Close Enough to Touch: The Lyra Account

by LysanderasD

Two: It's Not Different At All, Is It?

Two: It’s Not Different At All, Is It?

Saturday ~8:25 AM EST

It turned out that we had no apples, so off Grandpa went for a quick stop at the grocery store. Grandma, from all appearances, barricaded herself in the master bedroom downstairs, but as I wandered around the loft room-turned-office, mastering the sacred and esoteric art of walking on four hooves, I caught a glimpse of her passing a list to him. Ah, yes, Saturdays; probably Grandma had meant for today to be a shopping day. I can imagine how waking up to a grandson that’s now technically a granddaughter and a small toothpaste-colored unicorn to boot might put a wrinkle in the best-laid plans, though.

Humm. Imagine how it feels for the grands...the grandchild in question, I say. Grandfoal? Grandfilly? Oh, Sun and Moon, now I’m all confused, too.

As soon as Grandpa disappeared out the front door, Grandma disappeared into her room again, and I was left alone. I could have begged for just a little company--a cat would’ve been fine--but Grandpa had cat allergies and in any case the HOA contract said no pets. Not that people actually followed this rule, mind you, but as God-fearing Christians we were going to follow the rules laid down for us, so saith Lynn Franks.

Still, the intervening time gave me plenty of opportunity to learn the finer points of being a unicorn and, as a trip to the bathroom demonstrated, certain points of being a mare, too, although I pushed those thoughts right out of my head as soon as I was done. Plenty of time to worry about that later. For now, more practical things, like, say... magic.

A couple of years back I’d gotten a set of stacking cups from my seven-year-old cousin, who had at the time been going through something of a stacking craze. He lived up in Iowa, and I down in South Carolina, which gave me the perfect excuse, guilt-ridden though I ended up being, to not do anything with them, largely because I lacked the dexterity and the discipline I knew I’d require to actually learn. At the time, they seemed like perfectly valid excuses! And he never did ask after them anyway.

Just thinking of that gave me pause as I went into my room and walked toward the window. What Connor would think of me now...

No. Practical things. I shook my head. Magic first.

Over the course of the intervening years I’d managed to lose, misplace, or destroy most of the cups from that set. Somehow I still had four left, of the smallest variety, and despite the boxes lining my wall I had managed to avoid packing them. They sat, stacked docilely and markedly out of place, on the edge of my windowsill. Small, light, and--ow, guilt!--relatively valueless. The perfect guinea pigs!

I let out a breath as I stared at them, eyes narrowing as though in challenge. Okay! Magic. It couldn’’t be that hard. Okay, topmost cup, do your thing. Lift. Glowy magic preferred.

Of course, nothing. It wouldn’t be so simple as a matter of will. I gave a half-hearted growl in the cups’ general direction and closed my eyes.

A memory.

“You’re going to Moondancer’s party later, right?” Amethyst actually has the gall to look worried that I won’t.

I scoff. “You joking, Ammy? Everypony’s going. Twinkle and Colgate just left to find Twilight. Hey, I betcha five bits she’ll be there too.”

“Twilight Sparkle?” It’s Amethyst’s turn to scoff. “Be real, Ly, have you ever seen her do anything but study?”

“No, but--hey, there she is, I’ll ask her myself. Hey, Twi--”

But she’s raced past me before I even get her name out.

I opened my eyes again and mused, “I still owe her five bits.”

Before I entirely realized the implications of what I’d just said, I’d already scrambled backwards, tumbling hooves-over-tail and ending up spread-eagled on the carpet, belly-down. I stared up at the cups on the windowsill from this new prone position, as though what I’d just experienced is their fault.

Oh yes. Because the cups are totally transmitters for Lyra’s memories.

Okay. No. Travis, calm down. Travis Franks. Twenty. Born in Minnesota. Live with your grandparents. Yes, good, that was all in order.

If I was in Lyra’s body, I guessed it would make sense that I had her memories. Even so, that thought opened up a cold pit of dread deep inside me. No one said anything about sharing the body, even partially. Maybe I shouldn’t have wished quite so hard.

Still, the part of me deep down that tried to be practical even in the middle of a panic attack tried to salvage the situation. I poked at the memory as though poking a sleeping snake with a stick. There was something about it that seemed familiar, and not just because it happened to involve Miss Heartstrings here.

Since when has there been a part of me deep down that tries to be practical in the middle of a panic attack?

No. Do not look a gift h...just roll with it, Travis.

“Aha!” I declared triumphantly, pushing myself back up onto my hooves, raising my left forehoof in the air in lieu of being able to snap my fingers. Moondancer’s party, of course. The pilot episode of the show. Lyra was at Celestia’s School; Twilight ran past her on the way back to her tower. That told me... something, at least. In some way or another, Lyra qualified as a “gifted unicorn.” Maybe. There was the matter of why she ended up in Ponyville around the same time Twilight did, but... one problem at a time.

… How exactly this helped me with my current problem of not actually knowing how to use magic, I was not sure yet. But potentially it promised good things if I could get the basics down.

Confidence restored, I focused on the topmost cup again.

A thought occurred.

Don’t make it want to happen. Make it happen.

Anything was worth a try once, I always say. So I don’t want the cup to float. The cup is already floating. The cup is already...

The cup was already floating, trapped in a shimmering golden field. I couldn’t help it; I giggled and bounce in place just a little. Yes! Progress!

In my excitement, I lost my focus on the cup, and it fell with a plasticy clack against the windowsill. I focused on it, grinning triumphantly, and the glow returned. This was easy. I could probably make them all float.

Sure enough, after a few minutes all four cups were orbiting around my minty head, and I was giggling with a little more enthusiasm than was probably entirely healthy. They all float. They all float down he...actually, I decided, flicking the cups around in front of me and stacking them again, I don’t even like Steven King. Never mind.

But still. Magic! I’d been up for an hour and I already had the unicorn basics down. I rocked! Not that there was a lot of data for me to compare myself against. Just let me have my moment, okay?

…

Yeah. Okay. Moment over. Now where the heck was Grandpa with those apples? Man, I could eat a whole pie...

---

9:00 AM

“I’ll catch you,” Grandpa said with his usual easy confidence, standing on the first landing from the top of the stairs. There I was at the top, one hoof up in the air, highly uncertain about this plan.

“You... you’re sure you can’t just, you know, bring the apple up to me,” I said desperately, not for the first time.

This earned a chuckle. “They’ve got stairs in that pony-land, right?”

“Yes,” I answered sullenly.

“Then you can do it,” he said, gesturing at me to move toward him. “It’s only three stairs. I’ll catch you if you fall. If it makes any difference, Travis, imagine if our stairs weren’t shaped like this.”

“I’d rather not!” I assured him quickly, and Lyra’s voice cracked; even as I said it, I imagined it. Our staircase turned twice, a poor man’s spiral staircase; if I fell, it wouldn’t be all the way down. “I, it’s just, I don’t think they’re normally this steep! And, you know, distribution of weight and sense of balance and all that.”

Actually, what was running through my head was a line from Watership Down, and okay, bunnies aren’t ponies, I get that, but the principle still sort of applies--if you’ve read the book, you know the part I’m talking about, surely? When they’re first climbing the down, and the author steps back and says that it’s far easier for a rabbit to climb a steep surface than a human because it’s the difference between pushing mass up and pushing mass forward, and actually rabbits have so much power behind that going downhill they’ll often end up tumbling...

“Just try,” Grandpa said.

“Aaaaargh,” I said in reply, and then I tried.

The apple at the bottom was quite possibly the best I’ve ever tasted.

---

“So... Her name, uh, I mean, the name of the pony, I mean--” I stopped, grimacing. Grandpa waited patiently for me to get my tongue untied. “Lyra,” I said finally. “Her name is Lyra Heartstrings. She isn’t an important character in the show by any means, although once the animators realized the fans had noticed her I guess they started using her for gags more often.”

He nodded. I took a bite of my second apple. Celestia, this was good, you don’t even know.

“So from what little we know she’s, uh, she’s probably eccentric, but she did appear at the very beginning of the show at a school for, uh, for magically-gifted unicorns, so she’s not dumb, I know that much. She can be excitable. The, uh, the fans portray her with this rabid fascination with humanity, which is probably rooted in the fact that she’s most famous for sitting on a bench like a human.”

“Like you’re doing now,” he pointed out.

“I’m what?” But as soon as he said it I realized that yes, indeed, I was sitting at my kitchen table, leaning back against the chair in a position that was probably not meant to be comfortable. I hadn’t even thought on it, really; he’d set the apple down on top of the table and I... sat down at the table like I always did. “Oh. Well. Uh. I guess so.”

My eyes flicked to the sliding door to the back patio on the far side of the table. Thankfully, early morning on a Saturday, there was no one wandering around in the community. I say we still needed proper blinds for the doors. Anyone could’ve strolled by at that very moment and seen the unicorn at the table...

“Uh, if it’s any consolation, I don’t feel any lingering fascination with you, you know, considering you’re human and you have, well, you have hands.”

Although, hands, isn’t that strange?

I deliberately looked past him and into the kitchen, marveling anew at how much farther away everything seemed, even with magic.

“I would think what you’re doing with that apple would be better than hands,” Grandpa replied.

“It isn’t the same,” slipped forlornly out of my mouth before I could help it. “I mean! Well, it really isn’t the same. I can feel things, but it’s more like wearing really thick gloves. Like, you know the thing you’re touching is there but you can’t feel texture or anything.” I picked up the salt shaker and waved it about. “Although the golden aura is pretty nifty.”

A silence followed this. Grandpa’s easy nature was fraying at the seams; he was doing all he could to keep me calm, and, bless him, it was working, but I know it couldn’t be easy for him to see me like this. I set down the salt shaker and closed my eyes, bringing my hooves up to rub at my forehead. His good nature was fraying. I was fairly positive the only reason I was still anything close to sane is that I still hadn’t grasped the full implications of this. There was something I was missing. Not that I was going to go out of my way to look for it. My Saturday was bad enough sane, thank you.

Finally, I said the thing that’d been eating at me since Grandpa had initially departed.

“I need to get to New York.”

There was the sound of someone clearing her throat. Dreading what I’d find, I turned my head to see Grandma, having left her self-imposed exile, arms crossed over her chest, glaring at me as though I was some kind of freak. My ears fell flat again.

“Are you one of the... the element-whatevers?” she snapped.

“Elements of Harmony,” I corrected her. “No, I’m not. I’m just--”

“Then you’re not going anywhere.”

Author's Note:

09/17/2013: This and all subsequent chapters have been edited into past tense.

Comments

[Test Username]

So far I had avoided the ponyverse fics, but this actually looks pretty good. It earned my follow.

[Firebirdbtops]

Staying home? But your other identity as a super hero awaits!

[Hope]

Have all of my likes! Also youve been added to the group officially, feel free to jump into the IRC when you are bored.

[Draconis187]

2366904 I'm going to gather this author is going into the canon section since the other Lyra cancelled?
Oh and to the author:
i48.photobucket.com/albums/f209/AsuraSyn1/gifs/mlfw2637-121208_-_animated_applejack_cider_fluttershy_pinkie_pie_rainbow_dash_rarity_twilight_sparkle_welcome_to_the_herd.gif
Have a cookie courtesy of a friend:

[American Dragon]

You sir.... I like your writing style! Keep up the good work!

[_Kenzu_]

This one looks really great :D
I'll be watching this one with much interest ..... always...
...

....

.....

... always watching.... <.<

[Valshe]

This story is

I shall be following this story.

[Freescript the Bard]

I thought this was necessary.

assets.diylol.com/hfs/84a/f1b/efa/resized/lyra-bucket-meme-generator-i-never-asked-for-this-556ba5.jpg

[ShadeJak]

Loving the story so far, and I'll have my next chapter up soon which will be referencing your continuity

Love the IT reference, and good to know there's people who remember Watership Down, both book and movie were great. I look forward to reading more when I got the time

[Pinklestia]

That's a good point, why she has to go anyway?