It went on.
For a while.
She was tired and exhausted, but angry most of all, and that is what carried her through as she looked into her eyes and screwed her face up with rage and pounded her cheek again. She made her so fucking angry it got hard to breathe, hard to think, hard to do anything but scream and kick and punch.
Part of her was begging to just go home. Go home and get under the blankets and watch Sailor Lune with Bon Bon, or take a bath, or just lay on the floor even. Something. Anything.
But she looked at her, saw her, and it boiled over.
. . .
It lasted about ten minutes before they wore out. Neither of them were good at fighting.
Lyra was bleeding which meant she was bleeding and Lyra was crying which meant she was crying. Lyra was bruised and she was bruised.
Fair’s fair. Even if it’s not fair at all.
In a haze, both of them somehow ended up sitting outside against the wall of Sugarcube Corner, their faces covered in dried tears, dried spit, and street dirt. Lyra had bought another coffee, and they were sharing sips of it through swollen lips.
“I’m angry and fucked up and sad all the time, and I don’t really know why or what to do with it,” she said.
Lyra nodded and took a sip. The cold burned where she’d bitten her tongue. “Me too.”
“You learn anything?” she asked.
“Don’t know,” Lyra answered. She rubbed a hoof in the dirt, watching some pony give her a look as she walked by. “Did you?”
“Not enough to actually… solve the problem.”
“Me either.”
They both breathed out and looked up to the clouds, fluffy and blue against the cerulean sky. Bon Bon must be worried. Maybe she’d been worried a long time, though?
“Why do you think we’re tired and miserable so much?” Lyra asked.
“Ugh.” She closed her eyes and smacked the back of her head against Sugarcube Corner, wincing. “I… think it’s a lot of things? I don’t… think there’s one real answer, and even if there was that wouldn’t… fix this.”
“Yeah.”
Lyra paused, rubbing her ankle into her eye. The pain helped her focus. “I don’t wanna be angry at myself just for being sad.”
“Are you still?” she asked.
“Yeah.” She opened her eyes again, but didn’t focus them. “But I don’t wanna be. I don’t… think I deserve it. Right now, at least.”
“I guess that’s something,” she said, taking another sip and offering over the cup. She took it. “I don’t wanna be angry at myself for it either. But I am.”
“It’s a start,” Lyra said, with a very tired smile.
She shifted up, and with a few wincing motions, got up to her hooves, rocking back and forth to test her weight. Everything looked sore, but she reached a hoof out, anyway. “I’d like to be way ahead of that, but it’s a start. You wanna be friends?”
“Better than beating each other up,” she said, taking the hoof and hoisting herself up. She looked up and down the mare in front of her, the short, skinny chick covered in bruises and filth, with the round face and bloodshot golden eyes. The mare who loved Bon Bon with every fiber of her being and wanted to be a writer so bad it sometimes made her actually scream.
“I’m Lyra,” she said.
And she said, “Me too.”