After breakfast, Lyra went upstairs and turned on the small television in the bedroom. Bon Bon had showed her how to operate it the day before, and she was amazed at how many different types of entertainment humans had at their fingertips. Because it was Sunday morning, it seemed like half of the programming was either political roundtable discussion or televised golf, but that was still fascinating to Lyra. If humans couldn’t fly, then how did they get those pegasus-eye views of the golf holes?
The doorbell rang. “I’ll get it!” Lyra yelled. She turned off the television, hurried down the stairs, and opened the door – she knew who it would be.
“Good morning, Lyra,” Bon Bon said. She turned to Lyra’s parents, who were both sitting in the living room, reading the newspaper. “Good morning. Lyra and I are going to the rec center.”
“Have fun,” said Lyra’s dad.
“Have fun,” echoed Lyra’s mom. “Be back by dinnertime.”
“I will,” Lyra said. She followed Bon Bon outside, where she saw a car parked in front of the house.
“The rec center is kind of far away,” Bon Bon said. “My parents let me borrow the car.”
Lyra was intrigued. Bon Bon had taught her what cars were as they walked home through the mall parking lot, and while Lyra had been in a carriage before, Bon Bon said that being in a car was different. Bon Bon opened the passenger door for Lyra and she got in. Unlike a carriage, all of the seats were facing the same direction.
Bon Bon got in the driver’s seat, showed Lyra how to fasten her seat belt, started the car, and began to drive. Rather than looking out the window at the passing scenery, Lyra’s attention was focused on how Bon Bon was simultaneously using three of her limbs to push the pedals, turn the wheel, and activate the turn signal lever.
As Bon Bon explained that there was an engine under the hood which made the car move, Lyra said, “Oh, like on a train.”
“Well, kind of,” Bon Bon said. “It’s like a more powerful version of what was running the lawn mower.”
“How fast can it make us go?”
“The rec center is within the city, so we have to stay under the speed limit. And my parents might notice if I put extra miles on the car, so I can’t take you out on the freeway to show you. But… not quite as fast as a train, but close.”
“Wow,” Lyra said. “That’s really convenient. How did humans get around before—”
“Hey, we’re here!” Bon Bon interrupted. She didn’t want to have to address the subject of horse riding.
Lyra looked at the nondescript building coming into view. “So what’s in there?” she asked.
“Well, you’ve been talking about how much you like having human arms and legs,” Bon Bon said. “So before you leave, I thought I’d take you to a place where you’d have a lot of chances to use them.”
“If I wasn’t strapped to this seat, I would hug you right now.”
Bon Bon and Lyra walked down the streets of Ponyville back toward home.
“It definitely is another bright shining morning,” Lyra said. “I’ve never heard an entire town sing about it, though. Is that some kind of pony tradition?”
Bon Bon opened the door. “I wouldn’t call it a tradition necessarily,” she said. “It does happen every now and then.”
“Is there a schedule, or…?”
“I heard the song starting a few blocks away,” she said. “I always like being a part of it when it happens, and I figured you’d want to see what it’s like.”
“So is that a common song around here?”
“Nope – I’ve never heard it before.”
“But… how did you…”
“Instinct, I guess,” Bon Bon said. “A lot of things happen that nopony can explain. At least this one is fun.”
Lyra didn’t ask any more questions. Compared to all of the other things she had seen during the weekend, that wasn’t the strangest.
Bon Bon walked toward the kitchen. “Breakfast will be in about ten minutes,” she said.
Lyra spent the time looking out the window at the various ponies going about their business. It was her last day in the pony world, and she wanted to drink it all in.
When she finished preparing breakfast, Bon Bon said, “The oatmeal’s ready. I added a special treat for you.”
Lyra entered the kitchen. In her bowl of oatmeal, she saw some of the candy-coated chocolates that Bon Bon had made the night before.
“Candy in oatmeal? I don’t think my parents would let me get away with that.”
“Neither would mine,” Bon Bon said. “Good thing it’s my kitchen. Besides, is this really any different than a chocolate chip muffin?”
“Hey, you don’t need to convince me,” Lyra said. She picked up a spoon with her magic and dug in.
As they ate, Bon Bon said, “I don’t have any plans for today. Is there anything you want to do?”
Lyra thought. “I don’t know what kinds of choices I have,” she said. “What do you usually do for fun?”
“Ponyville isn’t a very big town, so there aren’t a lot of entertainment options,” Bon Bon said. “Often, we’ll just hang out with friends. Although I don’t want to do that with you here in case they start talking about things that you don’t know about – I don’t want anypony to figure out that you’re not the same Lyra.”
“Are there any other towns nearby?” Lyra asked.
“Not really,” Bon Bon said. “Nothing close enough that we could take the train, see it, and still get you back here by a reasonable time tonight.” She tapped her hoof on the table. “Well, I know it isn’t the most exciting thing in the world, but we could go to the park. Oh! That’s not a bad idea – the Cloudsdale Aerial Ballet Company is performing there this afternoon. That should be fun.”
Lyra was skeptical – in her experience, the words “ballet” and “fun” were rarely found in the same sentence. Still, the only other thing she could think of was to learn more magic, and by the time she did that, there wouldn’t be any time left in the day to use it.
So after breakfast, the two went to the park. Because the aerial ballet would take place in the sky, there were no stands or seats set up anywhere on the ground, which meant that ponies could engage in normal park activities while they waited for the show to begin. Bon Bon and Lyra had arrived a couple of hours early and Bon Bon had brought along a Fribzee flying disc for them to play with. This gave Lyra more opportunities to use her magic to catch the disc. Although she was terrible at throwing it: When she used her magic, she sent it too far. When she used her hooves, it didn’t go far enough. And when she used her mouth, it flew off completely in the wrong direction.
As more ponies arrived to prepare to see the ballet, the park began to get a little more crowded. An impromptu game of freeze tag broke out, which Lyra and Bon Bon participated in. It might have been Lyra’s imagination, but a couple of ponies she had accidentally hit with the Fribzee seemed to go after her first when they became “it.”
Finally, a pianist, violinist, and cellist set up their instruments and started to play, which indicated that the ballet was about to begin. The audience laid out blankets on the grass and relaxed – some sat and craned their necks upward while others lay flat on their backs. While there were no stands set up on the ground, Lyra saw clouds which had been formed into bleacher-like shapes on which some of the pegasus ponies sat.
Lyra found that sight to be equally as interesting as the ballet itself. Sure, the dancers were graceful, and the sight of winged ponies gliding and diving through the sky was something she had never seen before. But even though it took place entirely in the air, it was still a ballet. Lyra had a good ear for music, but technically proficient formal dancing never interested her all that much. So when the ballet ended and the two began to walk home, the ballet wasn’t what was on Lyra’s mind.
“Do all ponies have the ability to stand on clouds?”
“No, just the pegasi. If you or I tried to do that, we’d fall right through.”
“How does that work?”
“It’s just part of the abilities they’re born with. Pegasi all naturally have the ability to fly, walk on clouds, and control the weather. Unicorns all naturally have the ability to perform feats of magic. And earth ponies all naturally have the ability to understand the earth and the things that grow from it.”
“Wait, go back – pegasi can control the weather?”
“Yeah. Who controls the weather in your world?”
“Nobody. Weather just happens. Some people try to predict what the weather is going to be, but they’re not always right.”
“What do you do when you need the weather to be clear for an outdoor event, like that ballet?”
“You cross your fingers and hope that it doesn’t rain.”
“When you cross your fingers, what does that do?”
The recreation center was filled with activities. Many of those activities emphasized physical movement, and Bon Bon was determined to show Lyra as many as possible – the more physically demanding, the better.
Even though they weren’t dressed for it, their day began with a beginners’ yoga class. Bon Bon had never tried yoga before, but she assumed that all of the stretching and unusual poses would be a good way to work out Lyra’s arms and legs. Lyra enjoyed it, as her previous days’ experiments in using her limbs had all been aggressively vigorous. She found the tree pose to be especially exciting – standing on two legs was fun, but she had never successfully stood on just one leg before.
After yoga, a samba dance aerobics class was beginning, so that’s where the two went next. It was Bon Bon’s second time attending one, and Lyra’s first. The class was the polar opposite of yoga – instead of being calm and slow, it was loud and fast. But it got Lyra and Bon Bon moving a lot, even if they frequently had trouble following along with the dance moves. Fortunately, they only ever ran into each other and never into any of the other members of the class.
Afterward, they both agreed that dance aerobics was a little more exhausting than either of them had anticipated, so they should probably take a break. Luckily, there was a pottery class, which was a perfect opportunity for Lyra to get her hands dirty and use her fingers to mold a vase. Or maybe it was an urn. It also could have been a generic clay pot – it really depended on what angle it was viewed at.
“I’m blaming this on the fact that having hands is a new experience for me, and not the fact that I have very little artistic talent,” she joked to Bon Bon.
The instructor walked by to look at their work. She encouraged Lyra not to give up. Turning to Bon Bon, she said, “That’s a very nice ashtray.”
“It’s a candy dish,” Bon Bon replied. The teacher merely said “Oh…” and walked away.
“Okay, now I don’t feel so bad,” Lyra said.
Before they put their handiwork in the kiln, Bon Bon drew a heart and signed her name on the inside of her candy dish. Lyra drew a heart and a picture of a lyre on the outside of her vase. “We have signatures too, but when it comes to decorative things like mailboxes and bags, we use our cutie marks to identify ourselves,” she explained. After they fired their pieces, they exchanged them as gifts to remember each other by.
After pottery class, they washed their hands. Even having to scrub vigorously between her fingers and under her fingernails was a novel experience for Lyra. Then it was time for lunch. The two went to a nearby restaurant for nachos, on the assumption that nachos would be the most fun to eat with their hands. Lyra’s favorite part was licking her fingers clean of nacho cheese.
They considered playing tennis next, but Bon Bon cautioned that after a heavy meal of nachos, running around a tennis court might not be the best idea. Fortunately, the recreation center also had table tennis, which was just as much fun.
“So as a unicorn, you would normally float your paddle in the air with magic?” Bon Bon asked.
“That’s right,” Lyra responded.
“So you’re not used to actually holding the paddle with your arm.”
“Mm-hmm,” Lyra confirmed.
“Then how are you beating me?!”
After failing to make progress with “best two out of three” and then “best three out of five,” Bon Bon realized that “best four out of seven” sounded desperate, so she suggested a new activity. A trip to the rock climbing wall didn’t take very long compared to the other activities, but it did show Lyra exactly what fingers were capable of doing. They were capable both of performing feats of amazing strength and of feeling incredible pain.
The two then grabbed a basketball and headed outside for a game of one-on-one. Trying to shoot the ball while running, dribbling, and avoiding the other player resulted in ten missed shots in a row, at which point they agreed that neither of them was any good at basketball.
“What if instead we played—” Bon Bon caught herself, then realized that this one was okay to say— “a game of Horse?”
“You want to make it harder by running around on stilts?”
“No, it’s where I make a shot, and then you try to make the same shot. If you miss, then you get an H. The next time you miss, you get an O. Whoever spells HORSE first loses.”
“Oh, you mean a game of Mule.”
The game took a while because each girl agreed to not be penalized with a letter if she initiated a shot but failed. Their emphasis was on unusual ways to shoot the ball, which, combined with their lack of basketball ability, resulted in a lot of misses.
The game was tied at three apiece – Lyra had H-O-R and Bon Bon had M-U-L (they had decided to adapt the Equestrian name of the game to “Mules”). As Bon Bon stood with her left side to the basket and held the ball in her right hand, she decided to ask Lyra about a problem which had been on her mind all day.
“When do you have to go back?” she began. She heaved the ball over her head. It barely made contact with the edge of the backboard and bounced away.
“Monday night,” Lyra said as she chased after the ball. “Twilight comes back on Tuesday, but since I don’t know what time, better safe than sorry.” She brought the ball back and sat down a couple of feet away from the basket.
“So since my Lyra is coming back tonight,” Bon Bon said, “what are you going to do about tonight and tomorrow?”
“There’s an unused bedroom across the hall,” Lyra said. She put the basketball between her feet and lay down on her back. “I’m hoping I can hide in there.” She raised her feet into the air and tried to use them to throw the ball. She missed the hoop completely.
“If that doesn’t work, let me know,” Bon Bon said as she picked up the ball. “I don’t know exactly what I can do, but I’ll help you figure out something.” She bounced the ball as hard as she could against the ground in front of her. Amazingly, the ball traveled high into the air and through the hoop.
“You’re about to get your S handed to you,” Bon Bon taunted. “And yes, I have been waiting to say that for the past five minutes.”
“You’ve got something on you!” Lyra yelled at Bon Bon. “It’s disgusting! You want to wipe it off! It’s slime! No – it’s ants! It’s bugs!”
Bon Bon eagerly pointed her hoof at Lyra. They were playing charades.
“Bugs! First part – you! Your jaw. Around your jaw. And you’re batting your eyelids. Flirtbugs.”
Bon Bon shook her head.
“You’re pointing to… line jaw. Box jaw. Not a box jaw. Not a box jaw? Is this going to be like when you expected me to get ‘manticore’?”
Bon Bon sighed and tried something else.
“You’re fluffing your hair. Lice! You’re posing. You’re a model. You’re… I don’t know what you’re doing now. Is that a curtsy?”
The last of the sand fell through the timer.
“I was a lady!” Bon Bon said. “Not a stallion –” she motioned around her muzzle – “but a lady. Ladybug!”
“Oh…” Lyra said. “What are we, like one for seven? We’re not very good mimes.” Lyra felt that her performance could be attributed to the fact that she kept forgetting that in order to indicate a number, she had to stomp her hoof on the ground.
“Yeah,” Bon Bon agreed. She put the contents of the game box on top of the other games the two had played. “I don’t really have many games that you’d like. The only thing we haven’t played yet is Equestrivia, and I’m guessing you wouldn’t do very well at that.”
It was nearing evening, although the sun hadn’t yet touched the horizon. Lyra hadn’t planned to go home quite this early, but she was running out of things to do. It was difficult when every time she went outside, she had to act like she understood everything that was happening around her.
“I guess I should get ready to go back,” Lyra said. She used her magic to pick up the saddlebag filled with things to sneak into the castle, which she had left lying against the wall in the living room. Two days ago, she had looked at what was inside the bag. She really hoped the other Lyra had just overprepared.
“All right,” Bon Bon said. “Let me get you something.” She walked into the kitchen. A few moments later, she came back with a small paper bag, which she placed into Lyra’s saddlebag. “I packed up the rest of the chocolates for you to take home.” She tightened the strap on the saddlebag.
“Thanks,” Lyra said. “And thank you for being so nice to me this weekend. This has been a dream come true for me, and it wouldn’t have gone nearly as well if you hadn’t helped.”
“You’re welcome,” Bon Bon said. “Anything for Lyra. Any Lyra.”
“Do ponies hug?” Lyra asked. “Or since you’re on all four legs, what do you—”
Bon Bon wrapped her front legs around Lyra. Lyra awkwardly did the same.
“Thanks again,” Lyra said as she got back down on all four hooves.
“Good luck breaking into the castle,” Bon Bon said.
“Unless it locked behind me, I’m just going in through the door,” Lyra said. “I don’t think I’ve figured out this body well enough to use a grappling hook.”
“Yeah – if anypony asks, just say you’re there to water the princess’s plants or something.”
“Well, I’m off.” Lyra stumbled backward as she opened the door. She laughed at her klutziness. “Magic is fun, but I’ll be glad to have hands again. Not to mention I’m finally going to get back to my phone!” Lyra didn’t notice Bon Bon wince a little at that.
Lyra stepped outside. “Thanks, Bon Bon!” she yelled. Seeing the other ponies in the street, she said, “I’ll say hi to you-know-who for you!”
Bon Bon watched as Lyra walked away. After a moment, she quietly said, “Tell her I miss her.” But Lyra was too far away to hear.
A few minutes later, Lyra approached the castle. As the other Lyra had predicted, the front door wasn’t locked, so she stepped in, trying to act as casual as possible. She walked down the hallway and attempted to remember which room had the portal in it. It took her a couple of tries, but pretty soon, she found it.
Lyra gave herself one last opportunity to perform some front and back kicks with her four-legged body. She then walked up to the portal and raised her front hoof forward. It stopped against the surface of the mirror. Stunned, Lyra started moving her hoof along the mirror. Completely solid. It was then that Lyra noticed there was no longer any glow or noise coming from the machinery surrounding the mirror.
Lyra’s irises shrank. She stepped back. This was the portal, right? There wasn’t another one? Lyra looked around the room. She stepped out into the hallway and checked a few of the nearby rooms. Nothing. She went back into the main library and examined the machinery surrounding the mirror. Nothing that resembled a plug or an on/off switch could be found. She tried pressing harder against the mirror with both hooves. Then she stepped back, not wanting to crack the glass.
Lyra’s heart was beating faster and faster. Did they leave the portal on for too long? Did all of the magic drain away, leaving it closed forever? With no other ideas, Lyra left the library and galloped down the hallway, forgetting to try to be stealthy. She fumbled to get the front door open, then galloped back into Ponyville and back to Bon Bon’s house.
Bon Bon was clearing the blankets off of the sofa when she heard the rapid knocking at her door. She opened it to see a panic-stricken Lyra.
“Lyra?” she asked. “Which Lyra—”
“The portal is closed!” Lyra exclaimed.
It took Bon Bon a moment to process what that meant. “Closed? So you—”
“Do you know how to turn it on?”
Bon Bon tried to think back to three days ago. “Lyra never said. She just said that it wasn’t a magic spell – it was something mechanical. Pinkie told her how to do it, but Lyra didn’t tell me what Pinkie said.”
Lyra calmed down a little bit. “Okay, so the portal can be reopened.” She didn’t have a complete plan in mind yet, but she knew what the first step had to be. “Where’s Pinkie?”
“Pinkie’s away visiting buffalo country until Tuesday,” Bon Bon said. “Along with Princess Twilight and the rest of her friends.”
“Oh no,” Lyra moaned. “I’m supposed to be at school tomorrow.”
“It’s okay,” Bon Bon said. Instinctively, she placed her foreleg over Lyra’s shoulders to comfort her. “Come on in. We’ll figure something out.”
Bon Bon led Lyra inside. Lyra just stood there, nervously shifting on her hooves.
Bon Bon thought. “Do you know if there was anypony else in the castle?” she asked.
“I didn’t hear anything,” Lyra said. “But somebody had to have turned the portal off, right?”
“Princess Twilight took on a student recently,” Bon Bon said. “Maybe she’s around somewhere. And I can’t think of anypony else who might know how the portal works. I think we need to try to find her.”
“Okay…” was Lyra’s only response.
Bon Bon grimaced. “I guess Lyra’s going to find out whether it’s better to ask for forgiveness than permission,” she said. The two of them left to go back to Twilight’s castle.
Lyra won the basketball game by tossing the ball into the air and hitting it with her head into the basket. She realized that she probably had a slight advantage in doing so, since as a pony, she was more accustomed to using her head instead of her limbs, but a win was a win. Plus, it was getting close to dinnertime, so one of them needed to end the game somehow. Afterward, Bon Bon drove Lyra back home.
“We never figured out how my Lyra was going to switch back with you, or hide you, or what,” Bon Bon realized while she was driving. “And she doesn’t have her phone on her, so she can’t call me to work out a plan.”
“Hmm,” Lyra said, trying to come up with something.
“We can’t wait by the portal to meet her, because our parents expect us to be home. Hopefully, she comes to my house instead of yours. Then I can call you and we can think of something at that point.”
“Yeah, one Lyra should be able to sneak the other in while her parents aren’t paying attention,” Lyra said.
“In case she tries to go to your house first, keep an eye out,” Bon Bon said.
“I will… although the bedroom faces the backyard.”
“Yeah…” Bon Bon said. “Do you know how to make a call on your phone?”
“Not at all,” Lyra said.
“Okay, before I leave, I’ll write down instructions on how to call me. Let me know when she comes back. Or if there’s a problem.”
Bon Bon dropped Lyra off, gave her the instructions on how to use the phone, and went home. During dinner, Lyra’s parents made conversation with Lyra about what she did at the recreation center. Lyra hoped she would remember to tell the other Lyra about the day’s activities, just in case her parents ever mentioned it again.
After dinner, Lyra went upstairs to watch TV. Now there was a wide variety of dramas and comedies to choose from. Lyra settled on a comedy in which the characters were trying to put on a musical. She wasn’t watching it very closely though, as her eyes kept darting out the window toward the backyard, looking for any sign of the other Lyra.
After a second episode of the comedy (now the characters had gotten into a big misunderstanding when they thought that one of their friends was pregnant), there was still no sign of the other Lyra and no calls from Bon Bon. It was getting kind of late. Lyra decided to give Bon Bon a call.
“I was just going to call you,” Bon Bon answered. “Is everything all right?”
“I haven’t seen your Lyra yet,” Lyra replied. “Is she with you?”
“No, I haven’t seen her either,” Bon Bon said. “I’m getting a little worried. Um… do you want to go through the portal to find her and bring her back?”
“I can, but how do I leave without her parents noticing that I’m gone?”
“Let me see,” Bon Bon said. There were a few moments of silence. Then Lyra faintly heard Bon Bon say, “Mom, can I meet Lyra at Sugarcube Corner? It’ll only be an hour.” That was followed by the voice of Bon Bon’s mother, though it was too far away for Lyra to make out what she was saying.
After a couple more moments, Bon Bon was at full volume again. “Ask your parents if you can meet me at Sugarcube Corner for an hour. If they ask why, just say that I’m buying you a sundae because you beat me at basketball or something.”
“Okay,” Lyra said. She put the phone down and went down to the living room, where her parents were watching TV. “Mom, dad, can I go meet Bon Bon at Sugarcube Corner?” Lyra wasn’t used to having to ask permission to go somewhere.
“Just be back before curfew,” Lyra’s mom said.
Lyra wasn’t sure when curfew was, but replied, “It’ll only be about an hour.” When no objections came forth, Lyra said, “Thanks!” and went back upstairs.
Lyra picked the phone back up. “See you at Sugarcube Corner,” she said.
“Great. Bring your phone. See you.” Bon Bon hung up.
Fortunately, Lyra had made her initial trip from Sugarcube Corner to Lyra’s house in the dark, so she was able to find her way back to the dessert shop without much trouble. When she arrived, Bon Bon was already there, waiting in the same corner where they had their first conversation.
“We’re meeting here so we have an alibi,” Bon Bon explained. “I don’t trust my parents – or rather, I don’t think they completely trust me. So in case they ask the Cakes, it needs to look like we were just meeting here. Act like you forgot to bring something, then leave and go through the portal to find my Lyra. Call me when you come back through. I just hope she hasn’t already come back, because I don’t know what we’re going to do if that’s the case.”
Lyra looked at the phone in her hand. “Um, I’m not sure I should take this into Equestria,” she said. “We don’t have anything like it, and considering what the portal did to my saddlebag, I’m not sure what it would do to a phone.”
“Just hide it somewhere near the statue,” Bon Bon said. “The school isn’t open, so there shouldn’t be anyone around. Just make sure you aren’t followed.”
“All right. And when we get back here, you’ll have a sundae for me?”
“Did you tell your parents I was buying you a sundae?”
“No – they didn’t ask.”
“Then I don’t have to buy you anything,” Bon Bon smiled.
Lyra smiled back and rolled her eyes. Abruptly, and with an exaggerated motion, she smacked her hand to her forehead. “Oh, I forgot,” she said a little too loudly. “Wait here – I’ll be back in a few minutes.” She walked to the door and left.
Lyra was also able to remember how to retrace her steps back to the portal from which she emerged three days ago. Once she reached it, she looked to see that no one was around. She then reached up and put the phone on top of the statue’s pedestal. Confident that no passersby would see the phone, she stepped forward.
…And was stopped rather suddenly as her entire body ran up against the solid stone base. Startled, Lyra stepped back and started feeling the pedestal with her hands. She walked around, searching each of the pedestal’s four sides, but found nothing except carved rock. Worried, she picked up the phone and called Bon Bon.
Bon Bon wasn’t expecting her phone to ring so quickly after Lyra left. “Hello?” she answered.
“Um… Bon Bon? The portal’s closed.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’m at the statue, but there’s no portal here. It’s just solid rock. I don’t know what happened.”
Silence. “Okay,” Bon Bon finally said. “Come back here. We’ll figure something out.”
Both Lyra and Bon Bon entered Twilight’s castle.
“Hello?” Bon Bon shouted down the hallway. The time for stealth had ended. “Is anypony home? We need your help!”
There was no response. All Lyra heard was the hooting of an owl.
“Yeah, it doesn’t look like anypony’s here,” Bon Bon said. “Princess Twilight’s student might be with her visiting the buffalo.”
The two left the castle and started to ask around town. None of the Ponyville citizens had seen her recently, though Mrs. Cake was at least able to inform Bon Bon that the name of Twilight’s student was Starlight Glimmer.
With no other options, Bon Bon and Lyra returned home. “It looks like you’re stuck here until Princess Twilight comes back,” Bon Bon said. “Wanna try Greedy Greedy Griffons again?”
Lyra returned to Sugarcube Corner to find Bon Bon sitting in the booth with an ice cream sundae and two spoons.
“I was going to get one for us anyway,” she said. “But now I need it to keep me calm.”
Lyra picked up a spoon and took a bite. “I don’t know why the portal is closed,” she said. “I’m hoping it’s something simple, like the book that powers the portal fell out of its holder or something. There are some other possible explanations, but they would all mean that somepony knows I opened the portal and came here, and I don’t want to think about that right now.” She took another bite of sundae to keep those thoughts at bay.
Bon Bon was also making quick work of the sundae. “Is there any way to reopen the portal from here? I don’t want my Lyra to be trapped in your world forever. No offense.”
“No, I understand,” Lyra said. “Twilight said something about the portal opening on its own every so often. I don’t remember exactly how long it takes, but I think it’s over a year. As far as I know, the only other way to activate it is with the book, and that’s in Equestria.” She put another spoonful of ice cream in her mouth and exhaled through her nose. “Until someone over there opens the portal back up, there’s nothing we can do.”
“What if we talked to Sunset Shimmer? She has a book that she uses to communicate with Princess Twilight between worlds. We could ask her to ask Princess Twilight to do something.”
“That won’t help right now,” Lyra said. “Twilight communicates with this world using the book that powers the portal. Even if we get a message to Twilight through the book, she won’t see it until she comes back on Tuesday. And I really really don’t want to tell Twilight that I used the portal until it’s absolutely necessary.” Another bite of ice cream.
“Lyra has school tomorrow. It’s necessary now.”
“If I can’t think of anything by tomorrow, then we’ll send a message on Tuesday morning,” Lyra promised. Another bite. “But sending a message before then won’t do any good anyway.”
Bon Bon forced herself to accept that fact. “Then you’re about to find out what high school is like here,” she said.