//------------------------------// // Chapter 9: Heartstrings // Story: Le Retour // by k12314 //------------------------------// CHAPTER 9 After that... Pleasant week, all the mares in town finally calmed down. I decided it was best to go see AJ and let her apologize, as I knew she would feel pretty bad about trying what she did. But as soon as I opened the door, I saw Pinkie in her hot air balloon, and AJ was with her. "Hey, AJ." I hopped into the basket. "Hi... Kyle, Ah' just wanted t' 'pologize. Ah'... Ah' shouldn't 'a done that... It just wasn't right..." She looked away from me. I kneeled down and hugged her. "It's alright, AJ. I understand... Sorta. You like me, and you were... Yeah. Of course you took up the opportunity. I can't really blame you... Although you did scare the living hay out of me." I cracked a smile, and she couldn't help but do so as well. My smiles are contagious. "Yer' really gonna fergive me that easily?" "I don't see why not. You're my friend, and you didn't do anything... Although I did have to run away, but that's besides the point. Don't worry about it." I patted her on the back to reassure her further, and it apparently worked. It looked like she felt a million times better. "YAY! That's great! I have to throw you two a party..." AJ and I just broke out laughing, and Pinkie ended up joining in. Eventually I got up and said my goodbyes, and flew off. I decided to pay Zeph a visit... A proper one. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ "Hey Kyle! Glad to see you survived!" Zeph started laughing, and I couldn't help but chuckle at my own expense. "So, Zeph, where're Spits and Divine?" "Oh. They're upstairs. They'll be down in a second..." And sure enough, we heard hoofsteps coming down the stairs. Spits and Divine came around the corner... I was just staring at Spits though. She looked A LOT different. Her mane was much longer, and she combed it. It looked nice. "Hey Spits. Long time no see. Like the hair, by the way." "Hey there, Kyle. Nice to see you too. And thanks, Zeph asked me to wear it like this." Then, a little tan ball flew at me and tackled me to the ground. Divine started hopping up and down on my chest, squealing like a fangirl. Zeph and Spits just laughed at me. "Hey, kid. You can stop jumping on me ANY TIME NOW." She stepped off of me, and gave me a sheepish smile. The cuteness was almost unbearable. "So, you're the little musician, eh?" I picked her up and placed her on one of my shoulders, and she held on, a huge grin on her face. "You're not little anymore." I gave her a kind smile. "Weeee! This is fun! Take me flying!" Zeph gave me a 'don't even think about it' look. "Nope. Sorry kiddo, too dangerous..." I put her down, and she let out the most adorable "Awwwww..." I have ever heard. She started jumping around me, pleading with me to change my mind. "This must be what it was like when Scoots was Dashie's fangirl... Ugh..." "Hey, it was nice seeing y'all, but I think I'm gonna head into town, look for something to do. See you guys later!" I waved, and headed out the door. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ "UGH! I'm so BORED!" I couldn't find anything to do. Seventeen, and as bored as a ten year old in the mall with his mother. I just kept wandering, expecting something to go wrong, like it usually does when I'm around. But instead, I saw a mint green mare walk out of a store, and look directly at me. She smiled and made her way to me. "OH GOOD GRAVY NO!" I did what I thought was best, and bolted. She gave chase. "WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM ME?!" I shouted at her over my shoulder as I dodged innocent bystanders. "I just wanna talk to you!" She was catching up, and I was getting a little tired from all the running. It was a hot day... "Yeah! And you wanna DISSECT me too!" I picked up the pace. It felt like my lungs were on fire, and my legs felt like lead. But I kept running like my life depended on it, which, given the situation, it did. "No! Wait!" I ignored her, and looked around for a quick escape. I saw somepony setting a ladder up, so I ran towards them. "Hey! I gotta use your ladder!" I jumped on and scrambled to the rooftops. Lyra just followed along on the ground. I was getting really tired, and the jumping wasn't helping. I eventually missed a jump, and fell into the alleyway below. Luckily, I had a nice, soft dumpster to land on. "Ohh..." I rolled over, and got up. I looked towards the exit to the street, and saw Lyra advancing on me. Behind me... A brick wall. PANIC. (Listen to this) I started to back away from her, and I walked right into the brick wall, of course. There weren't even any doors for me to escape into, or fire escapes to clamber up. I was trapped, and that's all there was to it. "Alright, Lyra... Listen, lets just be reasonable..." She kept trotting towards me, and I was shaking. I was honestly scared of this pony... "But I-" She took another step fowards. "DON'T GET ANY CLOSER..." I looked over to another dumpster that was right next to me, and I saw a bottle sticking out. I grabbed it and smashed it. HOORAY FOR LUCK. "I've got a bottle and I'm not afraid to use it!" I held it out in front of me, and my hands were visibly shaking. "Would you just listen to me...?" She stepped back a bit, and lowered her head. My paranoia told me she was going to charge, so I braced myself, but she didn't. I just stared at her. "Aren't you going to try something? Maybe kidnap me again? Or maybe you might use your magic to paralyze me?" Funny thing about me, when I'm mad, I give the person/pony I'm mad at ideas for how to retaliate... "Listen, I know it doesn't mean anything, but... I'm sorry." She looked at me, and I saw that she was tearing up. (Stop the music) "Wait... What?" I dropped the bottle, and took a step closer to her. "You mean, you expect me to believe that you kidnapped me, locked me in your basement, and threatened to dissect me, and you want me to just forgive you?" I was starting to get angrier. "Well, think about it from my viewpoint! You obsess over something for years, get dead end results, and then suddenly, the thing you are obsessing over drops into your world, but it never stays in one place long enough for you to catch it. Then, you finally snap, and when you get the chance, you do things you regret..." And then she started to cry. I honestly felt really bad for her. I walked over to her and sat down next to her, and stroked her mane. "Hey, it's alright. I can actually understand what you mean... Sorta. I mean, I used to be obsessed with video games, which I'll explain to you later, and I got REALLY upset when I couldn't play them. Once, I even hit my brother when he took one of them from me... I almost broke one of his ribs... It's alright, Lyra, I forgive you." She looked up at me. "Really? You mean it?" She wiped her face on her hoof, and then gave me a weak smile. "Yeah. I'm gonna be really paranoid around you for a while, but hey, that'll pass. Now then! Let's get to your house, I assume there are a lot of questions you want me to answer." She smiled widely and nodded her head violently, and I giggled a bit. "Alright then, lets get going." I stood up, and we headed to her home. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ "Oh, you live with Bon-Bon?" I walked into the little apartment, and I saw the mare in question in the kitchen, making a bunch of sweets. "Yep! Hey Bon-Bon! Look who I found!" Lyra gestured to me, and Bon-Bon just gave me a faint smile, but I could see a look in her eye that said "Why are you instigating this?" I chuckled a bit. "Heya Bon-Bon. I'm just gonna answer some questions for Lyra. So..." I looked to Lyra. "Where will you be asking these questions, anyways?" She started towards a hallway, and motioned for me to follow. We came into a small room with a desk covered in papers and books, and there was a couch in there too. I assumed this was where Lyra did all her research. I saw a bunch of drawings of me, and arrows pointing to different pictures of buildings. I was a little creeped out, but I shook it off. Lyra sat on the couch, and I sat next to her. She had a huge grin on her face, like a foal in a candy shop. "So... Humans... OH! I know! What is it that you do for fun?" I rubbed my chin, trying to think of all the things I did on Earth. "Well... We just talk, or we go to parties, or we go to the mall, which is like a big building full of stores, or we play video games, of course some humans frown upon it because some are stupid enough to re-enact the games." I crossed my arms and frowned, remembering all the crap my Mom gave me for being a gamer. Lyra raised her eyebrow. "Why would you get into trouble for doing what you would in a game?" "Well... You see, not all of the games were... Appropriate. A lot of games depicted violence, murder, blood, gore, that kind of stuff." Lyra had a horrified look on her face. "One of them which was especially disliked by most people was called Manhunt, which was basically completely BASED around violence." "Why would someone play a game like that? It sounds awful, not fun!" "We humans are violent creatures. We don't just put this stuff in our games. We do it in real life too. We have these devices called 'guns' which use gunpowder to fire little chunks of metal through the air at amazing speed. It tears through flesh and can kill someone in seconds." I remembered how much of a gun nut I was... I scare myself sometimes. "That's AWFUL! Why would people need something like that?" She had scooted away from me a bit, like she thought I was going to hurt her. Oh how the tables turned... "Because we fought over EVERYTHING. Power, land, energy sources..." "Becuase humans don't have magic, so you adapt with technology." "Very good Lyra! Yes... Now, back to what I was saying: People kill each other every day over all sorts of things, from worldwide conflict, to just wanting to kill someone. My home was a cruel, dark world... But it wasn't all bad." "Really? It sounds horrid." She scooted back up to me, but I could see the terror in her eyes. "Well, there were all the fun things I listed, then, of course... The food..." Oh, human food... "How I miss my grandmother's pot pie..." "Oh! What is it that humans eat? Do you eat only fruits or vegatables?" "Actually, we eat both. We're omnivorous. We eat fruits, veggies, and meat." Her eyes widened at that last part. "Don't worry about it, I'm not going to kill and eat anypony. We can go without meat, but we choose not to. Of course, it's a little sad, because I loved meat. But I guess living here has to have it's downsides. And plus, I don't think I ever ate a single bit of real meat in my entire life..." "Why would you say that?" "Because I pretty much lived off of what we call 'fast food.' It's basically food, but it's easily and quickly made, and cheap too. But I ALWAYS ate at a place called 'McDonald's,' and nothing there was natural. It was all artificial, and unhealthy. I think my diet here is the healthiest diet I've ever had." I chuckled a bit. I never was a healthy guy. "That's... Kinda gross. Why would you eat like that?" She looked a bit greener than normal, and I wasn't helping. "Because I liked the way it tasted. But, that's all in the past now..." Then, a yell came from the kitchen. "Lyra! If you're done interrogating him, I've made dinner!" "Hey, do you wanna stay for dinner?" She had a gleam in her eyes that I couldn't say no to. She was REALLY determined to learn anything she could about humans. I respected that. "Sure. I'm starving." I spent the rest of the evening telling Lyra about all sorts of things from our world. She especially liked it when I told her about that stunt I pulled with the chickens and the vat of grease. Still not telling about that. After it started to get dark, I decided to head home. Friendship stems from the strangest of places, doesn't it?