Lyra Heartstrings - 20th of Leaffall 06 EoH - AfternoonLyra Heartstrings - 20th of Leaffall 06 EoH - Afternoon
Multiverse Location: Equestria, Equis #15 - The Simulacra
Maybe I simply forgot about, or didn’t notice the first time, but walking through a portal felt like walking through a wall of molasses. A thick barrier that really didn’t want things coming into it, but wasn’t quite strong enough to keep things out. It even vanished with a squelching sound like iron falling into insulation gel, leaving me standing in a large field of knee high yellowish grass at the top of a hill.
I looked towards my left shoulder, making sure Bon was okay. She seemed fine still. Better than fine actually, she was moving rather energetically as she excitedly lifted her head to twist and look around this new world.
“This place is wrong. Find a safe place to wait for the recharge,” Sai announced before I could even think to look around myself.
Not wanting to be rude I lifted my arm up to look at the Manipulator while talking to it’s VI. “You can scan for the network that fast?”
“No, I’m still looking for one,” he warned. “But I am equipped with various environmental sensors. This place is wrong. It’s hard to put into words an organic would understand. We need to leave as quickly as possible.”
I rolled my eyes. Silly program, underestimating organic cognitive abilities.
“I’ve got four hundred trillion neural connections to your twenty billion transistors, and I have an integrated VI. My brain is the product of species wide genetic engineering. Try me,” I retorted, hoping that Sai could understand me, most VI’s needed you to speak to them in blunt sentences.
“Fine. I’ll skip the raw data and try to summarize it. Environmental scans indicate the spacetime within my detection range is not functioning under natural physics. My data shows a sixth force is actively controlling not only the base four, but also magic itself. I do not have the processing power to identify what or how the force which governs the physics is being twisted into compliance in what can only be described as a natural manner,” Sai said urgently.
“I don’t really have any knowledge of magic,” I informed. “But I was told that it in turn, influences by the world. So isn’t this normal? Maybe the damage to you deleted some of your memories.”
“Oh…” Sai mused. “I thought you were a unicorn.”
“No, I’m a human,” I said giving the VI a smile before briefly looking up from the VM to see where I was.
Unfortunately I didn’t get to look long.
“Okay, so, putting a pin in that human thing, I’ll explain again. The universe here is not influencing magic. The control is only occurring one way. The force controlling magic here is basically forcing everything to work in a specific way… I don’t have the sensor range to tell you if it’s planet wide, or just this four kilometer bubble around us, but either way we are in a bad place,” Sai warned.
Now that caught my attention like a giant red flag with a neon sign for its pole.
“You’re saying this universe forces everything in it to comply with one set of rules by overriding physics? That’s pretty darn creepy!” I exclaimed fearfully.
My eyes instantly widened as I finished speaking. I didn’t want to say darn. The flipping heck?
“Uh… Okay…” I squeaked to myself as a jolt of terror shot down my spine. “So… I apparently can’t even consciously think of the curse word I meant to say there…”
“Yeah,” Sai said bitterly, “I wanted to inform you we needed to get the heck out of here… But not with that word. Do you understand we must interact with as little as possible now?”
Darn right I did! Oh sweet jebus no! Oh gosh why-
No, bad Lyra. Breathe.
“Yeah. Let’s find a good place to hole up until you’ve got enough of a charge to get us the frack out of here,” I agreed, taking a breath to try and calm my nerves.
Well, at least the creepy controlling force would let me curse Battlestar Galactica style.
“You seem have that kick arse sensor range, you see anything?” I asked hopefully as I began to scan the horizon.
Nothing to the west but a thick arse, old growth forest a few miles away. It looked like something out of a medieval fantasy ARG. So that’s what ‘autum colors’ looked like in real life. Not bad, I guess.
“Yeah... The boss didn’t exactly build a camera into this hunk of junk… I only have non-visual senses right now,” Sai grumbled. “It doesn't even have sonar.”
I turned to the east, the grassy planes swathed out for miles and miles to the north, blending into a swath of green as I turned.
“Tap into my helmet and use mine then,” I offered. “There’s enough sun out where a bit of power draw wont matt- The heck? Is that an amusement park?”
Nestled in a small flat area between six hills was what I could only conclude was a theme park for candy. A medieval looking village, all cobbled streets, hay roofs, and winding spirally lanes filled the land in a way which would suggest an old town built for people to live in… Except half of the buildings were these gimmicky architecture half-art half-monstrosities that you only saw the likes of in pictures of the old world’s tourist traps.
I could see a building shaped like a massive carousel, what looked like a frosted gingerbread house, a building shaped like the most cliche wizard hat imaginable, and half a dozen other huge, seemingly random, eyesores. Every single one of them painted in bright oversaturated colors like some 12 year old kid’s first AR sim.
But the most gimmicky of them all was the giant castle shaped to look like a huge tree made of purple crystal. It towered over the town in a way that would violate so many zoning ordinances if the place were a real town and was so gaudy and tacky that this place could only be some kind of theme park.
“Jeez… If Bonbon saw that thing, she’d insist we blow up that fracking tree-castle on principle,” I muttered to myself.
“Tree castle?” Sai asked. “Yeah, that’s ether Ponyville or Las Pegasus you're looking at then… Assuming my data is valid in this universe that is… Which it's probably not. Either way, we should avoid it.”
“Yeah, no poo Sherlock,” I retorted, wincing instantly at the infantile curse.
“... I’m sorry that happened to you,” Sai apologized in a shockingly sincere voice.
“Let’s just get out of here,” I muttered. “There are some woods to the west. We can hide out in there for… Er, how long do you think we have?”
“This world has a lot of ambient magic. We’re stuck here for thirty hours, max,” Sai informed, much to my relief.
“Good, that’s not too long. How’s the tapping into my helmet’s sonar going?” I asked, turning back around and starting to walk towards the forest.
“First off, I thought you were joking about having sonar. Second off, I’m not picking up anything to connect to,” Sai grumbled.
I laughed. “Heh, sorry. I’m used to sharing everything with AIs. Forgot you’re not direct neural interfaced with me.”
“That’s… Okay, why would you do that?” Sai asked, stumbling over himself in confusion.
“It’s pretty simple really,” I rambled, putting one foot before the other. “Post-mod human brains are more powerful than most inorganic computers back home. So, by making a relatively inexpensive AI with really good decision making abilities and attaching it to a jet, tank, or other war machine to help manage that platform’s hardware, the human pilot can serve as a CPU for the machine. Thus increasing the performance of hardware and wetware beyond the capabilities of a purely organic or mechanical system.
“Most of our technology is cybernetic in some way. Sure, some things are just better as purely technological or purely biological, but cybernetics is generally more than the sum of it’s parts. Take the heart. Let’s say you had one, and it needed to be replaced. A normal heart will keep working without stopping for a lifetime, a mechanical one might need replaced in forty years as it burns out, a cloned one will take a long time to integrate into your body, but a cloned heart with a few artificially designed and created parts can be installed so cleanly you’re out of the hospital that day, and keeps working for well, for a lifetime.”
“That’s a rather intriguing line of thought for a species to follow,” Sai mused.
“I know!” A male’s voice exclaimed exuberantly from literally thin air!
I immediately reached for my gun, or tried to, my hand refused to move to draw the weapon! Eyes wide with pure horror I could only listen helplessly as the voice continued.
“Humans were such lovely agents of chaos. Almost perfectly encapsulating the good and the bad, always changing, always doing something fresh and new. I wish I’d been able to manifest while your species was walking around. It would have been such a riot to watch your leaders venomously debate the legality of a toilet repair in person,” the voice guffawed.
“Show yourself!” I demanded, tracking the place the voice came from with my eyes. It seemed to move every few seconds, as if the speaker were teleporting.
“Oh, please. There’s no point in being hostile, this world won't let you resolve a problem with violence. Well, not usually,” the voice chuckled. “Besides, I’m reformed. I mean no harm to anypony, or anybody in your case. See, I was on my way to visit my dear friend Fluttershy when I happened to notice a human walking to the Everfree Forest. What a delightful bit of randomness to spice up the day!
“Exactly the sort of impossibility I enjoy creating for my own amusement, come to think of it. I didn’t summon you here, did I?”
“If you did, I appreciate the chance to see another world. I’d also appreciate the chance to see who i am talking to,” I said firmly, continuing to turn to face the sound of the voice.
“Oh! Him... I’m going offline for a bit. I don’t have the processing power to deal with his dung today,” Sai said almost pityingly.
That can’t be good!
“No, no… I can’t remember plucking any humans from their own time and taking them here. Oh I do love when the universe decides to be just a bit, well, me. Allow me to introduce myself.” With no fanfare whatsoever, a large pink house door came to exist in front of me.
One minute nothing, next minute, door. Like someone had spawned the thing in via console commands.
A firm rap from the other side of the door made me fearfully hesitate. I turned and looked around the door to see the other side. Nothing.
I went back around the other side of the impossible door. The knock came again. Biting my lip nervously, I grabbed the doorknob, turned it, and pulled it open.
On the other side of the door stood a chimera strait from 21st edition Dungeons and Dragons! The head of a goat, the elongated body of a snake, but covered in fur save for the tail portion, four mismatched limbs; a paw, a claw, a talon, and a hoof, mismatched antler and kudu horn, and two yellow and red eyes.
The clearly-a-Great-Old-One conjured a bowler hat for the express purpose of tipping it with it’s lion’s paw, then banished it in a flash of white light and greeted me. “Good afternoon! Discord E. Draconi, Master of Chaos, Appropriator of Left Socks, and World's Greatest John de Lancie Impressionist, at your service.”
I had no idea if my heart or lungs were working at the moment. Everything just felt numb.
“Please eat my soul now and get it over with!” I begged.
“Oh, please!” The cosmic horror dismissed with a talon wave. “As if I’d even want to. Souls taste horrible you know. Imagine a chocolate bar, only instead of peanuts and caramel it was full of bitterness and unfulfilled wants. I only want to know what you’re doing here.”
Oh sweet merciful physics, it didn’t want to eat me! Yay!
“I’m just passing through, literally! I have absolutely no intention to even try to frak up whatever you are doing to impose your will onto the universe. If you just let me go, you’ll never see me again!” I pleaded, tempted to drop to my knees to properly beg.
The entity blinked a few times looking at me with a baffled confusion before slapping it’s paw to it’s forehead. “You, you think I’m doing this? What kind of-”
In an astonishingly human-like gesture it crossed its arms and turned around in a huff. “How insulting! The very thought that I, Discord, would force order onto an entire universe. I’ve had plenty of insults and barbs thrown my way but this is simply the worst! A complete deformation of my character. You’re lucky I can’t sue extrauniversal entities for slander!”
Wut?
“Uh…” I said unintelligently.
“Honestly, do you even know what chaos is?” Discord harrumphed. “I’ve been fighting to make the universe interesting ever since order arranged everything in perfect neat little rows. I’m not about to force this particular world to work in one specific way, do you know how phenomenally dull that is?”
“I-I’m sorry?” I said more confused than apologetically.
“Just because I was an evil overlord for a few thousand years doesn't make me a bad guy. Do you have any idea how bored you can get living for multiple forevers? I think not! And besides, all I’ve ever tried to do here is introduce a little variety to this place…” It grumbled, turning back around. “You’re lucky I’m being nice for the next few millennia! I’ve turned people into acorns for lesser insults.”
I gulped and held up my hands as if at gunpoint. “I’m sorry! You’re the first Great Old One I’ve ever encountered and all the stories say that just seeing you should drive me completely insane!”
Discord, leaned back, floating mid air as he laughed for a moment. “Ah, Lovecraft… Now there was a fun person to mess with. I’m sorry, it seems you have the wrong impression of people like me. Only a third of us are like that. Not me, at least, not right now. I’m Chaos. I tend to change behavior every so often. To keep things fresh.
“Still, you haven’t told me what you are here for.”
“Er, I got here with this wrist computer-” I began.
“No, no no, not how you are here. I don’t care about the how. The how is not important. Why are you here?” Discord asked more firmly.
“Because this thing takes me to places completely randomly!” I exclaimed quickly.
“I see,” he mused, stroking his beard. “You’re not here on some quest, or to try and free ponies from the eldritch by my standards, force that binds this unfortunate world?”
“No! I swear, I’m only here until the battery recharges and then I’m out!” I insisted.
“Good! Very good. I’m already working on that ‘freeing’ thing. A human here is so out of the ordinary that it would likely cause a butterfly effect in a bad way. Be a sport and hide in a hole somewhere till you can leave, umm, please?” He asked in an honestly sincere fashion.
“I was actually going to do that already! I promise, I’ll be gone and you’ll never see me again,” I swore.
“Oh, no. I probably will. Just make sure I don’t see you in this universe again. There’s only one of me, see? Odds are fairly good if you get near any other Ponyville we could bump into each other again. I’m friends with all the Fluttershys… And her friends too, but to a lesser extent,” Discord explained.
“Wait! You can travel through dimensions?” I asked, a small spark of hope building in my heart. He was friendly, and seemingly all powerful. Maybe, just maybe…
“Could you send me to the universe with the Sky Trigger that built this device?” I asked hopefully, “I mean, you do contracts and bargains right? All the old people said things like you struck deals all the time! I mean, I thought they were full of fertilizer but uh, here you are… And I’m standing in a world where I can’t swear…”
Discord shook his head. “I’m afraid that’s beyond my power. I could stick you into any of the planes that are apart of this universe, but I can’t transfer you between universes. Even I am not exempt from all metaphysical rules. I can only move myself.”
“Oh…” I said sadly.
“Humm?” Discord said, looking over my shoulder.
No, not over my shoulder, above it. At Bon. Why?
“Oh, why yes, that’s absolutely right. Er, human, what’s your name?” He asked, perplexingly.
“Lyra Heartstrings,” I replied quickly. “Did you just talk to my pet snake?”
Discord erupted into a terrifying yet gleeful grin. “So you are! Oh this is going to be a treat, I hope I’m there to see you meeting the first other you. Ms. Heartstrings, you are such a delightful anomaly. Er- anywho, just because I can’t send you on your way doesn't mean we can’t help one another out.
“By your standards, my powers are nearly unlimited. If you help me with one itsy bitsy thing which I can’t quite manage to do myself, I will owe you a single favor. Effectively, I will grant you one wish. But only after you’ve helped me, and I won't grant it to you here. I need to be very careful with what I do here… I don’t want to wake it up, if you catch my meaning.”
“How badly will you screw up any wish I make?” I asked, remembering the old stories of jinn well.
Discord chuckled. “Not at all. I’ll give you exactly what you ask for, full-life consequences and all.”
“That’s fair, I guess…” I mused.
“I know… I really don’t like being fair that often, but I am trying out the whole ‘nice guy’ thing. There’s always something I don’t like about a new look,” Discord rambled. “So, do you accept?”
“What would I be doing? And wouldn’t it be a bad thing to do something here? You just said that yourself,” I asked suspiciously.
Discord drifted through the air, circling around me like a flying snake. “Oh this will be quite safe, it involves you leaving. You see, that little toy on your wrist, it’s power is…crude, but as it’s capable of something I am not, it provides me with a chance to do a little good.
“All I want you to do is follow this path through the Everfree forest.”
The god-like chimera pointed to a path through the woods ahead with his talon. I swear that path had not been there before.
“You want me to walk down a dirt path?” I asked in confusion. “How is that worth a wish?”
“That’s not all of it. All I want you to do is follow that path and catch up with a wagon. It won't be hard, it’s not very far into the woods and she’s not moving quickly. Once you are there, well… I can see what sort of a person you are under that jumpsuit. You have a heart. You’ll do what needs to be done,” Discord said infuriatingly cryptic.
“Or, I won't get what you want, and thus, frack up your plans,” I grumbled.
Discord sighed and swept his paw down over his face in frustration. “If I say more than that, your emotions and feelings won’t be genuine and the magic of friendship might not do what I want it to do. Then it won't affect this world in the way I want it to affect it. Trust me, you’ll know exactly what you must do when you see it.”
I closed my eyes and took in a deep breath. This sort of crud was beyond frustrating to me. It was like that time I was told ‘At oh-six-hundred tomorrow, you won’t officially be going anywhere, and won't officially be doing anything. We expect the operation to go completely unnoticed...’ and had been expected to understand Central's orders despite being given no more information than that… For what had turned out to be a serious mission and not the XO making a joke!
“Alright… How will I know if I did what you want?” I asked, hoping the roundabout form of the question.
“Simple, you are looking for Sky Trigger, yes?” Discord asked, prompting me to nod. “Well, his wife lives in Ponyville, goes by the name of Pinkie Pie. In every universe he exists, they are together. If you want to find him, since Ponyville is closer than the Badlands, go to Ponyville. And as I said before, you’ll probably find me there. If you did what I want you to do, I’ll reward you then. If not, no cookie for you.”
“Okay, fair enough I guess. You have a deal… Assuming there isn’t a leak in my suit and I’m not tripping balls right now,” I said, accepting his offer.
“Good!” He exclaimed happily. “Pleasure doing business with you. Now do run along. The river you’ll wind up crossing likes to flood its banks Thursdays at… Oh look at that, an hour and fifteen minutes from now. You don’t want to be stranded on this side of that river. Tahtah!”
The chimera waved a talon like an old world Victorian maiden wishing her husband off to war and vanished in a flash of white light, leaving me back in the realm of sane things. Like alternate dimensions of pony-people.
Slowly shaking my head I looked up at bon and gently pulled her head down into my arms to hug for comfort. “Well, that was terrifying… You okay, hon?” I asked, needing to ground myself back in reality.
She nodded. Twice.
“Ohhhh kaaay… I’ve clearly gone a bit off the deep end from looking at an Eldritch Horror…” I said gently guiding Bon backup to my shoulders. “Let's just get the frick out of this frackin’ universe…”
Doing my best not to think too hard on anything, I made for the path at a light jog. The weird universe warping effects Sai warned me about could be to blame for this whole thing, or maybe, just maybe, I’d actually just talked to a multidimensional creature. In either case, I was headed for those woods anyways. And just incase, I was going to follow that path. It did not seem wise to cross something that could be the source of the concept of the supernatural…
I’d jogged for about twenty minutes, just having reached the edge of the forest, when the manipulator beeped and Sai announced. “I’m back. Is he gone?”
“Yeah… Well, maybe… I mean, how would I know?” I asked, not pausing my run.
“Point to you. Still, I’ll bet you wish you could shut down, eh? So, you're moving. Are we going to a hiding spot?” Sai asked in return.
“Sort of, I’m doing it a favor so it won't eat me,” I explained. “It’s okay, the favor involves going into the woods anyways.”
“He won't eat you, at the worst he’ll just really annoy you,” Sai muttered bitterly.
“I’m not taking any chances,” I said firmly, ducking under some vines that lay across the path’s entrance.
“Good plan. I mean, there was that time he… Uhh… Hmmm, I’m being prevented from remembering it right now,” Sai bemoaned.
“I hate this universe…” I muttered.
“Yeah, you’re telling me. What’s the favor?” Sai asked.
“Follow this path, look for a cart, do something. No, he didn’t say what the something was,” I grumbled, ducking under another loop of vines. “Ugh! Who the heck is failing to maintain this path?!”
“You said you’re a human right?” Sai asked.
“Yeah, why?” I replied, doing my best to avoid hitting my head on the overgrown tree/vine tunnel the path had turned into.
“Then you’re around two meters tall. Ponies average just over one meter,” Sai explained.
“The Sky we just left was way taller than that. Is the height difference between universes?” I wondered.
“So it seems. The Boss is one point two four meters, and that makes him taller than most stallions,” Sai said conversationally.
“Ah, I see. Still, this path is really overgrown. It’s like no one has been here for years… How do you even get a wagon down something like this?” I mused to myself.
I squinted at the ground. I couldn’t see any wheel marks, but the ground was awfully hard-packed looking. Maybe a lighter vehicle could cross it without leaving tracks? Or maybe he’d meant one of those little hand pulled red waggons, not a people moving wagon.
“Well, personally I’d just ask the Pink to do it for me. Then just not question how she did it,” Sai joked.
“Uh, I don’t get it…” I admitted with a frown.
“Too bad. It’s funny,” the VI quipped.
“You know,” I said pausing suddenly to duck under a branch that seemed to whip out directly into my face. “Ahh! Fracking heck! Stupid branch… Scared the heck out of me. Um, as I meant to say, you are really aware for a VI. I don't think I’ve ever met one that can hold a conversation this well.”
“Er, well… Thing is… You haven’t,” Sai said slowly.
“What do you mean?” I asked, taking a second to look at my wrist suspiciously.
“I’m an AI, not a VI. That version of the boss greatly underestimated my boss’s technical skills. I was pretty sure he’d take me apart for reverse engineering, because that’s what my boss would do to tech he didn’t understand. So I simply played dumb for a while,” Sai admitted.
“Wait… Sky can cram an AI core into something this small?” I exclaimed in shock.
“Yes and no… I’m not all of me. I’m a fragment of me, my core as it were,” Sai said unhelpfully.
“And that means…what?” I asked.
“All of me that fits in this thing is my personality, and enough code to run this device. It’s…a bit distressing. Normally I can do a lot more by pooling processing power from across all of me. I’m kinda crippled right now. But if you call me that, I’ll find a way to give you a fat lip!” Sai threatened.
“Why the frack would I insult someone like that?” I demanded incredulously, giving Sai a look of pure shock.
“Yeah… Let’s just stop cursing till we are out of this place,” Sai sighed.
“I really, really want to… But I can’t. It’s a military thing,” I admitted with an embarrassed blush.
“This is going to suck for the both of us…” Sai moaned.
“It really is, and I apologize in advance,” I apologized.
“We could try the quiet game!” Sai exclaimed hopefully.
I smiled, snapping my fingers in some really weird response I’d never ever done before. “Good plan! Shutting up completely now.”
The two of us continued down the path silently, aside from the occasional grunt of effort on my part as I dodged around an obstacle. And there were plenty of obstacles. This path seemed to be made from the damn things.
It reminded me a lot of the intros to horror ARGs. Where they send you along a path you’ll be running down later, except at night, and while being chased by a thousand different kinds of screaming evils. I loved those things. Good times!
If only the real thing was half as fun as the games. Well to be fair, maybe they were. My only comparison to those was the shell full of baby kaiju. That was more of an adventurey or shooty game. There was still room for a horror game like scenario to be fun irl and in simulation, right?
Oh please, Lyra, you almost pooped yourself opening a door a few minutes back. That wasn’t fun and you know it. At least adventure games are fun in real life.
Despite the danger, and the fear, it really was fun running through a forest like this on a mysterious quest to do a thing for some guy you bumped into. An air of mystery, suspense, and-
Bon suddenly tightened around my shoulders and chest, yanking me out of my thoughts mere seconds before I’d ran off a freaking cliff into a river! I twisted, skidding to a halt to avoid going over the edge and dropping the ten or so feet into the river below.
“Holy heck were they flying frack did that come from!?” I yelped. “Scratch that, how the heck didn’t I see it?”
Bon loosened her grip, returning to her normal clinging.
“What happened?” Sai demanded.
“The path ends at a drop into a river. I almost ran right over the edge,” I explained.
“What were you thinking?!” Sai demanded.
“I wasn’t! I’m not normally like this. I’m usually REALLY aware of my surroundings. I’m used to them exploding!” I snapped.
“... I’m going to hibernate. If I’m not running actively, the manipulator will change faster. We need to leave,” Sai informed.
“Wait! What do I do to wake you back up?” I asked.
“I’ll do it myself when I’m done charging. If you need anything just touch the screen,” Sai said. “Sai, out.”
The manipulator beeped again, signaling him going offline. Leaving me alone on the riverbank.
I reached up and gave Bon a quick stroke. “Thanks for saving Mommie’s butt there hon. I owe you a can of spaghetti-o’s.”
Bon slithered over to nuzzle my faceplate at the mention of her favorite treat.
“I don’t know how I’ll get you some, but I swear I will,” I said lovingly, before taking a look around to see where to go from here.
The riverbank I stood on was almost a sheer drop. It stood significantly higher than the other bank about thirty feet away, an odd thing really. That meant this river had somehow carved through the side of a hill instead of flowing down the hill. Perhaps it had been man made long ago and was simply reclaimed by nature over the years.
There didn’t seem to be a path on the other side, or any kind of bridge to take me across. Though I did suppose I could have tried to jump across on the boulders that dotted the river here and there. But that seemed like a bad idea. The water itself rushed dangerously fast through the riverbed, forming foamy rapids around the rocks.
Yeah, not exactly a good place to cross… The tree line did push back a good ways along my side of the bank though, perhaps I could see a better spot to cross up or down the river.
I turned to the left, and immediately spotted an old rope bridge about fifty yards away. It lay on a much better maintained path, with wider and with a higher head clearance too. That was definitely what I expected to see as a path through a wood like this. Not the piece of junk one I had come through on.
Well, I’d followed the path. Since he said ‘you’ll know what to do’ then later mentioned a river, and I could see a bridge, I figured I had better cross it.
I started to walk towards the bridge, making my way along the river bank, when a faint clicking started to reach my ears across the distance. Weary of a world where I apparently couldn’t draw a gun, and I knew its counterpart had gosh darn kaiju in it, I paused, and moved behind some ferns to wait to see if the nose made itself visible before doing anything stupid.
Like almost walking into a river… The frak, Lyra?
The clicking started to get louder and louder, eventually becoming discernible as hoof steps. Someone was coming up the path! No, more than one person, it sounded like a pair of hoofsteps in synch with each other, and moving slowly. And something creaked too, like wooden wheels.
Right, a cart! He’d mentioned a cart.
Continuing to wait I watched as a pony emerge from the treeline. Much to my surprise, this pony was a quadruped. That was the only real difference between this mare and the ponies I had gotten to know. Same face shape, same adorable cuteness, same bright colors, just with four hooves instead of two.
To be perfectly honest, that made her even more cute. Which was really really weird for me to think about. I mean, finding a non-human, but humanoid cute was one thing, but a non-human non-humnoid? Was that crossing a line? Did I really care?
No. Not realy. Not when the cute girl is this sort of cute. Jeez Lyra! Mind. Gutter. Out of. Now!
I wouldn’t be having these problems if I’d had a girlfriend after highschool… Stupid brain…
There was no doubt in my mind that the pony I was watching was a person. She had on a hat, a point floppy cone shaped purple wizard's hat, and a matching cape. Sure, you might dress up a pet, but I’ve never seen any animal who would put up with a hat. Ever. Not one.
Besides, she wasn’t lashed to the wagon, and didn’t have reigns on. She was clearly pulling the wagon of her own free will. A yellow and red kinda old school house-wagon-hybrid-thingie. Also she was muttering to herself in a proper language. That made this pony most definitely a person, so it’s okay to think she’s cute. Take that, brain!
I watched the blue pony trot slowly towards the bridge, wondering what, if anything I should do. While I did want to say hi, it was probably a bad idea to talk to someone in this universe. Heck, an actual Old One said that would be bad. So that meant it would probably be the worst thing you could do!
… Or the best thing. Depending on how morals went.
“Huh…” I said to myself as I spotted what appeared to be a brand of some kind on the mare’s hips. Er, rear hips. Whatever they are called.
The image was a crescent moon with a magic wand, or at least, that’s what it looked like from thirty yards away. That struck me as odd. Why would a pony species brand itself? Also, how did a brand have color? It could be a tattoo, but then, how do you tattoo fur?
Magic. Duh. Stop forgetting about that being a thing here, Lyra.
The mare and her wagon jerked to a stop with a loud crack! The wagon tipped slightly to one side with a groan of aged timber that made me wince from all the way over where I was. Mere inches away from the edge of the bridge, the wagon had hit a bump or something, and somehow broken it’s left front wheel.
The mare closed her eyes tightly and sighed the world weary sigh of someone who had been expecting everything to go wrong for a long time now, and was both grateful it had finally gone wrong but also upset about things going wrong.
I’d been there. I felt that. It made me want to go over and help fix the wagon wheel. I had some duct tape. That could possibly help. Maybe.
“Great…” The mare groaned, a slight pinkish glow coming from under her hat as she removed the harness from her shoulders with her magic. “I know you're old, but you could have held up for another hundred kilos… Would have been nice...”
Ah frak! Now I felt extra bad. It was like watching someone driving a real lemon of a car, having it break down, but not being allowed to try and fix it for them
Screw it! How much harm can helping fix or change one wooden wheel be?
I stood up from behind the bush. The mare didn’t notice me as she turned to begin walking to the broken wheel, I’d have to call out so I didn’t frighten her with my sudden appearance. She took a step to the right side of her cart, just starting to walk over and inspect the damage.
The moment she stepped onto the edge of the cliff-like bank, it collapsed with a rumble of earth and gravel! The whole section of earth spilling downwards, revealing the river had carved out a massive chunk of the earth beneath the bridge and sending the mare screaming into the rushing river in an instant!
So that’s what I had to do. I didn’t need any incentive for this.
“Hold on tight, Bon!” I shouted, sprinting for the riverbanks.
I yelped in surprise as she actually tightened her grip, almost falling into the river myself.
The mare managed to call out for help, her shout interrupted with a gurgling bubbling. Made sense, it would be a real bitch to swim in this sort of water even if you knew how. Hopefully it wasn't too deep.
I turned, rested my hand on the edge of the riverbank, and lowered myself down the near-vertical face. I kept lowering, boots sinking down into the river, finally touching ground with the water up to my breasts.
The river pushed against me like a forklift trying to shove a stack of pallets backwards. It took all my strength to lean against the current and not get swept down river. Thank goodness my boots put science on my side.
Science, frick yeah! … Oh gosh darn this no swearing physics...
I looked out over the foaming water, the roaring river making it hard to focus on looking for anything. My heart skipped a beat as I worried I was too late and she’d already been smashed into a rock or drowned, but then I saw her head and a hoof break the surface, franticly trying to swim to safety but failing, hat nowhere to be seen.
I pushed against the gravel river bottom, stepping towards the struggling mare as quickly as I could manage. Realizing I wouldn’t be able to walk up river to grab her, I moved sideways, blocking her path downstream, digging my heals in in preparation for impact.
The mare hit me like a small sack of potatoes, which while far less than I had expected to smash into me, still nearly threw me off my feet. Struggling to keep my balance, I grabbed the mare firmly around her chest so she wouldn’t bounce off and head downstream.
“It’s fine! I got you, just hold on!” I ordered.
She coughed and sputtered something incoherently.
I turned, there was no way I was climbing up the bank I had come by, I’d need to move up the opposite bank, and that meant walking across the entire river… Crud.
I moved one step at a time, muscles burning under the weight of the water crashing over me. Every boulder was a little miracle, giving me a second to rest before moving along further. The river crossing felt like an eternity, every moment of which I was grateful for my suit, which was reporting the water as being barely over freezing.
As I finally reached the opposite bank and scrambled up the side, I almost let out a victory scream. But there was no way that was happening. Not for a few minutes. I needed to get my strength back.
“Safe now,” I managed to groan.
I set the blue mare down safely on the bank, facing away from me on her side so I could sit on my butt and pant for a bit.
“Thank you…” The mare coughed, shivering on the ground as if she were half frozen.
Oh. Right. Water. Cold. Yeah. Sorry Bon, you might be a watersnake, but you're also a tropical snake… Derp.
“I’ll see about a fire or something as soon as I can stand,” I informed, trying to summon up some more strength.
The mare reached up to her head with a forehoof and brushed it through her pale blue mane. “I lost my hat…” She whimpered.
“Sorry, kinda prioritized you,” I said, hoping a joke would shake her out of the stupor.
“I know… It’s okay…” She groaned, starting to roll over.
Bon stretched out off of my shoulders towards the mare, and to my absolute shock, passed the mare her dripping wet hat. Then she coiled back around my shoulders for warmth, shivering and giving me a mildly upset look through my visor.
“Uh… Never mind. Looks like Bon got it,” I said incredulously.
“There’s two of you?” The mare asked, wringing her hat out.
“No, Bon’s my pet snake. She’s around my shoulders right now. No idea how she snagged your hat,” I said, half to her, half to myself.
“Odd pet choice,” she muttered, “I’m Trixie Lulamoon…failed performer. Thanks for saving me. Pretty sure you're the only one who cares enough to have bothered.”
“Geeze,” I tried to curse. “You sound like you’ve been surrounded by jerks for a while. Name’s Lyra.”
“Wait, Lyra Heartstrings?” Trixie asked in shock.
“Uh, yeah… How’d you know my last name?” I asked curiously.
“But, you... Hate me…” Trixie said rolling over to look at me.
“I’ve never met you before,” I said in as honest a tone I could manage.
Trixie looked at me with wide eyes. “Uhhhh… You’re not the Lyra I was thinking of! What are you?”
I smiled behind my helmet. “I’m not from here. There was an accident with a dimension hopping device. I’m waiting to try and get home again. I’m a human.”
Trixie triple blinked. “So uh… Your name is Lyra, and you’re a human.”
“Yeah. Someone else commented on that too… Why?” I asked, standing up now that I had energy back.
“Um, well… If you follow the road east, there’s a town. If you walk in there, a certain pony’s head might actually explode… As for me, uh, you know your species is mythical, right?” Trixie asked, still clearly shocked.
I couldn’t help but laugh at that revelation. The talking unicorn girl thought humans were mythical creatures. I couldn't have come up with a better joke if I tried!
“Then I guess I’ll have to use the mythical power of ‘hands’ to get a fire going to dry you out before frostbite sets in. Then see about fixing your wheel with the great magic of Duct Tape,” I giggled.
“Those aren’t magical things…” Trixie said slowly, lips curled into a bit of a smile.
“Yep, and that’s the joke,” I said with a smile.
I reached into a pouch of my survival kit and retrieved a reflective silver blanket and unwrapped it for her, not sure if she could manage with hooves though. “Here, wear this, and take that soaking cape off. You want to keep warm… Assuming your species is like mine, a dunk into icy water can be deadly.”
“Magic heating blanket?” Trixie asked curiously.
“No, thermal reflective blanket. Traps all of your body heat if you wrap it right. I’ll be right back with some firewood,” I promised.
“Thank you,” she said in an oddly heartfelt tone. “I… I never expected… Well, anything about this situation.”
“Eh, I never expected to pull an adorable talking unicorn pony out of an icy river either. Life’s just weird like that now. Or, well, it’s getting to be weird like that. Now seriously, back in a minute,” I promised again, stepping over to the treeline to start gathering dead wood.
“So, Bon, think this pattern will hold on the third portal hop?” I asked my slightly upset pet as I walked.