On the plus side I remembered how to swim, apparently. Wondered if I could still ride a bike?
I left the shirt and trousers folded by the tree alongside my stick before wading in. Just a spur of the moment decision. The water was there, wasn’t it?
All things considered, not really the time to be doing it. There were likely a dozen more constructive things I could have been doing, but I didn’t know what they were and I was hardly going to find someone to ask. So why not just pass some time with a pleasant paddle?
And I also had a dim and distant impression that stripping down to one’s underwear and jumping into an open body of water was something drunks and pissant teenagers did when they shouldn’t, and that it might end poorly.
It wasn’t actually that bad. The water was surprisingly warm, amazingly clear and also reassuringly shallow. I could touch the bottom with my toes if I stood - more of a glorified pond than a lake, then. And I didn’t have to worry about falling over! My leg might have the wonderful habit of giving out at dramatic moments but in the water it was pretty easy to just wave it around and go in generally the direction I wanted to. And if it did fail me, I floated!
Very relaxing, all told. I flipped onto my back for a while and just drifted, eyes closed, ears underwater. Made everything seem so blissfully far away. Sometimes I opened my eyes to look up at the sky. Big blue sky. Things don’t seem that bad when the sky is like that. Right?
Mostly though I kept my eyes closed, mostly because the sun was bright. At least until I felt myself being dragged, then I opened them. Nothing touching me though, just something pulling me slowly but surely towards the edge.
Couldn’t see anything. Probably just a current. Lakes have currents, don’t they?
Worse things had happened. I let myself wash up on the shore.
A pony I did not recognise was looking down at me, head shadowed by the sun.
“Are you okay? I thought you were dead.”
“Me? No, not dead. Just floating. Hello. I’m John - having a nice day…?” I said, sticking a hand out towards her. She looked at it confusedly for a moment or two before half-heartedly sort of batting it at with her hoof. I guess it was better than nothing.
“Lyra,” she said.
“You seem remarkably unfazed at finding something like me floating in a lake,” I said, lacing my fingers beneath my head.
“I’ve seen you around town.”
“Ah, that’d make sense. Guess I’m pretty hard to miss.”
“You are. Eye-catching, you might say.”
I guess that’s one way of putting it.
“Quite.”
I continued to lie there and she continued to peer at me. What were you meant to say to someone who you thought had been a floating corpses? And what was I meant to say to someone who thought I’d been dead? This was a singular scenario and no mistake. But let no opportunity go to waste, eh?
“We don’t know each other, do we Lyra?”
She looked at me like I was an idiot, but then I would, too.
“No.”
“Cool. Can we talk then, stranger to stranger?”
Oftentimes, it’s easier to discuss weighty matters with a complete stranger, and ponies are remarkably easy to talk to in the first place. It’s the eyes, I think. Though having no real concept of self helps too - who cares what I do? Not me!
“If you want?” She asked, plainly unsure.
So polite! Well, she had her chance to back out. I rolled onto my front.
“Right! Celestia then. You know Celestia? Princess? Cool hair?”
“Not personally.”
“Well, she’s lovely. Super lovely. Everyone I’ve bumped into since I got here has been lovely, really, but Celestia just seems like a cut above to me. Not sure why. Well, she did save my life and personally nurse for a bit, so there’s that. But she’s just so nice! Good sense of humour, kind of reassuring presence. Nice voice…”
Lyra had gone from looking cautious and unsure to just looking singularly unimpressed, though it was kind of difficult to tell what with the lighting and all. The sky was bright and I was squinting.
“Was this all you needed to tell me?” She asked, head cocking, hair flopping.
“No, no, just the preamble, sorry. So I have a, uh, friend who has another friend. My two friends. They’re very fond of one another but maybe not entirely communicating the full extent of it?” I ventured, testing the water and also indulging in some high-class subterfuge. The results of this were difficult to make out.
“Uh huh,” Lyra said. Or rather, half-grunted.
This told me little, so I just kept going.
“And recently, my two friends, they were just hanging out together - as they do sometimes - and maybe they got a little closer than usual and things seemed a little cosier than they sometimes did and, uh, one friend was leaning in and so was the other and one friend was really wondering what might happen and the other friend - the first friend, just so you know - kind of, uh, well, kissed the friend? The other other friend. You following this?”
“You kissed Celestia?!”
“No! Other way around! With my friends! Other way around!”
“Celestia kissed you?!” Lyra asked, face in mine and eyes boring into my soul.
“What? I didn’t say that either! It was my friends! I was talking about my friends!”
“Oh come on!” She growled, stomping a hoof.
Drat, rumbled. What had I been thinking? When had that ‘I know a guy’ line ever worked? I really was losing my mind!
“Okay fine, yes, she did. I mean, it wasn’t the most awful thing in the world it was just unexpected, right? Do you think I should read into it? Or is this a normal pony thing? Oh, I should mention that she teleported away after doing it. And freaked out a bit beforehand. Which was kind of unlike her, actually. Or is that normal you reckon?”
I kind of hoped this was me just missing some inexplicable bit of Equestrian etiquette and that it would all just sort itself out. And I was still grappling with where I stood on getting kissed by a horse. There were sporadic pockets of resistance scattered throughout my head, continuing to hold out in spite of advances made by the seemingly-victorious ‘This is a specific horse I rather like’ forces.
So to speak.
Lyra seemed to be trying to work out if I was pulling her leg just by looking at me. This didn’t get her very far.
“Are you sure she kissed you?” She asked.
My turn to look at her like she wasn’t all there.
“Pretty sure. What’s it called when one person puts their lips against the lips of someone else?”
“A kiss.”
“Well then. I mean she was apparently aiming for my cheek but still. Does that matter?”
“Could matter.”
Well that nailed it down. I flopped face-forward onto the ground.
“Oh Lyra, Lyra, Lyra - I’m in a pickle I am. Whatever am I to do? I am adrift! Was literally adrift beforehand, before I washed up here.”
“I pulled you over.”
“You did?”
“Yes.”
That puzzled me for a moment before I saw the horn. Horn meant magic, this I had learned.
“Ah yes, thinking I’d drowned, I remember. Still, adrift I remain. Terribly worried about Celestia, my friend. The first one I made here! I hope she’s alright…”
“Kind of would have thought you’d have bigger problems,” Lyra said, rubbing her head with a hoof. I blinked, a little confused.
“Hmm? Oh. Oh!”
That got me laughing. I did! Pretty damn big! Pretty damn fundamental!
I’d nearly died! Could again!
Cut off from memories! Remember that part? Kind of a big deal!
Cut off from home! Set loose in a world entirely not your own!
And there was I analysing a horse kiss. My priorities were truly back-asswards! Ha! Ha ha! Oh, I felt much better.
Lyra’s look at me was now the sort you tended to use on someone who you thought was perhaps not acting as rationally as they should. This was fair. I wiped my eye.
“Ah, no use getting worked up over the things I can’t do anything about, is there? This stuff with Celestia though I can do something about. And, you know, it’s a little important to me. She is, I mean. I don’t know. It’s a tricky problem to wrangle, isn’t it? What would you do?”
“Me? No idea, sorry. I kind of mainly came over because I thought you might be dead.”
“And I spring this on you. I can see how that might be a bit much.”
“Just a little. At the very least you made a pretty dull day a bit more interesting.”
“Oh, that I’m quite proud of. Makes me feel useful. One wonders how I can follow it up.”
“Well you’re not going to do much out here.”
She had a point.
“You’re not wrong. Swimming has been a nice little break but can’t swim away from my problems! And there was a party I kind of ducked out of. Little rude. Should probably be heading back.”
I stood up.
Lyra’s eyes widened a little - possibly on account of just how much I loomed over her - dropped, and widened further. I looked down as well. Turns out that Rarity’s magnificently-crafted pair of underpants left very little to the imagination when they got wet.
“Shit,” I said, covering myself and in a fit of pique falling backwards into the lake again out of sheer desire for modesty. Poor Lyra was in the splash zone for that one.
Wouldn’t really be me if I hadn’t fucked something up.
Flipping over forward and crawling back onto the bank I found Lyra standing there looking wet.
“I’m very sorry about that, really didn’t think that through,” I said sheepishly, pushing back my own sodden hair.
“It’s okay,” she said, shaking herself off and wringing out her mane(with hooves somehow?). “Just not what I expected to see today.”
“I don’t think anyone would ever expect to see that. Or deserve to! I’ll pay for counselling. And I’d offer you a towel if a had one.”
“You went swimming without a towel?” She asked, pausing in her shaking off to give me a disbelieving look.
“You’ve only known me a short time, Lyra, but are you surprised to learn that I went swimming without a towel?” I asked.
I watched some water drip from her chin.
“...not really, no,” she said.
“I did not think you would be.”
My future contained much sogginess, this I felt I could comfortably predict.
Lyra cleared her throat.
“Since you’re not dead do you mind if I leave you to it? This is kind of out of my way,” she said. I waved a hand, magnanimously.
“By all means, Lyra. Sorry to have kept you! Nice chatting.”
She made to say something but paused and started over afresh.
“It’s been an experience, John.”
“One which I am sure has made an indelible impression on you, possibly not for the best of reasons.”
Ooh, I’d come over all eloquent! And I’d got a smile to boot. How about that.
I waited until Lyra was gone before attempting to leave the lake again, at which point the sun had at least halfway dried me. Mostly. On one side. It was better than nothing.
Oh, felt miles better I did.
It’s all a matter of perspective, isn’t it? Nothing had improved and everything was still awful, I just felt better about it all. It didn’t seem quite so overwhelming now! Now I knew deep in my bones that I’d be able to manage to at least partially succeed. It wouldn’t be so bad! I could do it!
Weird how that works.
But who am I to question providence? Damp I may be, but buoyed I am!
Back to the party!