Close Enough to Touch: The Lyra Account

by LysanderasD


Four: Cassandra

Four: Cassandra

I managed to take precisely four steps before life decided to throw me a curveball.

I had, upon opening the door, taken a good survey of the street. On a Saturday morning, typically, the neighborhood is surprisingly quiet. Most people, like my grandmother, are out getting their shopping done. The local Wal-Mart sees, I don’t doubt, its busiest shift. There are kids, but my house is on the back side of the community, and the kids generally hang around the sides or the center streets. Knowing all of this, I still felt incredibly lucky when I saw absolutely no one in the street.

Four steps later, things changed.

Let me take another moment to step back and explain a thing about being a pony. This time it’s the ears. Ponies hear a lot better than humans do. The trouble is that most of the hearing is directional. Humans have two ears, one on each side of the head, and they (for the most part) don’t move. They’re shaped to pick up as much sound as they can because they’re immobile. Pony ears swivel. And the strangest thing about the whole affair for me is that it just sort of happens. You know how when a bang goes off nearby you just sort of leap to your feet? It’s like that. The ears just swivel toward noise, well before the brain even notices anything’s wrong.

Let me see if I can get all of this out properly, and keep in mind that this happens within the space of about, oh, five seconds. Where was I? Oh right. Four steps.

So I took that fourth step. Nothing on the street. Even most of the cars were gone. I had a huge stupid-confident grin on my face because I was out doing things and being awesome and I swore I could still hear that voice in my head cheering for me and it sounded really familiar.

It started with the sound of a door opening. On reflex, my ears swiveled toward the noise, although I wasn’t conscious of it until a moment later, when the sound of a dog barking, quite loudly and quite close, reached my ears, along with the pattering of padded paws rushing right at me.

The first thing that goes wrong is that I hear a door open. This is where the ears swivel but I don’t actually realize anything’s up. The next thing that goes wrong is that I notice what’s up, because I hear a dog barking and a girl cursing and there’s the sound of something pounding on the road and rushing right at me.

I managed to turn my head just fast enough to see the dog, who was just a little smaller than I was. Instincts ground deeply into pony biology, which is to say, a mostly pacifistic, herbivorous, herd animal, screamed at me to RUN, YOU STUPID NAG before he slammed into me. There was a long confused moment where I flailed and kicked and screamed and the only thing running through my head was I’m going to die I’m going to die I’m going to die

“Seymour, get off of--”

Except I wasn’t dead, and the fangs of the vicious monster were not tearing into me. In fact, here, curled into as much of a ball shape as body structure allowed, I could feel something damp and tickly running through my mane, occasionally bumping into my horn, and I realized the dog was sniffing because, and I was not immediately sure how I knew this, I was a new scent, a new thing, and he had to smell me, he had to learn, he had to, he had to--

“Seymour!” That was the dog’s owner, and as he got pulled away things began to fall into place. “I’m sorry, are you okay...miss?”

Several thoughts fell into place now that they weren’t being blocked by absolute terror. Seymour was the name of the dog owned by the family on the opposite end unit from ours--right down the road. I could never remember their last name, but it was a single mom and her two kids, both of them younger than me, but--quick mental math here--the older one, she’d have been be in the later years of high school by now. The younger would be... just starting? I forgot precisely.

But it was the older one, the daughter, that had Seymour on a leash when I finally opened my eyes again. The dog was straining and whining, but the girl had a good grip on him and he wasn’t going anywhere. We’d gone to the same school and I’d introduced her to the Tales of games which she’d fallen in love with, but after I’d left for college the first year that friendship, such as it was, had fallen apart. What was her name? Urgh, it was on the tip of my tongue... Wait!

“Cass?”

She blinked in surprise when I said her name. “Uh, have we met?”

I had to shrug out of the backpack straps to get myself back on my hooves again. It was good to get off of the ground; it wasn’t exactly the height of summer but it was still a little hot down there. One of the hoodie’s sleeves had extended again, and I took a moment to hike it back up with magic before I set the hoof back down, and looked back up at my would-be savior before I remembered that I’d just been knocked to the ground with a bag full of sensitive electronics.

Cassandra, or just Cass, stood just a little bit taller than I had before that morning, and her hair went down to the shoulders of the jean jacket she was wearing. Don’t see too many people in jean jackets any more; I remember having one growing up and I loved that thing to bits until I outgrew it. Anyway, jean jacket, and it went well with her jeans. The expression on her face was best categorized as “confused.” Seymour, meanwhile, was a mutt, but I think I saw a little bulldog and some retriever in there.

“We have,” I answered a little shortly, yanking my laptop out of the bag and examining it. Thankfully its sudden meeting with the ground didn’t seem to have done anything--even to the screen, although I couldn’t confirm that without waking it up, and I didn’t much feel like doing that. That was a relief; similar circumstances had been the death of my last computer. Well, sort of similar circumstances. I hadn’t been a pony at the time. And that had been in Idaho. Indoors. Okay, the situations were only vaguely similar, I guess.

“I think,” she said after a moment, and her voice was thick with sarcasm, “that I would have remembered running into a mint green pony before.”

Two thoughts occurred.

Well, good, she already knows I’m a pony. That saves a lot of explaining.

Of course I’m mint green. Everyone I’ve ever met says that. Never “green,” always “mint green.” It’s like everyone in the world knows what color mint is. Doesn’t anyone know what color seafoam is?

I froze and carefully tucked that last thought away in the back of my head where it belonged.

“It’s a long story,” I finally said, glancing around, “and I’m kind of in a hurry.”

She seemed amused by this. “A hurry? Where would you be going in a hurry?”

“New York.”

“Yeah, well,” she started, before having to pull Seymour back before he could leap on me again. I flinched, and Cass’s expression darkened. “Bad dog! No, what I was gonna say was, I wasn’t totally up to speed on this whole pony thing before it started, but I’ve done some looking since.” She paused and looked me up and down. Unconsciously, I tried to shrink into my hoodie. “From the sounds of things the only ponies that’re supposed to head up there are the Elements of Harmony or whatever. You’re not one of them, so...”

I opened my mouth to reply.

“So why would you need to go?” Cass finished, yanking on Seymour’s chain one more time.

“I...”

I had to look away and hope that the bright sunlight disguised my blush, though I had the sinking feeling that it only made it worse.

“I just have to.”

Cass was kneeling, one hand running up and down Seymour’s back as his tail slammed against the concrete with surprising strength. She quirked a single eyebrow in my direction. I managed to stomp a hoof, sending the sleeve flying and ending any pretense of the dignity I’d been aiming for.

“I know I don’t have to go, but, but...” The words seemed to build up behind my tongue like water trapped by a dam, and the expression on her face, one that said she wasn’t not taking me seriously at all, finally set them free. “I know I’m not anypony important, I’m not and I never have been, except the time I got into the School for Gifted Unicorns but lots of unicorns get in there actually, you’d be surprised--anyway, I’m not anypony important and I’m not an Element of Harmony but what will they think when they get there and they’re all on their own? What if they need help? What if the six of them can’t do whatever they need to do on their own? If nothing else I can be moral support, or, or maybe a backup singer or something!”

By the end I was shouting, and Cass was doing her best not to laugh. I turned away, and this time the blush was really bad and I was trying to prevent her from seeing it.

No one ever takes me seriously.

“Whatever,” I grunted, and pulled the backpack back up, levitating it until I could step back into the straps. “Keep laughing. I’ll get there on my own.”

“Wait!” she said before I’d taken a step. I turn my head to glower at her. She was still grinning, but it wasn’t mocking any more. Beside her, Seymour had shifted down to excited panting. “You’re serious about this?”

“Yes!”

She did chuckle, but there was no malice in it. The grin on her face changed, too, into an intrigued sort of smile--like an athlete who’s just seen the course he’s got to run. “You really mean this?”

Yes!” Sun and Moon, did I have to spell it out for her?

Cass nodded. “How much of a hurry are you in?”


I didn’t feel super comfortable heading back inside--this time into the opposite end unit, Cass’s house. I wanted to be moving--getting where I need to go. Still, there were things she needed to take care of, like feeding Seymour and packing her clothes, and I was left sitting down in the living room while she did.

I’d been in here before, but not often, and I’d never left the living room, because that’s where they keep the TV and that’s where she had me walk her through most of Tales of Symphonia and a part of Tales of the Abyss. Well, not walk her through. She actually played most of the games herself. But I did help out for the fights. Those games are actually pretty fun with other players, but--that’s a tangent, sorry. What always struck me about Cass’s house was that it felt so much darker than mine, even though the floorplan is very similar. Her mother was a very private person that kept the blinds shut all the time, and the walls were a very deep red color; the combination makes the room feel smaller than it actually was, and a lot more ominous than it needed to be. It was a pretty color, certainly, and the decor fit--but the entire place always felt oppressive, and my ears flattened themselves against my head as I looked around, waiting for her.

But it wasn’t too much longer--it had to be around 10:45--before she came bouncing down the stairs with a duffel bag, that aggressive grin still fixed on her face. “You ready to go?”

Not for the first time, I asked her, “Are you serious?”

“Yes!” she answered with the same intensity I had a couple minutes ago.

“So you’re just going to up and leave on a cross-country trip with a unicorn who doesn’t even need to make the journey, just...because?”

“Because it’ll be fun.” She sighed, and the look on her face added Are you stupid? “Look, this is something big, right? It’s a once in a lifetime opportunity! I can say I was part of this thing! Isn’t that what you’re doing, Travis?”

She had taken to the revelation of my identity relatively well. It had stung when I’d had to remind her who I was, but of course I hadn’t had any real contact with her in a year and a half or more. The way her eyes lit up when she remembered, though, and the squeal of “You are adorable!” (not something Cass was prone to saying) had been both humiliating and a little endearing.

“Yes,” I replied sullenly, unable to deny it. “But you have school on Monday!”

She made a motion that implied rude things about what school should do. “Ponies!”

I stared at her. She sighed. “Look, I get that you’re looking out for me and trying to be responsible. I get that, okay? You were that way before, too. And it’s honestly kind of flattering to know you care about my academic future,” and this was surrounded by airquotes, “but don’t you get off telling me to be responsible when you’re running off too.” When my expression didn’t change, she added, “Look, I left a note for Mom and everything, and she has my phone number. She’s probably going to scream at me to come back, and I’ll probably get in massive trouble for this, but who cares?”

“I do,” I pointed out, but something deep inside me applauded her for her audacity.

“Aw, that’s sweet, Lyra,” she said, a little mockingly, “but I don’t.” She jingled her keys. “I’ve got money for gas and a couple of meals. Saving up for college, you know, but these are extraordinary times.”

“I’ve got money ‘for college’ too,” I added, defeated. “I guess I can cover hotel rooms.”

“You have that much?” She seems surprised.

“We aren’t staying in any five-star hotels, if that’s what you’re getting at. As nice as that would be, I mean. I’ve never been to one but I bet the beds are really comfortable.” I bit my tongue. “Whatever! The point is that they’ll probably have to be cheap rooms but I’ll pay for them!”

“Good!” she said, and hoisted her duffel bag again. “You ready to go?”

I nearly stand up and scream Yes! Instead I slowly got to my hooves and nodded. Cass swept past me--I had to duck to avoid her bag--and opened the door. Her car was an old thing from the nineties, a deep-green two-door thing that looks like it’s doing pretty well for its age. She stepped out into the light and I followed her, swinging the door shut behind me.

“I still think this is a terrible idea,” I admonished her.

She tapped the hood of her car thoughtfully. “You know, you’re probably right. But let the future be the judge, really.” She chuckled. “For now...”

“For now...?” I repeated, hesitantly.

“For now,” she said again, spinning on her heel and pointing dramatically at me, “adventure!”