actually happened to us yet,” she said. “We have this time, no matter how short. Come in, please, and just sit with me. And hold me.”
I walked after her and sat down, putting my arms around her. She had sat in her slouching human style, and together we were almost in the position of the statue The Pieta . She lifted her head to me and said, “Let’s not waste the time we have left. Let’s talk again, about unimportant things. Sing me more music, tell me about more weird foods, let me really understand you.”
I tried to think of something idle to say, something to comfort her. But all I could see was the moment that the door opened. I thought of how the scene that Bon-bon saw must have looked to her, with both my hands on Lyra’s head. Would she think I was going to tear it off or use my fingers to drill inside her brain? I’d become a movie monster from one of the cheap black-and-white films of old. Those movies always ended with soldiers storming the monster’s lair, lots of bullets and screaming. Did Equestria have an army? The Wonderbolts had been used as an air force when Spike went on a rampage, and Princess Celestia had her small cadre of guards, but—Celestia. She was the army, with more powerful magic than anyone else.
But she was more, wasn’t she? She was the ruler. I finally broke through my own emotions and saw a way to hope, or at least to hope for hope. I looked back at Lyra.
“Those things—they’re not unimportant. They’re the essentials of who I am and what my world is. And I’m going to talk to you about more of those essentials, because you need to know if we’re to have a chance to stay together.”
“A chance? But how? When Bon-bon gets back—“
“When Bon-bon gets back she won’t be alone. Whoever’s with her, we’ll need to explain about us, and we’ll need to explain in a very human way. You said that everypony always called you human. Are you ready to assume the mantle?”
Bravery, as some have said, is not the lack of fear, but being able to go on in the face of fear. Lyra put on a brave face.
“All right, I’ll try. For you.” She floated over another quill and paper.
“No, no notes this time. Just listen.”
******
It was late at night when it all began. I had been lecturing for hours, and Lyra had been listening and discussing, sometimes objecting, while I tried to cover in less than a day what my people had taken millennia to achieve. From outside the house we heard subdued voices, perhaps hundreds of ponies. No torches and pitchforks, at least that I could see. The alarm siren had never sounded.
A knock on the door. A gruff voice, one of the royal guards, it sounded like to me.
“Miss Heartstrings, are you all right?”
Bon-bon had summoned the authorities. Correction: authority, singular. This guard was just a herald.
“Yes. Yes, we’re fine.”
We. Let them chew on that.
But they didn’t stop to chew. Seconds later, the door was kicked in, and I saw something ridiculous I had not expected: a chicken.
Again, a correction: a chicken head. On the body of a snake. They had sent in a cockatrice.
Lyra had the instincts of a native. Perhaps cockatrices make some distinctive noise or give off some subtle indication of their presence that humans haven't learned to detect, because she turned her head and slammed her eyes shut, kicking blindly at the air, though not coming close to the beast. I was slower to react, and stupidly I stared back at it.
I thought it was rather cowardly of them. Were they really using the same creature that they feared as a weapon? And now, so much for my plan and so much for my hope. We weren’t even going to get a chance to parley.
Unlike the one I’d seen Fluttershy deal with in the Everfree Forest, this ‘trice was trained, probably for just this sort of thing. It found me, and I was hooked by its red eyes. I couldn’t move. This one was smarter too than the wild one. It didn’t start turning me to stone at my feet, but went right for the head.
I’d been dealing with magic since I’d arrived in Equestria, but that was Lyra’s gentle unicorn magic, not this maliciousness, and none of it had actually touched or altered my body. Working from the outside in, I felt my lips and nose turn cold and hard, and the magical hold that restricted my movement gave way to a physical hold. I’d never been claustrophobic, and that was a good thing, because I was more enclosed than I’d ever been before, encased in my own body. In front of my eyes I saw specks of stone, then my sight faded away. I heard a crunching, crackling sound, then my hearing went and I was left in sensory deprivation.
Still, the human—or pony—brain can work quite fast under stress. Several things came into my head in the split second before my thoughts went hazy.
‘That was rather cowardly, but I can’t deny its effectiveness.’
‘It had better be just me they take out, not her too.’
‘From what I remember, Twilight Sparkle blacked out when she was turned to stone, so it’s not like I’ll be aware.’
‘That’s probably a good thing, better than what’s essentially locked-in syndrome.’
‘If this is how I die, it was all worth it.’
‘There are, of course, always possibilities. Can Lyra carry out our plan on her own? If not, maybe in ten thousand years Celestia might show mercy.’
‘Lyra.’
‘Yes, let my last thought be of her’
‘Lyra.’
My cerebrum was shutting down, but my motor functions still worked. With the last of my energy, I held up my hands toward where I thought Lyra was, one with the fingers spread, the other hooked into a cup. I had a vision of myself stuck out in the garden next to the plot I’d had only the one chance to work on, with Lyra weeping and putting her hoof in my hand.
My arms stiffened. My mind was closing in on itself.
‘Lyra. Lyra. L—‘
Then all was gone.
Chapter 7 - Confrontation
The royal guards entered the house behind the cockatrice, covering its head with a bag and removing it to safety. Then Princess Celestia, her mane waving behind her, walked in in her full majesty.
"Are you all right, dear? Were you hurt at all?"
"What do you mean, hurt? Why would I be hurt?" said Lyra.
"By that awful creature. How could it possibly get here?"
"Because I made it happen! I worked the spell! I brought the human here! You could have done it, you have so much magic. We could have all known the humans, but you kept them from us!"
"For your own good, my little pony. You don't know what kind of damage they can do. But I'm not angry with you, just disappointed. Now, I think you should come out here and apologize to your dear friend for scaring her."
"All right. Can I have a moment to think of how to say it?"
"Certainly. We'll be waiting for you outside," she said, and turned to go.
Lyra walked over to the stone statue and laid her head close to one of the petrified ears. Perhaps she didn't know that people turned to stone weren't aware, or maybe she didn't care, but she leaned in and said softly:
"I told a lie, of course. I know exactly what to say. Lyra the liar, that's me. It's funny, I never thought that I would ever lie to Princess Celestia, and yet I don't care. But I can't stand to think that you think that I faltered in this moment. I lied to get her out of the room so I could be next to you if this is the last time. I never told you about all the nights I spent working on the teleportation spell to bring you here, how many blind alleys I went down, how many failed lines of magical inquiry I explored before you came to me. I'd planned to, I wanted you to be impressed by my powers. But now it all means nothing. This night, these next moments will be my legacy to you, not my magic. And though there's much more at stake and it might be much harder now, I have one advantage: this time I know exactly what I'm seeking for."
And then her voice was barely above a whisper.
"Only you, my love."
Lyra followed, and if the princess had thought she was cowed, she was mistaken. Lyra saw Bon-bon right outside, but also a crowd of hundreds, as most of Ponyville had turned out for the incident after the rumors had spread with brush-fire speed.
"Now, my little pony, tell Miss Bon-bon you're sorry," said Celestia.
Lyra began in a low voice, speaking only to her roommate. "I am sorry, Bon-bon. I'm sorry that you came home early, and didn't give me a chance to explain this calmly and rationally. You know that I've been fascinated by humans for a while, and you should have expected me to try this." Celestia looked worried; she had expected a pony who was in over her head and grateful to be saved. Lyra advanced on her, and now she projected her voice for the crowd to hear.
"And as to you! How in Equestria do you justify hurting my friend?!"
A gasp of shock ran through the crowd. Nopony had defied Celestia in living memory.
"Your friend? A human? They're dangerous, dear. You're young, and you haven't learned-"
"I've learned more than you know, Princess!" Another gasp from the crowd. Interrupting Celestia was even more unheard-of. "I've learned more in the last three days than in a lifetime of being kept ignorant! One thing I've learned is that there are places where they don't bow before royalty."
"Now, now, my little pony-"
"I'M NOT YOUR LITTLE PONY! I'm a free, thinking mare, and what I learned from this dear, dangerous creature is that it's YOUR job to protect those who dare to think for themselves!
"You can't just send in your thugs with a beast to turn to stone someone you don't like, because I've learned that we all have rights, even humans! You didn't give us a chance to speak, you cut us off without a word. You didn't care about that beautiful pair of bare hands. You didn't present argument or evidence. You didn't even give us a chance to confront you! You judged us yourself, instead of letting our peer ponies have a say. And the punishment you enforced was cruel and unusual. You've violated every right we have! Not that what I'm saying now is the sum total of it.
"That's what YOU need to learn, Celestia. It's not that you tell us what we can do and everything else we can't. It's the exact opposite! You tell us what we can't do, and why it's dangerous, and as for everything else, keep your horse-face out of our business!
Had Celestia not brought the crowd, it's likely that Lyra would have been punished as well, and her requests certainly denied. But the princess had come more interested in making sure Lyra knew not to try such things again, and that backfired, because they all heard. Still, the princess tried to regain control.
"Miss Heartstrings, please, listen. All that is well and good, but it's not practical. You need help, my dear. We're all your friends and we want to help you."
Lyra reared up, her front hooves whirling in the air, her horn starting to glow. The crowd had its largest reaction yet. She had defied and interrupted Celestia; was the deranged unicorn actually going to strike at her?
Lyra leaped--but not at the princess, only toward her, diving face-down on the ground at Celestia's hooves. The effort of her speech had drained her, and she was reduced to tears. "Then forget all of that and help me by letting us be free and be together. You could do it because I made a fancy speech, you could do it because if I can get this crowd on my side we might convince you. You could do it because you really do understand and want to reach out a hoof to a creature of a different culture. But if not for those reasons do it because otherwise it's just wrong!"
Perhaps at that moment Celestia's heart warmed, or perhaps she still thought that the situation was trouble but that it would be easier in the long run to let it play out. In any case she nodded her head toward the house and her large horn gave a slight glow.
A stone prison shattered. A voice cried out the end of a scream never begun, "-yra!"
******
Everything that happened outside the house that night until that moment Lyra related to me afterwards, when it had all calmed down. I felt no residual aftereffects of the transformation, but I do regret that I wasn't there to hear the most passionate plea ever put forth by a pony.
I returned to consciousness, and my continuity of thought led me to shout, "Lyra!"
She picked up her head, scarcely daring to believe, and ran inside to embrace me. "Oh, I screwed up everything you told me, but it's all right, so long as you're breathing again!"
I could still see the crowd outside the door, and the large figure of the princess that seemed to have its own light source. I turned back to Lyra. "Courage dear, courage and courtesy. We have many guests and we should go greet them. It's not over yet, but we have a chance to speak, and that's all we can ask for, a chance."
I walked outside, unaware at the time of the nature of my parole, only the fact that Lyra, again proving herself the smarter of the two of us, had achieved it. I bottled up any anger I had about being turned to stone without a chance to defend myself, as if I was to get out of the pickle we were in, I couldn’t afford to bear a grudge.
Turning to face Celestia and summoning all my courage, I bowed deeply, saying, “Hail, Celestia, princess and graceful ruler of Equestria and protector of ponies everywhere, from the land of humans I greet you.” It occurred to me that, although I’d seen ponies bowing their heads, perhaps leaning backwards might be the proper genuflection, offering the heart to be gored rather than lowering the head to be chopped. But I was completely improvising anyway.
“Stay back and do not touch us,” said Celestia. “I have restored you out of mercy, but you are dangerous and should leave our land as soon as possible, never to return!”
“Pray tell, your highness, how am I dangerous? I mean no harm to you, or to any of your ponies, or to your land. To come to Equestria has been a dream of mine.”
“Nevertheless you are dangerous.” She turned to the crowd of ponies. “Hear me, Ponyvillians! If humans are allowed to enter our lands, they will invade and take over! They will place bits in your mouths and reins on your necks. They will make the pegasi, who fly free, yield them the sky for machines that send out clouds of smoke. They will steal the crops of the Earth ponies for themselves and force your great strength into service on their wheels. Unicorns will be made into servants, if indeed they allow you to live for fear of the magic they do not understand and cannot imitate. Shun them! They do not know friendship and harmony as we do, only greed, war, and selfishness.”
It was a powerful indictment of my people. I could see that most of the ponies, used to trusting Princess Celestia, were beginning to stamp and paw at the ground in anger at me. I could not sway the crowd by defying her, yet I needed desperately to have them listen. As quick as I could think, I decided on a verbal judo approach—use the princess’s momentum in my favor.
“Fillies and gentlecolts,” I began. Why wasn’t it, ‘mares and gentlestallions’? Not now, you fool! Focus, or you’re banished and then thrown into a dungeon in the place she banishes you to. “Princess Celestia is right to be afraid of a human invasion, though not for the reasons she has said. My world is a place of ills and troubles, many of our own making. But Equestria has its troubles too. You have dragons and manticores, you must ward off spirits of chaos and threats of eternal night, and you must struggle each year to grow enough food to feed yourselves. Humans would come here offering to eliminate these threats, and we could! We have weapons that could tame the Everfree Forest in a week, and technology that could feed all the ponies forever. And we would offer them in a fair exchange for your help in weather control”—here I gestured toward a group of pegasi that had crowded together—“and for beneficial spells.”—pointing toward a gathering of unicorns.
“And that is why humans are dangerous, not because they will harm you, but because they will tempt you! You must resist, because it would not rid Equestria of its problems, it would only weaken and soften you. Nopony would go hungry, but you would grow fat and founder with laminitis. You would not be attacked by dangerous creatures, but you would lose many of the valuable herbs like those Zecora collects. And though you would believe you had made your lives better, your great-grandfoals would curse your names for not giving them the same beautiful world you live in.”
Celestia had a satisfied look on her face. It seemed like I was making her case for her. I paused to give her a chance to respond, but she seemed like she was quite willing to have me continue. And even though I was never much for debate, I felt I had what might be a trump card.
“No, our worlds must never commingle.” I walked over to Lyra and put her hoof in my hand. Her eyes were beginning to well with tears, as what could she think but that I was saying good-bye? “But I am not my world, and each pony is not Equestria. Both of our worlds have their own troubles, and we can’t make them go away. All we can do is to bear them.
“And the only way that any of it can be bearable is with friendship and love. This dear, sweet mare brought me here, not out of greed or selfishness, but because she had love to give, even though not to a pony. And I want to stay with her among you, neither to hurt nor to tempt you, but because I want to be your friend. . . and because I love her.
“Perhaps none of you feel as she does. You may not be curious about another race or fascinated by my different limbs. But would any of you refuse a friend? There are thousands of humans back from where I come who would give all they had to soar with a pegasus among the clouds, or to come to a party with ponies, or to tend the flowers and small animals with you, or to study the lore of your world at your side.
“I’m not asking for free congress between ponies and humans. But won’t you please consider making friends with one?”
By this time, around Celestia had gathered her best-known advisers in Ponyville, whom we call the Mane Six, and she turned to them.
“Well, if I remember right, one of Miss Heartstrings’s request was that I consult with other ponies. What do you think?”
Twilight Sparkle spoke first. “You sent me to this town to find friends. You never said to limit myself to ponies.”
Applejack said, “Shoot, ah don’t see that humans can really be so bad! Never yet met a critter’ll turn on you if yer nice to it.”
Fluttershy came next. “I guess all that stuff’s pretty scary. . . but it would break Lyra’s heart if we said no.”
Rarity looked down at her hooves. “Well, I don’t know that it’s proper to associate with such boors, but I suppose there’s nothing wrong with being a social climber, and if I were cursed with being a human, I’d certainly want ponies to be friends with me.”
Pinkie Pie said, “Humans have funny-looking faces!” Twilight stepped in front of her and said to Princess Celestia, “She means yes.”
Rainbow Dash turned her head away. “Heck, no! They’re strange and scary and Lyra’s just a freak for her weird obsession!”
Fluttershy flew over to her. “You mean you’re scared of the humans too, Rainbow?”
Her multicolored mane flew behind her as she turned back. “I’m not scared of anything! You just bring those humans on, I’ll fly rings around them!”
Twilight stepped closer to the princess. “Well, I think we’re unanimous.”
Murmurs from the crowd started to take on a more positive tone. The six ponies were respected in Ponyville for all they’d done, and the others seemed amenable to listening to them. A few of them actually inched closer as if to see if I smelled right.
Princess Celestia looked at Lyra and me. “It seems that the ponies of this town are willing to give you a chance. I won’t force you to leave now.” My heart rose, and if Lyra was still crying, it was with joy. The princess continued, “But I will be keeping an eye on you and I want everypony here to do the same. If there’s any trouble with you, I’ll transport you myself and I might not be too careful about giving you a soft landing.”
“Thank you, your majesty! It’s all I can ask, but it’s all I ever wanted.”
Lyra cantered over to the princess. “Your highness, I’m sorry I blew up at you before. I. . . I really don’t mind if you call me your little pony.”
For the first time that night, Celestia smiled. “I forgive you, dear. Maybe the next time you break the barriers between worlds though, you’ll give us a heads-up.”
She gestured to her guards and they all flew off into the night. From all around me I could hear the crowd starting to break up, though I wasn’t watching. I only had eyes for Lyra.
“You did wonderful!” Lyra said to me. “I tried to make a speech like that but I just couldn’t get it out.”
“You did just fine. We’re here together, aren’t we? That’s all that matters.”
“Yes, and finally we can go back in and talk without being frightened to death.”
Most of the crowd had gone completely, though it caught my eye that one pony hadn’t moved, and then it occurred to me why not: because she was standing in front of her own house. It was Bon-bon, and she wasn’t wearing a smile.
“Er, perhaps it would be a good idea to send me home for a bit,” I said. “I’m sure you’d like to catch up with your roommate, and I should probably get some stuff done at home before I forget how to be human, and then I’m no good to you.”
Lyra caught Bon-bon’s expression. “Yes, that sounds good.” She looked up at the town clock. “It’s coming up on eight o’clock now, how about I bring you back in twelve hours.”
“That’ll be fine, gives me a whole day at home.”
“OK, hold still.”
I felt the magic take hold of me and saw Ponyville start to switch point by point back to my room. As the last of the world changed I heard a distorted voice say, “I hope you didn’t let it sleep in my bed!”
Back home I decided that my first step was to call in sick from work. The next twelve hours were too important to waste on a job that I no longer felt held primacy in my life. What I did want to do was gather materials that I would try to bring back with me to Equestria. I didn’t know if that was possible as I hadn’t tried either time I’d gone, but it would be worth the effort.
I drove to the library. I wanted a careful selection of books to take with me. My speech to the princess still resonated in my head. I really didn’t want to humanize Equestria. So some eliminations were easy. Nothing on guns, of course, or bombs or any weapons. In fact, no science whatsoever. If ponies wanted to know how they made plastic or whether string theory made any sense, let some bright pony figure it out.
As I went from the computerized card catalog to the shelves and back, I noticed an emptiness I had never felt. More than once, I picked up a book and turned with it, a half-formed, “Lyra, check this out,” dying in my throat. In one sense, she was fairly close, only an hour behind and only a few more ahead. But in others, she was as far away from me as possible. I couldn’t call her if I wanted, or go see her ahead of time. I felt impotent, and I felt, for the first time in my life, lonely.
Forget about it, back to the shelves. History? No, more lies in those books than truths, and dull at that. Tell her stories, and if they happened to draw on history so much the better. Religion? What for, when they know who their immortal ruler is? Sports? Would she really want to hear about baseball or table tennis, and lament not being able to play them? There was soccer of course, but I could hear her now: “What do you mean you can’t use your hands?! If I had hands I’d use them all the time for things I could do easier with magic anyway!”
My planned prime directive of non-interference in Equestrian society had given way to a greater question: “Will Lyra like this?” She’s just one pony, you fool! You’ve got all of Equestria to see! But I couldn’t convince myself. I had gone beyond being a brony. I was a Lyra-y.
Cookbooks, make sure they’re vegetarian, but go with it. Humor, yes. Memorize some anecdotes to tell her if I can’t get the books through. They can be conversation starters and will give her more of an insight into our society. Hey, Lyra, what about--I did it again.
I had been like it was described in the theme song. I didn’t use to wonder what friendship could be. But now she shared its magic with me, and I felt loss I had always tried to cut myself off from feeling. It hurt like hell. I wouldn’t have given it up for anything.
Music! Get some stuff on theory, but get plenty of sheet music too. Go home and print some out, the good stuff, songs that could be adapted to the lyre. Or in case of no carrying, get some tunes in my head to sing back to her, maybe she can write them down. I’d heard of some composers who worked that way.
That might be an avenue to solving another problem, that of Bon-bon. She might not want me living with them. Well, maybe with some human tunes Lyra could be a big star and make enough bits to pay for Bon-bon’s expenses if she—or we—had to move out. Money smoothes out a lot of wrinkles.
Something on a shelf caught my eye. There’s something I hadn’t thought of. Get it, and start learning what it had to teach. If I could bring it, fine, if not, well then, even rudimentary technique should impress. Well, that’s enough for now. I’ll be back here soon enough, and I can get more, the next time I’m not with her.
As the hours wore on my malaise lessened, and I knew it was because I was getting closer to seeing her again. I worked hard at memorization and practice. Eight o'clock approached. I climbed into bed with some of the more important sheet music and the last book I’d found clasped tight in my hands.
No fear this time, just faith. Lyra wouldn’t leave me here, not when she’d outfought the forces that would have had me be a stone statue. Right on time the world faded and Equestria came into being all around me. I landed, empty-handed after all.
“Welcome back,” she said.
“You don’t know how I’ve missed you.”
“Oh, I think I do.”
“How are things with Bon-bon?”
“Calmed down. She had her long weekend at a resort cut off because she left one of her bags here, and decided to pack more and go back for even longer. Some of it is time for us, more of it I think is to get her head around the situation.”
“We’ll have to do something nice for her. I had some ideas about how we might come to an arrangement.”
“And I’d love to hear them. I’d love to hear anything you have to say right now.”
“Well, I’d hoped to have some things to give you, but it seems you can only teleport me. Still, I can hold things in my head, and I found a book that taught me something I’ve been practicing for the past few hours. We’ve plenty to talk about, but I’d like to do something first.”
“Oh? Have you now? What a coincidence. You see, I've thought of something similar."
"OK, you go first."
She crossed her hooves and gave me a sly look.
"Well, you said there's no magic in your world, right? That must mean you've never levitated. Normally around here it's something that only little unicorn foals do before getting bored as they grow older, but it occurs to me that if you can't do it at all you might find it enticing."
"For real? You can do that?"
"Well, only a bit off the ground and not for very long, it's not like we could go to Cloudsdale."
"Never mind, it's enough!"
"And you said you had something for me?"
"Yes, though it probably pales in comparison to levitation."
"Let me be the judge of that."
I took a deep breath. I was banking on this being a distinctly human invention, since hooves are, I think, too hard for the purpose.
“Tell me, Lyra, do you know what a massage is?”
She cocked her head in confusion. I held up my hands.
It was the best night ever.
A "Lyra's Human" Christmas
Note: The events of this story take place contemporaneously with those in “A Derpy’s Human Hearth’s Warming Eve.” It is split into three sections, each of which covers one day. You can read that one first, or read this one first, or you can switch back and forth as each section comes about. I hope you enjoy this little gift.
Friday
“Hey, honey?”
“Yes, Lyra?”
“What’s Christmas?”
I sat up in the chair where I was sipping a cup of hot chocolate that Lyra had just brought me. We had spent a dozen winters together and I had never mentioned Christmas to her. Ever since the series of incidents that had brought us together, life had been pretty routine.
I had, as I had anticipated, closed the books on my life on Earth, and was now living full-time in Equestria. I maintained a low profile, still afraid of what Princess Celestia might do. On occasion, I heard rumors that she was more welcoming to humans than the initial first impression I had. Lyra even told me that another one was visiting on occasion, but not to stay.
The question still hung in the air. Lyra was long used to me taking a long time to think over answers. I was always self-censoring, trying to keep the shameful aspects of Earth life out of her cognizance.
“It’s a holiday for humans. Kind of like Hearth’s Warming Eve, only not like Hearth’s Warming Eve.”
“Separate it out for me. What’s the same and what’s different? You’re still here to tell me how the world of humans works, you know.”
“All right. Well, on Hearth’s Warming Eve, you get together with the ponies you love and go over the origin of Equestria with the windigoes and the three tribes, right?”
“That’s right,” Lyra said.
“Well, that’s supposed to be the idea of Christmas. But first of all, it’s not based on actual history, just on something that some people believe, and might have made up. This guy was born who eventually, they say, saved everyone.”
“Like Twilight Sparkle did from Nightmare Moon?”
I sighed. This was harder that I thought. “No, it was more of a vague salvation. I really don’t want to go into it. Anyway, they celebrate his birthday and tell the story of how he was born in a stable surrounded by oxen and sheep and other animals. Supposed to show his humility, I guess.”
“What’s wrong with sheep and oxen? I have good friends who are sheep.”
“Oh, right. It’s a little different. Point is that it’s not a great dramatic story, but everyone knows it and that’s what the holiday is based on.”
Lyra looked at her desk as if wondering if she wanted to get her quill and take notes. “But you still celebrate it like we do?”
“In theory, but not in practice. I guess there are some people who love their families enough to be with them, but for a lot of people it’s a hassle. And then there are the presents.”
“We give presents too! It’s great fun.”
“And super expensive,” I said. “The more people you know, the more you have to spend. Everyone else gets you stuff that’s expensive too, but you don’t need it. The whole holiday is just an orgy of consumerism and greed, and even that wouldn’t be so bad if half the people weren’t telling you that the consumerism and greed are wrong while participating in it! Then there’s the fact that every year it starts just a little bit earlier. It takes over other holidays and makes you pay attention to it. And even that’s not the worst part.”
Lyra leaned in, fascinated. “What is?”
“You remember how I said that not everyone believed the story of Christmas? Well, it used to be that everyone would say Merry Christmas around that time and the people who didn’t believe, well, no one worried and they didn’t complain. Then they decided that they didn’t like that and insisted on people saying Happy Holidays instead. The first group didn’t like that and now Merry Christmas, instead of being a happy sentiment, became an argument.”
I wound down my rant, and Lyra gave me a gentle pat on the shoulder with her hoof. “That all seems such a shame.”
“Yes, but at least I don’t have to be around it anymore. I liked Christmas at one point, but don’t mind missing it.”
“If only you could go back. Oh! What if we had a Christmas themed Hearth’s Warming Eve party?”
After going on about how much Christmas bothered me, I was all ready to say no, but it intrigued me to see what she would come up with, so I agreed.
“Perfect! We’ll have it this Sunday,” she said. “That gives us plenty of time to set up.” It was at that moment though, that Bon-bon raced into the room.
She and I had learned to be civil to each other for Lyra’s sake. She liked both of us, and both of us liked her, and we each understood that we couldn’t insist that Lyra choose. But Bon-bon and I didn’t go out of our way to talk to each other. She brought Lyra aside and spoke to her, then raced out the door. Lyra started packing a bag.
“The party’s going to have to be put on hold,” she said. “No, rather, we’ll keep it for Sunday, but I’ll need you to do a lot of the preparations. Bon-bon’s mother fell and broke her leg.”
“Bon-bon has a mother?”
“Um, yeah. Everypony has a mother, silly human.”
I shook my head. “I didn’t mean it that way. I’ve just never met her mother.”
“Yeah, she has one. Anyway, she’s got to go visit her in the hospital and I’ll have to take care of a few things with her. So do the best you can. I’ll be in and out with some ideas, and you can come up with some Christmas-y stuff on your own. OK?”
She ran out before I could respond. But how hard could it be? After all, most ponies still avoided me, so the party would probably be a quiet and intimate evening with Lyra and maybe a few friends. All I’d need to do would be to put together some decorations and some food, maybe pop back to Earth for some instrumental Christmas music, or even get it in sheet form and have Lyra play for us.
The mint-green head popped back in through the door. “Oh, and since I’ll be out and about, I’ll invite everypony, so you won’t have to worry about that. And the other human too! You haven’t met her!”
What was I getting into?
Saturday
It wasn’t so bad at first. I sat down with a piece of butcher paper and found one of Lyra’s quills that she had left lying around. I listed things from Christmases that I remembered enjoying and felt were safe to let the ponies in on. It was almost a game, trying to think of which Christmas carols I could have for them without having to explain what a tannenbaum was and why we didn’t just call it a Christmas tree. There was certainly a challenge in coming up with a Christmas dinner not centered around a turkey, goose, or ham.
Decorations were definitely not my forte, but I reached into what I remembered my parents telling me about their Christmases, and about stringing popcorn to hang on the trees. That would help bolster the food supply as well. With a picture in my head of how the affair should look, I made a list of items to obtain, shoved it in a pocket, and headed out the door.
Into a raging blizzard.
The sky had been overcast as I had worked by candlelight, but my eyes hadn’t adjusted as the sun went down. All I could see in the dim glow of the lights of Ponyville was the flying snow drifting into piles against the buildings.
“Why didn’t Lyra warn me about this?” She always paid more attention to the weather bulletins than I did, but a big storm like this should have gotten through to me. Well, there was only one thing for it. I ducked into the closet and found a thick coat, bundled up as tightly as I could, and braved the storm.
That was when I discovered the downside of predictive weather. Everypony had closed up shop ahead of the blizzard, and only a few were out at all. As I gave up and went back home I saw, one pony, Roseluck I think she was called, covering up her flowers with a tarp.
“Hi there!” she called to me. “Hear you’re planning the big Christmas event.”
I was a little surprised at how quickly word had spread. Lyra was good. “Yeah, though I don’t know how well it’s going to go off with this storm.”
“Better get inside quick. It’s cold!”
No fooling. “I will. Do you know how long this storm is supposed to last?”
“Only overnight. The sun will be out tomorrow!”
Well, one night’s delay wasn’t the worst thing. “Thanks!” I said, and ran for shelter.
Shaking the snow off my coat and melting it into my hair, I looked out the window. The howling of the wind would make it difficult to sleep. I wished that Lyra would come home so she could at least send me to Earth for a while. There was nothing I could do. I blew out the candles and went to bed.
The morning when I woke had the particular quiet that only comes when snow is on the ground to absorb the sounds. I peeked out the window and saw snow that had to be two feet high. Hoping it was just an exceptional drift, I opened the front door. No luck. A white wall that came up to my thighs sloped down only a few inches. On the trees, branches hung heavy with thick, wet snow.
I didn’t know if Lyra even owned a shovel. For all I knew, she could magic away the snow or just melt it with heat from her horn. I still had my list of things to get, though, so with no better option, I put on as many layers of clothes as I could fit on, lifted my leg as high as I could, and stepped out into the snow.
Having snowshoes would have been nice as well.
My idea for the main dish was to take asparagus and make it look like a crown roast, then fill the center with candied fruits. I could roast asparagus pretty well, making it taste good with lots of butter, oil, garlic, pepper, and grated cheese. I managed to pick up all of these ingredients, taking my time and making each step only with effort. At least I was getting some exercise.
I remembered the asparagus stand as being across, and one over, from the avocado stand. That one I found easily enough, but when I turned around I couldn’t see my target. A stallion was brushing the snow off of a sign, and I anticipated seeing the drawing of the asparagus, but instead an unmistakable image of broccoli came up. I trudged over.
“Sorry, I’m a little lost. Isn’t this where they sell the asparagus?”
“It sure is!” he said.
“Oh, wonderful. Can I have two packs please?”
“I don’t have any asparagus.”
“Huh?”
“Asparagus is a spring vegetable! Come back in three months, you can have all you want.”
His smile irritated me, and only the fact that I was, after all the years, still a foreigner in their land, kept me from losing my temper at him. I was probably more angry with myself, but back at home, everything is in season, or at least available, all the time. I swallowed my feelings and took another long walk in the snow. The slow pace was getting to me, but when I made it back to Lyra’s and my house, it wasn’t much better.
With nothing to do it wouldn’t be so bad. I would have a cup of coffee and enjoy watching the ponies in the snow. I had learned to enjoy simple pleasures. But the specter of planning this was hanging over my head, and Lyra wasn’t around for me to explain why I hadn’t accomplished anything.
In the late evening, I finally heard the door open and Lyra come in. All of the frustration I couldn’t express to the snow or to the stallion at the asparagus stand came out to the pony I loved.
“And just where have you been all day?” I said in a nasty tone.
“I told you, helping out Bon-bon with her mother.”
“Yeah, well, I needed you around here.”
She sounded concerned. “Couldn’t you get everything for the Christmas event?”
“No! I couldn’t, because there was a storm that nopony told me about, and what I wanted to make I couldn’t because it’s not in season, and I couldn’t get anything else done because you weren’t here to send me to Earth, so nothing happened, and nothing’s going to happen!”
“Calm down, dear. It’s all right.”
Now, this may just be me, but I think the worst thing you can do to someone who’s upset is to tell them to calm down. It just make them ornery. “It’s not all right! Forget about Christmas. This is why it’s rotten!” I ran into the bedroom and slammed the door. I was satisfied when I didn’t hear Lyra come in after me.
Sunday
I tend to get irrational when I’m upset. I suppose we all do. Part of me wanted to storm out of there, but the only place I could really go to get away was back to Earth. To do that I needed Lyra. To have to ask Lyra anything would be to admit fault on my part. I didn’t want to do that. What I really wanted to do was to storm out of there. It was an endless cycle.
If I had known how to walk away just a little sooner, I suppose it would have been different. We would have gone to bed and then figured out the Christmas celebration the next day. But I’d always had an instinct for saying just the wrong thing and then going away. So now, maybe she’d come back that night, or maybe she’d wait till morning. I slept.
In the morning, I still didn’t want to come out, and I waited for a long while. I was being stubborn, but I really wanted Lyra to make the first move. Everything else had been screwed up. I would at least have this.
I heard a lot of activity downstairs, so I concluded that Bon-bon had returned, or maybe Lyra had somepony else over to keep her company since I was staying away. Eventually things got quiet, and I heard a knock on the door. Lyra walked in. “Are you ready to talk about it?” she asked.
“No. . . but I suppose that I have to so that you know.”
“Yeah. If I can understand why you dislike Christmas so much, I might understand it. I might even join you.”
I sat up and looked her in the eye. “It goes beyond Christmas. But I guess that’s the biggest example. When I was very little I would look forward to it, and I’d get all my presents, but then the rest of Christmas day was always about going to see the family and having Christmas dinner. I had made my list and planned on how I was going to use all my presents, what toys I would want to play with first, what clothes I would want to wear in what order. And every single year I didn’t get to do it. Because I wasn’t in charge, but that’s understandable. I was only a kid. So when I grew up, I would make my own Christmas plans, sometimes spending weeks ensuring that not only did I get everyone on my list what they wanted, but that they would get me what I wanted as well, with no duplicates. Then, on Christmas night, I would finally have the freedom to do what I wanted. That never worked out either. Something always came up. Like what happened here. A family emergency, or bad weather, or something like that.
“Now here I am in Equestria. Things were better here, because for Hearth’s Warming Eve I never had to make plans. It’s not my holiday. We only had to do what everypony did: be together and go over the story of how Equestria was established. I suppose I had the first inkling of trouble when you asked about Christmas, but I went along anyway because I hoped things would be different here. I tried, but once again nothing’s going according to plan.”
I finished my story holding back tears. Lyra leaned over and gave me a hug.
“I understand,” she said, “but I can’t really sympathize. I’ve always been a spontaneous pony.”
“That’s not true. It took a lot of planning to bring me here.”
“But look at how flighty I was when it worked. No, I’m better when I can improvise in a social situation. Or at least it doesn’t bother me. There’s an old pony expression that goes, ‘If you want to make Celestia laugh, tell her your plans.’”
I grimaced. “We have a similar saying on Earth. It doesn’t go back that far though. I don’t like it though. What does it say about us if we can’t count on anything? Are we really just bits of dust clinging to a bigger speck hurtling through space?”
“Your cosmology is so weird. But never mind that now. If it really matters to you that much, I’ll give you one thing you can always plan on.”
“What’s that?”
“That I’ll never leave you.”
“Thanks.” I smiled.
“So, are you ready to come out of the room and go downstairs?”
“Yes. Now that this whole Christmas thing is over with and I don’t have to make plans anymore, I’ll be just fine.”
Lyra’s horn gave a gentle glow. I held it in my hands, and we walked down together.
**
The house had been transformed. Everything was done up in red, green, silver, and gold. A genuine Christmas tree was waiting in the middle of the room. From the kitchen, the scent of baking cookies came through the house. Christmas music was playing softly.
“But how?” I asked.
“Everypony helped.” Lyra said, and from every corner of the house came ponies, Twilight, Pinkie, Rainbow, and all the rest.
“I still don’t understand. Ponies don’t celebrate Christmas. There’s no way that even Twilight Sparkle should know about Christmas trees, and where did you get the music from?”
“You’re not the only human in the world. Just the only one that belongs to me.”
Everypony was smiling at me. In the back, between two other heads, I saw Derpy Hooves shyly looking down. I know she was always a little nervous around me, but it amazed me to see her hanging on to another human, a young lady with blonde hair.
Between the music, the tree, and the smiling, something happened. Maybe my heart grew three sizes, or maybe it was just the stress relief of having everything done for me. I kissed Lyra on the cheek, then went over to the young lady.
“It’s nice to meet you,” I said, extending a hand. “Happy Hearth’s Warming Eve.”
She took my hand. “Merry Christmas,” she said, and there was no argument in the way she said it.
Lyra walked back in an hour later with a paper bag floating in behind her and another in her teeth.
“So, before we start,” she said, “what do I do with these extra grapes to make the raisins you mentioned?”
“Raisins, right. Just leave the extra grapes outside in the sun.”
“What?! They’ll go bad.”
“Yes, in a manner of speaking. They’ll dry out. But they’ll still be good to eat, and they’ll last longer. Humans throughout history would dry fruits to make them last for the winters.”
“But why? If you ran out of fruit, why not just wrap up winter and grow more?”
There were, in some cases, a deep cultural divide between us. A beautiful divide.
“We can’t. Winter in my world comes and goes when it wants, and we can’t do anything about it.”
“Golly! Your whole world’s like some planetary Everfree Forest! Oh, you poor dears!”
“We’re used to it. And we’ve some terrific patchwork solutions. Trust me, when you eat those dried grapes in a month, you’ll find it’s an entirely new taste.”
We went into the kitchen. Knives, cutting boards, bowls, and other implements were extracted from cabinets. She even had a cute chef’s hat for me.
“Let’s start with the celery. Wash the stalks and then I’ll chop them up fine.” I said.
I held some stalks on the board and started making slices. Lyra stared at my work.
“Hands really are so much better than hooves, aren’t they?” She looked down at her own hoof, seemingly disappointed.
“While I’m doing this, can you peel some of the apples?”
Lyra’s horn glowed. A knife flew up and hovered in the air. One of the apples floated out of the bag and sailed toward the knife, turning as it went, a long peel unfolding off.
“Magic is much better than hands if you ask me,” I said. “And you’re in no danger of cutting yourself.” I turned to keep my eyes on my work.
I dumped the celery pieces into two bowls that would hold the finished product. “All right, let me have the peeled apples, and I’ll cut them up into bite-sized pieces.”
I’d always been proud of my skill at knife-work in the kitchen, though that peeling technique she showed made me ready to throw away my cutting boards. Still, apples are soft and slicing them up is easy once you’ve got the cores out, and if you do it fast it looks like a conjuring trick or like juggling.
“Magic is commonplace. Watching you do that, it’s just so. . . cool!” said Lyra.
“I guess the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence,” I replied. Apparently they don’t have a lot of aphorisms in Equestria, or at least they’re not like ours. She cracked up laughing.
“Oh, that’s clever! Because if you went to the other side, then that side wouldn’t be the other side any more, it’d be your side, and the other side which was your side would now be the other side, and by that rule the grass would be greener!”
“You’ve got it! So, let’s work the division of labor here. I’ll use my fabulously dexterous hands to pluck the grapes off the vines and separate the yolks from the eggs, and you can use your powerful and impervious hooves to shell the walnuts while your magical horn squeezes the juice from the lemons without getting any seeds in it.”
We looked into each other’s eyes, and for a moment just held the gaze. I’d never felt this close to a human, and I could see that she’d never connected with other ponies like this either.
As I whipped the egg yolks, oil, and lemon juice into an improvised homemade mayonnaise to serve as dressing, I thought again how incredible this situation was. I knew this was going to be the best meal I’d ever had, irrespective of the taste of the food.
“All right, we’ve got all the ingredients mixed, let’s just stir this in and then we can eat it.”
She looked askance at the dressing. From what I gathered, ponies didn’t go in much for sauces and dressings. Well, I might change that, at least for this pony.
I also didn’t know exactly how they ate. Forks and spoons? Strap on a feedbag? I figured I’d hand her the bowl and see what happened. She looked into it, still a little doubtful, then made her horn glow and floated up a piece of celery.
“Try to get all the things at once,” I said. “That’s the key to this dish.”
She concentrated harder, and more of the salad rose toward her mouth. She chewed slowly.
“Oh! It’s good! It’s sweet but like in more than one way and crunchy in more than one way too, and I’d never have thought that that egg sauce thing would tie it all together like this!”
I didn’t have a horn, but I think I managed to glow myself a bit. I was grinning from ear to ear. I’d so rarely had occasion to cook for others.
She still hadn’t set out any way for me to eat, but I figured the mirror image concept again. I picked up a handful of the salad and brought it to my mouth. I was getting dressing on my hands, but I'd wash it off when it was over. It wasn’t worth ruining the moment. We finished about half of what we had set out, when we wordlessly agreed that we weren’t hungry anymore. I walked over to the sink and started to rinse my hands. Lyra got up and walked over to me.
“Wait. Please. Let me.”
A washcloth floated to the tap and soaked itself, then gently began scrubbing the mayo from my hands. I held them still and let her do as she liked. She looked me in the eye, and it struck me that she was girding herself and summoning her courage.
Hesitantly, she said, “Please. . . can I touch them? I—I’ll understand if you say no, but it’s just that I’ve been dreaming and working at this for so long, and now that you’re here and they’re right in front of me—“
I threw down the washcloth and wiped my hands as fast as I could, on my own body. Not dry, but not dripping. Then I put my right hand on her cheek.
She gasped, and her eyes went wide, but then she understood and closed them. She rubbed her head softly back and forth, and I tried to spread my fingers as far as possible so she could feel the separation.
After a moment or two, I said softly, “Then. . . may I touch your horn? I haven’t worked at it, you’ve done all the work, but I have dreamed, oh how I’ve dreamed.”
She opened her eyes slowly, and they said yes so that she didn’t have to. I reached out with my left hand, and what it felt like I really can’t describe. It was soft and hard and warm and cool all at the same time, and if that doesn’t make sense then I can only think it’s because of the magic. I imagine Lyra will have the same difficulty explaining the feel of five fingers if she ever writes her own narrative.
It was a perfect moment. All my over-analysis and neuroses, and all Lyra’s fears about being a human-lover in a pony-centric world were gone.
Which is why it hurt so much when the garden door opened right then, and Bon-bon trotted in, already speaking.
“Hey, Lyra dear, I came back early because it—WHAT THE BUCK IS THAT?!”
We heard fear and rage, both in one scream, then she tore out of the house and slammed the door, and both Lyra and I had backed off from each other. We had gone from an ideal moment of joy to an ideal moment of dread, just like that.
I’ve found myself spending more and more time in Equestria these past weeks, since I find myself never wanting to go back home to work and loneliness, and spend time away from Lyra when the other humans wait, stuck in the last moment I left. I wonder sometimes, what if I stayed here forever? Would I be listed as a missing person back home, or is it more solipsistic, and my world just freezes in time unless I’m there to perceive it? I don’t know any way to answer that, though. When I do go home, it’s to spend time with friends and family, and yet at the same time I’m drifting apart from them. I find myself to a large measure wrapping up my affairs. I think someday, when losing me won’t hurt anyone too much, that I won’t go back.
Lyra learned to tweak the spell to let me carry a few small objects, and I was able to share books and music with her, but her fascination with humanity as a whole has lessened. It hasn’t gone away though, and she can still be overjoyed if I bring her a picture of a work of art or tell her a story of the human world. Sometimes I forget to tell her which ones are fiction and which aren’t, but I don’t think it much matters.
The situation with Bon-bon is still in limbo. None of us has discussed moving out, and while she avoided me entirely at first, we’re now on civil speaking terms. I’m working on her, trying to get her to see me as a friend. It doesn’t hurt that I’ve taken over her share of the household chores. Sometimes Lyra will just come in and watch. She never gets tired of seeing me scrub dishes or fold their dresses.
And I’m also still working on ponies in general, trying to get them to be more open to us. I still think that they would be better off for knowing people one-on-one, and I’m sure there are lots of them at home who want to get here. But so far no other unicorn has asked to learn Lyra’s spell, and most ponies don’t want to talk to me. It happens that way sometimes, you think you’re going to start something but nothing comes of it. And maybe it’s better if I fail. I was serious when I argued that the human world and the pony world shouldn’t mix, and too many humans in Equestria might start us down a slippery slope. Still, I try, and I do think that we have a chance to be better people for knowing ponies.
I know I’m certainly happier. I don’t regret leaving my home, if that is my fate, and I sure don’t believe that I was “meant to be” back on Earth. I mean to be here, and that meaning is more important than what anyone else means for me. If I could have gotten here to Equestria on my own, become an immigrant or turned into a pony myself, I think I would have. But as it worked out I had the help of the nicest soul I know, and I’m even happier to be Lyra’s human.
