It took Lyra a few moments to realize where she was.
As she woke up to the brightness of the morning sun, the first sights she registered were the blurry, light blue walls which appeared in front of her half-lidded eyes. But her bedroom was cream-colored… a feeling of unfamiliarity began to creep over her. She then sensed that she was alone in her bed. What was going on?
As the room began to come into focus, the memories of the night before began to creep back into her consciousness. She lifted an arm out from under the covers to be sure – she was still a human! The realization quickly snapped her awake.
After she had been left alone in the house the previous night, she had continued to learn what her arms and legs could do. It turned out that it was actually easier to walk down stairs on two human legs than four pony legs. She had then spent the majority of her time holding and manipulating things with her hands – the entire process was still a novelty to her, so she didn’t really miss having magic.
She had been examining her face in the bedroom mirror when she heard someone enter through the front door. As had been implied by human Lyra and Bon Bon, human Lyra’s parents also lived in this house. It felt kind of weird for Lyra to say “Hi, mom” and “Hi, dad” to the human versions of her own parents, but she needed to keep up appearances. When she saw them take off their shoes, she decided it was safe to take off her boots and socks, so she spent the next several minutes in human Lyra’s bedroom examining her new human feet. She tried using them to pick up various objects in the room, but had nowhere near the success she had been having with her hands. The monkeys back in Equestria made it look so easy… she wondered whether all humans had this shortcoming or whether she was doing something wrong.
When the clock reached midnight, she had taken human Lyra’s advice and gone to bed, although she subsequently lay there awake for an hour, her mind racing with all of the things she wanted to do and learn about being a human. She could hardly believe this was all really happening!
With that excitement back in full force now that she was once again awake, Lyra got out of bed and headed downstairs for breakfast. She had forgotten that human Lyra’s parents would be down there, too.
“Somebody slept in,” Lyra’s dad said in a friendly tone.
“Well, uh, I had trouble falling asleep last night,” Lyra said truthfully. She was afraid to say anything else for fear of inadvertently revealing that she wasn’t the real human Lyra. Fortunately, this seemed to satisfy “her” dad, who went back to reading his newspaper and eating his cereal.
Lyra’s mom was already rinsing her dishes out in the sink and placing them into some kind of large box with racks inside. “Any big plans for the day?” she asked Lyra.
“I thought I’d just take it easy,” Lyra said. Hey, if that line worked once…
“If you go anywhere, just leave us a note,” Lyra’s mom said. “See you tonight.” She walked out of the kitchen and left the house. Lyra heard the sound of a motor starting, then the sound of some kind of machine receding into the distance.
Lyra turned her attention back to the table. She was relieved to see cereal and milk there along with an open place setting with a bowl, spoon, and glass of orange juice – she had no idea which cabinets and drawers contained any of those items. As she poured herself some cereal and began to eat, her father finished his breakfast and got up. He gave Lyra a kiss on the top of her head, said good-bye, and left the house. When Lyra heard a similar motor sound, she got up and looked out the window, where she saw him leaving in some kind of self-propelled carriage.
Alone in the house once again, Lyra finished her cereal and juice. She looked at the newspaper left behind on the table. She intended to read it to learn more about the human world, but all of the articles were about authority figures and places she had never heard of. And that just made things more confusing than informative.
Which was why she was engrossed in the comics section, wondering whether there might be another world where cats and dogs really could talk, when she heard the same doorbell from the night before, followed by knocking at the front door, followed by a muffled “Lyra! It’s Bon Bon!”
Lyra opened the door. “Thank goodness you’re here,” she said. “I have so many questions.”
“Your parents have already left for work, right?”
They weren’t actually her parents, but Lyra knew what Bon Bon meant. She nodded, assuming that they hadn’t left for some different reason.
Bon Bon came in. “I promise I’ll answer everything I can,” she said. “But since we don’t have school today, I also wanted to show you what we do for fun. Does your pony world have a mall?”
After pony Bon Bon had gone to bed, Lyra continued to move around in her pony body. It was a lot more flexible than horses in her world were. She also practiced picking things up with her hooves, which wasn’t as impossible as she expected it to be. She was able to hold and lift things with both of her front hooves, balancing on her rear legs for short periods of time.
When she had finally gotten a little tired, she realized she wasn’t sure where Bon Bon wanted her to sleep. Bon Bon had said that the couch was soft, but didn’t horses sleep standing up? So she draped a blanket over her back, walked behind the couch, and sort of leaned against it while standing on all four legs. She rested her head on one of the couch’s back cushions and eventually drifted off to sleep.
That was the sight which greeted Bon Bon as she came down the stairs the following morning. Bon Bon nearly laughed out loud, but she was able to stifle the sound just in time, allowing Lyra to continue to sleep. Which was good for two reasons: One, it would have been rude for Bon Bon to wake up her houseguest. And two, it gave her the opportunity to go back upstairs and get the camera so she could snap a picture. Bon Bon wasn’t sure whether it could be considered blackmail if the pony in the picture wasn’t technically Lyra, but she was sure the photo would come in handy somewhere down the line.
As Bon Bon started making breakfast, Lyra woke up. She followed the sounds to the kitchen.
“Good morning,” Bon Bon said. “You know, it’s okay to lie down on the couch.”
“Oh,” Lyra said, embarrassed. “I wasn’t sure how you slept in this world, and I didn’t know whether I could put my hooves on the furniture…”
“Don’t worry about it,” Bon Bon said. “Breakfast will be in a couple minutes.” Lyra watched in fascination as Bon Bon picked up a flour-filled measuring cup with her teeth and poured it into a mixing bowl.
After Bon Bon switched to using her hoof to stir the contents of the bowl with a whisk, Lyra said, “I never thought about how difficult it would be for horses to pick things up.”
“Ponies.”
“Hm?”
“We’re specifically ponies. Horses are bigger.”
“Oh. Sorry.”
“Again, don’t worry about it. This is new to me, too, talking to a pony that looks like Lyra but isn’t actually Lyra. Er, that isn’t the same Lyra. Yeah, this is confusing.”
Lyra chuckled in understanding. “You see, in my world, instead of hooves, we have what are called hands. They have these things on them called fingers, which are—”
“Oh, I know all about hands, believe me. My Lyra was absolutely obsessed with getting to see a human. She knows all about their hands and feet and walking around on two legs.” Bon Bon picked up the bowl with her teeth and poured some of its batter onto a hot griddle.
“How does she know so much about humans if she’s never seen one?”
“There have always been myths about super-evolved chimpanzees, but pretty much everypony assumed they were just legends,” Bon Bon said. “Until Princess Twilight went to your world last year and found out that humans exist.” She picked up a spatula with her teeth and flipped the pancake onto its other side.
“I never thought of grabbing things with your mouth. You make it look so easy – though I guess you’ve been doing it for your whole life.”
Bon Bon was still holding the spatula in her mouth, so she just gave a slight nod.
“And you eat pancakes, too,” Lyra said. “This is crazy.”
Bon Bon slid the spatula under the finished pancake. Instead of simply lifting it onto the plate, she flipped it through the air, just to show off. She picked up the edge of the plate with her teeth and carried it to the table. She motioned for Lyra to have a seat. “There’s the first one. And there’s the syrup.” She went back and poured more batter onto the griddle.
Using both of her front hooves, Lyra awkwardly fumbled with the syrup bottle while Bon Bon watched in amusement. She eventually managed to pour some onto her pancake. “See? I don’t know how you’re so good at this.” She looked down at the place setting. “And you’re able to use a fork and knife without hurting yourself?” She knew there had to be some trick involving the frog of her hoof – she just didn’t know what that trick was yet.
“I am, although usually, I just eat things with my mouth. I wasn’t sure whether or not you wanted silverware. When unicorns use it, most of them just use magic to pick it up.”
“Oh yeah! I was going to ask how to use my horn. I was trying to make a rainbow last night before I came here, but I couldn’t figure out how to do it.”
“Make a rainbow?”
“Yeah, you know – have a rainbow arc out of my horn.”
“I’ve never seen Lyra do that. Actually, I’ve never seen any unicorn do that.”
“Oh.” There was a slight hint of disappointment in Lyra’s voice. “Can you help me figure out what I can do?”
“Not really.” Bon Bon lifted her bangs to illustrate the lack of horn on her forehead. “I’m an earth pony. We don’t bother learning about unicorn magic since we can’t use it.”
“Oh,” Lyra said again – the disappointment was more evident now. She clumsily lifted her knife with both hooves and started sawing at her pancake.
Bon Bon flipped the next pancake and watched Lyra in silence. After some thought, she said, “Star Tracker has a unicorn daughter who’s been learning about magic. How about I go over after breakfast and see if she has any beginner’s magic books that you can borrow?”
Lyra’s pride was hurt a little bit at the implication that she needed a beginner’s book on magic. Even though she realized that was exactly the case. “That’d help,” she said reluctantly. “Although I don’t want to be a burden.”
“It’s no trouble,” Bon Bon said. “And trust me – I’ll let you know if you’re becoming a burden.” She gave Lyra a playful smile. “Besides, it’ll give you something to do – I’ve got a big order I need to fill today, so I’m going to be too busy to show you around Ponyville.”
“Thanks,” Lyra said sheepishly.
“If nothing else, we need to teach you how to put that pancake out of its misery.”
“If you want to fit in, you should probably use the word ‘people,’” human Bon Bon said.
“‘People?’” Lyra asked.
“Instead of ‘humans.’”
“Wait… you aren’t humans?”
“We are, but we don’t call ourselves ‘humans’ in conversation. When you say that, it makes you sound like you’re an alien trying to blend in. Which I guess you kind of are.”
“When Twilight was telling me about you, she never used the word ‘people.’ Just ‘humans.’”
“If Princess Twilight is anything like our Twilight, then she probably got caught up in being a scientist.” Bon Bon thought for a moment. “It would be like if I called you an equine. That’s scientifically accurate, but I’m guessing you usually call yourself a pony.”
Lyra seemed to understand. “So what’s one people called?”
“A person.”
“That… doesn’t make sense.”
Bon Bon laughed. “I know.”
The two were walking to the mall, getting a later start to the day than Bon Bon had anticipated. After Bon Bon had come over, Lyra spent the next two and a half hours bombarding her with questions about both the human world in general and human Lyra’s living situation. The living situation questions weren’t as interesting to Lyra, but she realized that if she was going to pass for human Lyra, she needed to know things such as where the dishes were located and which bathroom was “hers.” And Lyra still picked up occasional informative human tidbits such as how to operate a garbage disposal. And that humans ate lettuce, but not grass.
Finally, Bon Bon had assured Lyra that she had learned enough minutia of human Lyra’s life to keep her parents from becoming suspicious. So after leaving a note for Lyra’s parents (which gave Lyra a chance to learn how to hold a pen with her human hand), Bon Bon and Lyra strolled through the quiet neighborhood streets on their way to the shopping mall.
“Here it is,” Bon Bon said proudly as they arrived. The two entered, and Lyra was astonished by the sight. So many stores… it reminded Lyra of the streets of Canterlot, if an entire street was stacked on top of a second street, all under a single roof. Lyra could see how a human person could spend an entire day in such a place, which was exactly what Bon Bon intended to do.
So they leisurely walked from store to store, with Lyra taking in and describing to Bon Bon all of the differences between the human world and her pony home. For example, Lyra was amazed at how much of the clothing was mass-produced – in Equestria, clothing stores were not nearly as ubiquitous and nearly all of the clothing was custom-made. Of course, she reasoned, humans spent a lot more time wearing clothes than ponies did.
Occasionally, the two would encounter the human version of one of Lyra’s Ponyville friends – Lyra was never quite certain how to interact with them when that happened. After all, what do you talk about with Rarity if she’s a high school student who doesn’t operate her own boutique? When those situations came up, Bon Bon took the lead – in Rarity’s case, it turned out that you ask her one question about whether a piece of clothing is currently “in,” then let her talk for ten minutes straight about what’s hot and what’s not in the upcoming seasons.
After leaving a shoe store, Bon Bon became very excited as they approached the next shop. “You have to see this place!” she said. “I worked here for my summer job last year – it’s the best!”
She led Lyra inside the store, which was named Sugar’s Sweets. The walls were lined with an extensive assortment of confections. “You’ve got to try the candy here,” Bon Bon said. “Pick something out – what’s your favorite?”
Lyra felt a little overwhelmed by the number of choices. Her eyes were drawn to the wide selection of salt water taffy, available in every color of the rainbow. “Do they have blueberry taffy?” she asked.
Bon Bon scoffed a good-natured scoff. “Of course they have blueberry taffy!” she said. She approached the woman standing behind the counter. “Good afternoon, Sugar. Can we please have a quarter pound of blueberry taffy? And do you have any fresh honeycomb toffee?”
“We sure do, Bon Bon.”
“Then I’ll have a couple ounces of that, too.”
“You got it.”
As the woman measured out the taffy and then went into the back room, Bon Bon said, “That’s Sugar Beet. Best boss ever. She’s already promised to hire me again this summer.”
Sugar Beet came back with a second bag to go with the bag of taffy. Bon Bon paid and then took Lyra to a bench a short distance from the storefront.
“Check this out,” Bon Bon said, opening the non-taffy bag. “While I was working here last year, I read about this candy called honeycomb toffee. I asked Sugar if I could try making it in her shop, and she let me. It went so well that she’s been selling it ever since.”
Bon Bon picked a piece out of the bag. The top and bottom were relatively solid, but along the sides, Lyra could see dozens of air holes. “Oh, it looks kind of like a honeycomb,” she said.
“Right,” Bon Bon replied. “It isn’t actually made with honey. Try it.”
Bon Bon popped the piece of candy into Lyra’s mouth. Even though it was called a toffee, it had a surprisingly crunchy texture. The taste was deliciously sweet, and because of the air holes, it didn’t feel too heavy. Lyra “mmm”ed in approval.
“I know, right?” Bon Bon said. She ate a piece. “It’s best fresh like this. If you leave it out in the air for too long, it gets too sticky. So we dip it in dark chocolate, which makes it last longer, and sell it that way.” She ate another piece.
Lyra opened her bag of taffy and picked up one of the individually-wrapped pieces. The candy looked mouth-watering, but Lyra was more entranced by the delicate motions she was able to perform with her fingers. Not just picking up the taffy, but unwrapping it, too.
Lyra ate the candy. “This tastes great,” she said through the taffy in her mouth. “It has a really strong blueberry flavor.”
“See, what’d I tell you?” Bon Bon said. “This place is the best.” Lyra realized that she should have known that human Bon Bon would share the same affinity for candy that her Bon Bon had.
After they had finished the toffee and put the remaining taffy into Bon Bon’s handbag, the two visited Disc Center. Seeing the confusion on Lyra’s face, Bon Bon explained, “It’s a store that sells movies and music.”
“Oh, like a record store.”
“Sort of.”
Lyra was learning that other than the two-legged bodies, the biggest difference between her home and the human world could be found in all of the devices and gadgets the humans had. This store was especially foreign to her – none of the boxes looked like they were big enough to hold a record.
“Is there any kind of music you want to listen to?” Bon Bon asked. She motioned toward some small glowing screens positioned above headphones. At least Lyra knew what the headphones were. Probably.
It was then that Lyra remembered her efforts during the previous day to determine her purpose in life. She didn’t know how to go about it in Equestria – maybe the human world contained music that would give her inspiration.
“I don’t suppose you have lyre music here,” she said.
Bon Bon looked puzzled. “No…” she said as she tried to think of the closest substitute. “There’s classical music, but I don’t think they play the lyre in it.”
“Is it happy? Or upbeat?”
“No, just really slow. But if you want happy and upbeat, there are lots of choices.”
Bon Bon took Lyra over to one of the screens and started tapping on it. Doing so caused the screen to change, displaying a list containing the names of singers and pictures of album covers.
“Anything that looks interesting to you?” Bon Bon asked.
Lyra read through the list. She decided to skip the human world’s versions of Sapphire Shores and Countess Coloratura – Lyra assumed that she already knew what their music sounded like. After Bon Bon showed her that she could press the down arrow to see more choices, Lyra scrolled down until she saw a title and artist she didn’t recognize: “Cheer Up” by Hairswoop Heartthrob. That looked promising.
Lyra indicated that she wanted to listen to that one, so Bon Bon pressed the screen with her finger and put on some headphones from the same station so she could also listen to the song. Lyra took that as the cue to put on her headphones.
Although the song was catchy, it wasn’t at all what Lyra was hoping for. As best as she could tell from the lyrics, the young male singer was addressing a girl who had recently been through a breakup. He told her to cheer up, because someday she’d find the boy who was right for her. He then proceeded to tell her this again and again and again. He must have been really proud of rhyming “there’s no need to tear up” with “girl, you’ve got to cheer up,” given the number of times he repeated it over the course of three minutes.
The song was similar to the pop music Lyra could hear back home. It didn’t tell her how human music might be different than Equestrian music and it gave her no insight into how she could use her gift of playing the lyre to bring happiness to others’ lives. So when the song ended, Lyra decided to shift the conversation in a new direction.
“You said that this store had movies, too? Is there a theater in the back?”
“No – they sell movies on DVD.”
Lyra stared blankly at Bon Bon.
“Discs that you play at home that have the movie on them.”
“Do most homes have movie theaters in them?”
“No – you watch it on your television.”
Another blank stare.
“You don’t have television?!”
“No…” Lyra said hesitatingly.
“Okay, I need to teach you what television is before you get home tonight. But you know what a movie theater is?”
“Yeah, we have one of those in Ponyville.”
“Do you have movies like Coalition of Heroes?”
“What’s that?”
“It’s a group of superheroes who fight bad guys that want to take over the world. It’s based on a comic book.”
“You have movies based on comic books?” Lyra said dubiously.
“The new one just came out. I was going to see it with my Lyra this weekend, but if you don’t have anything like it in the pony world, I should take you. Come on!”
Bon Bon led Lyra through the mall to the movie theater. The next showing of Coalition of Heroes: Earth’s Final Defense was beginning in thirty minutes. Bon Bon purchased two tickets.
“Bon Bon,” Lyra said, “I don’t want you buying all these things for me. Let me… oh, shoot! I brought money with me when I came through the portal, but it was in my bag. And I gave that to your Lyra.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Bon Bon said. “First of all, does your money look like this?” She held up a five-dollar bill.
“No – it’s gold bits.”
“So your money wouldn’t be any good here anyway. And second of all, Lyra left her wallet at home. I’m going to reimburse myself for your ticket when we get back.”
Lyra thought about that. It seemed wrong to take human Lyra’s money without her permission. But when she considered it further, Lyra realized that she wouldn’t have a problem if her Bon Bon wanted to take some of her bits to show human Lyra around Ponyville. In a way, it was sort of like spending the money on herself.
As Lyra and Bon Bon waited for the movie to begin, Lyra hoped that her human counterpart was learning as much as she was.
After breakfast, Bon Bon had gone out to borrow the beginner’s magic book from Star Tracker. She realized nearly too late that she didn’t have a plausible excuse for needing a foal’s book on magic. Ultimately, she wound up saying something vague about using it as inspiration for an order she was making, which seemed to work well enough.
She returned home to find Lyra enthralled by the motions of her tail. “Here you go,” she said, reaching into her saddlebag, pulling out the book, and placing it on the arm of the sofa. “I’d offer to help, but all that talk about auras and field energy is gibberish to me.”
“Thanks,” Lyra said. She flipped the book open to the first page using her hoof.
“I’ll be in the kitchen,” Bon Bon said. “I’ve got to make two hundred chocolate-dipped strawberries, each depicting an abacus, for Smarty Britches’ cute-ceañera.” She exhaled at the mere thought of fulfilling such an order. “If you have any non-magic questions, feel free to ask.” With that, she left for the kitchen.
Lyra actually did have a number of questions about the second-to-last sentence Bon Bon had said, but she was too eager to learn how to perform magic to follow up on any of them. She turned a few more pages of the book until she reached the first chapter.
Welcome, young unicorn, to the world of magic.
“Well,” Lyra said to herself, “at least I won’t have to worry about seeing any words I don’t recognize.”
The collagenous calphosphium of a unicorn horn is a highly specialized semiconductor of equinic energy.
Lyra groaned.
She soldiered on with the text. With the proper concentration, a unicorn can direct that energy through his or her horn. Follow these 23 steps to identify the energy within your body and channel it into your horn.
Lyra followed the steps, then followed the directions written in the subsequent two chapters. After she was able to produce an aura around her horn, she learned how to connect that aura to an inanimate object by directly touching the object with her horn. The book had suggested a ping-pong ball for this purpose, as it was round and lightweight, which made it both easy to manipulate and less likely to damage something if it was sent in an errant direction. However, Bon Bon didn’t have a ping-pong ball, so she pointed Lyra to last week’s newspaper, which she crumpled into a ball.
Once you can feel that you have enveloped the ball with your magic, lift your head. You will find that the ball travels upward, as if it was attached to the tip of your horn. Congratulations! You have just levitated an object using magic. Once you release your concentrated energy, the ball will fall to the ground.
Lyra did just that. As she picked up the paper ball with her hooves and placed it back on the end table, the thought crossed her mind that this was a lot of effort to go through in order to learn a skill she would only be able to use for two more days. But she had spent years wondering what it was like to be a unicorn – now that she had the chance, she wasn’t not going to perform some magic.
Of course, you have seen older unicorns lift objects using magic without directly touching their horns to those objects. Now that you understand the basics of connecting your aura to an object, the next three chapters will prepare you to cast your energy out and “touch” objects that aren’t in contact with your horn.
The book had warned that some of the steps might take a while to practice, but Lyra was always able to master them within no more than three attempts. She attributed it to being considerably older than the book’s intended audience. Finally, she reached the big moment.
Now you are ready to lift an object without touching it with your body. Stand about the distance of your head away from the ball. Project a field out toward the ball and fully envelop it. While remaining aware of the field, focus your energy into an aura around your horn. Next, find the signature of the field using your aura. Because both the field and the aura are representations of you, they should “connect,” and you will see your aura surround the ball. By subtly altering your auratic energy, you can lift the ball into the air and move it around. Be careful not to alter the flow of energy too quickly, or your connection will “slip” and the ball will fall.
Lyra carefully performed each of the steps. And watched with amazement as the crumpled-up newspaper floated before her very eyes. She made the ball dance in the air a little bit. As the realization of what she was doing hit her – she was using her unicorn powers to make something float in the air! – she let out a high-pitched squeal of delight.
“It sounds like you’re getting the hang of it,” Bon Bon said from the kitchen.
“I am!” Lyra said with pure joy in her voice.
Lyra released her energy and let the ball fall onto the sofa.
Practice standing closer to and farther from the ball as it levitates. You will find that the farther away you are from an object, the more difficult it is to maintain your connection.
Lyra spent a few minutes practicing that.
Once you are comfortable picking up and gently setting down the ball, you may practice lifting other objects. Be sure to select objects that increase gradually in size and weight, as it is more difficult to lift larger and heavier objects. Do not lift your pets or any other living things – they will be scared by the unexpected movement and their thrashing to get back in control will cause you to lose your connection and drop them.
Lyra used her magic to pick up one of the pillows on the couch. That was pretty easy. Then she set her sights on one of the logs stacked next to the fireplace. She had to take a couple of steps forward, but she was ultimately able to lift that, as well. She then decided to push herself and walked over to the loveseat. That was outside of her skill level – she could barely surround it in a field, let alone lift it.
Part of Lyra wanted to just keep levitating random objects, but she decided to see what else the book had to offer.
It is actually more difficult to use magic to manipulate only part of an object – for example, to turn just one page of this book. Over the course of the next two chapters, you will learn how to project a field around a portion of an object, and then move only that part.
“Whew! I’m finished!” Bon Bon announced as she stepped out of the kitchen. “That took even longer than I thought it would.”
Lyra hadn’t really been paying attention to the time, as it was only then that she noticed it was already evening outside. Had she really spent the majority of the day learning how to pick up a paper ball?
“Check it out,” Bon Bon said proudly. Lyra followed her into the kitchen. There, spread across all of the counters and the dining table, were dozens upon dozens of plump, ripe strawberries, each one dipped in creamy milk chocolate. On top of each chocolate shell, there was a depiction of an abacus carefully drawn using four different colors of tinted white chocolate.
“That’s amazing,” Lyra said.
“Thanks,” Bon Bon said. “This was one of the most complicated orders I ever had to make. So, how’s your day been?”
“Well, I can lift a pillow with no problem,” Lyra said.
“It sounds like we both accomplished a lot today. We deserve a treat. I dipped a few extra strawberries in case I messed up some of the abacus designs. Want some?”
“Sure!”
The two relaxed with the extra chocolate-dipped strawberries. Lyra got to show off levitating them into her mouth while Bon Bon explained to her what a cute-ceañera was and why it would require her to draw abacus pictures on fruit. This led to an explanation of why ponies had cutie marks.
“So this appeared when I realized my special talent was candy making,” Bon Bon explained. “And Lyra’s,” she said, pointing to Lyra’s flank, “represents her ability to play the lyre.”
“Pony Lyra can play the lyre? How do you play the lyre with hooves?”
“I don’t know how other ponies do it, but Lyra actually uses her magic to play.”
“I wonder how long it takes to learn to do that. I mean, it’s really cool that I can make things float through the air, but I didn’t realize using magic was so much work.”
“Hey – if you’re also Lyra, then maybe you have a natural ability to play the lyre, too.”
“Well, I do have a lyre back home. I haven’t been practicing much lately, though.”
“Let’s find out!”
Bon Bon led Lyra upstairs, where the other Lyra kept her lyre. Lyra picked it up using her newfound magical ability.
“And you said she doesn’t use her hooves at all?” Lyra asked.
“Nope. She manipulates the strings using her magic.”
Lyra looked at the floating lyre. Carefully adjusting her aura, she bluntly cast a small surge of energy past the instrument.
The lyre produced a sound reminiscent of a wet hairball being dragged across the strings.
“Ooh,” Lyra said with obvious disgust in her voice. “I don’t think I can do this without hands.” She made another wet hairball sound for emphasis.
“Forget I said anything.” Bon Bon waved her hoof dismissively. “Hey, at least you’re still able to pick stuff up, right? Can you help me pack up my strawberries so I can put them in the icebox?”
“Do you have any more extras?” Lyra said, smiling.
“You drive a hard bargain.”
Lyra and Bon Bon left the movie theater after seeing Coalition of Heroes: Earth’s Final Defense.
“So are there humans – I mean, people – in your world who have the ability to fly?” Lyra asked.
“No,” Bon Bon answered.
“What about the ability to shoot lasers from their fists?”
“All of the superpowers are made up. Everything that you’ve done today – that’s pretty much the extent of what people can actually do in real life.”
“Then how were those actors able to do that?”
“It’s all special effects – they use computers to make it look like they’re flying and picking up trucks.” Bon Bon realized what the next question would be. “Computers are these devices that can be used to change what’s on the screen. For example, they used computers to make it look like those buildings were destroyed – they didn’t really blow up all those buildings in reality.”
“So if you don’t have superpowers or magic, what do you do when an alien tries to take over the world like that?”
“That’s never happened in real life. The only thing even close to it has been when creatures from your world tried to take over our school.” Bon Bon stopped to consider that. “Multiple times. But when that happened, it was always solved by someone from your world doing some magic thing to stop it.”
“Your land is a lot more peaceful than Equestria. I’ve lost track of how many times I’ve thought the world was coming to an end.”
Bon Bon wasn’t sure how to respond to that, so she decided to change the subject. “Well, today has been a lot of fun for me – I hope you had fun, too.”
“Oh, absolutely – there’s so much here that I’ve never even imagined.”
“But we have an assignment due in English class on Monday and I want to get a head start on it – we have to read two chapters from this really boring novel. I’ll do it tonight, then I’ll come over tomorrow and help you write an essay so my Lyra doesn’t get in trouble.”
Bon Bon walked Lyra back to “her” home. Before leaving, Bon Bon showed Lyra how to play games on the other Lyra’s phone so she would have something fun to do for the night. With that, Bon Bon went home to work on her English assignment.
Lyra ate dinner that night with the human versions of her mom and dad – it reminded her of how much she missed doing that back home. After dinner, she decided it was safer to not risk accidentally revealing that she was a different Lyra, so she retreated up to the bedroom and spent the rest of the night playing Cookie Collision on the phone. Maybe it was just because she was using a finger she had never controlled before on a piece of technology she had never encountered before, but Lyra thought it was a surprisingly fun game.
“I wish I could live in the human world forever,” she said to herself.