A Delightful Journey

by FeverishPegasus

Lyra, Lyra No

I wake up again and see the sun rising from the horizon outside my window. Well, her window. The pony that isn’t staring straight into my face this time. I lift my hands up to rub the sleep out of my eyes and feel my left hand brush against something soft. “Oop!” Lyra squeaks.

I continue rubbing my eyes and just sigh. It’s no use trying to beat sense into her.

“What’s up Lyra?” I look over the side of my bed.

She hesitates. “Not much.”

“Besides looking at my hand that is?”

“Well…yeah,” she admits. I can hear the bashfulness in her tone.

“Don’t worry. I’m not going to get angry this time.”

“You aren’t?”

“No…I guess you could say I had a very confusing day yesterday. I wasn’t exactly in my best state of mind.”

“Does that mean I can look at your hand some more?”

“I’d prefer you resist.”

Slowly, Lyra slides into view above the side of my bed, her gaze locked on my hand for an instant before she averts it. She looks at me. “I just…want to touch it. So bad.” Her gaze rapidly shifts from my face to my hand, over and over again. “Can I? Can I touch it?” Her gaze locks on my hand.

“Lyra, I think you might have an obsession.”

“Ah no! If you let me touch it…I-I’m sure I’ll stop wanting to,” she doesn’t sound convincing at all.

“Yeah, you’ve got an issue here. I’m not gonna feed it.” I hide my hands underneath my covers.

“Nono! Wait. Just once…pleeeeaaaase?” Somehow, through some sort of pony magic no doubt, Lyra gives me a pair of the most disarming Bambii eyes I’ve ever seen.

“Uh, sure,” I agree. “Just once though.” I stretch out my hand and prepare for the worst.

So much for touching my hand once.

The second it gets within range of her, she quickly hugs my wrist, hoofing my hand manically. What started as pokes quickly shifted to squishing, and then kneading. Just about when I’d had enough, Lyra stops. “Can I-can I…lick it?”

“Ew! No!” I exclaim as I try to yank my hand back. Her grip is too strong. “Lyra, I need you to give me my hand back now.”

She hesitates for a bit, squishing my hand a few times. Finally, she releases.

I pull my hand back and immediately hide it beneath my covers. “I’m not doing that again.”

“Aw come on! It wasn’t so bad! Please don’t let this be the last time.” She looks up at me with those same adorable eyes.

“Not working this time,” I say in a sing-song voice as I stay away from her gaze. “By the way, when is breakfast ready?”

“Not for another thirty minutes. I could tell you a story for those thirty minutes…while I touch you hand.”

“Not happening,” I remark. Something that’d been nagging at me for some time finally makes it way into my brain. “What’s that smell?”

“If you let me touch your hands I’ll tell you.”

“Lyraaaa,” I warn, glaring at her.

“Ok ok. It’s your hands—I mean not just your hands! It’s pretty much all of you. You smelled when I first saw you.”

“Oh, sorry about that.”

“Honestly, I don’t mind at all,” she looks at me dreamily. “You’ve been driving Bon Bon through the roof though.”

“That must be fixed immediately!” I propose. “Do you have showers here?”

“Yes.”

“Ok. Where are they?”

“If you—”

“Just tell me where the shower is, Lyra.”

She rolls her eyes. “Jeez. When you leave this room, it’s on the doorway just to the right.”

“Thanks,” I grumble.

I get up onto my feet and Lyra is forced to shuffle to the foot of my bed, grumbling as she goes. I catch her glancing longingly at my hands, a bit of drool pooling in her open mouth.

I duck through the doorway to find an opening on my right. I go through it to find, really, just what I expected.

There rested a sink, about half normal height, and a bathtub up against the end of the room. It was just a normal looking bathtub, but the water controls had circles in them, no doubt for hooves.

I close the door behind me, looking for a lock mechanism. Seeing none, I give up, thinking, Lyra'll tell Bon Bon that I'm taking a shower.

I get the water running with a little bit of difficulty, then strip down. After a few minutes of just standing there, waiting for the tub to fill up, I finally sink into the steaming hot water. It feels delightful as I imagine the sweat disintegrating off of my skin.

I drift off.

---

In my deep slumber, I register a little Clip, clop…Clip, clop. The sound intensifies, but eventually stops. I don’t let it wake me up; I’m too tired to really care about what might be transpiring.

---

“It’s got a dong!”

I jerk awake and see Lyra galloping away for the bathroom door, on a hurry to meet Bon Bon, repeating, “It’s got a dong!”

“Wha? Wha?” I struggle to grasp why my body feels weird. I lift a hand up and feel it hit cold air. I look down and see that I’m in water. It comes back to me that I’d decided to take a bath.

Then, Why was Lyra in…

….ohhh, that little shit…

I get out of the bathtub, enraged that Lyra would invade my privacy. “Lyrrraaa!” I yell.

I run for the main living room, bumping my head on the doorframe. “Ow!” My mood darkens by two degrees.

I continue on and rant, “When I get my hands on you Lyra! You’re gonna regret what—”

“You’re right, it does have a dong.” I hear Bon Bon remark. I look down to see that I’m still naked. “I told you!” Lyra exclaims. They don’t seem to be phased by my lack of clothes, but my face still reddens. I dash back to the bathroom.

I quickly dry myself off with a towel folded up near the bathtub, thank goodness there’s a towel, and get dressed in my sweaty clothes again. Both Lyra and Bon Bon peer through the bathroom door, “You okay hun?” Bon Bon asks.

My face is glowing a bright red as I seethe, “Yes, ma’am.”

“You don’t look very good…and what are you doing wearing those soiled rags? Here, let me get those washed up for you!” Bon Bon proceeds to tug at my clothes.

I pull back. “N-no ma’am. I assure you I’m doing fine.” I really don’t sound like I’m doing ‘fine’.

“I know you’ve got an issue with being stared at, but I don’t see why you have to overreact about it,” Lyra remarks.

“I-I was naked!” I squeak.

“So?”

“You—I can’t—just—no!”

“What?”

“Oh that’s right! I forgot! You’re all ponies! You don’t wear clothes! Nobody in this forsaken place wears clothes! I’m in a land with a bunch of freaks!” My voice goes shrill.

Bon Bon glares at Lyra, then says, “Hey…hon. How about I take you back to Lyra’s room? You can strip down there and slip the clothes past the door. That way I can wash them. Ok?”

I acquiesce and stumble over to Lyra’s room.

Through the closed door, I hear Lyra arguing with Bon Bon.

“What did I do?!” Lyra asks.

“Can’t you see it’s stressed out?!”

“But what’s wrong with being naked! It’s making a big deal out of nothing!”

Bon Bon takes a breath. “Lyra, we have no clue where it’s come from. Some things we don’t care about must really affect it. Fear of nakedness isn’t very real to us, but it’s a very scary thing for this poor soul.”

“But…how was I supposed to know that?”

“I guess there really is no way to know. I’m sorry I glared at you. I just had to do something before it—he got a heart attack of some sort.”

“Ok,” Lyra grumbles.

I hear a knocking on the door. “Are those clothes ready, hon?”

“Yes,” I respond, feeling a little awkward that I had to hear that conversation. I open the door and shove my clothes out, careful to shut the door as soon as possible.

---

I hear a clop, clop from my door as a pony knocks on it. “Is it Bon Bon?”

“No.”

A pause.

“Will...will you forgive me? I-I didn't mean to stress you out. Honest.”

I sit there for a little, trying to find it within me to forgive her. That damn pony...

I don’t respond.

Finally, just when I start to hear her hooves clip, clop away, I yell out, “Lyra!”

The clip, clopping stops.

“It’s good,” I say.

“Thanks.”

---

Clop, clop.

I open the door for Bon Bon to shove the clothes through. “I did my best to wring them out, but everything is still a little damp. A few paces in the sun should do the trick though.”

“Thanks Bon Bon.” I quickly put my clothes on, eager to be out and about for the first time in two days. Already, I can feel the sun soothing my tense body through the window.

Yet, I’m too shy to go out that door to meet those ponies who had seen me naked, just an hour before. I hear Bon Bon yell out to me, “Honey, if you want to walk in the sun, we’re leaving for the marketplace soon. You’re only going to get this opportunity once! After all, we can’t have you walking around Ponyville on your own.”

Finally, meekly, I build up the courage to open that door. I avert my gaze from both ponies and sit next to where they have their bags piled. “Hey.” I feel a hoof hit my shoulder and look up to see Lyra trotting off. Did she just? Did she punch me? I look at her incredulously.

I duck my head back down again, preoccupied by why might happen in the Ponyville marketplace. No doubt they’re going to look at me weird, but would they actually go so far as dissecting me? No, they wouldn’t. These two ponies have already been kind enough to me, but there ARE those bad apples. Maybe Lyra actually has a black belt in Karate to protect me, haha.

“Ready, hon?”

“I think so. Did you want me to bring something?”

“Just your legs, hon.”

---

I’m nervous.

My hands sweat as I think about countless ponies gawking at me, shouting insults, crowding—

“I can see it in your eyes,” Lyra says.

“See what?” I’m unable to keep my voice from quavering.

“The fear.”

“I’m not scared.” It's obvious that I am.

“Hey, don’t worry. If I see a pony insult you I’ll make sure to knock off his block.”

“Thanks,” I calm down a little.

The three of us continue walking toward the marketplace, the sun warming our backs.

---

Ponies. Ponies everywhere.

At booths lining streets, yelling out indiscriminate products, or haggling for better prices, the marketplace is packed. I feel self-conscious as all get-out, but every now and then, Lyra bumps into me to remind me that she’s there.

I look around and see pet booths. Animals crowd around their temporary owners, creating a powerful cacophony of sounds to draw attention from customers. They’re not caged, I note. All of the animals appear to be happy with their situation, ready to be sold off to the next kind-hearted pony to walk by. I see a pegasus walk over to one of these booths. Her colors strike me somewhat, with her light-yellow coat and flowing pink mane, but I think nothing of it.

Pet booths are just the minority in the hustle and bustle of the marketplace. Lotions, foal toys, magic sets, sun-moon pendants, soaps, scents, dinner-ware, blankets, and so many more varieties of objects thrive in this free-market setting. Ponies everywhere walk, holding newly bought accessories in large bags, delighted in their finds.

I don’t have time to stand and appreciate it though, as I see Lyra and Bon Bon pull away.

I catch up to them and, as expected, some ponies look my way in confusion.

“What the hay is that thing?” I hear a pony shout. “Are they planning on selling it to an animal vendor?” others say. “Well, he would fetch a fine price…”

I bump into Lyra ahead of me, who’d stopped at a food vendor with Bon Bon. “Ooop! Sorry,” I apologize. She waves her hoof up at me nonchalantly, as if to say, ‘Whatevs.’

I find myself astonished as to how fierce the bartering gets for one head of lettuce in Ponyville. Bon Bon, that devilishy tricky mare, had herself red-faced, yelling like a hawk screeches when it spots its prey. When, after an intense two minutes of bartering had progressed, the vendor finally gave up a head of lettuce for half price. I look at the two, expecting the vendor to show resentment, but they both just laugh the occurrence off as a normal part of life. Don’t arguments almost always get personal?

We continue on, stopping among various booths, buying other groceries, some soaps for the bathtub, and even a trinket that Lyra managed to irritate Bon Bon into buying. It had a little “X” on it.

“It looks a little like you,” Lyra admires. “If you stretched your limbs out, that is.”

After getting the trinket, we hurriedly make our way out of the marketplace, trying our best to avoid the loud voices of vendors trying to catch our attention.

Funny, I think. Shouldn’t there be something I need to worry about? I look behind me and see a little crowd of ponies following the three of us.

“Are you Discord?” A pink pony with a cotton candy mane asks.

“No,” I say while ducking my gaze back forward.

I hear a few more questions, but continue to walk ahead.

One bold pony goes up and taps my leg. “Wha?” I ask, startled.

“Apologies sir,” the stallion announces. “Just a bit of scientific curiosity here.”

“Please don’t touch me,” I say, trying my best to sound polite, but failing because of how difficult it is to say that without sounding rude.

“As you wish,” the stallion curtly responds and drops away from the group.

Only about a quarter of the ponies following me get the hint that I don’t want to be followed.

I turn back around, but suddenly feel something latch onto my stomach and neck. I’m thown off balance and the hit ground, my ribs jarring off of a particularly nasty pebble. “Ow!” I yell.

“Sorry!” the pink pony apologizes. “I just thought tackling you would make you smile…somehow.”

“It didn’t help,” I growl in her direction. “This is gonna sound weird, but it does exactly the opposite when strangers do that to me. Y’get me?”

“I get you!” She sproings up to a considerable height while saying this.

I see Lyra walk up to the pink pony and push her away. “Don’t worry Pinkie, we have everything under control here. He’s happy where he lives right now.”

“You live with it? What is it like? You said ‘he’! So that means it has a dong right? Do you know why it wears so many clothes? I mean what are these things?” Pinkie zooms from Lyra’s grip and inspects one of my socks. “They’re like little cloth things for hooves! I want some! I’ll have to go talk to Rarity! Yeah, I’ll do just that! Bye!” Instantly, she disappears, leaving a little afterimage in my eyes from where she had been just a second ago. I look behind me to see her running off toward the middle of Ponyville.

“What is that thing on, Aderol?!” I exclaim, startled by the events that had just flitted past me at rapid-fire speed.

“What’s Aderol?” I pony in the crowd asks. “I don’t know either,” others murmer.

I look at Lyra, as if to say ‘let’s run,’ and we both dash back home, forcing Bon Bon to lag behind a little with all of the items to carry.

Lyra is the first to make it in. I follow shortly after and shut the door. We collapse onto the floor, both of us being very out of shape.

“Whew!” I breathe. “Glad I got away from them!”

“And I’m glad I could keep your hands—I-I mean you company!”

I feel a little discomforted by that. Is she only my bud because of my hands?

Bon Bon stumbles in and a few of the bags in her grasp spill out on the floor as she tries to squeeze herself in without letting any eager ponies in with her. Lyra and I quickly scoop everything up into the bags and place them on the kitchen counter.

All of us plop into our three respective kitchen chairs to have a bit of small talk.

“Lyra, next time, when you run off like that, make sure to take some of the bags with you. It was a pain to lug everything around so quickly.” Bon Bon scolds.

“Ok. I just wanted to make sure he,” Lyra gestures in my direction, “stayed safe from all those crazy ponies.”

“Honey, he isn't in terrible shape anymore,” Bon Bon says. “But…I suppose that excuse will work this time.”

I can’t help but feel uncomfortable that they’re talking about me when I’m right next to them.

“Hey,” I try to but in. I pause for a second and both ponies look at me expectantly. “…ahhh, nevermind, I forgot what I was going to say.” In truth I didn’t have anything to say in the first place. I just want to be acknowledged.

“Sooo, hun,” Bon Bon continues. “Where exactly did you come from? Do you remember?”

I tilt my head, trying my best to think of times from before I had met Lyra. All that come up are feelings, sounds, and a few blurry images.

“I can’t really remember anything,” I say. “I mean a few blurry things come up, but apart from that, nothing important.”

“Could you describe one of these blurry memories to us?” Lyra asks.

“Sure, I guess.”

I portray to the ponies an image of comfort, warmth, and love.

“Gootchie-gootchie-goo!” I hear someone say. My belly feels funny and I laugh in a strangled sounding voice. What is it about her voice that’s so humorous? It goes off again, “Gootchie-gootchie-goo!” I can’t help it. I’m laughing again. I can’t recognize who’s speaking, but her voice fills me with so much bubbling joy. I hope this lasts forever.

“That’s it?” Lyra asks, incredulous.

“Well, yeah. I told you it was blurry. That’s all I can remember.”

“It seems nice where you live,” Bon Bon offers, her eyes full of wonder. “So simple.”

“I wouldn’t say that so soon,” I say, still remembering the state I’d been in on that first day. “When Lyra first found me, I think it was my world that’d caused those wounds. I went into Ponyville broken.”

“How could such a nice memory come from a world like that?” Bon Bon asks.

“I’m…honestly not too sure. I guess you could say it has its nice pockets.”

“Pockets?” they both ask at the same time.

“Urgh. Just think regions. Nice regions.”

We go some time without saying anything, relishing in silence to spark our own creative thoughts. I wonder what caused me to hurt as bad as I did on that first day. Perhaps a Timberwolf? It had hurt that chicken pretty bad. I wonder if they exist in my world?

“You think maybe a Timberwolf hurt you there?” Lyra asks.

I swear, this pony has a duplicate of my mind. I actually start to worry about this, irrationally afraid that she’d done something to clone my brain. I respond, “That’s just what I was thinking, but I’m sure there are a bunch of other things that could’ve done it.”

I hesitate before saying, “Strange how you thought of the same thing I did. You didn’t make any copies of my brain did you?” I say it jokingly, but knowing this pony, I need an honest answer.

“Pshaw! Haha! We don’t have those spells in Equestria! Those books have been burned centuries ago. If anything, I’ve been cloning your personality by staring at you so much,” she laughs a little at her own joke.

That makes me feel a little bit better, but while Lyra remains my best friend, I can’t help but feel suspicious of her. I smile to show that I’d gotten her humor.

I don’t respond, though, and the conversation drops off. Eventually we head off to our respective rooms, eager to entertain ourselves.

---

I sit down next to Lyra’s bed, cross-legged and leaning against the wall. I’m bored, so very bored. Now that the marketplace visit is over, everything seems dull by comparison.

I look over to see Lyra perusing over her music books. “You wanna go somewhere?” I ask her.

“I don’t think that’d be a good idea. I’m sure word has spread about your appearance all across Ponyville. Going out would cause an uproar.”

“I can’t just stay trapped in here for the rest of my life. I’d go crazy!”

“Don’t worry,” Lyra responds. “We’ll find some way to get you out tomorrow…but! How about I play you some music? Bon Bon’s not really a fan of it so it’s exciting whenever I have friends come over to play for.”

“Sure,” I say.

Her horn glows green and something gold whizzes past my face. I track it and notice that it’s the golden harp I’d seen earlier, with a green aura surrounding it.

“Y-y-y-you can use telekinesis?!”

“Well, I’ve got a horn don’t I?”

“W-w-wha? That doesn’t explain anything! I thought it was just there for show!”

“It isn’t,” Lyra explains. “When you’re a unicorn, you can cast magic with leylines that stem through your horn.”

I stick my palm out to her. “Y’know what? I’m just not gonna question it. Carry on.”

She starts to play a bumpy, raucous tune when I quickly interrupt her again.

“Wait. Lyra?”

She stops playing, “Yes?”

“I’ve actually heard of your kind in my world.”

“I thought you didn’t remember much from then.”

“Well, I don’t, but for some reason this sticks with me. It had to do with a bunch of people like me. Well, biologically. They had this weird infatuation with you ponies and I hated them for that. I still kinda loathe them, but I have no clue why anymore.”

“Your kind know about us?!” Lyra’s face gleams with excitement.

“Kind of. You ponies were a part of a TV show.”

“You realize I have no clue what you mean by TV, right?”

“Oh. It’s not a secret viewing screen into this world. Heck, I don’t know why I’m remembering just this, but all of its showings are pre-planned and shown through moving pictures in a box, at least all of your episodes are.”

“Episodes…as in displays of our lives?”

“Yeah. That’s why I thought this world wasn’t real in the first place. I thought I was just imagining things. How could a TV-show actually be real, when events have to be planned out by…uh…others?”

“I think I understand.” Lyra’s eyes light up. “Haha, for irony’s sake, I should totally get an episode started up on the lives of, what are you again?”

“I honestly don’t know. I remember saying ‘people’ some time ago. It kinda just slipped from my mouth, but that’s only my kind’s plural address.”

“The Lives of People. That’s what I’ll call it.”

“That sounds like a terrible title.”

She frowns, “Well exuuuuse me Princess!”

I recognize that phrase from somewhere deep within my blurry experiences.

“How about…guuuh…‘Giants, Wierdos, the Life of People!’” she smiles at this, confident she’s come up with something clever.

“Sounds good,” I acquiesce, eager to finish the conversation and listen to her musical talent.

Lyra focuses on her sheet music again. “Here goes,” she says and launches me into the rapid river ride of Jazz Bebop.

I’m particularly stunned by her ability to warp her harp to produce such errant sounds that fit the genre so well. Notes whizz this way and that at lighting-fast speed, every now and then growling in a very un-harp-like fashion.

All of this is done with her hooves. I sit there, amazed at how fast her hooves pluck each string individually to keep up with the incredible pace of this music. In fact, I can hardly register which strings she plucks before moving on to continue her riff.

After dizzying amounts of notes pass by, I finally manage to regain my senses as Lyra plays the last chord of the song. Her horn activates and strums four of the harp’s strings at once while her two hooves impact two others.

The final note hums in glorious dissonance as I sit there trying to convert everything to memory.

“You like it?” Lyra asks.

“How? H-how? With hooves?!”

“I know, you’re lucky you have hands,” she makes a guilty glance at them. “Imagine what I could do with ten appendages rather than two!”

“The notes would be going so fast nobody could register them.”

“It’d be awesome wouldn't it?!”

I ignore that question and ask about something more important, “Why aren’t you performing in professional industry right now? You have ridiculous talent.”

Her eyes scrunch up with happiness, “Thanks, but to be honest, I’ve tried before. I can’t handle all those stiff necks that want to make everything you do perfect. I left and chose to live the comfortable life of a street performer.”

“You can live a comfortable life as a street performer? I’ve always had the impression that people are too stingy.”

“We’re talking about ponies here, silly,” she smiles. “They appreciate music a lot more than you might think.”

“I guess…”

“Bon Bon hasn’t kicked me out yet! So I’d say that’s evidence enough.”

“She’s right you know,” I hear Bon Bon yell from the main living room.

I facepalm. “She’s been eavesdropping on us this entire time, hasn’t she?”

“Yep!” Lyra says. “Don’t know why you’d make so much of a fuss about it though.”

“Don’t you ponies care about privacy?”

“Well, I like time to myself, but who cares if somebody is listening to what I say?”

I shake my head. “I’ll never understand your kind.” I think of what she said about ‘having time to herself’ and feel a little self conscious. “Y’know, I can sleep in the living room if it bothers you that I stay here.”

“Oh no!” she says a little too loudly. “You’re good. It makes me happy when you stay here.”

My heart feels a warm tinge. “Alright,” I answer, not sure how to respond, especially with Bon Bon eavesdropping.

The conversation dies for a bit, and we sit where we are quietly, not particularly thinking of anything.

Finally, Lyra asks, “You want me to play more music?”

“Sure,” I say and my ears are immediately teased by the sound of rising and falling notes, seemingly engineered to deaden my senses. Slowly, I drift off into a mid-afternoon nap, the sun warming my scalp as it peeks above the windowsill.