//------------------------------// // Chapter 4 // Story: Secret Soldier // by computerneek //------------------------------// Several hours later, the waning afternoon has long faded to the dark of night when the guest of honor finally decides it’s time for her to find her new housemate and go home for the night. On that thought, she realizes she hasn’t seen the green unicorn for several hours- as a matter of fact, she most recently saw the unicorn just half an hour after the party started.  She’d elected to give the mare her space- she needed some of that space herself, after all, no matter how cheerful an appearance she put on.  She’d gotten that space- and genuinely enjoyed the party. But now, that excessive space is a problem, as she briefly acquires a higher vantage point and scans the crowd.  The punch tastes slightly alcoholic, but it takes a lot of liquor to effect an earth pony- and the green horn is nowhere to be seen.  Perhaps Pinkie Pie would know? She glances over to the counter, behind which Pinkie is bringing out another cake from the backroom.  She wonders mildly exactly how much each of these parties cost, before setting a course for the decimated cake Pinkie is replacing. Pinkie sweeps the old dishes off of the table, stacking them effortlessly on a hind hoof, and plunks down the new cake.  “Last cake!” she calls. The cream mare raises an eyebrow; ponies immediately swarm to the area to get their last slice.  The entire cake disappears very quickly- save for one piece, which Pinkie offers to her guest of honor, even as the new cake’s platter joins the last one on that outstretched hind hoof. “Thanks,” she smiles.  “Um, would you happen to know where Lyra went?” Pinkie sighs, deflating slightly.  “She went home already,” she states.  “She doesn’t like parties that much.” She makes a quick glance around, then leans close to whisper.  “She lives at six hundred Villain’s Way.” Bonbon blinks.  That’s a street address, all right; she’d wondered, but not asked, about some of the strange street names- Villain’s Way, Hero’s Boulevard, and Element Avenue, to name a few.  She runs through the mental map she’d built through the tour. Six hundred Villain’s Way should be… on the stretch of the street that connects Tirek Road and Sombra Lane. Seriously, what’s up with these street names?  Just past Sombra Lane comes Chrysalis Street- and the other way past Tirek Road meets Discord Drive!  It’s almost like they’d foreseen all their foes! As a matter of fact, it seems like every foe Ponyville has ever faced has a street to its name meeting Villain’s Way- with no regular streets! She pans out on her mental map.  As a matter of fact, aside from twisting into some kind of interlocking mess, none of these villain streets meets any other road! Save a few.  Luna Lane, Trixie Way, Discord Drive, Glimmer Avenue, and Shimmer Road all connect to one other road:  Hero’s Boulevard. Which in turn has roads for each of the Elements, Princesses… and so on. Every road connecting to Hero’s Boulevard, save those touching Villain’s Way, also meets Main Street at some point. Who designed this town…?  And what enemies are Glimmer Avenue and Shimmer Road referring to?  Drops Street, between Hero’s Boulevard and Main Street, catches her attention.  Must be like Glimmer & Shimmer.  Mostly. But regardless of how confusing- or amusing- the road system, she knows where to go. She makes a left turn, onto Heartstrings Lane.  Fortunately, she can perform social interactions and navigation on autopilot, even in strange locations, while she thinks about other things.  She’s fairly sure it’s a multitasking ability, rather than the same system that lets her walk without thinking about her hoof placements- but she wouldn’t be surprised if the latter was the case. She makes a right to Hero’s Boulevard.  She’s fairly well exhausted right now, but she could keep going for another few hours if she had to.  A week of non-stop preparation will do that to even the sturdiest of earth ponies. A left to Discord Drive.  Once she reaches the house, she’ll probably go to bed as soon as Lyra shows her where the bedroom is. A left on Villain’s Way.  Once she gets in bed, she’ll probably sleep for a full day or two.  But that’s okay, so long as she’s up by the end of the week. Oh, how she dreads Monday. She pauses at the house, double-checking the street number.  If her information is correct, Lyra lives in this… mansion, for lack of a better word.  It’s a very large, for Ponyville, two-story building. She shrugs.  The worst thing that could happen is that nopony answers her knock and she goes back to her shop to sleep on the floor.  She starts walking up the path- and nearly freezes just inside the gate. She manages to continue moving as if nothing had happened, but her honed senses had detected that tiny fluctuation in the magic field.  It felt like a spell dispersal- a one-time detection spell, probably. Commonly used for magic traps; she should have noticed it before she set it off. But, as she continues up the path, she decides it’s possible there’s nothing malicious about the spell’s placement.  That one had practically no power in it; it would have dissolved in a day or two anyways. Besides, it’s perfectly reasonable that the unicorn she’ll be living with wanted to be awake by the time she reached the door, giving that spell a perfectly harmless purpose. She ‘sniffs’ for other standing spells as she approaches the building, but doesn’t sense any.  She lifts a hoof to knock- right before the front door flies open, revealing the mare she’d expected, bearing a strange combination of stellar energy levels and bed mane.  Though, she figures, the simple fact that the horn didn’t stop glowing when she released the door is a dead giveaway. She wishes she could cheat like that. “Welcome home!” Lyra greets, before turning away, blushing and mumbling.  “That… sounded weird, didn’t it?” Bonbon shrugs.  “Doesn’t matter,” she states bluntly.  “Um, is that offer still open, or…?” “Yes, yes, come in!  Would you like a tour tonight, or…”  She pauses, scanning the earth pony’s expression.  “Or tomorrow?” “Tomorrow?” Bonbon asks. Nod.  “Very well…  You want dinner first, or no?” She imitates a zombie.  “Sleeeep…” Smirk.  “Sure thing, right this way.”  She proceeds to lead the way upstairs. “So, bathroom’s in there, this’ll be your room, and I’ll be in here if you need me.”  Lyra indicates the three closed doors in quick succession. Bonbon nods.  “Thank you,” she states, prodding open the indicated bedroom door.  “Good night.” Nod.  “Good night.” Bonbon then sees Lyra trotting through that other bedroom door, closing it behind her, before she finishes entering her own.  She gives into her instinct-level check of the room, scanning absolutely everything for anything suspicious, before she relaxes and drops herself onto the bed.  It’ll be nice, sleeping on a real bed once again. She falls asleep almost instantly. Across the hall, Lyra smiles gently as the detection spell she’d put on Bonbon’s bed earlier reports the beginning of a deep rest cycle.  Her horn flares several times before she cancels the detection spell and, now content with her and her friend’s safety, her own stimulation spell.  Once again tired enough to fall asleep on her hooves, she snuggles a little deeper into her mattress and follows her new friend back into Princess Luna’s domain. The following morning is fairly uneventful.  Six o’clock comes and goes without a sound. Eight soon follows- and it’s not until ten thirty or so that the earlybirds begin to stir.  Even then, it’s only one of them. Lyra awakens slowly, stretching herself on her bed and unleashing a truly enormous yawn.  She’d had a good night- but it’ll take another like it, and potentially a third, before she’ll be fully recovered from forsaking her sleep for so long.  A quick flash of her horn shows her new companion is still sleeping… Funny, she’d expected she’d have to go dig her out of the cupboards or something. She shrugs.  Whatever- means she can demonstrate her not-so-great-ness at cooking before her new friend has a chance at, oh, lunchtime?  … Probably dinner; it’s late enough they might even skip lunch altogether. She flicks the blankets off with a surge of levitation, rolling over to drop to her hooves on the floor.  It’s been a long time since she last slept on a real bed. She casts her eyes up towards her horn.  Just in the one night, she’s recovered enough endurance to last close to a week, probably, and enough of her thaumic reserves to use really as many low-demand spells as she likes all day long without running anywhere near out.  It’s only the high-demand spells- the ones most unicorns never learn- that she can’t hold for that long.  She trots to her dresser to break out the manebrush and begin her day with it. Twenty minutes later, she knocks on her new friend’s door.  Breakfast is ready. She knocks again, harder.  Her friend is probably still asleep. A third set of knocks.  Her horn glows briefly as she taps into her home security fields…  No, her friend is wide awake. Looks like she’s intentionally ignoring the knocking as she writes something. She tilts her head, and varies the pattern in her knocks.  “Do you wanna build a snow-mare?” “It’s not snowing.” “Ah-HAH!  Breakfast is ready.  Just downstairs and a right, whenever you are.”  She returns to her kitchen. Upstairs, Bonbon slams her forehead down on her desk in frustration.  She’d been pretending she was still asleep- yet she just had to respond to that!  She lets out a groan and resumes her work.  At least she’s close to done; she can find out what’s on the menu in a minute. Oh- and she now knows where the kitchen is.  Or dining room, at least. She’ll have to take that tour through this enormous house after breakfast.