//------------------------------// // String Theory // Story: Sideboard of Harmony // by FanOfMostEverything //------------------------------// Lyra Heartstrings was many things. "Please, Bonnie?" "No!" Anthropophile. Virtuoso. Conspiracy theorist. "Oh, come on, I'm on my hocks and knees here!" "I don't care if you beg me from the deepest pit of Tartarus, the answer'll still be no!" But she had one title that stood out above all others. "Just one little spell..." "You do it and you're sleeping on the couch for the rest of your life!" Horsewhipped. "Okay..." In her defeat, the unicorn slumped to the floor. This met the approval of her better half. "There, see? You can sit like anypony else. Why do you have to insist on trying to be some horrible creature out of filly tales?" "Huh?" Lyra noticed her position. "I'm not sitting, I'm wallowing in despair!" "What do you have to despair about?" Bonbon asked incredulously. "You've got your health, a reputation as a respected musician, and a home with a pony who loves you. What more could you ask for?" The answer was obvious. "Hands!" The minty mare brought her forehooves before her, but in her mind's eye, she saw entirely different appendages. "Wonderful, flexible, dextrous hands! And yesterday I had them! You know how long I've been trying to get that spell to work!" The earth pony sighed. "Yes. I do." The endless rants about spell mechanics. The hazy mornings after all-night experimentation sessions. The excuses to Nurse Redheart as she treated backlashes. Oh yes, Bonbon doubted that she'd ever forget her fillyfriend's quest for digits. "Then you know how important this for me!" The confectioner groaned. She had hoped that success would mean that Lyra would drop the subject, but instead it had driven her to try and find uses for the horrid things. And when all you have is a hand, everything looks like it should be fingered. Including other ponies. "And it's important to me that we at least keep this obsession of yours out of our bedroom." "But how can you say you don't like something if you won't even try it?" "You tell me, Madame Taffybane." The unicorn winced. That had been a tactical blunder. Her adamant opposition to saltwater taffy had been a sticking point with Bonbon for years. Her expression brightened as she realized it could be turned to her advantage. "I tell you what: Just let me show you the spell, and I'll..." She shuddered. "I'll eat a piece of taffy." Her fillyfriend seemed not to appreciate the magnitude of this sacrifice. "That's it?" Lyra bit back a curse. Darn salesponies. Haggling was in their blood. Of course she'd try for a better deal. Still, to live the dream... She forced the words from her throat. "Two pieces?" The earth mare paused for a moment, clearly confused, before smirking. "I meant that I was surprised that after all of the melodrama, this was all it took for you to actually try taffy. But I'm holding you to the two-piece thing." The musician sputtered as she tried to figure out what just happened. Finally, she sighed. "Deal." She stood back up. "But at least now I get to show you the spell, right?" Bonbon rolled her eyes and gave a good-natured, long-suffering sigh that had become a familiar companion during her relationship with Lyra. "Yes, go ahead." Giddy as a schoolfilly, the unicorn struggled for the focus she needed to perform the spell. However, once she achieved it, everything proceeded smoothly. Eyes closed, she reared up as golden energy played along horn and hooves. As the light around her horn intensified, the aura over her forelimbs warped and twisted, forming the outlines of extremities alien to ponykind. Her fillyfriend would be lying if she said it wasn't fascinating. She didn't envy pegasi or unicorns; friends' complaints of constant preening and inexplicable headaches had disabused her of any such notions. But there was no denying the splendor before her, of a unicorn in her element, manipulating forces far beyond earth pony ken in a breathtaking display of arcane proficiency. It was an image that Bonbon wished Lyra could see for herself. She wanted her love to see the incredible beauty of the pony that she was rather than chase after some bizarre, unattainable ideal. That this wondrous work was being done to further that ideal made it no less beautiful, just tragically so. The spell was completed, and the minty mare held up the end results. Her forehooves had softened and warped, five tiny limbs branching off of each. She waggled her new fingers. "See? How incredible is this? Just think of the possibilities!" Bonbon sighed. Yes, very tragic. "Well, you're not going to explore one of them, I can tell you that." Lyra's face fell. "How can you look at these and not be amazed?" "Because you've twisted your body into something unnatural." "Unnatural? Look at griffins! Look at Diamond Dogs! Look at the dragon who lives in our town!" "But not ponies." The earth mare approached the unicorn and reared up herself. She leaned on her love's shoulders to stabilize herself and, a few inches from her face, told her, "I don't love hands, Lyra. I love you. I love the mare who makes me feel happier than if I were Royal Confectioner of Equestria. I love the mare who dedicates every public performance to me. I love the mare who called me 'candybutt' when we first met and still does to this day." They kissed, and she asked the pressing question. "Don't you feel the same way?" "Bonnie..." There were tears in those big, beautiful, golden eyes. "Of course I do. I'm sorry." "It's okay, dear. We've all got our little eccentricities." The yellow mare's expression grew desperate. "Can we get back on all fours now? I'm not as good at this as you." Lyra chuckled, then took her fillyfriend's fetlocks in hand and guided them back to the ground. Then, bowed as she was, she found it difficult to get back into a standing position. "Um..." Bonbon gave a laugh of her own. "I think that says all there is on the matter." The look this got was as confused as its giver's posture. "Hands may be useful," she clarified, "but they aren't really meant for ponies." Despite herself, the unicorn smiled. "Yeah..." she conceded, focusing again as her delightful digits reverted to ho-hum hooves. "I think we both know what that means." "No more magically warping your own body into unnatural shapes?" "Are you kidding?" The musician's grin grew a bit manic. "This calls for more!" The confectioner felt an eyelid twitch. "What." "Just having hands clearly isn't enough! I've got to rework all my anatomy for this to be really practical. Weight distribution, shape of the pelvic cradle..." She paused for a beat, reflecting further. "Hay, I might as well see if I can realign my cutie mark, keep the lyre right-side up when I'm standing up straight." Bonbon shook with repressed fury and exasperation. A thousand objections, insults, and relationship-ending exclamations warred to be first on her tongue. Just when she felt she was going to burst, she felt an unexpected pressure on her nose. Lyra beamed, pulling back her hoof. "Gotcha." The earth pony snorted, trying to look unamused. "That wasn't funny." "Uh huh." "I *pfft* I mean it." "Oh, I'm sure." "I'm going to go for a walk because I'm s-so mad right now." "I'm sure you don't want to say anything we'll both regret." "And don't you f-forget it!" Bonbon trotted out the door, snickers escaping ever more frequently. "Have fun, candybutt!" Lyra called after her. She was rewarded with the sound of unrestrained laughter fading into the distance. Once the peals of mirth were out of earshot, the unicorn gave a sigh of relief. She astonished herself sometimes. It had taken some real quick thinking to make that diatribe on the next phase of her human emulation sound like a joke. That she'd been activated in midsentence hadn't helped, but at least it meant that she'd been able to backpedal before the point of no return. She shook her head. Such was an occupational hazard of her real job. The sheer quantity of confidential information she dealt with in the ETSAB couldn't be completely sealed off. Like a leaky drum of magical waste, it leeched into her subconscious, inspiring and driving obsessions with the officially nonexistent. She set the matter aside for the moment. She'd addressed the immediate crisis it had engendered, and now she needed to see why she was on active duty. A golden aura again lit her horn, but this one served a far different purpose. Rather than reshaping her body, this spell drew a line in the air in front of her, thin as a string on a lyre. With a thought, she plucked it. Naturally, the string vibrated, but rather than slow over time, it accelerated. Soon a glowing golden oval seemed to hang before her, the thread oscillating so fast that its entire path was visible at once. "Agent Heartstrings, Universe Eight-Zero-Epsilon," she said into the oval. "I've just been activated and I don't know why. What's going on?" The solid gold light altered, becoming a monochrome display of a face. It was Lyra's own, or it would have been had she been born a human. Its reply came in a voice identical to her own. "The Section Director is expecting a debriefing on yesterday's anomaly." The unicorn facehoofed. Of course. She'd been so busy with making sure everything was still stable and secret that she'd never seen her superiors. "Sorry. Big doings. I'll be there at once." Her human counterpart nodded. "See that you do. You know how she can get." "All too well," noted the mare. "I'm on my way. Heartstrings out." As the cosmic string faded, Lyra covered her tracks. Grabbing a quill and a junk flyer, she scrawled a quick note, then taped it to the basement door. She gave it a once-over. Bonnie, Doing research. I promise I'm not really trying to make a better transmutation. Feel free to come down, I'd love the chance to bounce ideas off of you. XOXO, Lyra She nodded in satisfaction. The confectioner wouldn't even get near the door when the threat of "bouncing ideas" came into play. That settled, the unicorn fetched her lyre and entered the basement for the sake of her alibi. Once there, she began to play her way to her office. The Department of Quantum Affairs often had unusual requirements for office space. Universe Five-Two-Beta met all of those needed by Lyra's subdivision: No native life, no morphic field restrictions, and the ability to support an infinite number of the same person at the same time. As such, the Office of Parallel Realities had essentially declared "dibs," sectioning off a sizable chunk of the dimension into actual offices, conference rooms, and other logistic necessities. The dimension was sealed even to those few capable of moving between instances of Equestria, and the access codes were Commoner-level classified information. That is, they were public knowledge applied in a way that the public would never believe. This was, of course, the entire point. Lyra's code was officially known as Five-Two-Beta Rho-Lambda. She always thought it sounded like she got in because she belonged to a sorority, which she supposed was technically the case. As she grinned at the old joke, she reached the point in the passcode that required vocal input. "We were at the beach..." The unicorn materialized in a flare of golden energy. She blinked and noticed that she'd been expected. She normally appeared in the central hall of the facility, but instead she was before the desk of the human her she'd just spoken to. Lyra recognized her bipedal double as the Section Director's secretary. "Hi." The woman gave a brief nod, Lyra to Lyra. "Go on in, she's expecting you." The pony didn't waste any more time. She walked to the door behind the desk and knocked. Like her secretary, the Director was also human, for a loose definition of the term. As such, the door to her office bore one of those obnoxious round doorknobs, both nearly impossible to work with hooves and tricky for telekinesis. Knocking was probably going to be faster than casting the hooves-to-hands spell. The Director opened the door, looked down, and smiled. "Lyra of Eight-Zero-Epsilon?" The mare bowed, which doubled as a very deep nod. "Yes, Ma'am." "Come in, my dear. I'm sure you have much to tell me." Lyra couldn't help but admire the woman as she followed her into the room. Her hair, half dawn pink, half dusk blue, gyred and gimbled in the astral wabe. Her serene expression belied the storied past of one who had eaten the sun and moon like celestial truffles because she believed that the Equestrian people could do better. One who briefly took the place of their disempowered stewards. One who candy-striped the sky with the luminous linea, sources of illumination that needed no guidance, as a symbol of the self-reliance she wanted to inspire in every heart. One who so loved her people that she left them, trusting them to govern themselves better than any royalty ever could. Amazingly, they did. At first, the diarchs of the myriad other worlds feared that she would threaten their own hegemonies. But they sent diplomats rather than warriors, and she soon recognized that no other Equestria needed the revolution she had brought to hers, no pair of princesses as decadent and corrupt as those she had unseated. Instead, she offered her aid in keeping the countless citizens of those worlds safe. Now, to assuage the grief and loneliness that were the cost of teaching an entire world independence, she surrounded herself with dozens of instances of her beloved. She was Bonbon Thronetaker, Preacher of the Bittersweet Truth, Princess by Her Own Hand, and Director of the Strings Section of the Office of Parallel Realities. On occasion, some newly recruited Lyra (or Harpsy) expressed incredulity that every other version of her (or him) seemed to love the analogous Bonbon (or Babar.) The newbie's seniors would shake their heads, astonished that they needed to explain something as obvious as the concept of soulmates. The Last Queen of Equestria gave her subordinate a knowing look. Lyra heard the door lock behind her and squirmed in anticipation. Princess Bonbon sank into what was now her throne, a black office chair like any other Section Director, and and the look began to smolder. "Let us begin." "Ah!" Lyra's back arched in ecstasy. Bonbon smiled, well pleased by the unicorn's reaction. "Well, Agent?" The pony looked at her superior, confusion clear in a mind that, at the moment, was barely capable of coherent thought. "Huh?" "I'm still waiting for your report." "Buh-Bonnie..." The human tsked. "Really now, Agent, I will not tolerate such an egregious breach of protocol." She demonstrated her displeasure physically. Lyra's gasps spoke of an exquisite blend of pain and pleasure. "D-Director..." "Apologize." "I... I-Ah! Ah'm s'ry! Ah'm sorreeEEE!" Bonbon nodded, satisfied. She returned to her more gentle ministrations. "Now, about that report." Boneless and glassy eyed, the unicorn could barely form syllables. "C-can' do it." "Oh, you can? Good. Please do." "Can not," forced Lyra. The abdicated princess pouted. "Oh, come now. At least try. For me?" She focused on an especially sensitive spot as she pleaded. The mare bit her lip as her resistance crumbled. She gave a plea of her own. "Slower?" Bonbon gave a sly smile. "Well, if you really can't focus, I could always just stop." "Slower." The human complied, easing back the tempo. "Now report." Lyra trembled with pleasure and tried to gather her scattered thoughts. "With Agent Minuette a-and the Head of the Office of Maintenance on as-s-sssss..." "Assignment?" Not trusting herself with the sibilant, the unicorn simply nodded. "Given that, I h-had to maintain temporal continuity when Ditzy s-stopped time. After the magic elemental was suh-subdued, I recruited her as a c-consultant. Office of Extrap-planar Affairs." "I see. And the state of the plane afterwards?" "Harmony fixed any and all d-damage. Everything's fine. Just fine." The dreamy rise in tone on this last statement seemed more descriptive of the teller than the tale. Bonbon beamed beatifically. "Excellent." She gave her agent one final brush, then kissed her on the tip of her horn. "You are dismissed, sweetie." "Yes'm." Rubber-kneed, Lyra stumbled out of the office, much to her superior's amusement. Bonbon only used magic on the brush for an agent's first debriefing. From there, any added stimulation was all in the mind of the pony her lap. Of course, the unicorn didn't know that, so she assumed her goofy grin was entirely the work of the deity. So did the secretary who glowered disapprovingly at her counterpart as she came into the reception area. "Have fun?" the assistant asked sardonically. The pony leered at her human analogue. "Jealous?" "Some of us are at least pretending to have an air of professionalism," huffed the ape-descended Lyra. The mare smirked. "Yeah. I'm sure that's the standard outfit for professional human secretaries." "Um, I..." The woman blushed as she tugged at one of her bikini's string-thin shoulder straps. "It's... it's Casual Friday." "It's a Wednesday." The human's face went the color of a ripe tomato, contrasting nicely with her hair. She suddenly found her crossword immensely fascinating. "Just... just go." Mass Anthropomorphize 3U Instant Each non-Human creature becomes a 1/1 Human until end of turn. "Opposable digits for everypony!"