//------------------------------// // Bare Necessities // Story: A Delightful Journey // by FeverishPegasus //------------------------------// Turns out I'm actually pretty good at music in general...how about we backtrack a bit? I wake up. With slitted vision, I gaze at Lyra rushing to and fro, trying to gather the items needed for her performance. She's the reason I woke up in the first place. “You oversleep or something?” I ask her, a little bit of disdain in my voice. “How about you just go to sleep and keep your comments to yourself?” Lyra immediately while she rushes about in an irritated frenzy. Quickly, I try to rise, but am forced to lay back down and get my bearings first. After about ten seconds I sit up, refreshed and ready to help. “You want me to get something?” “Yeah, could you toss me my lyre?” I grab it on the shelf to the left of me, but hesitate before throwing it. “Are you sure you want me to throw--” “Thanks.” Lyra plucks the lyre from my hands. “Just chill until I get back.” “Wait!” I yell at her as she leaves. “Let me come with you!” “You'd just slow me down!” she yells back, already out the door. I chase after her, not about to be left behind with Bon Bon. “Wait! Pleasepleasepleazzeee,” I beg, half-running behind her, clearly in a state of desperation. “You can't leave me here!” “Keep up with me,” Lyra responds curtly, continuing her rushed trot to the center of Ponyville, breaching the house's main door. “What?” I ask, not hearing her. “Keep up!” She picks up her pace. “Oh! Ok!” I try my best keep Lyra in sight as she rushes to her destination. I lean on an alleyway wall, gasping for breath, completely lost, and actually a little scared. Damn, that pony can run! Quadrupeds are inherently faster I guess. Haha, using words like these makes me feel intellectual! I quickly sober up, though, and take in my dire situation. I've never enjoyed being lost, much less in an alien world full of talking ponies. To my relief, Pinkie Pie swings into vision, upside down. Multiple times actually. She continues to swing. “Uuuh, Pinkie?” “Yep?” Swish...swish... “Is this how you normally communicate?” “Nope! Just on Thursdays!” Her face remains as radiant as ever as she continues to swing about in an awkward fashion. Swish...swish... I facepalm. And sigh. Look up. Look down. Sigh again. Finally, I look up and ask her, “Do you know where I could find--” “You wanna hear one of my stories?!” Pinkie Pie interrupts. It's like that pony was waiting for me to talk. I suck in my breath, trying to keep myself under control. “Pinkie Pie...” I sigh, once again. “I really don't want to hear any of your stories right now. I just want to know where Lyra is. Could you do that much for m--” “Sure!” Pinkie unholsters herself from the balcony support above us landing with supreme ease. She bounces off and I'm forced to follow, my mind a thick haze of anger. She does this on purpose, I swear. Finally, after going through two torturous minutes of listening to Pinkie Pie's story about 'how she got her cutie mark,' I see Lyra strumming her lyre in the distance. Golden notes ring out in slow, soft patterns, forming a mournful elegy. She does all of this while sitting on a bench, blissfully unaware of the pink furball about to release untold decibels of sound into her ears. “Watcha doin'?!?!” Pinkie Pie screams. Lyra whips around to face her, startled out of her wits. One of the strings of her lyre pings as it breaks under the force of Lyra's frightened hoof. “WHA-oh.” Lyra instantly calms down after seeing that it was just Pinkie Pie. “Dangit Pinkie! You made me break it!” She says, fondling the bottom piece of the split string. “Sorry about that! Here--” Pinke Pie throws a bag of bits next to Lyra. “These should cover it!” Lyra's eyes light up, seeing stacks of bits inside the bag. “Thanks Pinkie! This...seems like a lot though. I only needed like, ten bits to repair my harp.” “No problem!” She winks at Lyra and bounces away, ignoring her inquisition. Lyra looks at me when Pinkie Pie hops out of earshot. “She does it on purpose, I swear.” Knowingly I nod. “Hehehe, that ran through my mind just a few minutes ago.” Lyra giggles, but soon goes back to fondling the frayed string. “I'll need to get this fixed today, but thanks to Pinkie, there's no more performing to do. I've got the rest of the day to myself.” “Cool!” I offer a high five to her. She gladly hoof-bumps it. “Where do you want to go?” I ask. Lyra shrugs, completely out of ideas. “I had my whole day planned out, don't ask me.” Hmmm... I scratch my chin and think. ...the harp. I wanted to play it. “How about we just hang out somewhere, and you teach me how to play the harp?” Lyra scrunches her face a bit, obviously reluctant to teach a newbie the essentials of music. Finally, she agrees, not minding the opportunity to socialize. “Don't be too hasty though. To actually play the harp, we need a working one first,” she points to the broken string. “Let's get Johnny repaired first.” “You named your harp Johnny?” I ask, smirking. “Just...shut up,” Lyra says, rolling her eyes. She opens the door to Ponyville's local music shop, entitled, “Musical Fetish,” pushing it open wide enough for me to walk inside. She ignores my persisting grin and slaps her lyre on the store counter, a little bit too hard. “Oh!” The cashier exclaims, surprised by the clatter. “Lyra! You’re enthusiastic today!” Her brown fur stands on end as she brushes a ruffled magenta mane out of her face. It's clear she's been at work organizing her shop all day. “Sorry!” Lyra apologizes. “Don't mind me. This little runt is just pissing me off is all.” She gestures at me with a hoof. I look at her, giving my best 'shocked and hurt' expression, even gasping to add to the effect. I manage to get a look of pity from the cashier, but Lyra continues with her business, distracting her. “I'd like this string repaired please. Could you do that?” She looks earnestly at the cashier. The cashier furrows her eyebrows and harrumphs. “Not until you apologize to you poor friend over there, who's feelings you have sorely hurt,” she points a hoof in my direction. Lyra turns to see my face resemble that of Bambii, with tearful eyes and a puffed out lip, begging for an apology. Lyra sighs and facehoofs in response. “Really?” she asks, clearly skeptical of my plight, her eyes seething with anger. I nod, accentuating my pitiful features even more. Suddenly, she smiles, and in a plastic-sounding voice says, “Y'know what hun? I didn't mean to make you feel so sad. How about, as an apology, I hold your hand all the way home? That would make you feel better wouldn't it?” Uh oh. I immediately break the act. “Wh-wh-wh-whoah there. Who said I ever felt sad? Eheheh. Nope! I'm as happy as can be!” I jauntily swing my arm for emphasis, smiling as far as my cheekbones allow. It's now my turn to get glared at by the cashier, my deception revealed. Thankfully, I watch as Lyra continues with her order and the cashier is forced to look down at the harp. “I can get this done in ten minutes,” the cashier informs Lyra. “Try your best to deal with that runt while I get everything fixed up, ok?” One side of her mouth moves up into smirk. “No problem,” Lyra replies, mirroring the pony's expression. She walks up to me and starts pushing me forward by the small of my back. “C'mon runt. We've got ten minutes.” Oh no she didn't. I suck up my pride and walk outside, trying my best to move faster than Lyra's pushing hoof. We find a bench right outside the store, and I plop down. Lyra sits next to me, folding her legs beneath herself. “The name's 'human',” I remark wryly. She giggles. “Oh, I know. That was payback for making fun of Johnny.” “Yeah okay,” I say, still harboring angry feelings. While I stew, Lyra looks curiously at my sitting style. “How in the heck is that comfortable?” “What?” I ask, looking at my sitting position. I don't understand. Slouching may be bad for my back, but it's still comfortable. “You're sitting weird. You don’t curl your legs underneath you.” “This is how I normally sit. It's comfortable for my type.” “I...guess...I wonder if it'd work well for a pony too.” “Why don't you try it?” “Heck no.” I ruffle my eyebrows at this reaction. “Why the strong reaction?” “You're kidding me right?” Lyra looks at me like I'm an idiot. “No...” It still doesn't click. “Am I really gonna have to describe this to you?” Lyra asks, exasperated. “Wait wait wait. Gimme a sec.” I take a moment to think. The reason finally hits me. I blush and look down. “Sorry, I get it now.” I can't help but chuckle a little. “You had me scared for a second,” she remarks. I mumble something to myself, too quiet for Lyra to hear. “What's that?” Lyra asks. Again, I mumble, afraid of how Lyra would react. “You've got something on your mind human, speak up.” It takes all of my strength to utter these words. “It didn't phase you when you were gawking at my dong.” Lyra laughs a big, throaty laugh. “I wasn't—haha—I wasn't going to judge you just one day into Ponyville. I thought that was normal for you. For me to sit like you are would just be open display.” I sigh, having trouble getting over my resentment. “Yeah, you're right.” Eventually, after a few minutes of silence, the store owner comes out of her shop. “Lyra! I've got your harp!” “Thanks Lolita!” Lyra says, taking it. After looking at the newly replaced string, we make to leave, but we're interrupted by some grumbling. It's Lolita. “You’re going to pay for that aren't you?” “Ooh!” Lyra puts a hoof to her mouth. “Sorry about that!” Quickly she hoofs out a few bits from the bag Pinkie gave her and smiles an apology. “No problem friend!” Lolita responds. “Ponies would be asking for discounts if I suddenly gave things away for free is all!” We head home. Lyra looks at me jealously as I try out a few of her lyre's strings. Each of them resonate with different pitches of sound, pitches that eventually become familiar to me. I continue to pluck strings at random, getting a feel for the odd shape of the instrument and its musical abilities. Slowly, the notes I pluck start to develop a pattern. I say, “Heh, I'm startin' to get the hang of this!” “Beginner's luck,” Lyra explains, waving my statement off. I continue with my pattern for some time, increasing the tempo to warm up my fingers. Wait, you need to warm up your fingers before playing instruments? The notes practically whiz by as I expertly strum off my pattern, now at a very fast tempo. Lyra looks at me with a raised eyebrow, surprised at my dexterity. I slow the tempo down again, gradually, until I'm left playing each individual note, letting each sound have its own space to resonate. Carefully, cautiously, I change it up. I develop a variation to my pattern, adding in notes between my established mainframe, even shifting a few of my original notes around the beat. I speed this variation up and interchange it with my original pattern, growing more excited the faster my fingers whiz by. Lyra looks at me, stunned and a little excited herself. Eventually, I play my two patterns so fast that the notes start to blend together, moving so fast that I have trouble keeping track of my position in the music. I stay at this speed, challenging myself, prepping for an even more arduous feat, changing the pitch of my patterns' notes. I start to tap my foot with the beat so that my subconscious can take over my patterns, maintaining my musical performance. I devote the rest of my mind to the changes I'd make. Swelling my chest, I try to play my first changed note, to find that it sounds awfully wrong. My fingers stop strumming and that dissonant note rings out into the silence between me and Lyra. I see that Lyra has her eyebrows raised and I laugh. “Haha, well, that didn't work out as planned.” “I was gonna say! What an interesting ending!” she responds, breaking down into cute-sounding chuckles. My heart spasms a little bit in response, but I manage to get through it alive. “Y'okay?” Lyra asks, noticing my face go a little pale. “Yeah, I'm good,” I say, not wanting to admit that what she had just done there was heart-wrenchingly cute. “Honestly, what I just did is as much a shock to me as it is to you. I'm thinking I was a musician back where I came from.” “I wouldn't be surprised.” She looks down at the ground thoughtfully. “Maybe you would make a good audience for my music. I mean, even though you can't remember any of your experiences as a musician, it's obvious you have an understanding of the core. You know what makes music sound good and how to apply it while improvising, of all things.” “I told you,” I say to Lyra, squinting my eyes at her. “I know my stuff.” “I'm sure you did at the time,” Lyra says, her voice dripping of sarcasm. “My subconscious is on track I tell you!” I say, trying to recover from her remark. “Sure,” she smirks, “and I'm the--” “Yes,” I respond, interrupting her. “You are whatever you were about to say.” “Really?!” Lyra exclaims. “Uhhh...yeah,” I say, a little bit unsure at what she was getting at. “I was gonna say, 'the pony who gets to touch your hands whenever she wants.'” I freeze. “So, that means we're all good with the hand touching thing right? Y'know, that deal we made earlier? Don't think I forgot about that.” My face goes pale. “Uh, n-n-no. I d-didn't mea--” “Too late!” Lyra interjects, gleeful. “You've agreed! There's no turning back now! Now give it over!” She jumps up to her hooves and ominously walks forward. “I-I, n-no. Stay back!” I try to keep her back with an outstretched palm. Big mistake. *Two Hours Later* I groan, my back getting tired of leaning against the side of Lyra's bed. “Could you stop anytime soon? My back's going to break at this rate.” Lyra looks up at me from her position on my right. Her foreleg entraps my right arm as she strokes my hand with a hoof. “Give it a rest human. We've only been here for a few minutes.” “You're kidding right? Look outside. It's dark.” Lyra looks to her window above the bed. “It is dark. We must've come back a bit later then.” I groan louder. “Lyyyrrrraaaa. I promise you, we've been here for hours. Please let my hand go before I have to amputate it due to lack of circulation.” Lyra's foreleg had cut off the blood flow to my hand for some time now, and it was actually starting to worry me. “Now that's a thought. Amputation huh?” An evil grin forms on her lips. I look at Lyra in horror. “You wouldn't.” She gives that disarming chuckle of hers and I instantly calm down. “Comon, imagine how happy that would make me. I could have it as a stuffed animal!” My tone goes playful as I say, “Eugh. Lyyyyrrrraaaaa. This is my hand we're talking about here, so I get to make the decisions about whether or not I want to amputate.” “But what about that deal we made? I technically have full ownership of your hands don't I?” “Noooo, you didn't specify who had ownership. You only said that you would be allowed to touch my hands whenever you wanted to. My hands are still mine.” “Hehe, dangit! You saw right through my ploy.” “Yeah, I've got to be careful when talking about hands with you.” We let the conversation drop off and I let Lyra stroke my hand for a bit longer. There's still the matter of blood-circulation though, so it doesn't take long for me to break the silence again. “How about I let you pet my hand some more and you release your foreleg? I need to keep my hand alive.” Lyra looks at me skeptically. “You'll just snatch it away.” “I promise.” “You promise you'll what?” “I promise I wont snatch my hand away immediately.” Slowly, cautiously, Lyra releases her foreleg from my arm. Blood rushes forward, giving my hand the sensation of being pricked by dozens of serrated needles at once. I wince. “Gimme a sec Lyra. I've got to shake it a bit.” I shake my hand as best as I can to restore the blood to its natural levels. It takes about a minute, but the needles finally stop. I rest my hand in front of Lyra again, who immediately goes back to her petting. I sit back, actually glad of Lyra's company. Words just won't do in some conversations. Sometimes, all we need is the company of somepony else. It's incredibly late, and Lyra's still at it. Upon looking at her alarm clock on the bedside table, I see that it's 2:00 AM. “Hey, Lyra. It's two in the morning. We should probably get some sleep for tomorrow.” I poke her with my other hand for emphasis. She waves it off. “Yeah, yeah. I'll stop eventually.” “Lyra. We need to go to sleep now. It's two in the morning.” She finally stops petting my hand. “Yeah...that'd probably be a good idea wouldn't it?” I stand up, pulling my hand from Lyra. “Let's go. I'll sleep on the floor this time so you can sleep on the bed. Tomorrow's going to be a pain if you don't go to sleep immediately.” Lyra scoffs, “I was gonna kick you off anyways. As if I was really going to let you take my bed for the rest of time.” I frown at her, saying sarcastically, “You're welcome.” She smiles and punches me in the arm. “You've got the floor from now on okay?” “Yeah,” I respond, resentful of her smart remark. “Maybe you could help me buy a bed in the future?” “Sure, but you'd need to get a job. I'm not going to pay for everything.” I try to guilt trip her and puff out my bottom lip. “You wouldn't be willing to help a poor friend who's still lost in a world full of ponies?” “You aren't lost,” Lyra says while giving me the ‘don’t you try that’ look. “I know exactly what you're trying to do.” I break the act, frowning a little. “I figured it wouldn't work.” “You get a job related to your interests, you get a bed,” Lyra continues. “I'll help you whenever I can.” “Thanks,” I say. Lyra moves to her dresser and grabs a few blankets. She throws them at me. “Make sure to put everything back in the dresser once you're done with them, Bon Bon likes to check my room every now and then to make sure it's clean. Don't ask me why, because I'm as confused as you are there.” I chuckle. “Sure.” Bon Bon has serious control issues doesn't she? We both lay down and try to fall asleep. I start to drift off, but a thought suddenly holds me captive. Why, how are they so different? What makes all these ponies so cheerful? Well...most of the time. “Hey Lyra?” “Yeah?” “How are you guys so cheerful and accepting? Back where I came from, if somebody were odd or acting weird, they'd get serious flak for it.” “I think it all comes down to the core of us. Yeah, I've got a bit of anger that I want to release every now and then, but for the most part, I want to keep everything calm, help other ponies, make friends happy...that kind of stuff. You however, you've got enough anger to go around.” “That's bad isn't it? How can I change that? I feel kinda bad bringing all you ponies down with my temper.” “Eh, don't worry about us. You probably make things better for ponies holding things in. Bon Bon for instance.” I chuckle. “Well, I guess I do have some use here. Still, I feel like all of my anger just makes things worse for me. I have trouble opening up to stranger ponies. I need to chill out.” I sit up, kinda getting into the conversation. “Ehehe, you do, but not in the way you think.” Lyra gets up out of bed and sits right next to me. I avoid her gaze as she looks at me with a sincere expression, saying, “You're just being too hard on yourself. Think about it. Who has the right to tell you that you're incompetent, useless, or stupid besides yourself?” Lyra places a hoof on my chest and I'm forced to look at her in the eyes. She continues, “You can be whatever you want to be regardless of what others say. There is no need to fix you. Your extra anger? It defines you,”- Lyra says while pressing her hoof into my chest for emphasis -“You are you. You are the best as you. When you try to run from you, that only makes things worse for you. Do you understand?” Something inside me breaks, no...melts, no...something inside me disintegrates under her words and touch. I'm suddenly left with my unguarded emotions, nothing left to keep them at bay. My brain sends lightning bolts of emotion through my body and I shiver and heave. I hold Lyra's hoof in both of my hands, leaning my forehead towards it, crying without restraint, without shame. Tear droplets hit the fur on her hoof, but Lyra remains motionless, a smile gracing her face. Eventually, I let go of Lyra's hoof and bawl into my own hands, keeling over from what I'd held in for way too long, what I hadn't known I'd been holding in. Patiently, Lyra waits. Amidst my turmoil, seeing me completely broken, her face remains cheery, accepting. And just like that, I'm done. There's no more to cry about, and while the emptiness inside me is frightening, I know that now, at this moment, I have truly been set free. I look at Lyra, my eyes glittering with tears. She understands. We go our separate ways for the night. Her on the bed, me on the floor. Some say that to cry is to admit defeat, to lose your masculinity, to let your emotions control you. I'm going to say this right now. It's an absolute necessity.