Language check. All in English.
Lyra smiled at her two sisters as they walked off. Even Robin's almost-finished body moved well on all fours now. A sound drew Lyra's attention behind her. The back door opened and closed, and she heard two unsteady feet making their way out of the house. "I gave them something to do for the rest of the day. Robin's really taking to flying."
"At least I named one of you properly." Joyce reached Lyra's side and put an arm around her daughter. "What did you get them doing?"
"They're going to school to get some graph paper, and they're going to make a map of the town." Leaning into her mother's hug, Lyra let out a happy sigh. "If my magic is going to be this much of a problem, maybe I should go to the Princess' school sooner rather than later."
Joyce squeezed Lyra tighter still. "You could come too, mum. Bring Robin." When her mother made a scoffing sound, Lyra lifted a hoof and pointed it at Joyce. "Look at yourself, mum. You barely look older than twenty. You know I don't like to swear much, but fuck Dad. Why don't you come too and make the kind of clean break you gave Robin and me?"
Joyce snorted. "Right. And leave this place with no competent doctor for nearly a hundred kays?"
"What about all those doctors that just showed up?" As soon as Lyra said it, she knew what the answer would be. Knowing the joke that was coming didn't make it any worse a set up.
"I said competent doctors." Joyce's smile said that she knew what Lyra had done. "That's probably selling them short. This is a little more than what a doctor can deal with." She held out her free forehoof.
Lyra shrugged. "Mums, on the other hand, seem to have a handle on things."
"Trying to. What's your plan for the rest of the day?" The sun was hanging heavy in the sky, reminding Joyce and Lyra that all the madness had started at a little after lunchtime.
"I was actually thinking on that before. Everyone is going to want an explanation, just like what Dave and Steve gave us. You think if we went around town and told everyone—and everypony—to bring some salad and fruit, we could get it all done at once?" Lyra looked across at that strange barrier between magic and non-magic.
"Good plan." Joyce turned back to the house and opened the back door. "Not everyone will have something. You should start making things up now."
"Wait. Why me?" Following her mother, regardless, Lyra headed back inside.
"Two reasons, Mi—Lyra, dear." The small stutter on her daughter's name showed that Joyce was still working at the change. "It was your idea, but also you can't exactly walk across all those magic areas right now."
A reminder of the earlier headache made Lyra shudder. "Curses. Hoist by my own petard! Hey, Tufts, want to help me make—"
Joyce cut in over her daughter. "Don't say it!"
Lyra's revenge was complete. "...fruit salad?"
A loud screech from the kitchen was the perfect answer, but of course Tufts followed up. "That would be the best idea ever! And don't forget, you have to test the food as you make it." Gripping to his perch in the kitchen, Tufts peeked around the doorway to look at Lyra and Joyce. "And you are so lucky you have the best fruit-tasting palate in the world right here."
"You're going to suffer for this, you know?" Joyce groaned and started walking for the front door.
Lyra barked a laugh. "Yeah, yeah." She turned to Tufts. "How'd you learn so much about food and cooking?" She lifted a hoof and rubbed under Tuft's chin.
"Curled up on the couch watching cooking shows with my beloved." Tuft's words slurred a little, and he closed his eyes to surrender fully to the excellent bat-rub.
"She's a lucky mare to have a bat so devoted to her." Lyra cocked her head and looked at her mother as Joyce left the house. "So, what do we have in the fridge, Tufts? I need fruit salads, and something more leafy for our pony guests."
The fruit salads had been easier said than done. For a start, Lyra had to chop up the fruit with just her hooves—which made her immensely thankful to Pinkie Pie for helping her learn how to use those hooves. The second problem was Tufts. When the bat finally managed to say that something tasted good, it was after eating about half the fruit that was meant to go into it.
Conversely, making up some fresh garden salads had been easy as pie, and the few Caesar salads she made were prepared unmolested by bat claws. Lyra had nearly six big bowls of salad made when Dream and Robin returned. "Great! You two are just in time to help. Wash your hooves and wings, and get back in here."
"Wait! We did the map!" Robin put her heart and soul into the whine she gave. Like Dream Thunder, Robin wore not a stitch of clothing.
Dream wrapped a leathery wing around Robin's withers and pulled her off to the bathroom. "We'll be back to help!"
Setting the things to make up two more fruit salads aside, Lyra started in on another bowl, this one was a potato salad. She was so engrossed in cutting the potatoes up, that Lyra didn't notice her two helpers were assembled.
Tufts let out a little kee of excitement when Dream and Robin started preparing their own salads. "As the official taste-tester, I must warn you that those grapes are only fit for bats." He pointed at the huge pile of grapes on the table.
Lyra turned to spot her sisters. "Good thing we have a lot of bats coming then. Just make up some salads, we are expecting the whole town—both of them—to turn up."
While Dream Thunder fumbled with her salad, Robin proved much more adept with her wings. Fruit practically flew past the knife she wielded, and the salad was almost done before poor Tufts had a single piece.
Dream just stared at Robin, blinking owlishly. "Sweet Celestia…"
"What's wrong?" Lyra turned around to watch her youngest sister actually juggling fruit. "Slow down, Squirt." But even as Lyra spoke, her little sister finished the fruit salad.
Robin stared at what she had done in absolute shock. "W-W-What just… What did I do?"
"Prove that you are better at this than me." Dream pushed her own bowl of fruit in front of Robin. "And since you are so good at it, you win a prize!"
"Is it grapes?" Tufts crawled across the table, and stretching out a long wing, speared a small bunch of grapes, pulling them back to enter The Cavern of Fruit Destruction (his mouth).
"Assuming you don't eat them all." Dream rubbed Tufts on the head with one claw-tip. Turning most of her attention back to Robin, Dream smiled. "Come on. Make with the chop-chop!"
Robin's left wing grabbed up a knife, while her right one started the crazy juggling that always seemed to get a piece of fruit under the knife blade at just the right time.
"Whoa…" Lyra Heartstrings stared at her little sister, as Robin made short work of the salad. Then something happened that almost floored Lyra. She stepped to the side, and looked further down Robin's body.
Dream Thunder caught sight of Lyra's gaze, and traced her eyes back along Robin's body to her hip. She almost exploded with excitement, bouncing in place and keeing just like Tufts, but much louder.
"What's wrong?" Robin put the knife down and turned to Dream. "Are you okay?" She looked at both Lyra and Dream, and she slowly seemed to realize they were staring behind her. Turning, Robin's eyes traced down her side and locked onto the pattern on her flank. She stared a moment, seemingly unable to talk.
Lyra's ears folded back as the second bat-squeal threatened not only her senses, but every piece of glass in a mile radius. "You got your cutie mark!"
"Congratulations!" Dream reached out with her wings and hugged Robin, and both of them started keeing excitedly. Not to be outdone, Tufts joined his two daughters.
With her ears folded as tight as they would go, Lyra rolled her eyes and waited for the three bats to finish their fun. Gathering up the two fruit salads Robin had made, Lyra carried them over to the bench one at a time.
"I got my cutie mark by making fruit salad?" Robin—done with her excited keeing—studied the symbol on her flank. The gray fur had a little wooden bowl piled high with chunks of fruit, while more pieces soared above it. "I wanted my cutie mark in flying! Or doing magic!"
"I can't speak for the magic,"—Lyra lifted her hoof up and tapped at her own horn—"but nothing has happened to your wings, so you can still fly." Still using her hooves only, she tried to stretch cling-film over the bowls, but it was proving more difficult than she had hoped.
"Yeah. This just means you make a really good fruit salad." Dream poked Robin's flank. "Not that you have to only do that. But you have to admit, making awesome fruit salad is going to make you really popular with other bat ponies." She lifted a hoof.
Robin lifted her own hoof and connected it to Dream's with a solid clopping sound. "I guess. I just wanted something really amazing."
Reaching out with a wing, Tufts snagged some paper towel off the roll on the table, and deposited the last of his grapes into it with a sad, little kee. He crawled across the table to be as close to Robin as he could, and looked up at her. "You can do something really amazing, though! You make me the happiest father in all of Australia!"
Lyra giggled when Tufts leapt the gap, wrapping his own wings around Robin's neck, and holding on with his claws. "Why don't I doubt that?" She tried one last time with the cling wrap, and before she could get it pressed down neatly on the bowl, she felt a stretching in her forehead.
Robin and Dream stared in surprise as the cling-wrap roll jumped into the air, held aloft in golden magic. The roll detached from the box and started zooming around Lyra.
"No! Stop it! I don't want to—" Lyra's voice cut off as some of the cling film wrapped tightly around her head. She reached a hoof up and dragged a hole in the front for her mouth, but of course the animated roll of plastic caught up that leg and bound it tightly to her neck. "Help!"
"Wait." Dream held a wing out to stop Robin from advancing. "Let the roll spool out first. If we go anywhere near her, we'll end up sandwiched together."
"I got this." Robin stepped up to bat for Lyra, and approached the zooming roll. As the roll of cling-wrap diverted towards her, Robin lashed out with a wing and sliced the plastic off.
Lyra's eyes widened, and her magic suddenly cut off. Falling down, she flopped on her side. "Okay. Next trick: get me out of this!" All she could do was squirm on the floor uselessly.