As I ate my burger and fries, I thought about what our names should be. Honestly, this whole situation would definitely freak anyone else out, but I see weirder things all the time. Mabel seemed to be enjoying herself; Maybe I should just settle down for a while. It's cool, right? We'll find a way to get back home, I'm sure of it. Just like how we beat the gnomes, and how we fought Gideon and destroyed his amulet.
"So, I'm assuming that since you were sleeping in front of Town Hall, you have nowhere to go, right?" Lyra asked, bringing my thoughts back to the present.
"Um, no, we don't." I replied flatly.
"You guys can stay at my place if you want. Sure beats sleeping where you were." She said, smiling warmly.
"Oh my gosh, sleepover! What should we do? Tell ghost stories? Go to the spa?" Mabel said, grinning.
We finished our meals and went on our way. Lyra lived only a few streets away. Her house was fairly normal on the outside, a simple, 2-story abode with a thatched roof.
"I've got a bed in the guest room down the hall for you guys. You guys'll need to share it, sorry." she said. "So, how's about we take a trip to the spa?" Lyra grabbed a pair of tan saddlebags off a hook.
We walked down the gravel road. Lyra and Mabel were chatting away. I held my hat over my face; I couldn't be seen going to a spa! Granted, nobody but Mabel knew me here, but still, it's a bit embarassing. Guys are supposed to be tough, we don't do girly thhings like this, but I guess since I'm in a place in which I'm a technicolor unicorn with huge eyes, it's socially acceptable.
A bell chimed cheerily as Lyra held the door open with a forehoof. We stepped into the oddly-shaped building, where we were instantly greeted by a pair of pink and blue ponies- probably twins like us, but we're fraternal twins and they seem to be identical- who introduced themselves to us as Aloe and Lotus. We were escorted to a smaller room with mirrors and various hairstyling things. We each sat down in a chair.
A blonde mare with her mane and tail in braids took my hat off and set it on a counter behind me. I almost turned around to grab it, but knew not to.
"My name is Helga. How would you like your mane styled today?" she asked in a light German accent. Or maybe it was Norwegian, or Polish.
"I don't care." I said in a deadpan tone.
"I would suggest that you take off ze vest and shirt, you don't want it to get wet, ya?" I took them off, and Helga led me to a large shower stall on the other side of the room. I heard Mabel snicker- probably at the thought of me being in a spa- as I stepped in, struggling to turn the handle to turn the water on. I took note of many shampoos, conditioners, and body washes sitting on ledges in the walls. I finally got the water on, and shampooed my mane and tail. Then I used a body wash for my coat, scrubbing mud out of the pale blue fur. Ugh, everything smelled like roses. I quickly washed the shampoo out of my coat and mane.
I turned off the water, which wasn't an easy task, especially with wet hooves. I stepped out of the shower stall and put on a fluffy white bathrobe I found hanging on a hook next to the curtain. Nobody else was really around, which was weird. Where the heck were Mabel and Lyra? They must just be finishing up in the shower; That would explain why water was running, obviously. I sat down on a bench and waited for them. My mane was soaked and hung into my face annoyingly. I wondered if I still had my birthmark on my forehead. I walked over to a mirror and lifted up my bangs with a hoof. Sure enough, there it was, the reddish outline of the Big Dipper. It wasn't anything important right now, I was just curious.
I sat back down on the bench. Mabel stepped out of the shower across from mine, dripping water everywhere. Not that it made a difference in how wet the floor was.
"Haha, you're at the spa." she said, giggling.
"Shut up."
Lyra stepped into the room, wearing a fluffy pink bathrobe.
"Hey guys, they're waiting for us back in the salon."
We walked back into the salon area, where Helga, Aloe, and Lotus were waiting. Luckily, since I'm a guy and my hair is short, it didn't hurt that much when Helga combed out the tangles; Mabel wasn't lucky at all in this department. Her long hair was messier than mine, and curled a lot at the ends. Her wings were flared out in alarm, their feathers still drenched, as Lotus combed through her mane. Meanwhile, Helga had finished combing out my mane, and was now working on straightening it.
"So, do you guys want to go see a movie later? I have some gift certificates leftover from my birthday." Lyra said.
"Sure."
"Oh my gosh, yes! This is going to be the best day ever!" Mabel shouted, wincing as Lotus tugged out the knots in her tail. Helga was mixing up something in a small bowl with a paintbrush.
"Hey, what's that you're mixing up there?" I asked.
"Oh, it's just some light brown highlights. I don't mean to insult you, but I thought you might like some variation instead of just dull brown." she responded. I raised an eyebrow at this, unsure.
"Just a few shades, right? I don't really want anything too extreme."
"Oh, ya. Stallions aren't really into this sort of thing. You're a brave colt, ya know that? Not many come to the spa very often."
Mabel snickered again, probably planning to use this to blackmail me in the future. Lyra read a magazine from one of the side tables. Helga ripped some aluminum foil off of a roll on the counter.
"Hey, Dipper, should I get my mane dyed pink?" Mabel asked excitedly. I glared at her.
"No. You're already pink, you'd look like a walking piece of cotton candy." I said, trying to keep my voice calm.
"Purple? OOH, how about rainbow?!" she shouted, practically bouncing up and down. Lotus took some bowls and dyes out of the cupboard above the counter, filling each with a different color of the rainbow. Another dish was filled with bleach.
"Wait a minute. Did she say you're name's 'Dipper'? Is that short for something? Come to think of it, I never asked you guys for your names." Lyra said.
"Um... yeah. It's short for 'Big Dipper', like the constellation." I said.
"Oh, and my name's... uh... Shooting Star!" Mabel said. Lyra eyed her suspiciously. Her hesitation must've given her away. We needed to at least blend in long enough to get home somehow, right? Wait, how were we supposed to get help if we didn't tell somebody? At this point, I really wasn't sure.
"Hey, where are your guys' parents? Are you orphans or something?" Lyra asked. "Why have I never seen you before? It's as if you just popped up out of nowhere!"
"We, uh, lived in the woods, in a cottage, and uh, a wolf chased us out and killed our parents." I lied. I just hope she believes it; I'm terrible at lying! Aloe continued to trim Lyra's mane and tail as Lotus and Helga dyed mine and Mabel's. I guess we both looked silly with foil in our hair. Well, at least Mabel did.
After we were done getting spa treatments, including hooficures (which I politely declined) and facials, which I guess I needed. I had bags under my eyes from too many nights up late reading. Mabel kept trying to eat the cucumbers over her eyes. Helga had done subtle highlights and lowlights in my mane, and Mabel's was a vibrant spectrum of various colors. Well, to each his own.
"You guys had better not drag me to a rom-com." I grumbled as we trotted to the theater.
"Well, do you guys like comedies? Or would an action movie be better, to make up for us dragging you to the spa?" Lyra chuckled.
"ACTION MOVIE." I said, a little too quickly.
"Well, we've got Iron Hoof, Fallout: Equestria, and Nightmare in Everfree." Lyra said. "Well, the last two are technically horror, and they're rated R, so Iron Hoof is the only option, really."
We made it to the theater, but had to wait for a half hour before the next showing. Meanwhile, Lyra got all three of us some hay popcorn and sasparilla. The movie was basically Iron Man, but with ponies. Mabel was only really interested in the fight scenes, but I tended to overanalyze things, so I paid attention to it all. I still wasn't too happy about getting my mane dyed, though, so I probably didn't enjoy it as much because I was still grumpy from that.
After the movie, it was pretty late, and we were all a bit tired. We'd spent a long time at the spa, and the film was a couple hours long, so it was around 7:00 by the time we got back.
"So, what do you two want for dinner? Does spaghetti work? 'Don't have any tomato sauce or parmesan, though, but I've got some butter." Lyra asked. We nodded our heads.
Lyra started to boil some water in a pot, stirring in the noodles. The entire house was filled with the scent of boiling noodles (not a very interesting smell, if you've ever cooked pasta) while Mabel and I tried to figure out what was going on.
"How have we never noticed that portal before?" I asked.
"I dunno, you're the nerd. C'mon, let's just have some fun while we're here! It probably won't last long." Mabel added sadly.
I gave a somewhat weak smile, knowing she was right. Still, I wanted answers.
"Hey, Dipper! Star! Spaghetti's done!" Lyra called. We rushed down the hall to the kitchen. On the dark wooden table were two bowls of steaming spaghetti, with a pat of butter on top. We all sat down at the table.
"Do you guys say grace or anything?"
"Not usually, we just go ahead and eat." Mabel responded.
Lyra chuckled, and levitated a fork out of a drawer to the table. We all dug into our spaghetti, mostly headfirst.
After dinner we all went to bed, us going to the guest room and Lyra going to her own room. The walls were plain white, which was calming after a whole day surrounded by bright colors, and a small lamp with a large red button on it was sitting on a table on my side of the bed. Mabel fell asleep almost immediately, but I always had too much time for thinking between closing my eyes and falling asleep. I fell asleep thinking about how odd this whole situation was.