"Here we go," said Bon Bon before walking back down the stairs.
"That... That pathetic excuse for a book," Lyra began, "is the most cliche, tedious, poorly paced, adverb-riddled, plothole scattered, contrived piece of keyboard head smashing I have ever had the misfortune to exist in the same universe as! You're crazy for even stomaching the first paragraph!"
Octavia's pupils visibly diluted, and she gritted her teeth. "Oh, I'm sorry," she said, dripping sarcasm as she advanced steadily towards the unicorn, "I was unaware that your personal opinion was the epitomy of decent literature."
"Epitome!" Lyra shrieked. "Epitome! Bon Bon," she cried, growing weak at the knees, "look at her, just look! This malpropist is by far the best real life villain I've ever encountered!"
And with that, Derpy rose from the bed. "Oh, please no," she said, clutching a pillow to her chest, "don't tell me you two are going to start arguing again."
"We're not arguing," Octavia corrected testily, "we're discussing. Or at least I would be if that one were sane enough for reasonable discussion."
"Hey, you take that back, vile fiend--!"
"No!" Derpy shouted at a volume that surprised even herself as she stood between the two other mares. "Please, no. I... I..." Tears began to well in her eyes. "I just want to have a good first weekend here before classes start. And I'm sure you do too. So... Please? No fighting?"
"I..." Lyra shuffled her hooves uncomfortably.
"Well, you see, the thing is..." Octavia began but quickly trailed off.
"Oh please, please, pleeeeeease?"
Lyra had written many a demon with a piercing gaze that could cause instant death. Octavia had cowarded under and subsequently risen about thousands of staring eyes in a grand concert hall. But this... this... puppy dog stare was not of this world. One glance at the other fiery mare, and the decision was made. Both Lyra and Octavia hung their heads.
"Oh yay, yay, yay!" Shouted Derpy as she did air sumersaults around the two girls before gathering them into a hug. "This is going to be the best friendship ever!"
Lyra and Octavia squirmed uneasily in Derpy's hooves. "Oh yeah, just great..."
Scritch scritch.
Crunch.
Silence.
Scritch scritch.
Crunch.
Silence.
More silence.
Crunch.
Scritch scritch.
Crunch.
Scritch scritch.
Crunch, crunch, crunch.
With an exasperated sigh, Octavia set down her violin bow and rosin. "Do you mind?" asked Octavia, her eye twitching ever so slightly.
"Wha?" Lyra asked with her mouth full of carrot. "This is my room for the month too, you know."
"Yes, but the... the munching." Her thin voice cracked.
"Oh no," Lyra said monotonously. "I have committed the greatest of sins, the paramount of crime, the height of all things evil: munching."
"Could you please just not do that while I'm trying to practice?" the musician asked. "Make whatever noises you want to afterwards, but please, just not now."
Lyra's voice dropped to a low alto. "Oh really? Any noises I want to, eh?"
Octavia made a tiny retching noise. "You disgust me."
"You're nice too, sunshine." Narrowing her eyes, Lyra moved her front hoof back and forth experimentally, balancing the green ends of the carrot before letting it sail through the air to the trash can. It was a perfect shot.
Yawning, Lyra turned over in her bed. "But really, isn't there an actual band room here for you to practice in?" she asked.
"There is, but it closes at nine," Octavia replied.
"Huh, musicians aren't night owls then. Well, except for maybe you, but you don't count. I have no idea what you even are yet. How would you like to be a changeling?"
"Would that involve abducting everyone you hold dear and draining you of all positive emotion in the most torturous way possible? Even then, no, since I'd still have to get within a 30-meter radius of you to do it."
"Really?" Lyra commented. "Huh. Most ponies jump at the chance to be in a novel."
"Most ponies try to aim higher. I'd almost pity your hometown enough to give everypony there a hug, but alas, it would still probably mean being within a 30-meter radius of you. And ponies in general, really."
"You know," Lyra said, "I should really consider buying you a pet hermit crab this Hearth's Warming Eve. You two would get along swimmingly."
More silence.
Click. Octavia's violin case neatly swung shut.
The clock on the wall tocked.
Octavia slowly breathed in and out.
Crunch.
Her neck creaked like an ominous door opening to a dark alleyway as Octavia spun her head around 180 degrees. Sure enough, there was Lyra, lounging on her bed and staring at Octavia with two unnaturally wide, unnaturally green eyes.
You could see each and every vein in Octavia's neck. "May I help you?" It was a line straight out of a horror movie.
"Nope," Lyra replied, still staring.
"Is there something on my face?"
"Besides your pus-like personality? Nope."
Octavia's shoulders sagged, and she turned away with a toss of her head. "What are you doing?"
"Studying you."
Another eye twitch. "Why, may I ask?"
"I do it to everypony," Lyra replied matter-of-factly, "but you're different. You require extra observation."
"For what?"
Lyra shrugged. "For dissecting and unravelling the minds of the equine race."
"So it's true," Octavia said in her default deadpan. "I'm sharing a room with an alien."
"If that were the case, most would find you lucky," Lyra said, "myself included."
"Oh really?" Octavia asked. "And just what would you do with an alien?"
"Talk to it, have tea with it, observe it, figure out how it behaves normally, psychologically scar it, observe that, write a book, and dissect it for science."
"A brutal dissection, I assume?"
"You've got it."
"Ah," said Octavia. "Lovely. Perhaps you and I have something in common."
More silence.
"I'm going to kill you," Octavia said in a conversational tone, as if commenting on the lovely weather that day. "You know that, right?"
"Well you'd better not do it here," Lyra replied, just as nonchalantly. "I'm betting that Mrs. Bubbles incident will seem like nothing compared to how she'll react if she walks up to a gory murder."
Octavia's eyes followed the direction of Lyra's hoof, pointing straight down at the small bundle of blankets steadily rising up and down. Her soft blonde mane poked out of the cocoon. Even in her sleep, there was a peaceful smile on her face.
"Alas, you're right," Octavia said, then paused. "Gah, just saying that sounded horrible."
"Imagine how it feels hearing it," added Lyra, who was now flipping through a manuscript with a quill of red ink. "Every word you say kills another part of my soul. Maybe I really should write you as a changeling. Or no, that's not evil enough. A succubus sounds much more up your alley."
"Oh, what a relief. For a minute I was worried I was losing my touch."
"Alright!" Lyra said, pumping herself up as she safely tucked away Bon Bon's manuscript in her bedside drawer to make room for the typewriter balancing precariously on her lap. "Evil demon succubus changeling, let's do it!"
Octavia sighed as she climbed into her bed, which she had pushed as far away from Lyra's as possible. "You know, after what you just said, this is going to sound crazy, but then again, I think any soundwaves that travel within a 30 meter radius of you are somehow distorted into crazy talk. Which... actually explains a lot. Anyway, I'm going to... try to be nice to you. But only because I don't want to have that one--" she pointed to Derpy, "--mentally snap, leaving me with two asylum patients. Make sense?"
"Yeah, sure," Lyra said. "I guess I'll pitch in if it will keep this place orderly enough for proper study of my live specimen of an evil demon succubus changeling."
"And already I'm regretting this decision," said Octavia. "How wonderful. Can you please just go to sleep or something so I can practice in peace?"
"With my potential murderer in the room? Haha, no thanks," Lyra said.
"Fine," Octavia said, "how about we both go to sleep, so neither of us have to cut off our ears from the grating sound of each other's voice?"
"You know, I think you're starting to get the hang of this whole 'being nice' angle," Lyra commented.
"Thank you." The room temperature dropped a solid five degrees.
"Hey, cheer up!" said Lyra just as she was about to turn out the light. "At least tomorrow's Monday!"