//------------------------------//
// Chapter 4: Gwyneth 
// Story: The Exchange Program 
// by Sozmioi 
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Over the next few minutes, Shankar and Jack explained to Lyra what Celestia had told them about the proper use of the protective amulets. They were cheap silver rings, fiber bracelets and anklets, a belt, and an amethyst pendant.

I listened in while running my fingers through my new hair and watching the video Shankar had just taken, muted. The video showed princess Celestia in my body, speaking to Rhiannon, and examining the various amulets. She touched several to her forehead and at each there was a brief glow. However, the main subject of the video was the hair. By the time they'd started the video, the infinity wave effect had nearly taken over my regular hair, and was expanding to its full size.

In person, it had had the fascinating property that your eyes looked through it, focusing on lights that were not in the hair but far beyond it. In the camera, with its single lens, this wasn't apparent. It didn't even look real, seeming like it had been edited in. A nice memento, not evidence. Well, not strong evidence.

The video continued, Celestia finishing with the amulets and turning to examine the apartment. She ignored the run-down furniture, gesturing approvingly to our well-stocked bookshelves. Rhiannon bowed to her, and Celestia held still for a few seconds. Then her hair started to revert - Celestia was gone, and I was back. I stopped the video.

Seeing I was done, Lyra looked up from her tuning the lyre. "Can you arrange lessons with Rhiannon's teacher?"

"Sure." I hunted for and soon found Rhiannon's cell phone. To my relief, she hadn't locked it. In a moment, I had her on the line.

"Hi, Rhi." Her voice was surprisingly guarded.

"Actually, this is Rachel, her roommate." Meanwhile, Shankar began braiding my hair.

"You're using her phone."

"I know. Did Rhiannon say anything about a special project she was working on?"

"Ye-es... did she make a mess?"

"It worked."

"What? Just what did it do?”

"It's a bit long to explain over the phone, and Rhiannon isn't here right now."

"By which you mean she disappeared, she left the area, or..."

"She's not herself at the moment."

"Do you actually have any evidence that she's not just messing with you?"

Sticking to what could be objectively observed, I said, “Well, my hair grew three feet in the last ten minutes."

Near-silence, but for Lyra finishing tuning. 

I added, "I don't expect you to necessarily believe that, but you might be curious to get a look at it. Anyway, we're not in trouble here. I was just wondering if you'd take on a teenage unicorn mind-swapped into Rhiannon's body as a student."

"What? Well. Umm. Well! One way or another, this is going to be interesting. I'll be by tomorrow morning. See you then. And don't cut your hair." With exquisite timing, Shankar handed me the end of my new braid.

I closed the phone, looked to Lyra, and realized that she'd never seen anything like it. "You took that in stride pretty well. Did I look like a crazy person?"

Lyra shrugged like a well-fed cat passing the recycling bin. She had lyre, and it was time for me to discontinue the yapping.

She closed her eyes, and played.

Frankly, by this point I rather expected that I'd wake up to find my head on her feet, so I intentionally left to secure the end of my braid. 

Where did I leave my hair-ties? It's been a year since I needed them... Ah, right. Lying on top of one of the horizontal black bars in my woodblock-recreation of Mondrian's number 38. I didn't feel a tug coming from the other room, so I returned.

Yes, she was good. Her rhythm and phrasing was solid. Though she fumbled a little with her fingers, that wasn't severe. Missing a dampening produced a chord that already sounded good, so there was a pretty strict limit on how bad her fingering could get. But she wasn't as good as Jack. Give her a break, Rachel, she's just 13 and utterly new to having hands. Even if she is a freaking interdimensional unicorn.

That was when she started singing. This is where she shone - a determined soprano, as rich as an alto. I was surprised she could get this out of Rhiannon's vocal cords. (Incidentally, this song was a great example of how music can elevate lousy poetry)

A fire on a distant shore,
A candle hung in a tower,
A letter from one now gone,
These are why I travel on.

Tears were not flowing, but we were at a better-dab-it-now level. So when she perkily asked, "You liked it?", it was like a splash of cold water. As we nodded, she said, "That was the first one I learned at the academy. Simple enough. Let's see if I can still do 'At the Mill'.

She started up a vigorous line, plucking, but soon got finger-tied. She yawned. "What time is it?"

I checked my phone. "9:15. When's your bed-time?"

"'Bed-time'? I'm not a little filly. I go to bed 'round 10, 10:30. But I think we're not exactly synched up. Must be... wait, it's the other way. It's only 7 or so back in Equestria." She blinked. "But I think Rhiannon didn't get enough sleep last night." She put down her lyre, stretched, and yawned.

I gestured to the men - "Up and out. All Y chromosomes must exit the building."

Jack got up but asked, "First... phone numbers? Email?"

Shankar gave me a glance and gestured to him - I nodded - and he said, "I've got you covered. Let's go." Then he half-dragged Jack out.

I helped Lyra to her feet. We went over to her door... and wham. The odor of that scented oil assaulted us. I left Lyra by the door for a moment to seal the bottle more tightly and open the window. It wouldn't be clearing out any time soon.

So I dumped her in my bed, grabbed my PJs, and took the sofa. The lumpy, saggy sofa. Within five minutes, I was seriously considering joining Lyra. Within half an hour, I actually did.

I woke with the sunrise since I'd gone to bed so early, but I barely had my oatmeal in me and peeled my hard boiled egg before someone was buzzing for entry. I went down, wondering whether it was Jack or Gwyneth (Shankar knew that the outer door could be opened with the right jiggle) - and it was Gwyneth. I let her in, saying, "Lyra's asleep."

"Nice hair. Too bad I don't remember what it was like last time I saw you. Now, sorry if I beat around the bush a little when we were on the phone, but I was with company and I couldn't speak freely."

"Didn't notice at the time."

I was about to open the door to the apartment, but Gwyneth put a hand on the door, keeping me from opening it. "Well, the thing is, it's all fake. See, I let Rhiannon go weeks ago because she's a... poser. She was just in it for some magical powers that don't even really exist, and even if they did, she's way off on how they work."

I looked her in the eyes. "Yesterday, for four minutes or so, I was a unicorn pegasus with backdoor access to a sun. So what you're thinking of may not be how it works, but what Rhiannon was thinking of was."

Gwyneth rolled her eyes and sighed. "Well, I do feel a bit of responsibility for how she turned out. And you too, it sounds like." She moved her hand from the door and I opened it.

Lyra was standing on her hands and knees in the middle of the floor, naked but for the amulets, with a pad of paper front of her. She was writing on it with a pencil gripped in her lips. Without letting go, she looked up and said, "Hi! I'm Lyra! Are you my teacher? I... thought of thome questionth to get uth thtarted!"

I wish I had gotten a look at Gwyneth's face, but I was busy facepalming. And trying to remember whether she'd been naked when I woke up next to her. As far as I could remember, she'd still had the dress on.

I opened my eyes when Lyra asked, "What ith it, Rachel?"

"First: why are you naked again?" I took a glance at Gwyneth. She was looking up at the corner of the room, apparently thinking. Seemed unlikely that she was upset at the nudity.

"I like it better that way?"

"Umm, fair enough, but we like it better the other way." I said; Gwyneth amended, "Doesn't bug me."

"And it'th got more to do with me than you. What elth?"

She had a point: I didn't care all that much, and she seemed willing enough to go along with it when guys were around or outdoors. "Well, why are you writing with your mouth?"

She dropped the pencil and looked down at it for a moment. "I'm more used to levitating my quills, but I remember this enough from when I was a filly to get by. I know, soon I'll want to use my, umm, hands, but I tried and it came out really badly." Then, to Gwyneth, she said, "Why are you looking up there?"

Gwyneth tore her gaze from the cobwebs in the corner of the ceiling and looked down to her. "Just trying to remember something. So. What's your name?"

"Lyra Heartstrings. And yours?"

"No, you see, I don't think it is."

"Yeah, I know this body belongs to Rhiannon. She'll be back in two months. I'm here on an exchange program."

"Hmph. Well, how did she set that up?"

"I dunno! I'm just a student, not an administrator! What's your name, again?"

"Gwyneth. Can I look at your notes?"

Lyra reached forward, picked up the pad, and handed it up.

Gwyneth accepted them, saying, "I meant the notes from before. 'Her' notes, I suppose.... what is this?"

I leaned over and read the surprisingly legible writing:


Need to write an essay on each of the following:


1 - families
2 - food
3 - society
4 - history
5 - government
6 - music (and learn 2 each instrumental and vocal pieces for performance after)
7 - art
8 - magic
9 - tools
10 - biology


Ideas for topics:

- blind idiot god (creator) made of love

Meanwhile, Lyra reached to me and I gave her a hand up. Gwyneth raised an eyebrow and pointed to the last line.

I interceded, "Uh, that was" - "Ssh." Gwyneth didn't want me making excuses, apparently.

Lyra got in position to read it. "Well, isn't that what you said? Jack said God is made of love, and you said it's a blind idiot."

"I wasn't talking about the same thing!"

Major disappointment. "Oh. Well, that's a lot less interesting. That would have been an A+ essay for sure."

I said, "Can you write something with your mouth again? That's a pretty neat trick, regardless."

She looked down at the pencil on the floor, then helplessly to me. "How do I get that?"

I pulled a fresh pencil off the shelf by the door. "I'll explain later." To Gwyneth, I clarified, "She's a little shaky on her feet."

Lyra grabbed the pencil, stuck it in her mouth, scratched out the topic idea and fluidly wrote: "Blind idiot god & god made of love."

Gwyneth nodded, impressed. Then, to me, "Do you know where Rhiannon's notes are?"

I shrugged. "Her room is still set up, mostly, if you want to check it out." Gwyneth headed in, took a contemptuous look at the circle, and began rummaging around. She commented, "Whoa, that is a lot of tarot decks."

Lyra looked after her. "So, it seems like she's not really in a position to teach me anything."

"Not yet anyway. Maybe once she's sorted out what's real and not. How are you on food?"

"Need it!"

"You're not big on meat - how are you with milk? Eggs?"

"Fine!"

So I poured her a bowl of oatmeal and offered her another of the hard-boiled eggs. She thanked me and took both (yet another difference from Rhiannon, who hates hard-boiled eggs), but was distinctly unimpressed by the oats. She tried various ways of gripping the spoon as she ate, and made do with several. Between bites, she explained her impressions of eating the wing the night before.

Gwyneth came out with two long, thin decks of cards and handed them to me. "Which of these is nicer?"

I flipped through the first. I'd expected it to be a tarot deck, but I wasn't sure that it was. It had lots of strong colors and geometric figures. I set it down and looked at the other. The top card showed three women in a triangle holding up cups. It was superficially innocuous, but there was just something wrong about it. "Er! The first one."

Gwyneth sighed. "Rachel, you're holding a somewhat-prettified but otherwise totally ordinary deck. And you freaked out over the most innocuous card in it. There's not supposed to be anything creepy about those ladies. The first deck, I gave to Rhiannon because I didn't want it anymore. It is the most emotionless, dead tarot deck I've ever heard of. Emotionally, it's like seventy-eight paintings by Hitler. But she's managed to infuse them with some sort of affect" [that's AFF-fect, as in emotional state] "that overrides what you'd normally think of them."

Even being told this, I had a hard time buying that there was nothing wrong with the deck I was holding. An idea struck me - I handed them to Lyra. "What do you think?"

She looked through the deck. "I don't see anything wrong with this. Of course, I'm protected."

"Right. Want to try taking amulets off until you find something wrong with this deck?"

She looked at me flatly. "It's mind control. I'm surprised you haven't tossed it across the room."

Of course, when you put it that way... I didn't feel like 78 card pickup, so I dumped the decks in a shopping bag and rolled it up before tossing them across the room.

Then Gwyneth burst out laughing. "Holy smokes. You'll believe anything! Totally made that up."

I wanted to hit her so hard so hard. "But how did you know I'd go for the other one?"

"Because it's the counterintuitive thing, obviously! And I was asking, and what's the point if I was expecting the obvious?"

"But I like geometric figures! Look at the art we have around here! Look!" A thin-lipped frown. She didn't move.

Lyra began loudly writing away, interrupting her. Gwyneth went and read over her shoulder. "'Everyone around here lies a lot.' Ha!"

I added, "Plus, I didn't expect there to be magic on them. If she could get magic to work that well, why not go and pick up a million bucks from James Randi? Plus, if you made that up, why didn't you expect Rhiannon to call you on it?"

"She's clearly having some sort of dissociative episode. She wouldn't remember enough - at least, not without her well-being on the line. And of course it was a chance for her to blow it."

I threw my hands in the air. Her new opinion of me really got to me. "Well, the notion of Rhiannon being able to pull that magic thing off... just isn't particularly unlikely. I mean, I wasn't specifically expecting it, but with all the other stuff I've just seen... have you heard of conditional probability?" I was treading on thin ice here, since my knowledge on this subject was pretty limited. But I did know of it. I struggled to remember how to phrase it. Something like 'Given what I've seen, this isn't all that unlikely', except more technical and not exactly the same as what I just said.

"Yes, I have. And 'conditioning on' your seizing on a magical explanation with little prompting, the chances of your being skeptical enough in your judgments of what is and isn't magic are pretty low!"

Glowering, I retrieved the plastic bag from next to the door and fished out the two decks. I sat there inspecting them, trying to figure out whether there was anything to my earlier feelings. The 'pretty' one was generally pretty innocuous, except when it was trying to be scary. But then I came back to the three ladies with cups. That card still struck me badly.

Knock knock. "It's Shankar." Thank goodness he's here. I need a second opinion. I let him in without thinking further. He looked at my hands. "Hi. What's up with the cards?"

"Which of these decks is nicer?"

He took a few seconds to look through them. "Well, they're different. The abstract one is more visually striking and better-executed, but I'm not sure how well it functions at evoking the ideas the card is supposed to evoke. If I were learning the tarot, I'd definitely use the other one."

"What about this one?" I pointed out the three of cups that had disturbed me.

"Meh."

"All right, whatever. Now, are you convinced that some magic went on here yesterday?"

He looked at me oddly, then noticed Gwyneth. And Lyra. Oops. His reaction to her nudity was oddly minimal, mere momentary surprise. "Yes. Absolutely. I've got it on video. I rewatched it this morning."

I pointed out, "It looks edited in."

"Given that I shot it myself and have zero video editing skills, I can rule that out." With another look to Gwyneth, he said, "But yes, she couldn't. You aren't on the cusp of being convinced, are you?"

Gwyneth shook her head.

"Are you going to call in the psych squad?"

She considered. "Any reason I shouldn't?"

"Because that's the interpersonal equivalent of calling in a nuclear strike?"

Lyra suggested, "Look, it's not too late to really prove it. I may not be able to use magic here, but I can let it be used on me. Let musicians try to 'trap' me. I'd only get caught by the virgins. I bet it'd work through a screen, even."

I said, "Then you're at the mercy of their honestly reporting whether they're virgins or not. It'd only take a few to make you look unreliable."

Shankar added, "Plus, they need to be good at playing. So if your standards are high, you might get false negatives."

Then I mentioned the clincher: "It'd be a lot of work to put together when no one but us would have any expectation at all that it might work."

Gwyneth came to the door. "That's the first reasonable thing I've heard any of you say. But it appears you two at least are basically functional - so, at least for the moment, I'm not going to make any phone calls. But I will be by to check up on you in a few days to make sure you haven't all forgotten how to use your fingers."

Shankar handed her the phone. Gwyneth looked, took a deep breath, and sighed. "She was right. It does look edited-in."

"Not that - did you notice how short her hair was?"

"Editing!" Gwyneth stepped out, rapidly closed the door - stopping it just short of slamming, then gently closed it the last few millimeters.

Shankar shouted, "I haven't known her long enough for her hair to grow that much!" But Gwyneth was going.

Lyra laughed. "Oh well. We didn't need her anyway." She reached towards us. "Could I get some standing-up lessons? I'm kind of stuck, and it's getting silly."