Lyra was together with Bon Bon in the park. They had been sitting on the bench here, when the flash had changed them. Some minutes have passed since then. Bon Bon was again sitting on the bench, while Lyria was standing in front of it watching and testing her new body in amazement.
She had read a lot about mythological creatures and many of them fascinated her, one of her favorites among them was the human. Sure, they were depicted in most of the old tomes as bringer of change and therefore chaos, as uncaring for others and unable to foresee the results of their reckless and megalomanic actions. But they were also shown as incredible craftsponies, musicians and artists, blessed with dexterity and creativity that only very few ponies could hope to match.
She always dreamed to meet one, hoping to find inspiration. Now she got something even more exciting: She became one. Sure some minor details were different. She didn't get fangs, that were mentioned in some of the books and she couldn't remember to have read about those two soft orbs of flesh on her chest. But the main facts were right: the only hair she or Bon Bon could see was the shoulder long mane on her head and the small patches just above her eyes. Her muzzle was so short that it didn't protrude the rest of her head anymore, except for a small peak for her nostrils in the middle of her face. Her ears were monkey-like and as far as she could tell unmovable. She had hands and torso like a minotaur, only far less muscular. Last but not least she had long hind legs, somewhat like those of a young dragon, with long flat paws which made it easy to walk on just those two legs.
The transformation gave her for some odd reasons clothes. A lot of clothes. More clothes than she had ever worn at once before. Maybe even more clothes than she had worn in her whole life combined.
On her head was a small hat with a feather adorning it. Her upper body was covered with three layers of clothes: a thin jacket, a blouse and for the deepest layer a very soft piece of cloth, that seemed only to be there to hold this two flesh orbs on her chest. The flanks and legs were covered with trousers, while the flanks were additionally covered with a small skirt, that didn't reached her knees. Skirt and trouser were hold in position by a belt made of fabric. Her feet were in a pair of socks, which were enclosed in a pair of shoes.
Maybe there were even more clothes underneath this pile, but she hadn't found those yet. She didn't know about the piece below her blouse, until she took the blouse off. Since it was quite cold without it, she put it back on, as soon as she had a good look at her upper body.
Interestingly all the clothes were colored in her old coat and mane colors, her mane stayed pretty much the same and even her cutie marks were still there, although they were now on the backside of her hands. That was pretty cool, since they couldn't be seen otherwise under the enormous amounts of clothes she wore at the moment.
She expected, that this transformation wouldn't last long. The Elements of Harmony would restore everything to normal in maybe an hour or if she was lucky in a day. But till then she wanted to have fun with her new body. Especially she wanted to see, what these hands could be used for.
---.---
Bon Bon wasn't as happy as Lyra about the change. In fact she didn't like it at all. But Lyra's explanation, that everything would return to normal in a few hours, had sooth her fears and it was nice to see Lyra to be so happy and excited, so she accepted the fate to be a weird abomination temporary.
Bon Bons form was even for Lyra, who had quite likely read the whole sections about folklore in the Canterlot and the Ponyville library, a mystery. She had her normal body from her shoulders back to the tail, although it was now bigger than before, but where her neck should be was a human upper body instead. If she held her human part upright she was as big as Lyra. Her mane color remained, but her hair was now so long, that it reached her pony back although the hair only grew on her head and not on the whole neck down. Like Lyra she got a lot of clothes, although not as many as her. Like Lyra she got a blouse and that very soft cloth underneath it. Additionally she got a plain long skirt and a set of shoes for her hooves, but she had taken them off because she saw no use in them. As for Lyra all her clothes were in her coat or mane colors. Her cutie mark was on the back side of her human hands and also on her pony flanks.
She watched a very happy Lyra experimenting with her new hands. A smile crossed Bon Bons face, only some hours and everything will be alright again.
---.---
Lyra made progress at understanding and controlling her hands. She could move each finger individually, even if she had to focus to do this. Opening and closing them all together was also possible.
In almost every story she had read about humans, they have at some point climbed up or down from a tree. So after some minutes of finger training she decided, that this was the first thing, she would try out. Conveniently there was a tree right beside the bench, just perfect for climbing up.
Unfortunately it wasn't that easy. In addition that she didn't know how to climb up the tree, she still had difficulties controlling her hands. But she didn't give up. After about dozen failed attempts she was now sitting on the lowest branch of the tree. Her arms and legs hurt a bit, so she looked around a bit, before she would decide what to do next. She had a surprisingly good view from her raised seating position.
She could see Lily, Rose and somepony else, who had to be Daisy, lying on the road in front of Lilies house at the edge of the park. They had changed into a crystal unicorn, a bat pony and griffin respectively and have obviously fainted collectively after they saw what they have become. She thought a moment about helping them, but was distracted by Derpy.
Derpy has changed into an alicorn and was flying through the air, leaving a trail of big bubbles behind her. Lyra hoped, that she didn't cast magic without guidance. With her incredible amount of ill luck, this would quite likely end in disaster. Shocked she saw a flash of light in front of Derpy. But the end of the world didn't come, at least not yet. Instead at the position of the flash something small appeared in the hooves of the gray alicorn, who brought the thing to her mouth. Lyra exhaled. She very likely just summoned a muffin and was soon out of sight.
After that Lyra’s eyes fell onto the changed bearers of the elements and a purple pegasus with a green mane, which had to be Spike. They were standing around a unicorn soldier in a shining armor, who was cowering in front of them.
It looked funny, since Lyra estimated he would be at least twice the size of the other ponies, if he would be standing, and she expected, that the armor would make him look quite impressive, if he wouldn't sit there shivering like a scared bunny in front of a hydra.
Behind him was a strange new sculpture made of two ugly statues, she had never seen before. Directly behind the armored unicorn was a silvery statue that looked a bit like a human attacking the other statue with a long thing. She expected the thing to be a so called ʻswordʼ, a weapon unicorns have used in the times before the union of the three pony tribes. The reason for this assumption was simple: every human in folklore had a sword at least a very small one. She couldn't see any details of the statue, but something about its head was amiss. The other statue was an extreme oversized wolf made of stone and decorated with something multicolored. It towered over the human by at least half of her size and its length was about three times the human's height. Its left claw was about to smash the human away.
She had no clue, why this sculpture was there. Well, on second thought, its appearance had to be connected with the changes that occurred, since she couldn't believe that such a brutal sculpture would get the permission to be placed in the park of Ponyville.
She wanted to have a closer look on the human statue. Therefore she grabbed the branch she was sitting on and swung down. The result was far less elegant than she hoped, but she still reached the ground with only some minor bruises. Bon Bon just raised an eyebrow, when Lyra told her what she was up to, but said she would come with her.
They went across the lawn behind the bench towards the group of ponies. Suddenly, when Lyra and Bon Bon were about 20 meters behind the group, the armored pony saw her and jumped into a standing position and ran straight into her direction.
She could see fear in his eyes. A voice she couldn't identify, where it came from whispered in a terrified voice “Please, rescue me!” Although the voice was surely adult, it sounded more like a frighten child. Before she could say anything he was ducking behind her with his hooves in front of his eyes. Such childlike behavior from a grown stallion would have amused her, if she wouldn't pity him.
“What have you done to him?” Lyra asked reproachful, while she crouched down beside him.
“We just asked him some questions about what happened!” returned Twilight, showing no sign of remorse for her actions. Her hair was disheveled and she was irritated. The others of the group were mainly in the same shape, although some took it better, like Spike, some worse, like Rarity. “Besides who, and more importantly what are you?” asked Twilight.
A second Lyra was unsure how to reply to the youngest princess. Lyra has known Twilight from Canterlot even before she moved here and has been regularly in the library since then. Still the term 'friends' would be far fetched. Then Twilight speech came to mind, at least the beginning part until Lyra fell asleep at the remarkable soft ground in front of the town hall. So she decided for a casual response, “It's me, Lyra, and I became a human.” She pointed with her thumb into the direction of Bon Bon. “Even if we have no idea what Bon Bon became.”
“I think she's a centaur,” replied the bodiless voice calmer than before. She looked at the stallion who was looking back at her. The fear hasn't completely left his eyes, but through the small set of breathing holes she could see a thin smile on his lips. She became aware of the fact that she was unconsciously stroking his head or better the helmet. It startled her that he seemed to appreciated this action.
“Thank you, um … what's your name?”
“I'm Confidant,” was the short reply of the bodiless voice, that had to be his.
“Thank you, Confidant. My name is Lyra by the way. Could you tell me what a centaur is?” she asked him.
The answer she received was far longer than she expected and it created more new questions than it solved: “A centaur looks like a cross between a human and a horse. They're one of the mankinds. They often do physical labor, because they are normally stronger than humans. They can eat everything a human or a horse could digest, giving them one of the most versatile food tables known. Their magical abilities are normally a bit worse than that of human. In a fight they tend to wield spears, bows or lances.”
After the answer Lyra was silent for some seconds, lost in thoughts. He sounded like the world was filled with humans and that battles were quite common. At first she thought he had to be insane. But when she looked over him, she realized the quality of his armor. A degree of quality, that after what an old foalhood friend of her told her, shouldn't be possible. He had to know, he was a smith for the royal guard.
Ponies have never used full body armor, because any such armor ever created for a pony would reduce their maneuverability extremly. Any armor that completly covered the legs made it difficult to run and more important to change direction. Sitting down was pretty much impossible or at least very uncomfortable. Additionally there was always the risc that the joints could get stuck or that some parts wouldn't be protected by iron if your hooves were in the wrong position.
From what Lyra has seen Confidants maneuverability wasn't reduced at all, nor could she see any unprotected joints of his body, although he was lying on the ground. The creator of the armor even made sure that his eyes were protected by some kind of glass.
Maybe the armor was crafted by humans. Maybe where existed a land far away, where humans lived in greater numbers and fought against each other. It was a chilling thought, but what did she expect? As creatures of chaos war might come just natural to them.
“Lyra?” Twilight asked, waited some moments and went on when she saw that she had Lyra attention. “What did he say?”
“He told me a bit about Bon Bon's new form. Didn't you hear him?”
“No,” Twilight answered, her right eye twitching, “he uses a spell to talk, that only affects one pony at a time. Additionally it seems, that he only understands the one pony he is talking to.”
“Really?” she turned back to Confidant. He just looked confused back at her. After some moments she realized, that he really didn't get Twilight's words.
Twilight sighted, “since he seems to like you, maybe he feels better if you ask the questions, Lyra,” she proposed.
“Why do you have to question him? What has he done?”
“As far as we know, these two... creatures have caused this madness.” Twilight pointed her hoof to the statues. Her head shivered a moment and she turned it into the other direction, her face paled a bit and she made a suppressed gag noises. Her friends were at her side immediately and after some seconds to recover she continued, “To be honest, I have no idea what they have done. Everything we find out about them and their spell might help us to end it. He,” she pointed at Confidant “seems to be a friend to the silver monstrosity and must know something.”
Lyra nodded while she looked at the statue she had assumed to be human. Now that she was close enough to see details, it became clear, that the only right guess she made was, that the statue was holding a sword.
Its body was covered with thick plates, that were engraved with strange patterns of lines. If she would have seen them alone she would have guessed, that they were forming an armor. But the head of it made her doubt that. The head was engraved like the plates, so she concluded, that it had to be of the same material as the plates. This meant the plates couldn't be an armor but had to be part of its body. Even beside that the head was like nothing she had seen before.
The shape was remotely human, but where in a human head should have been the eyes and the protrusion for the nostrils she just saw holes. Its mouth had no lips, instead she could see straight at its teeth. To the left and the right of the teeth were small holes that went through the whole head. It didn't have hair nor ears. The head scared her.
“What do you want to know exactly?” Lyra replied.
“Well we stopped, with the question what he knows about the two creatures.”