Early Author's note:
I would recommend rereading the previous two chapters, as i have made edits that were needed to continue the story and thus will make this chapter make a bit more sense in contrast to the differences from the original earlier chapters
Chapter 5
New Home, New Friends
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I chuckle as Lyra stands on her back legs so she can look out the window of the train.
We’re on a transit moving along the rapid line. The trip takes just about an hour, so we’ve about another ten or so before we get to our station.
Sai is just staring at Lyra, transfixed. It’s a good thing she’d given me the station we need to get off at before the move, because I don’t think she’ll notice.
“Mommy! Mommy! Look at that pretty unicorn!”
My head shoots up and a glance around quickly, before I notice a little girl, maybe six years old, sitting a couple of seats down. She’s pulling on her who is clearly her mother’s hand, pointing… at Lyra!
Her mother looks in our direction and I immediately try to look like I wasn’t looking their way mere seconds ago, trying to blend in among the other passengers, something that is pretty much impossible when you’re the only white person in a train for a Japanese people. Absolutely impossible when you’ve got a mint-green unicorn filly sitting next to you eagerly looking out the window.
“Yes, honey,” the mother says, causing me to feel a mixture of confusion and fear at the tone that is not one of someone seeing something abnormal and feeling fear from it. “It’s quite the lovely plushie.”
I blink, before my body sags with relief. I’d completely forgotten Lyra was still under the effect of the illusion spell.
However, my ease isn’t long lived as I hear “Sorry. Sorry. Pardon me,” and, as I continue to look at the ground, see a pair of brown shoes stop in front of me, followed by the mother’s voice asking, “Um… e-excuse me?”
Gulping, I slowly look up.
Before me is a nice looking woman, now that I have a closer look at her due to her proximity.
She looks someone in her mid-late twenties, with long brown hair tied back in a bun, is wearing a simple blue dress and has a handbag over her right arm. Held in her left hand is that of the little girl, who looks like her mother, but with hair that reaches just below her ears, a bowl cut, I think it’s called.
I gulp again. “Y-yes?”
“Where did you buy that?” the woman asks tentatively, pointing to Lyra, who glances back, noticing the new arrivals.
“I… um… I…” I stammer, my brain going completely blank.
Crap. I did NOT think this through as well as I thought I had. What in the world am I supposed to say?
“He… got it as a birthday present,” Sai says suddenly, startling me. “He can ask the person who gave it to him.”
The mother’s face seems to sadden and she shakes her head. “Oh, never mind.”
She moves away, pulling her daughter with her, who waves to Lyra saying, “Bye, bye, pretty unicorn.”
Lyra waves back, smiling happily.
I sigh, both with relief and sadness. Lyra probably thinks she just made a new friend, even though we’ll likely never see that woman and her little girl again.
“Mommy, she waved back to me!” the little girl says, her voice full of excitement.
At once, any thoughts of thanking Sai for getting us out of a difficult situation are halted as to the two of us look to each other in shock, before looking to the fading girl, then to Lyra and back to each other.
That little girl could see Lyra. As in see through the illusion spell. Her mother couldn’t, but she did.
“But… but how?” Sai asks, before her expression blanks. Apparently it just caught back up to her that Lyra is real.
We shake our heads and I start to explain what’s really going on to Sai.
It takes a bit, but, after a while, helped by Lyra snuggling up next to me for a nap, she starts to take things very seriously.
“<Once we’ve set you to up, we’re talking,>” she says, getting up and taking my bag off the storage space above us, myself taking Lyra in my right arm, while holding my other bag with the other.
As we get off at the next station, I spot the girl and mother from before. Guess they live nearby?
We walk for almost half an hour, maybe enjoying the peace of the area, before getting to the Tsuki Apartments building complex.
It’s a five story building, with twenty apartments per floor. It’s stark white, though I can see touches from the families living in the separate apartments, giving more varieties of colour to the white.
We head in, up the stairs to the second floor and enter the third apparent.
It’s reasonably sized, just like Sai had told me in our communications.
There’s several rooms, including two bed rooms that are unoccupied as they’re for Lyra and myself, a kitchette, a bathroom about the same size as the one my family has back in Australia and a small living room that opens out onto a balcony overlooking the area around the complex.
Sai helps us unpack and set things up in our room, seeming surprised when she finds clothes for little girls among those I’d brought.
“What?” I ask when she holds up a blue dress, giving me a confused look. “<You didn’t think I’d have Lyra walk around naked all the time, did you?>”
The ponies may do that in the show, but they’re social norms are very different than ours.
Once everything’s set up in both mine and Lyra’s room, we go into the living room and sit on the couch that bends around.
“<How is this working?>” she asks, her tone serious. “<You have a mint-green unicorn. What is your plan?>”
I look to Lyra sitting next to me on the couch and smile, before looking to Sai.
“<You’re gonna think I’m insane, but I’m planning on having her join the kindergarten at Shiseikan Elementary School.>”
She just stares at me for several moments, before closing her eyes and rubs them with one hand. “<Okay, explain it clearly and carefully. You’re Japanese is still a bit rusty, so say it in English only.>”
So, I do. The plan is very simple, disgustingly so.
I will be teaching in the kindergarten section of the school and Lyra will be attending there herself. This lets her experience a real childhood as well as would allow me to keep an eye on her. It’s a six minute walk from here, too, so I can easily take her with me every morning without worrying about distance.
Plus, children that age are perfect for her to be around, since, as proven by that girl on the train, little kids will be able to accept a unicorn living among them without a second thought.
It’ll allow her to become something normal to the kids, so, as they grow up, they’ll treat her like one of them and, by proxy, anyone else around her.
That’s not to say Lyra is going to just be like any pony from the show living in this world.
During the five months she’s been here in our world, she quickly noticed how we all walk on two legs, not four.
It’s a bit odd, seeing her walking on two legs, but she somehow figured out how to do it and, once she got the hang of it, it didn’t actually look that odd.
If anything, it made her look more like a human child wearing a costume.
Lyra joining the kindergarten has a second objective. Since there are several high schools so close to the Elementary school, once Lyra finishes kindergarten and elementary, she can move right into one of those schools, as they all have middle and Junior high levels too and are not too far away.
I’m personally looking at Sapporo Asahioka High School. It’s only a little over half an hour away by train and, by then, I’m certain I won’t have to worry about Lyra traveling alone by train. Though Sapporo Shiritsu Keimei Junior High School for her Junior and Middle school years might be easier, as it's even closer, being a twenty-seven minute train ride.
We talk for a bit more, going over more of the details, before we’re interrupted by a knock on the front door.
We glance at each other.
“<We’re you expecting company>?” I ask, as Lyra stand on the couch, looking over it at the door.
Sai blinks, before facepalming. “<Yune-san.>”
With that, she gets up and hurries to the door, answering it… before her voice goes quiet.
Curious, I get up and look to see who this Yune-san is, before I freeze in place. It’s the woman from the train!
The two start speaking in Japanese at a level I do not yet understand, catching maybe every second and fifth word, though it’s clear Sai is struggling to think of something.
It’s also apparent she and this Yune-san know each other very well… which would beg the question how Sai didn’t recognize her on the train, if not for the fact realizing Lyra’s real had probably blown her brain at the time.
Suddenly, I notice this Yune-san’s daughter is standing behind her and hear a happy cheer from behind me.
The little girl barrels past her mother and Sai, running towards me, when a mint-green blur shoots past my legs.
Lyra and the ltitle girl meet and hug each other before dancing, as if they’re best friends.
I just stare, glancing from the two dancing children to Sai and Yune-san, the latter giving me a look I cannot place, though I’m pretty sure her brain is failing her anyway.
I sigh. Things just got way more complicated.