The Monster that is Me

by Terrahex

Chapter 3: The Lyrist

o----[ Chapter 3: The Lyrist ]-----------------------o

My whole body jerked violently, my lungs sucking in a breath that seemed to compensate for an entire night's worth of air. Twisted heart beating in my ears, shivering cold sweat, faint flicker of a dreamscape filled with a nightmarish level of pink... I shivered. Pinkie was horrible enough to interact with during the day, especially with more than one hopping around; I didn't need to start having nightmares about the incident I'd had with her the day before.

A quick look out the window confirmed that my blinds were drawn, meaning the darkness of my room was more than circumstantial. It was night, likely only hours from dawn judging from the greyness of the sky.

Knowing that I'd likely have a tough time getting anymore sleep, I rolled out of bed, my hooves clopping onto the floor. The depths of my sleepy mind registered something off. Reaching for the lantern I put at my bedside, I turned on the gas, using the striker shtik, shtik, shtik until it lit. A friendly orange glow filled the room, revealing what I already knew.

At some point in the night, I had accidentally reverted back to my original form. It was a terrible habit that I had: transforming when I had nightmares. Nothing cheered me up more when I woke from a nightmare than finding myself in a body that looked like one.

I angrily shook my head. I didn't really believe that, did I? There wasn't anything I could do to stop myself, and Twilight or Spike could just come right into my room to find me exposed like that. It wouldn't take much guessing after that to realize that I needed to be run out of town, angry mob hot on my hooves. I closed my eyes, concentrating for a bit before I felt Midnight return to me.

I took the lantern's handle in my jaw, carefully pulling it from the table. Twilight made it extra clear to be wary of fire in this tree. The last thing I wanted was to contribute to the extinction of an endangered species (even if golden oaks weren't really endangered). Exiting my room, I descended the uneven wooden steps into the library proper where I had toiled all afternoon yesterday reorganizing all the books Pinkie had laid out in her foalish domino line. Spike and Twilight helped, too, after they had taken care of the whole 'Pinkie problem.’

Really it gave me a dangerous sense of ownership. Before I was just a pony with a job who sat at the front desk. Now I had helped maintain the library. I cared for it just like Twilight and Spike did. It would only make my inevitable departure harder.

I sat at the checkout desk where a familiar tome was waiting for me, still open in the place where I had abandoned it the night before. Humming softly to myself, I set the lantern down far from any edge of the desk, taking a seat before the book.

I'll admit that I never thought much about my choice of cutie mark. My mother, a painter by trade, had many books littered around the house in odd places, and I quickly took a shine to the reading material. The changeling hive was definitely on a need-to-know basis, and the concept of being able to learn anything that I wanted blew my fragile bug mind. Reading seemed like such a good talent; why wouldn't I want it to be my cutie mark? I guess I just didn't realize that not everypony thought along the same lines as I did.

But the cutie mark did suit me I suppose. I was a fast reader, and the book went by quick. It was filled with unsubstantiated claims of an underwater civilization in the Sunrise Sea. Oatlantis, I think it was. The only real evidence offered up was circumstantial and easily faked. Really, the author had nothing to go by, but still insisted whole-heartedly there existed an underwater race of ponies.

Something flapped in the dim light, startling me into looking up from my book. "Oh, Owlowiscious." I breathed, calming my pumping heart. "You scared me half to death." The owl stood enigmatically on his perch, pearing at me with his big yellow eyes that glinted in the lantern's light. Being nocturnal, Twilight's pet came and went as he pleased through a window that Twilight kept open.

"S'okay," I waved a hoof at him, "I'm the only one awake down here."

He stared at me. Even after nine months, animals were still weird as a whole to me, not having much contact with them inside the hive. Most of them seemed to understand Equestrian, but Owlowiscious gave no indication that he even heard me.

Outside the window behind him, the sky was turning a hazy purple, threatening a sunrise. A rainbow contrail streaked across the sky, clouds bursting apart in its wake.

That would be Rainbow Dash. I realized. I hadn't gotten a chance to meet many ponies at Pinkie's party before I make a fool of myself, but Pinkie had made good on her promise to introduce me to Rainbow Dash.

Several other pegasi flew into view, the rainbow contrail stopping momentarily before them. The shadowed cyan pegasus gesticulated toward them before they separated, flying off toward a peaking red sliver of sun.

Phantom wings itched on my back; I wondered briefly how it would feel to be a weather pony. In the hive I had been a courier; I was constantly on my wings trying to keep a hive of several thousand updated on mandates and build plans.

"Who?" Owlowiscious snapped me out of my thoughts.

"Yeah." I muttered. "You're right." I shook my head. Even if I could change my appearance without consequence, I'd still need to learn how to fly on the infinitely more daunting jointed pegasus wing. It was a foolish thought.

I returned to my book, extinguishing the lantern as Celestia raised her charge. It wasn't long before I heard a familiar set of hooves descending the stairs. A knock sounded in the silence of the library, a feminine call to arms.

"Down here!" I announced, slipping a ribbon into the book. "I'll be up in a sec."

.-~*~-.

Breakfast was a standard ordeal of scrambled eggs, hay bacon, and toast, which didn't make much sense to me. Weren't eggs used when baking bread? Why have scrambled eggs if they were already in the bread? Also, weren't ponies vegetarian? Why did they eat eggs? (Did the eggs volunteer or were they drafted? If the eggs are old enough to fight in the war, shouldn't they be allowed to purchase alcohol? Why should young chicks die while the old chickens sit home and profit from it? Was I actually going somewhere with this or am I just making stuff up at this point? I think it's the latter. [If you get the reference, post a comment])

"You're up early." Twilight pointed out as Spike placed a plate before her.

"Couldn't sleep." I shrugged, waving away Spike's attempts at placing a plate before me. A good chunk of Pinkie's love was still sitting in a lump in my stomach, and I wanted it to stay there.

"Not hungry again?" Twilight inquired.

"I... already ate." I excused, smiling sheepishly.

"You raided the fridge?" Twilight frowned, her tone reproachful.

I jumped at the accusation. "What? Ah, no!"

"But you just said you already ate." Twilight furrowed her brow.

"I... um..." My face felt hot. There was no backing out of this. I couldn't tell her the truth, and anything else would just make me look even more suspicious. There was no other choice than to take the bullet on this one. "I... I guess I did."

"Just don't do it again." Twilight scolded lightly. "You can wait for breakfast and eat with us."

I looked down at the empty place before me, absorbing myself in the grain of the wooden table. "Yeah." I muttered.

Spike set his plate down on the table, hopping up onto a stool to join us at the table. "So what's the plan for today?"

"First of all," Twilight announced authoritatively, "I'm going to go take care of that mirror pool. The world doesn't need duplicates running around all over the place."

I nodded. Especially when those duplicates were Pinkie.

"It's a shame though." Twilight sighed dreamily. "To cover up such an amazing scientific find! Imagine what we could learn! It couldn't be a natural phenomenon! That means an incredibly powerful pony must've created it, probably centuries ago. But why? And how?" She gazed off out the window.

"Maybe he was vain." Spike skewered his hay bacon with his fork.

Twilight tapped her chin. "Perhaps, but unfortunately it'll have to wait until it can be studied." She chewed thoughtfully on a mass of yellow egg. "The town is still recovering from the Pinkie storm, and it's best that it gets out of the way for now."

"Makes you wonder what else is out there, doesn't it?" I muttered to myself.

After breakfast, Twilight levitated a familiar stack of letters onto the table. "Derpy delivered mail to us by mistake again. Why don't you two go deliver them while I take care of things with Pinkie and Zecora?"

I looked at the letters apprehensively. After that fiasco yesterday, going outside seemed less appealing than ever. "I think I've had enough excitement after yesterday."

"That was hardly a regular day in Ponyville." Twilight assured me. "You can't stay in this library forever. Why don't you go make some friends?"

Truth be told, I did need to stretch my legs a bit. Pinkie's love was starting to make me like I was constantly on a sugar rush, and a library wasn't a perfect place to work off energy. I was starting to feel like scrambling all the books up again just to have something to do.

"Yeah we'll take care of it." Spike answered for me.

"Great." She tossed a small, clinking purse in my direction. "For all your hard work reorganizing yesterday."

"It was my job." I replied, nudging the purse back. "The deal we had was work in exchange for a place to stay, not money."

"You reorganized the entire library, Midnight." Spike pointed out. "By yourself."

"It's not much, but it'll pay for lunch." Twilight smiled. "Take it for that if nothing else."

That touched me more than I expected. "Thank you..."

"I'd better get going before Pinkie gets into anymore trouble."

.-~*~-.

Hours later, I found myself walking through the park with Spike seated on my back, munching away on a gem encrusted cupcake. He weighed little more than a full saddlebag, and I didn't mind toting him around. We'd already delivered all the letters, but neither of us felt like returning to the library, hence the park.

"How does a mailmare get away with delivering mail to the wrong houses?" I asked.

"Small town, most don't mind the extra hassle." Spike replied. "It's a job she likes so she's extra careful, which is good because the town hall can't take another hit."

"Another hit?"

"Don't ask. Rainbow Dash is still forbidden from calling her up for weather duty."

I decided that I would follow that advice, letting the subject drop. My ears perked up as they caught a subtle melody in the air.

"Why don't you like crowds anyway?"

"I just don't." I winced, following the music down to the path toward a bench occupied by a teal unicorn.

"Buy why not?" Spike persisted.

"They just... make me nervous." I replied reluctantly. The unicorn sat on the bench oddly, on her haunches, and in front of her was a golden lyre encompassed in a golden glow. The strings vibrated from invisible plucks, releasing notes to form a complicated melody. Her eyes were closed as she concentrated on the music. Rightly so, the song was so complicated that even from twenty feet away I didn't want to breath too hard for worry that I might distract her.

"Why would you be nervous?" Spike asked.

"I don't know, okay." I replied coldly, hoping he would take the hint that I didn't want to talk about it. Part of me still insisted I didn't have a problem. All I had to do was avoid crowds and I wouldn't have a problem.

Spike got the hint and let me enjoy the song. At the musician's hooves was her lyre case, a dozen bits already cluttering the bottom. Taking out the purse Twilight had given me, I threw the last few bits in to join the others. I wasn't going to use them afterall.

Her eyes opened at the noise, revealing a vibrant gold that mimicked her magical glow. She nodded to me, a grin on her face. "Much obliged." The lyre continued to play, not missing a beat. Her voice was husky yet uniquely girlish.

"I've heard better." Spike bluntly stated, shifting around on my back.

"I'll get you one day, overgrown lizard." Lyra retorted. "At least your friend has impeccable taste in music."

"I'm Midnight." I introduced myself, suddenly self conscious around Lyra's lax demeanor.

"Lyra." She shot back, morphing the music into a simpler, slower moving tune. "I haven't seen you around here."

"I just got a job at the library."

"Cool. You one of those egghead types?"

Again the word egghead. "If reading a lot is what eggheads do."

Lyra stood off the bench, her lyre stopping midsong. "I guess you could say that I'm an egghead, too then." Lyra tossed a grin at me, replacing the bits in her lyre's case with her instrument. "I mostly research about mythology though. Well," She paused, "I used to."

Spike piped up, "Weren't you reading about Oatlantis or something. That's mythological, isn't it?"

My face flushed. "Well, uh, it wasn't really that good..."

Lyra chuckled, snapping the latches on her case shut. "I research something a bit different than a pony civiliazation under the ocean. Want to go get lunch with me?"

I didn't want to be rude, but there was no way I was repeating what happened this morning with Lyra. "I wish I could," I started, "But... I just had lunch with Spike."

"You didn't even have anything." Spike pointed out.

"Thanks Spike." I grumbled. "I gave you the rest of the bits I had, Lyra."

"No problem, my treat then." Lyra responded smoothly.

My mind went blank. "O-oh... I-I can't... I'm just not hungry right now." And there was the rude part. I swore inwardly.

"I see..." Lyra turned around, balancing her case on her back. "Well... Come around sometime, I guess."

"Yeah." I tried to cheer myself up. "I'll see you later."

"I look forward to it." She tossed a genuine smile back at me casually.

Author's Note:

Achievement get: Rewired

Be forewarned: the quality of the chapters past this point dips until chapter ten. I plan to eventually return and rewrite chapters 4-9, but for now I have other projects to work on, including this story.

Comments

[Doctor Agon]

I like it! Keep up the great work!

[Lorthalis of Crows]

[Yoshi1990]

It's official. I like this story enough to add it to my favorites.

[Frostling 02]

PBG, nice reference there author.

[The almighty bread god]

(Did the eggs volunteer or were they drafted? If the eggs are old enough to fight in the war, shouldn't they be allowed to purchase alcohol? Why should young chicks die while the old chickens sit home and profit from it? Was I actually going somewhere with this or am I just making stuff up at this point? I think it's the latter. [If you get the reference, post a comment])

I feel an inkling as to who said it. someone else said PBG, so i'm going with that.

[Dragon of Shadows]

The changeling hive was definitely on a need-to-know basis, and the concept of being able to learn anything that I wanted blew my fragile bug mind.

3.bp.blogspot.com/-EioUQuEJ6sk/UkXXSHeeRgI/AAAAAAAAB7U/eizBP8IAU1c/s1600/simpsons+homer+brain+gone+fishing.png

[Guner]

the author had nothing to go by, but still insisted whole-heartedly there existed an underwater race of ponies.

s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/236x/00/8c/4f/008c4f2fa760dfb210c455afef67fe85.jpg

[Mewlover]

7344666
That looks Beautiful!