Previous Chapters Next
Close
Chapter 11,780 words
Chapter 21,263 words
Chapter 31,505 words
Chapter 41,528 words
Epilogue862 words

Chapter 2

Chapter 2

“Lyra!”

Lyra’s eyes shot open, she was lying in bed and nearly screamed her head off when she found herself looking back at her. Then she remembered.

“Syra? It’s...” Lyra said, her voice trailing off as she looked at her clock, the little hand pointed to four. “It’s four O’clock in the morning! What do you want?”

“I need your help!” the sea pony exclaimed in a hushed voice. “I need out of this bucket! I’m so stiff and I can’t take it anymore! I would have asked Bon Bon... but you know how she is when she doesn’t get her rest.”

Lyra found herself smirking. Bon Bon was an ordinarily perfectly wonderful pony to be around, but when she was tired, she was crankier than a dragon that was having its treasure pillaged. “All right, fine!”

Lyra rose to her hooves and began to push the bucket Syra was in towards the front door, noticing several puddles of water that littered the floor.

“It took a lot of effort to get here, let’s just say that,” Syra said with a nervous smile. Lyra could only smirk at her sea pony counterpart as she lifted the bucket by the handle with her teeth over the door jam, and continued to push it for a couple dozen metres until arriving at the edge of the river.

“Finally!” Syra said and leapt from the bucket into the river, diving underneath the deep blue water and disappearing from view. Lyra tipped the bucket over, allowing the water to drain out of it, and sat on the river bank, watching the sea pony as she swam freely, stretching the stiffness out of her. “Ah I feel so much better!”

“I’m glad I could help,” Lyra said giving the sea pony a small smile. “It also gives us time to talk.”

“What did you want to talk about?” Syra asked as she swam up to the river bank.

“I think you know,” Lyra said, dropping down to lie on her stomach.

“Bon Bon?” Syra asked.

“Bon Bon,” Lyra affirmed. She let out a small sigh. “Not often when you can find someone you trust to talk about it with huh?”

“I guess not,” Syra said with a shrug. “We really love her don’t we?”

“How could we not?” Lyra asked. “Bon Bon’s been there for me... us, since I... we came to town years ago. She let us into her home, complete strangers, and we’ve been leaching off her ever since.”

Syra nodded. “It’s not right; we know it and we feel terrible about it... we try to fix it, and then... this happens.”

Both of them sighed, yet felt as if a huge weight had been lifted off each of them.

“Who knew that saying it out loud could help so much?” Lyra asked.

“Yeah... who knew?” Syra said, nodding in agreement. Both of them felt more than a little awkward about it. “So... what do we do now?”

Lyra frowned. She wished that she had an answer.

...

The sun began to peak over the horizon, and with it, came out the early morning ponies, Derpy Hooves, the town laughingstock and postal worker, Rainbow Dash, weather team leader, and her trainee Whirlwind.

“All right Whirlwind!” Rainbow Dash boomed, “I want two hundred laps between town hall in the windmill, and I want them done now!”

“Yes ma’am,” Whirlwind said. Despite the early morning light, of which there was little, the grey coated, grey maned Pegasus with a tornado for a cutie mark was incredibly visible thanks to his contrasting red eyes. Lyra and Syra watched for a little while as the speedy Pegasus stallion zoomed back and forth between town hall and the windmill, he was incredibly fast for a Pegasus, most of the town agreed on this fact. Yet for some reason, he was never fast enough for Rainbow Dash.

Whirlwind completed the task given to him, and returned to a very impatient looking Rainbow Dash who was tapping a hoof on the ground in a bored like fashion.

“That was pathetic! Do it again!” Rainbow Dash boomed at him.

“Yes ma’am,” Whirlwind said and took off to do the task set before him again.

Lyra and Syra figured that they had seen enough at this point, silently communicating to each other the fact; Lyra took the bucket by its handle and dipped it into the river, allowing it to fill to the top. Syra swam inside and used her magic to help offset the weight enough for Lyra to pull the bucket up. Lyra set the bucket back on the road and began to push it back towards home, the path taking them right by where Rainbow Dash was training the new weather pony.

“Hi Lyra, Hi...” Rainbow Dash began to say, but stopped herself upon noticing the odd sight before her; she did a double take, and began rubbing her eyes to make sure that she wasn’t seeing anything. After rubbing her eyes didn’t change anything she began to freak out. “WHAT AM I LOOKING AT?”

“I’m a sea pony!” Syra said simply, and without offering any explanation, the two continued on, realising instantly how much fun they were going to have today.

Lyra set up Syra’s bucket in a place where only her head would be visible, behind a miscellaneous fruit cart, where she would appear to be browsing the selection, she would greet passersby and they would pay her no mind. Several dozen metres down the road, Lyra was sitting on a park bench, looking at the morning’s Sun, Canterlot’s newspaper, pretending to read it, and would greet the same passersby that Syra did, all they had to do was sit back, relax, and let hilarity in sue.

“Hi Lily!” Syra said at the first townpony to come by.

“Hi Lyra,” the bubblegum pink pony replied politely as she trotted onwards.

Lyra did her best to force herself into not breaking down and laughing. Taking a deep breath and holding it in until Lily passed her. “Hi Lily!”

“Hi Lyra,” Lily said again. Stopping dead in her tracks and doing a double take. Syra had hidden herself by this point, and only Lyra was in the street. Lily looked incredibly confused and trotted back towards the fruit stand. Syra burst from her hiding place, giving Lily a wide grin.

“GAHHHHHHHH!” Lily screamed and galloped away. “The horror! The horror!”

Both mares broke out laughing.

...

Several repeats of this later Lyra pushed Syra’s bucket back towards home, the two of them were continuing to giggle about it the entire way, almost not noticing when they ran into a rather angry looking Bon Bon.

“And just what do you two think you’re doing?” Bon Bon asked.

“Uh...” they both said in unison.

“Do you know how many ponies nearly trampled me, running in this direction screaming ‘there’s two of them! There’s two of them!’? Too many, wasn’t hard to figure out who was responsible,” Bon Bon said, scowling heavily at them.

Both sea foam green mares chuckled nervously, giving Bon Bon an apologetic look.

“Inside, now,” Bon Bon seethed at them.

Both mares’ heads drooped and Lyra pushed Syra inside.

“Still totally worth it,” Syra said.

“Shut up Syra,” Lyra quipped.

Bon Bon’s scowl alleviated, she began to giggle quietly to herself. Lyra and Syra weren’t the only ponies with jokes.

2,019 views